My objections and "God, you're sooo sensitive!"

[IsleOfSong]

Another milestone, another chance to disappoint and end up venting here on the forum...

Next month is our 25th wedding anniversary. As an introvert who hates being the center of attention, and unhappy being married to an uNPD person, it's not anything I'm particularly excited to celebrate — but my extroverted wife feels differently. The other night, I overheard her on the phone with her mother, and the mom was saying how she wanted to throw an anniversary party for the two of us. I overheard my wife's end of the conversation and turned to her, mouthing the word "NO!" to her to express what I thought of such an idea. My wife told her mom that no, it's not something that we'd want, referring to my preferences in particular. I hoped that that would be the end of it, but alas....

A couple nights later, we were out to dinner with another couple. My wife, out of the blue, tells the other couple, "My mom wants to throw us an anniversary party..." Caught off-guard that she'd bring up publicly something I was clearly against, I saw it as a way for my wife to have other people say "What a sweet idea!" and thereby manipulate (embarrass?) me into agreeing to the party. To my credit, I did actually respond quickly at the table and say, "We already discussed that I don't want to do that," which my wife acknowledged but added, "But maybe we could do a dinner with really close friends..." The couple, perhaps reading my objection, remained neutral and noncommittal on the idea, thankfully, but inside I was fuming. My wife has done similar things to me in the past, pointing out something I'm not interested in to other people she sees as being on "her side" of the topic at hand. This felt like another version of that dynamic.

Last night, we received an email from our religious congregation, inviting us to an upcoming service to stand before the assembled people to receive a "blessing" for our milestone anniversary. We both got the email, and when I saw it my first response was a mix of internal eye-rolling and suppressed gagging. Not my thing. And naturally, my wife a few minutes later says she got the email and says it's something she'd like to do. I held my ground, and that's when the conversation shifted to the dinner comments. I told her how I felt hurt and minimized that she'd bring up something to them that I'd already made clear wasn't an option. "God, you're so sensitive!" she responded. "You always are overreacting to every little thing I do. I was just mentioning it to them as something my mom offered. Jeez!" I responded, "I'm the exact correct level of 'sensitive,' as far as I'm concerned, and the things I'm 'always' doing is holding you accountable for your behavior." Needless to say, no one convinced the other side of anything, and we are at yet another uncomfortable impasse.

Of course, the real reason I don't want to celebrate publicly is that there's nothing to celebrate. We're playing house and nothing more, and have been that way for a long time. My kids have been battered by her emotional abuse too, in particular our son, about whom I've written a fair amount. I'm working with a therapist to unthaw myself from my deeply ingrained "freeze response" to conflict, a response that has kept me fearful of speaking my full truth with this emotional hand grenade of a person, and stuck in the marriage for far too long. And I'm doing my best not to internalize my wife's negativity toward my clearly and respectfully stated preferences as a person who happens not to be her.

I'll get there. Every time I stand up and declare my preferences, her objections be damned, I'm making critical internal shifts. It may not always feel like it, but I'm headed in the right direction.

[square]

Reading this, my main takeaway (other than a sympathetic "ugh") was admiration for how you stood up for yourself and expressed your position at each point, with the appropriate response.

As a fellow freezer, I can certainly appreciate what it would have taken for you to speak up in the moment each time.

[notrightinthehead]

I agree. So brave of you to stand up for what you want when maneuvered into a corner at dinner with friends. And I found the same thing - every time I felt the fear and did it anyway, I felt a little stronger.

[IsleOfSong]

Thanks, square and NRITH!

I agree. So brave of you to stand up for what you want when maneuvered into a corner at dinner with friends. And I found the same thing - every time I felt the fear and did it anyway, I felt a little stronger.

Yes, "litigating" the topic in front of others is totally manipulation, no matter how she tries to spin it as innocent sharing. She's done the same to me over pickleball, pointing out to our pickleball-playing friends (with me present) that "{Isle} doesn't want to play pickleball." I then get to listen to the friends urge me to try it, even though she knows damn well I have no interest in that sport.

It's abuse in the form of "death by a thousand cuts"... at least until I get to the point of walking away from the source of all the cutting.