'My Husband Acts as Though He Doesn't Like Me'

A major source of pain in Amy's marriage is the anger her husband directs toward her and their daughter

Image/Adobe Stock

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Editorial review for my book This is How Your Marriage Ends:

“Fray offers a frank and refreshingly modern view, one that never makes dated, flippant assumptions…It's instead the story of hard earned lessons, and how to be a truly present, active partner in a healthy relationship. It also truly delivers on its title promise of hopefulness. I have never read a book about marriage that makes a better case for it than this one, an achievement all the more impressive for being written by "the guy who found out too late." — Salon

This is How Your Marriage Ends is 40% off on Amazon, available in local bookstores, or you can order an author-signed copy here from my friends at Islandport Media.

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I asked readers in a previous newsletter to share some of the hard things they’re dealing with in their marriages/partnerships.

I offered a few random questions and reader Amy answered them. Let’s talk about it.

What hurts?

Amy: My husband acts as though he doesn’t even like me, a majority of the time. But what hurts even more is that he acts like he doesn’t like our young daughter. He denies this but never does anything to change how he generally treats us. He treats his teenage daughters, from his first marriage, much better—even though he hates their mother more than anything in the world.

Amy’s husband probably loves his wife and daughter. I’m sure he thinks he does, at least. I want to believe he doesn’t literally love or show favoritism to his children from his first marriage over his daughter from his current marriage, but relational work is so often not about what our intentions are, but on what the actual impact on other people are.

Meaning, I can love other people, and WANT them to feel that love I have inside for them, but if the sum of my actions result in experiences for them which are not consistent with being treated with love and care, then who gives a shit what my intentions were?

Of course, in my marriage, I always justified or defended my actions on the premise that my intentions were good.

If I were this man, I would want to understand what I sometimes do or do not do, which might be interpreted by my wife and daughter as literally not liking them.

Because that seems like a pretty low bar. “Yes, wife and daughter. I like you.”

An inability to get buy-in on the veracity of that claim suggests a big trust and communication problem.

What pisses you off?

Amy: I hate his anger outbursts, his passive-aggressive comments, and how he can be so hateful. I hate how he constantly criticizes how I parent our daughter. I hate how he doesn’t communicate what he wants until it’s too late and he’s pissed off about it. I hate his selfishness when he just wants to be alone (which is most of the time). I absolutely hate his disproportionate angry overreactions to the slightest thing, and the vulgar swearing that comes along with it, even in front of our child.

Amy is most angry about his anger. She even said he can be “hateful.”

He probably is angry. And probably feels justified in it. Which is fine. What is not fine is the damage inflicted on his spouse and child when he lashes out angrily in whatever forms that might take.

I wish there were some way to encourage him to discuss/share what he’s angry about, because he might not know, and he might even deny that he has any sort of anger “issue.” Fair chance that he thinks Amy is overreacting, and that her describing his hard-working tiredness and routine stress as “anger” is somehow unfair or inaccurate.

I only know two things:

1. If I’m behaving in a healthy, loving way, and thoughtfully wanting to create a secure environment for my wife and children, it’s hard for me to imagine my wife or children interpreting my behavior as being angry. EVEN IF I’m not angry, I better figure out what I’m doing that leads others to believe that I am, and cut that shit out, stat.

2. There’s no universe where secret feelings result in healthy, secure, connected relationships. Whether what he’s feeling is anger or something else, SHARING whatever those stresses/fears are with your spouse/partner is the only healthy way to involve them in your world. Pretending to not have feelings, and then lashing out at people who are inconveniently asking you to behave in a relationally healthy way (because you married or fathered them) is childish and bullshitty. Adults do childish and bullshitty things all of the time (*raises hand*). Where we have to draw lines and boundaries, is when our childish bullshittiness results in pain for those we profess to love the most.

What worries you?

Amy: It worries me that our daughter will grow up thinking this is a normal marriage, and this will end up with a man like her dad.

This is one of the most important ideas in marriage and relationships, and I’m glad Amy said it.

Even men with the very best intentions doing things which do not result in feelings of love and security for their partner, can still have negatively impactful outcomes for their children.

Dad teaches sons this is how you treat your partner! And Dad teaches daughters this is how I think your future partner should treat you!

Mom teaches sons and daughters the same thing, only on the receiving end.

Not to pick on our parents, but this is how all of us got here. Most of the time, no one meant any harm, or recognized that there was any harm taking place.

Yet, here we are.

I hope I can help protect my son from repeating the relational “sins” of his father, and that his future partner (and any children they might have) can experience love and security because of it.

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To be fair, it’s only twice-weekly for men. We have a men’s-only meeting on Mondays, and a mixed meeting (men and women) on Fridays. The people are great. Come hang out and work on some of your stuff. Learn more about group and 1-on-1 relationship coaching here.

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What do you feel unconfident about?

Amy: I lack the confidence to leave, because I’ve seen how viciously he behaved during divorce and custody battle with his ex. And even though he sometimes treats me as badly as he treats her, it would be even worse if I tried to leave. But in between the bad times, he’s a pretty good guy. I just can’t trust that it will last.

If you can’t trust someone to love you while married and sharing a home and child with them, how can you possibly trust them to love you after saying to them: “I can’t subject myself or our daughter to this anymore”?

What seems unfair?

Amy: It seems unfair that he’s so critical of me about so many things. I have plenty of faults, but he does too. It also seems unfair that someone who can be such a good guy at times has this demon of anger and depression to fight. He wants to do better but just can’t.

I’m, for the first time (shamefully) reading Terrance Real’s I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, so I’m thinking a lot about these ideas right now. The book is insightful and heartbreaking and so good.

I have deep compassion for men struggling to provide for their loved ones and just wanting to experience their partner and children saying: “Hey. You’re good enough. Thank you for what you give. I’m proud of you, and lucky to have you in my life.”

Because that’s not at all how it feels when our wives are pissed at us again, and we can’t understand or articulate the problem. It really feels like we’re being misjudged and mistreated. That’s a real, actual lived experience he might be having.

The problem, of course, is that the first domino to fall in this chain of events is that something I did hurt YOU. And if the aim is trust and security in your relationship (and that SHOULD, always, be your aim) then, you have to be able to trust me to not do things which hurt you, regardless of my intentions, and regardless of how little I might understand WHY you feel as you do.

Men often struggle to break this pattern in their relationships, because they consider their own pain to be greater than the reported pain of their partner. Then it becomes a contest to out-hurt one another, instead of cooperating to heal wounds and protect one another from future injury.

Surely, we should be able to agree that what we say and do should NOT result in pain or injury to our spouse. Coming to terms with the fact that this is actually happening is one of the biggest steps most men will make.

What I do HURTS her sometimes, and since I’m someone who would never knowingly or purposefully hurt her, I need to make sure this stops happening.

That’s got to be how we think and live.

What seems impossible?

Amy: It seems impossible that we’ll ever be happy for more than occasional short bursts. But it seems impossible to divorce because (a) he makes all the money (b) he’d make life a pure hell for me and my daughter and (c) I don’t trust him to parent appropriately and safely during his time with our daughter, if nobody is there to intervene or protect her from his verbal abuse.

What do you even say to someone in this position?

If you’re a parent, can you imagine? I freaked out when my wife left and our son was only four years old, because I realized I no longer had any agency over who would be in his life. She could have had ANYONE around him, and that really bothered me.

She, of course, ultimately landed on someone who is a fantastic, respectful, deserving caretaker for my now-teenage son, and I should probably have trusted her the entire time.

But what about when you can’t? What about when everything you’ve experienced is that the other parent will consistently choose their own wants, needs, conveniences, emotions, over your child’s?

I’ve met a lot of people—mostly women—who traded in 20-30 years of their lives to raise their children, and see them out of the nest before removing themselves from a painful, unhealthy relationship.

Does your spouse/partner do things that concern you?

Amy: I am deeply concerned when I have to leave our daughter home with him for more than part of a day. He has a history of bruising her tender heart and making her feel unloved, OR just getting absorbed in his own stuff and ignoring her. And his anger and rage, his stress level—those concern me as I worry that he’ll have a heart attack or something. But sometimes, part of me hopes he does.

…

Damn.

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Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.

P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF