[Rachel D]

Thank you for the response! My husband and I do joke that he is “the woman” in our relationship in most instances (the main glaring exception being sex drive differences, his is the typical much higher than mine).

Thank you for posing some questions to try and move forward, I’ll try to answer you.
what do you see as your issues, and what do you want to change?

When I hear this question all I can hear is all the things my husband has said I need to change. It’s really hard for me to determine what I alone want to change.

I think some more backstory would be helpful. We also have three kids under 4.5, and I dealt with postpartum depression and anxiety (mostly unrecognized and untreated) for most of our first 4 years together.

Additionally, I’ve also recently discovered that I am a HSP, I previously called it being an emotionally high maintenence person. When my husband and I started dating I had an emotional crisis where several of my close friends walked away from friendship with me (for various reasons) all roughly at the same time and it kinda completely threw off my emotional center of gravity. Add on my childhood experiences with an emotionally abuse father and I was kinda a wreck emotionally for awhile there.

All this left me feeling extremely insecure in myself, which I’m still working through. So then I enter a marriage where I’m being let’s say “aggressively” encouraged to change my behaviors and beliefs systems on a daily basis, and I would say (understandably), I don’t feel helped by this… I feel attacked.

here’s my gut reaction to your question

Look, I know no one is perfect and we should always strive for growth. But I actually think I’m doing pretty fine overall and I don’t have a lot of issues.

I am a successful full time working mother, who is good at my job, good with people, and I’m also a good mom. I’m very good at managing house and life stuff, balancing my time, and being hospitable. I make a great friend, and I’m reliable and fun to hangout with (my friends say so). Plus I kinda like me, as me. I just don’t feel as issue prone as my husband believes me to be, he is literally the only person in my life I have issues with and for me it seems to stem from his obession with me needing to change.

I also honestly don’t want to change very much either because with years of feeling like I need to change “pushed” on me, I’m angry and defensive about.

Just for once can I just be appreciated and loved just for who I am?

Next is: what do you think that you need to do in order to change, and is there a way that he can help?

My first reaction to this question is I feel so brated by him, that I have a hard time even thinking of letting him help. But I do agree he is trying to be motivated by a desire to help me and in his words, “get me to a place of freedom”. He has a background in counseling, and as I said he feels like it’s his role to fix things with me, which I really do not agree with.

I just wish I could help HIM to stop helping me lol.

but here’s a hopefully more balanced answer

For me alone, what do I see as my issues and how do I want to change:

I struggle the most with insecurity and I want to stop being so afraid of disappointing people or feeling like I failed. I want to build confidence in myself that I am enough, and I am not broken. I actually like myself, I just have this fear that other people don’t or won’t and so critism (even put nicely) is like cryptonite with me.

What do I think I need to do to change in this area?

Love myself more, stand up for myself more, grow closer to God and believe that I’m loved and fearfully and wonderfully made. Go to therapy for past trauma (which I do and have), extend forgiveness.

What can he (husband) do to help?
Stop helping me lol. But also we are going to couples counseling and he is willingly doing so, and that is helpful!

I think it would help me so much if he could try a little romance, flowers, dancing, some poetry, sweet notes. But anytime I mention it, even in the most positive way, he says, “I just don’t get the flower (romance) thing”.

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