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How to build communication
My fiance and I used to be able to talk about everything and anything. That has changed drastically lately. When I try to bring things up, he will get defensive and angry, or just completely ignore me.
Poor communication skills is not in and of itself a deal breaker, but he won't acknowledge that anything is wrong and doesn't seem interested in fixing it. We can work through anything if he just cared to.
I guess its just stuff that he wouldn't have done before. Here's an example:
On New Years we had a little get together. Everyone was having drinks and joking around. He made a joke during a game that really cut deep. It REALLY hurt my feelings. I brought it up later and told him it hurt my feelings and he wouldn't apologize. He rationalized it away because everyone was joking so he didn't see why I was hurt.
When I've brought it up recently, it was just as an example on why I feel like things have changed between us and he just instantly gets defensive and starts rationalizing it again. To this day he hasn't apologized for hurting my feelings.
He never used to be like that.
I guess I'm just looking for tips and advice on how to build that communication up. I want us to have an open honest relationship, but at this point I don't know how to talk about things without becoming a nag.
Re: How to build communication
Making an insensitive comment by accident is not in and of itself a red flag, but his refusal to acknowledge that he hurt your feelings would REALLY bother me. Whether or not he intended it to be hurtful, he should care that you WERE hurt by it, rather than defending his reasoning.
The problem with your question is that no matter how many communication tips we can reply with, your FI would have to WANT to communicate in an effective way. It seems like he does not care that he hurt you. Also, the fact that this is a new thing is a huge red flag.
If you want to make things work with him, I would recommend having a serious talk with him. Tell him that if you two are going to get married, you need to know that he WANTS to effectively communicate in your relationship, and that he cares about your feelings. If he is unwilling, you might want to rethink marrying this man. I know I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life with someone who didn't care that he hurt my feelings, regardless of whether he intended to.
Can you pinpoint when it changed drastically? Was there a fight that ended badly, and he's closed up since then?
I guess I would ask him why he gets so defensive about this. Like, really ask wanting to know what's going on with him. Tell him everyone says things that unintentionally hurt their partner; you're not really mad about that anymore,but feel like he's saying your feelings are not important or petty. The old, "when you say X, I feel Y" strategy.
Good luck. Everyone goes through rough patches where they're not on the same page as a couple. It's just scarier when it's so close to your wedding.
I can't really think of an exact time that everything changed.
He used to travel for work so he would be home for a few days than gone for a few weeks. I completely understand that when he was home at those times it was always a little honeymoon period and now we're getting a chance to see what its like to be together all the time, but when the honeymoon stage is over, you're not supposed to completely change who you are.
I know that this version of him isn't real. About 7 months ago I got a new job at a bank, and he texted me a kind of rude comment about how I'm going to have to follow through with this job and not flake out on it. All I texted back was "ouch" and he apologized up and down, and sent me another text asking if I could forgive him for saying those hurtful words. He's not like that at all anymore. A part of me IS scared that the nice, understanding, sympathetic person was fake and now he's showing his true colours.
Here's another example. A few weeks ago we went to his best friend's wife's birthday party. (I'll call them S and D) From the moment we got there S and D were pushing this girl they know on my fiance. He spent a little time talking to her because they both speak French. Every time I would come to talk to my FI, she would leave, and every time I would leave within five minutes she would be back talking to him.
The next day he shows me a text from her (about twelve hours after she sent it) in French saying "hey, it was fun talking French with you, we should meet up, what's your week like?" It turned out S gave her FI's number, and is trying to get them to hang out. I was pissed.
FI didn't support me at all. He got angry and defended S because he said S didn't have any ulterior motives. Than last week we went to their house for a Super Bowl party and the only people they invited were us and that girl. They didn't bother to say anything about it until ten minutes before. Again I was furious and hurt. He got mad at me to the point that he was yelling at me.
I don't always expect him to agree with me, and maybe I am being overly sensitive about this whole thing, but for him to just completely dismiss my feelings hurts a lot.
And another thing that's kind of weird about it is when its over he'll just act like nothing happened. I eventually sucked it up and we went to the Super Bowl party (where S and D proceeded to completely ignore me. D literally said about five words to me the entire time)
We got home and he was his usually jokey, playful self as if he hadn't been yelling at me a the top of his lungs a few hours earlier.
Its weird.
Sounds like he's an asss, and he's been able to keep that hidden from you before with his frequent travelling. Quit asking how he feels, what he really means by such and such, etc, etc, and start thinking about what you want and what you feel.
He says unkind things to you and will not apologize.
He yells at you and then a bit later is all sunshine and light.
He ignores you at parties, flirts with other women and makes dates with them in front of you. HE MADE A DATE WITH THIS WOMAN. IN FRONT OF YOU. Then when you get alarmed by this, he insists that you're a paranoid for thinking anything's amiss. And you start to doubt yourself, and think maybe you're wrong, etc.
Listen to your gut here. PAY ATTENTION to these red flags. This is how it will be when you are married, only you'll be bound legally to him. There are so many, many men out there, and most of them wouldn't treat their dogs the way this guy is treating you. GET OUT.
I should clarify my past statement, he didn't make a date with her, she texted him and he never texted her back. And I think its perfectly ok for him to talk to other people at parties. The fact that he was talking to her in and of itself is not a bad thing. In fact there wasn't a whole lot that HE did in that situation that bothered me. The thing that worries me is him just dismissing my feelings. Defending his friend over empathizing with me.
So you're sure he's not meeting her?
And you're ok with him ignoring you during the party and talking to another woman his friend was clearly trying to set him up with, and he was talking with her in a language that excluded you from their converstation. And you're ok with him being defensive and unpleasant to you about that, and you believe his behavior through all of this was ok. And you're ok with him saying something ugly and hurtful to you and refusing to apologize for it.
He does not seem to have a communication problem, at all. He's making it clear whose feelings matter and whose do not. I think you have a listening problem; you would like for all this to not mean what it clearly means.
I just read this one.
Run FASTER. If he isn't currently cheating on you, he is going to. Get out BEFORE the wedding, rather than divorcing later. Seriously, he's a huge manipulator and he knows it. And his friends don't respect your relationship which means he taught them that is ok. RUUUUUUUN.
I am curious why you guys get the feeling he's cheating?
He has done nothing to suggest to me that he is interested in that girl, or that he's meeting with her. He was the one that showed me the text message in the first place. And the way his phone works, you have to delete an entire conversation, not specific texts, so I know he's not lying when he said he's never taxted her back (and I will admit I have looked at 0other times)
When I said in my post that S and D ignored me, I was talking about his best friend and best friend's wife. I can tell they don't like me and couldn't really care less that I exist, but that doesn't mean anything bad on his part.
I am not one to sit and make excuses for bad behaviors, but I don't think he and I have problems that can't be fixed.
You can only fix problems if you're both interested in fixing them. He's obviously not.
There isn't some magic communication style you can adopt that will make him realize he's disrespecting your relationship and want to change his behavior and acquiescence to his friends' behavior.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
My only point was that its a pretty big leap to go from "he's disrespectful" to "he's absolutely cheating on you"
He has done nothing to suggest he's cheating on me.