From: Kris
Subject: He Doesn’t Understand
I am currently a stay at home mom even though my husband doesn’t support it but at the same time he doesn’t want to pay far daycare. His goals as far as a budget and saving are unrealistic. He believes that since he is 15 years older then me that he is the only one that can know anything about life because I’m only 20.When I do share my opinion or ideas he just says I haven’t experienced life enough to know. How do I get him to listen to me and compromise without a huge argument?
Kris,
You are just too young to understand…just kidding.
Seriously, one of my favorite studies in all the world was done by asking people getting divorced: “Why did you get married and why are you getting divorced?” The answer is always the same for each question. What that means is that what people are attracted to at first then becomes something we hate and resent when we get married.
Kris, I am going to guess that your husband has always had a strong personality with strong opinions. He has always been 15 years older than you. That’s who he is, and now you want to try and change him? I don’t think it’s going to happen.
But that’s ok because he is not the key to your happiness; you are. He is not the authority on whether your life is justified or worth living; you are.
Quit trying to prove yourself. So what? He disagrees. So what? He doesn’t believe that you have anything to say. The important question is do you? If you are confident and feeling good about your ideas and opinions, then that should be enough for you. Stop trying to get your FATHER’S approval. The more you see him as a dad, the more you will feel like a child. See him as stubborn, or bull headed, or even uninformed and old fashion. But even more importantly see yourself as valued and valuable.
Look around and notice the more insecure someone is, the more affected they are by others. A truly confident person does not care what others think or say. STOP trying to change him, and START believing in yourself.
Let me leave you with an exercise to help you make the mental shift. I don’t want to point out the problem without give you the solution.
I want you to imagine it is somewhere in the future and you have been married for a long time, in fact imagine you have a teen age son. Like most teen agers you son thinks he knows everything, and everything you say is the stupidest thing in the world. Picture how you will respond. Remember to be the healthy balance parent you want to become. Do you argue with a teenager? Do you want to get into power struggles with this boy who now towers over you? No. You simply smile and say “whatever” and continue doing what your doing.
You don’t stop loving your kids once they become teenagers. Parents just stop taking what the hormonal teen with a grain of salt, and absolutely never personalizing any of it.
See your husband as the child and yourself as the adult 15 years older. The stronger you can see and believe your parenting him when he get’s into those attitudes the more he will come to you to try and prove his point or make his arguments.
Let’s make an appointment and talk more real soon.
Take care,
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If you husband does not want to grow up then you trying to get him to over and over is going to drive both of you crazy. Here are your two choices. 1 Accept him for who he is. 2. Move on. The option you keep trying does not exist. Well, there really is a third option. You can change yourself. Often we are unhappy and we think being married will make us happy. And when it does not we want to blame our partner. “IF HE WOULD LISTEN…I WOULD BE HAPPY.” He may never listen. But if you focus on yourself and learn to make yourself happy two things could happen. 1. It will not matter he does not listen, because you are happy with yourself. Or 2. being happy will give you the strength to find a relationship in which you can share your happiness. You may not like what you hear, but then you would be just like your husband someone who does not listen. Learn to be HAPPY.
No one marries a teenager. To tell the wife, “Oh, just treat your husband as a teenager” will make the wife feel like his mommy. No one wants to be a mommy to a 35 year old baby-boy. The man should act like a man, and go get some maturity. If at 35 he has not yet learned to hear and respect other people’s opinions, regardless of whether the person who has an opinion is 20 years old, then that 35-year old has not matured beyond the age of 7.
Great advice! She has to find peace and confidence within herself first and foremost. However, it can be terrible stressful to live with someone who finds it more important to prove a point than to listen, someone who derives his (or her) sense of self-esteem by minimizing the opinions and thoughts of his (or her) partner. It would seem to me that this young woman has her work cut out for her. I would say her husband does, too. After all, why did he marry someone over whom he is so senior and feel such a need to wield authority?