How do you get someone interested in SK?

[Spenc]

He is a white knight

 

He is most comfortable in situations where he needs to take care of someone

 

But he does get resentful about being a "resource provider" or that no one ever takes care of him.

 

Hmmmmm......I can't help but sense he has a few unprocessed issues with his mother/parents

[Thus_Spake_the_Nightspirit]

Yes, he definitely does. That's part of why I wanted him to be more interested in SK so that he can work through those issues, as they cause a lot of problems in our marriage and I can see them causing issues with children, too. I don't understand why he doesn't want to or how I can make it more appealing to him.

[Spenc]

I notice it has been 2 weeks since your original post.  Have you found anything helpful in this thread that you have been able to apply at home? 

 

Have you or your husband noticed any difference in you resulting from getting a few outside perspectives on your relationship?

[Thus_Spake_the_Nightspirit]

No, I just feel more confused and hopeless than ever.

[Spenc]

No, I just feel more confused and hopeless than ever.

Sorry to hear that.

 

The biggest red flag that jumps out to me about your relationship is that you mentioned that your husband has topics that are off-limits even in counseling.  You're not even supposed to bring up criticisms in a setting where that is the exact place to facilitate bringing up those criticisms.

 

Let's say hypothetically he was reluctant to accept these certain topics and criticisms at home when he feels overwhelmed and frustrated, but he was willing to at least hear them out in counseling with the help of a professional there to mediate the discussion.  That would seem like a path to improvement going foward.

 

Kids are pretty outspoken until they learn to adapt the discomforts of their parents.  If a father is frustrated by open criticism, he will impart frustration or fear in the child to bring those things up.  So either the kids have to go behind his back to talk about their feelings to you, which you've already expressed would upset your husband to be talked about behind his back; or they have to participate in family self-censorship between all of you.

[Thus_Spake_the_Nightspirit]

We went to counselling twice last week, initiated by him because he was upset about an argument we had had. The following day, we were able to have a long conversation about that issue and a few others that didn't erupt into a conflict. I did say that I had something I wanted to talk about, but I was fearful of bringing it up because I didn't know how to do it in a way that wouldn't trigger his defenses, and he agreed we could try to talk about it at our next counselling session. This sort of thing will occasionally happen where, after a major argument, things get better for awhile. But better doesn't last and I now feel wary of being hopeful. But I guess we'll see.

[Spenc]

I'm curious if you're familiar with Real Time Relationships, the book by Stefan, or the methods in general from podcasts?  How often would you say you and your husband communicate with these methods?  Or how often would you say you communicate with these methods?

 

P.S. the book is free to download or only like $2 on iBooks, and i think there is a podcast dedicated to a full reading, or at least a good outline of the principles

[AjaxTheGiant]

That's a hard one, perhaps if you help him to understand; what self-knowledge is, the benefits of it, and how that applies to him personally. I know it's hard to live with people who may be like that, but remember your husband has probably lived his life up to this point without self-knowledge so it may take sometime for him to develop those skills and break away from his older habits.

[RichardY]

The Beatles- Elanor Rigby. "Ahhh look at all the lonely people."

 

No, I just feel more confused and hopeless than ever.

 

You're not confused, think and feel.

[Rventurelli]

Well, in my opinion there is a big elephant in the room that nobody seems to be thinking about, much less talking about.

You said your husband is already 50 years old. Most people do not seen to realize that, but even though men can get a woman pregnant pretty much until they are six feet under (Mick Jagger became a father again past year), their sperms do deteriorate and that increases the chances of giving birth to children with all sorts of mental problems. Around 80 percent of the gene mutations that we have around our lives that is passed down to our children come from the father and not from the mother[1].

Even if that was not the case, he definitively will not have the energy to raise children that he would have, let us say, 20 years ago. And he obviously knows it and that is probably the reason why he complains that you delaying having children was/is ruining the marriage.

From what you describe about your husband, and by his age, I think it is pretty much impossible that you will get him to want to pursue self-knowledge. Reasons being not only that the older you are the more difficult it is to change, but also that he probably lacks respect for you: you are much younger than him (12 years!), and you are denying him something that might as well be his ultimate goal in life (having kids.)

Most people, especially accomplished ones (you mentioned he has a good paying job that can sustain you and kids) have a really hard time taking into consideration what younger people have to say. They look down on you and ask, even if only mentally, "what the hell have you accomplished?", "You have not seen half of what I have seen in life!", "Didn't your mamma told you that when older people talk you should listen?" And I really cannot condemn that attitude, I am 23 years old, if some 11 year old child came to try to offer me life advice I would probably tell him to fade away. The 11 year old did not have to work, to drive, to deal with love relationships, knows nothing about the stress of everyday life and so own and so forth.

At the same time, again, he is 50 years old, my life dream is to have a loving and functional family, and it might be his as well, have you ever though about it? Again, I am 23 years old and sometimes I get extremely sad and hopeless thinking that it will be impossible for me to have a family, imagine a 50 year old man who is married! Please try to see things by his perspective and, if possible talk to him about it in an indirect way, then slowly and gently getting to the core issue. Ask him what are his biggest goals, what does he really want in life and so on and so forth. You will see that he will probably open up if he sees genuine curiosity on your part.

P.S: I was in a similar situation to you, I was 20 married with a 30 year old woman and whenever I would try to talk about self-knowledge with her she would get very angry, usually screen at me and sometimes slap and/or strangle me.

[1] https://www.amren.com/features/2015/10/new-prospects-for-eugenics/

 

[RichardY]

Mine-sweeping, blindfolded. Be careful of the well you drink from.

[Thus_Spake_the_Nightspirit]

I'm curious if you're familiar with Real Time Relationships, the book by Stefan, or the methods in general from podcasts?  How often would you say you and your husband communicate with these methods?  Or how often would you say you communicate with these methods?

 

Yes, I read it about a year ago and found it valuable. I tried to read it with him, but didn't get very far before he got angry about it. It was around the part of the story with the two fictional characters who get together for dysfunctional reasons that they are not aware of that my husband found the book offensive and it was not worth the stress for me to try to pursue it. He says I have ruined his good memories of the early days of our relationship by suggesting that anything other than pure love and affection had anything to do with why we got together. So we did not even get to the part about the actual skill of RTR. I do try to use that form of communication myself and encourage him to do so, as well, but with limited success.

 

------------------

 

You said your husband is already 50 years old. 

 

Yup, it is a big concern of mine. I'm also concerned about the number of people who tell me there is nothing to worry about in regards to his age and that I should be more concerned about my own age- this includes health professionals who should know better.

 

 

From what you describe about your husband, and by his age, I think it is pretty much impossible that you will get him to want to pursue self-knowledge. Reasons being not only that the older you are the more difficult it is to change, but also that he probably lacks respect for you: you are much younger than him (12 years!), and you are denying him something that might as well be his ultimate goal in life (having kids.)

 

18 years younger, actually, and I do think you're right about him not respecting me in part due to my age. He does sometimes criticise me for things I do that are common to my generation, but not to his. Although he does generally take the view that the way he thinks or does things is the only right way and if I do something differently, then I must have something wrong with me.

 

At the same time, again, he is 50 years old, my life dream is to have a loving and functional family, and it might be his as well, have you ever though about it? Again, I am 23 years old and sometimes I get extremely sad and hopeless thinking that it will be impossible for me to have a family, imagine a 50 year old man who is married! Please try to see things by his perspective and, if possible talk to him about it in an indirect way, then slowly and gently getting to the core issue. Ask him what are his biggest goals, what does he really want in life and so on and so forth. You will see that he will probably open up if he sees genuine curiosity on your part.

 

We did recently talk about him wanting a family because I was not convinced that he really wanted kids, given his refusal to have any discussions about it or make any plans for it. My conclusion now is that he wants kids because he thinks it will fill a hole in himself, which I think is the wrong reason to have them, though I did not say that to him. 

 

 

---------------

 

Mine-sweeping, blindfolded. Be careful of the well you drink from.

 

What are you referring to?

[Spenc]

I'm curious if you're familiar with Real Time Relationships, the book by Stefan, or the methods in general from podcasts?  How often would you say you and your husband communicate with these methods?  Or how often would you say you communicate with these methods?

 

Yes, I read it about a year ago and found it valuable. I tried to read it with him, but didn't get very far before he got angry about it. It was around the part of the story with the two fictional characters who get together for dysfunctional reasons that they are not aware of that my husband found the book offensive and it was not worth the stress for me to try to pursue it. He says I have ruined his good memories of the early days of our relationship by suggesting that anything other than pure love and affection had anything to do with why we got together. So we did not even get to the part about the actual skill of RTR. I do try to use that form of communication myself and encourage him to do so, as well, but with limited success.

 

Would you mind describing what happens when he gets angry?  We have already established he is not physically threatening toward you.  We also established that you have fear of angry men, which your husband seems to pick up on and exploit. 

 

Anytime you mention that a discussion doesn't get very far, you state that he gets angry.  Anger doesn't necessarily mean the end of a conversation though.  So how is it that in your relationship, anger seems to just end conversations?  What actually happens in time and space that a conversation happens to end once he becomes angry?

 

EDIT:  To clarify, anger and conversations are not mutually exclusive.  Or you could agree to take a break to cool off before resuming the conversation later.  By what process does the conversation come to an end, and how is it that the conversation is not brought back up later?  After an argument or conversation ends, is there even a reference to the conversation later or does it become something that you both just pretend didn't ever happen?

[RichardY]

Mine-sweeping, blindfolded. Be careful of the well you drink from.

 

What are you referring to?

Red flagging potential issues.

 

1. Communication, going behind his back to write on the forums.

2. Short courtship.

3. Concerns about children.

4. Age Difference. 

5. Lack of Self-Knowledge, so imo will probably tend to mirror his parents behaviour.

 

But also to the fact that people don't know you and their own potential ideas of what is good or not seep in, possibly corrupted. The impartiality of the people you talk to.

[Thus_Spake_the_Nightspirit]

Would you mind describing what happens when he gets angry?  We have already established he is not physically threatening toward you.  We also established that you have fear of angry men, which your husband seems to pick up on and exploit. 

 

Anytime you mention that a discussion doesn't get very far, you state that he gets angry.  Anger doesn't necessarily mean the end of a conversation though.  So how is it that in your relationship, anger seems to just end conversations?  What actually happens in time and space that a conversation happens to end once he becomes angry?

 

EDIT:  To clarify, anger and conversations are not mutually exclusive.  Or you could agree to take a break to cool off before resuming the conversation later.  By what process does the conversation come to an end, and how is it that the conversation is not brought back up later?  After an argument or conversation ends, is there even a reference to the conversation later or does it become something that you both just pretend didn't ever happen?

 

He has been physically threatening on only two occasions, where he shoved me and then claimed he didn't. I think he felt embarrassed that he did that, hence the denial of it happening. But he makes snarly faces and balls up his fists and gets all red and raises his voice and starts verbally attacking me. At that point, I usually refuse to continue the conversation. When he is angry, he does not take personal responsibility for his words, behaviour, feelings, etc. He gets very defensive and says incredibly cruel things. So in my mind, it's not a conversation anymore and I refuse to just stand there and be abused.

 

He's sort of trying to do better; if I can catch it early enough in the conversation before he gets furious and point out how he is not taking responsibility for himself, then he will sometimes pause and consider it. The other night, he did something that I used to nag him for all the time and I noticed it and let him know that I noticed it and appreciated it and he became enraged and said I was mocking him. His anger was totally out of proportion to the situation and why would your default position be to assume that your own wife is out to get you? But that is what he does often. And I said maybe instead of focusing on how he thinks I was mocking him (I wasn't and said so), he should go reflect on why he assumed that instead of some more benign interpretation. And he did stop at that point and went away for a few minutes and came back with an "I'm sorry, but" statement, which wasn't very helpful, but it did at least de-escalate things somewhat.

 

Conversations used to end with one of us storming off and then never talking about it again. The storming off will sometimes still happen (usually me when I decide the conversation has just turned into abuse) but then we will try to talk about it later. A lot of times we end up having to conclude major arguments in the therapist's office.

[Spenc]

Your explanation invalidates a theory I had.  So that pretty much leaves me with nothing more to go on.  This is why I originally stated that a call-in with Stef would be highly useful.  He would surely be able to spot details that I am not able to and ask better questions.

 

I would certainly encourage you to explore the theme of anger with your husband.  It seemed that in every post you would reference how he would, could or does or did get angry and close down communication.  That might be something you could ask him about, although it seems like he would be reluctant to discuss that topic.  Like, "What types of things do you remember being angry about when you were a kid?" or in contrast to his current behavior, "What would your parents have done if you were this angry when you were a kid?". 

 

I'm not sure the best course of action when he is angry is to ask him to go and reflect on why he was reacting that way because as you say, he's returning with rationalizations to explain himself.  I think it's more useful to keep him in the present in a more emotional state and try to root through the anger to the underlying issue. 

 

I found it interesting that you stated your husband did something that you used to nag him about all the time.  Since your previous message you affirmed reading and liking RTR, surely you're aware of the section on nagging.  It indicates that you have a perspective of your relationship that you believe you and your happiness do not provide enough value to your husband that he would voluntarily make tradeoffs to satisfy you.  And nagging is not empathetic towards him.  Nagging creates stress in the other person so that they can empathize with you and then they can relieve the stress by placating the nagger.  But instead, the nagger can be empathetic towards their target and actually determine why this person doesn't want to do the thing that would please the nagger.  Then there can be a negotiation toward a win-win.

[Mykaelous]

My husband has zero interest in self knowledge. His lack of interest is, in my opinion, hurting our marriage and preventing us from fixing existing issues. He seems to think SK is great for me, but doesn't see the need for it himself. How can I get him interested? And if that's not possible, what hope is there for our relationship going forward? Do any of you have successful relationships with partners who are not at all interested in SK?

How do you get anyone interested in anything? You have to demonstrate it's value in a meaningful way. My goal is to become such a happy and successful person that people will come and ask me "how did your life come to be so good?" and it is only then that they will be receptive to my answers. When I lost 100 lb's people, even people that were skinnier than me, began asking me for what I was doing to loose weight, I didn't have to sell them on it, the proof is in the pudding. But even then it takes work and effort and even if you see the holy land in the distance, some just don't have the will to make the journey to it.