Addressing Fleas with partner

[P&K]

How did you approach and deal with your partner when it comes to their ACoN fleas?

My DH has them and doesn’t often recognize it. Usually verbal abuse or abrupt behaviour  comes out when he feels stress or pressure. It’s bad enough that my parents, enFIL and possibly others have noticed.  It also happens in front of our children on occasion.

I feel some of the verbal abuse is likely projection but I have been unsuccessful in reasoning with him in the moment.  Our relationship is generally good but I’m getting sick of the FLEAs followed by apology cycle. I trying to have grace given  his circumstances but it’s getting harder to accept.

What has worked for those of you who have experiences like this?

[bloomie]

P&K - I can relate very closely to what you share. I first came to Out of the FOG never having heard of fleas and pretty convinced my DH was personality disordered. What I found, was as I applied the strategies in the toolbox and learned to set boundaries with consequences attached - in other words as I learned to engage or disengage and with a toolset and intention things began to shift.

It has been a process, but part of what was needed for my Dh was some therapy to work through some of the knee jerk, defensive reactions and in time a group of men he meets with that are peers and who support one another encouraging each other to be honorable men in their homes and lives.

I think grace and understanding is a beautiful piece of the puzzle as well and you have that in place already.

An important boundary for me to keep is that I am not a therapist, I am not a spiritual guide, I am a wife and life partner and learning to stay in that relational zone and not try to unpack all of the baggage that my DH has from his FOO, to hand that over to others far better equipped and to take on, has been a great relief for me and us.

In my own experience, my DH resisted the change because the cycle you describe was all he knew and was familiar - though dysfunctional and not productive - tearing at the fabric of my trust and good will toward him.

A really great book is Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend (bear in mind it is faith based).

A great thread on setting boundaries is found here: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=24.0

Holding a core value for yourself and your home and your relationship that you do not allow yourself to be spoken to in a disrespectful manner by anyone or do not allow yourself to speak in a disrespectful way to another is a great foundation to work from in figuring out how best to respond to these behaviors in your marriage and to break the cycle.

The other really important aspect to this is that you have children bearing witness to this and the two of you working together to get your arms around this offensive behavior and to bring an atmosphere of honor to your home and finding useful tools and agreement of how and when to use those tools in your communication is vital.

Good luck with this! 

[bloomie]

Popping back in to offer another really great resource in general and an article about the friends and enemies of good conversation in marriage that has been helpful to me: https://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5056_qa.html

[coyote]

"Holding a core value for yourself and your home and your relationship that you do not allow yourself to be spoken to in a disrespectful manner by anyone or do not allow yourself to speak in a disrespectful way to another is a great foundation to work from in figuring out how best to respond to these behaviors in your marriage and to break the cycle."

I'm just going to second what Bloomie said here. This is the crux of what began to shift my uPPDw's behavior. Although meant as a boundary for me, changes in my responses did impact her.

[P&K]

Thank you both so much for the validation and reminders. Also for the direction to resources you have found beneficial.
It's a work in progress. Luckily these issues do not dominate our relationship.
Much love to you both and those following this thread.