29f 32m. we’ve been together 3 1/2 years. he’s always needed reassurance about things because he had a really shitty ex wife and just generally has pretty bad anxiety and low self esteem. I relate to that, I deal with my own struggles (eating disorder in the past, for example). I have no problem reminding the person I love why I love them and why they’re deserving of love. I love showering the person I’m in a relationship with affection, and of course now that all goes to my husband.
but it gets genuinely extremely burdensome and taxing. he asks for reassurance about so many different things so many times during the day. I feel bad saying it but I admittedly do not want to spend literally almost half my day convincing you I love you. I married you. and then if ask him “hey do you think instead of asking for reassurance about this thing, maybe you could say a positive thing out loud about our relationship. show me you hear the love I give to you” he tells me I’m not being supportive and I make him feel like such a bother
it happens in worse ways too. 98% of the times we’ve had sex over our whole relationship, he’ll ask if I enjoyed it. I’ll say yes every time. but he’ll ask like 5 more times after that “no seriously, just tell me if you enjoyed it or not”. so ill playfully be like “didn’t you hear those noises you made me make” or “didn’t you feel how hard you made me cum”. that’s not enough for him. then I finally lose some patience and say, “baby I just told you so many times”. once I finally really lost my patience and spoke up about how it ruins the sex we just had because he is genuinely rudely forcing reassurance out of me
the place I struggle with it most is every single time we get in a fight, or specifically when he does something that upsets me, I’m expected to spend like twenty minutes reassuring him he’s a good partner. even if the thing he did was not something a good partner would do, and if anything he should be the one reassuring me he’ll do better.
like…he’ll do something shitty, I’ll get reasonably mad, but he needs me to reassure him after that I’m not going to leave him. if I tell him I shouldn’t have to do that, it blows everything up more. can someone tell me if it’s reasonable to not want to do that?
and if I don’t reassure him good enough? or if I say I don’t want to reassure him? he guilts me about how just because I got mad at him doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be nice after, and that he would do the same thing for me (I do not ask him to reassure me after he gets mad at me…doesn’t really make sense to me to do so…) and he’ll often kind of shut down and give me the cold shoulder until I jump up and try to snap him out of it.
OR my favorite, he’ll tell me he can’t handle me being upset with him “because he has to go to work tomorrow” (I’m a SAHM)
he has severe OCD and often tells me the reassurance is tied in with that and I need to understand it. but I feel like it still shouldn’t be on me so much…
I want to scream at him that I don’t want to reassure him about ever possible thing, almost every minute, for the rest of my life. it is genuinely such a turn off emotionally and sexually. I feel awful saying that but it’s the truth. and I’m worried it’s wrong to feel that way. like, is this what a spouse is supposed to do?
this has been an issue for so long, and I have no friends to bounce the issue off of, I usually do end up giving in and doing what he wants because god he makes me feel so awful about it. and then I start to believe it. and it’s like, I feel incapable of telling what’s right anymore.
so please. tell me.
TLDR my husband asks for constant reassurance in what I feel are often inappropriate or excessive situations, and makes me feel horrible if I don’t give in. I’m truly at the point that I cannot tell what’s normal or not.