My (26f) husband (31m) of 5 years lied to me about something, 3 days after my father passed away. But when I found out about his lying, he cried and said he felt embarrassed (it's at least the 5th time he has lied about the same thing). He also said some things that really upset me during this vulnerable time, but I had to forgive and forget to keep my sanity as I'm grieving.
This happened before. He will hurt my feelings by doing or not doing (forgetting important dates, for example) things, and then he just kind of sulks and feels sorry for himself?
He says things like "I'll just leave you, I don't add anything to your life, I self-sabotage", and I'm just left alone with my feelings. I'll say "you hurt me, this isn't right, I'm upset", and he immediately goes into victim mode, cries, listens to sad songs, stuff like that. It's like he really believes he's a tortured guy with a golden heart or something. It comes across really childish and self-centered.
I told him today that my issues are caused by external factors, while his issues are caused by himself, so I need his support, not the other way around. Well, he sulked again and left the bedroom and is apparently thinking in silence to himself.
What do I say? What do I do? How do I feel? Has anyone gone through this? I can't get through to him no matter how much I try.
TLDR: My husband sulks and feels like a victim when he hurts MY feelings. I end up looking like the bad guy instead. I don't know why or what to do.
27 comments
This is manipulation plain and simple.
Man that’s exhausting, especially while you’re dealing with grief. The timing of all this is just awful
Your husband’s basically weaponizing his emotions to avoid accountability – soon as you bring up legitimate concerns he flips the script and makes it about his pain instead. Classic deflection tactic whether he realizes he’s doing it or not
You shouldn’t have to manage his feelings when he’s the one who messed up, and you definitely shouldn’t be comforting someone who just hurt you. That whole “I’ll just leave” routine is manipulative as hell – puts you in the position of having to reassure him instead of working through the actual issue
There going to keep cycling through this until he learns to sit with discomfort instead of making himself the victim every time
If accessible to you, this is the kind of thing couples therapy can help with.
He does this to avoid having to take real responsibility for his actions.
Someone taking responsibility for their actions apologizes, says how they will fix the issue, and then follows through.
My partner used to do that. I called that shit out real quick every time it happened and they stopped doing it. It’s definitely manipulative as fuck and you shouldn’t stand for it.
“You’re making this about yourself. No shame spiraling. No “woe is me”. We’re talking about this issue and only this issue and if you try to make it about yourself I’m going to leave the conversation and I WILL leave it pissed off. Stop.” Seemed to work for me
He’s trying to get you to feel sorry for him so he doesn’t have to own up to/confront the fact that he hurt you. It’s manipulation. He wants you to comfort him and forget about his shitty behavior.
Definitely manipulative. Possibly narcissistic as well. Couples counseling might help, but he would likely make it all about himself, and try to recruit the therapist to “his team.”
I’d recommend individual counseling first to help you develop coping strategies and sort through whether the relationship is worth saving.
I recently saw a family and relationship therapist talk about this. It was on a parent-adult child dynamic, but similar idea. You agree with the part of their self deprecation as they’re trying to make themselves the victim that you feel is accurate and you don’t comfort them.
For example: he pouts and says something like “I self-sabotage” and your response should be “You’re right, it seems like you self sabotage. You should work with a therapist on that”. Because what he’s looking for is validation (“no babe, you’re not sabotaging our relationship”), comfort from you so he doesn’t have to do the work to emotionally regulate and acknowledge his behavior, and manipulating you into not calling him out anymore. Stop falling into his pattern.
Just leave him. I stayed for 36 years. Trust me it doesn’t get any better. He wants to be the center of everything. Get away while you are young and can use this to help yourself make better choices. If you stay, you will be erased. Best of luck.
i hate this. my husband used to do this all the time and it really made me feel so alone and conditioned to stay silent because going to him meant any of my problems with him always became a problem with me.
it was rough- it took a while and some really honest conversations, but eventually he’s gotten better about taking accountability. i had to do it as well to show him why it’s important, how good it feels when someone does it for you, and how they’re not the victim if they can never do the same. If your husband was ever capable of being genuine and sincere or vulnerability, this can be fixed.
my husband was a golden child and he flees shame like the plague. he can’t handle it, and his defense mechanism is this. he hates being the bad guy, always want a to be the hero. so calling him out for something like letting you down means he’s the bad guy, which for someone who wants to be the hero, means he’s a victim because that hurts his ego. it’s not malicious, but a lot of people aren’t aware they do this and can be super self centered. me too. we fixed this by slowing down a LOT
Why? He does it to get you off his back. It’s manipulative.
He is a narcissist and when someone tells you who they are believe them. When he says he should just leave you because he sabotages everything tell him to go but for good. Not just to avoid hearing about your feelings. You are grieving and this is what he is choosing to do. Remember he is making a conscience choice to lie over and over to you when your dad is gone and you are devastated. This man is dangerous around you. Better to be alone than to feel alone with someone.
Have you heard of ‘DARVO’? This is a prime example of it. Not necessarily always deliberate but a tactic picked up sometimes because it works so well for a person who wants to avoid taking accountability for their actions. You either need to call him out on it firmly and shut it down every time it happens, or probably accept that he’s not going to change and consider what that means for the future of your relationship.
It’s got a name, babe – DARVO! Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
DARVO. It’ll mess you up. You’re in the right and he will make you feel like you’re in the wrong. I’m so sorry.
I understand you’re grieving, but you have got to take a stand with him at some point. It really doesn’t matter why he does these things, they have to stop
He walked away to think I silence? Nope, don’t let him walk away. Get your thoughts together and say something like this:
“you’re not going to walk away and ignore this discussion. We are going to talk about this now. You hurt me, not the other way around so stop having your pity party and playing victim. You need to apologize, and you need to explain what goes through your head when you lie, or forget things, or whatever it is that he does. This happens a lot, you aren’t taking accountability for things you do. You hurt me and for some reason you just cannot ever find it in you to console me, to support me. Why is that? Do you not care that I feel hurt or sad or bad at times? You say things like you should just leave, and you’re not adding anything to my life- well I’m starting to think that’s true. The next time you use any of those stupid excuses will be the last time because I will ask you to leave. This isn’t how a marriage works. So you’re going to get yourself into therapy to figure out how or why you seemingly have no empathetic bone in your body”.
Or, you know, you can just leave him, save yourself this stress and turmoil.
Don’t feed into it. Giving attention, making him feel better, and making yourself small is not ever going to help him. Only therapy and accountability will help him. And if he repetitively lies, takes victim mentality, and can’t have adult conversations, what makes you want to stay? Emotional labor is labor.
Read “Why does he do that?” By Lundy Bancroft. You should be able to find a free pdf online. It won’t save your marriage necessarily, but it might make you feel a bit more confident in leaving if that’s the best choice for you.
His thinking is probably that if he makes you as uncomfortable as possible each time you call him out on something that you will stop calling him out on things. He probably manipulated his parents/teachers/friends the same way growing up.
This reminds me of my narcissistic ex-husband. Anything big happened to me, he had to pull attention away from it. I got recognized at work, he had an even bigger recognition (he did not). My cat had to go to the emergency vet at 1 am for a life-threatening issue, two nights later he needed me to take him to the ER because he had a cold (they gave him fluids and said to go home). My cat eventually passed away, and he suddenly had an injury so he wanted me to focus instead on his “recovery” of doing nothing while it healed.
He absolutely could not stand to not be the center of attention, either good or bad.
His goal is to prevent having to be responsible or accountable for his actions. He does not want to do the work to repair things, he does not want to make any changes. The easiest way to do that is to have little pity parties and get you to focus on his sorrows and “turmoil” so you do not expect more from him. And honestly, this is probably as good as it is going to get with this guy. Couples counseling might help, but that only works if both people want to work on the relationship, I don’t think he does. As long as you forget and keep the peace, this little show will continue to flourish.
Please, please stop accepting that this is all you’re worth. I’m sorry to be blunt, but your husband isnt going to change. *This is who he is*, and he’s going to continue to beat you with his ‘I’m a victim stick’ for as long as you let him. As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over and expect a different result. *He* is not going to change, because this whole dynamic is working for him, so *you* have to be the one who drives the change. And the only way I can see that happening, is for you to stand strong and say you’re no longer going to accept this from him.
Stop letting him manipulate you, and start taking back your control. Start being clear on what you will/wont accept, and stick to it. Honestly though, I think you probably need to start planning a future that doesn’t involve him. You always deserved better than this but only *you* can give it to yourself. Don’t be here next year saying exactly the same thing. Updateme!
You keep asking what he gets out of it.
Isn’t it obvious? He gets no consequences. He gets to do what he wants and you put up with it because you let him play the victim.
I’m not blaming you but this is classic DARVO and manipulation. He does it because it benefits him and you don’t do anything about it. 5 years of it and you just let it go eventually because it’s too hard/scary to actually hold him accountable.
I’m sorry for your loss and when you have the mindset I hope you recognize this is a dealbreaker situation. I can’t imagine how lonely you’ve felt these past 5 years and I promise you being alone is less lonely than being with someone like that.
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I call this tactic the lame puppy defense. You bring up a perfectly rational issue to him, and he starts going off on the “Oh geez, I can’t do anything right, I don’t know why you’re even with me. You should just leave me.” Expecting you to leap up his defense to try to make him feel better about himself. Which effectively distracts from the issue you were trying to discuss. If you’re busy trying to manage his self esteem, then you’ll stop bothering him about your relationship issues.
Of course, once it stops working, it often escalates to them hurting themselves, smacking their heads against the wall, punching themselves, burning themselves with lighters to avoid any criticism whatsoever. It’s completely maladjusted to be so avoidant of any criticism that they will do anything to trigger your pity for them. It’s not healthy and it’s not normal, op.
If crying for himself has worked for him before then he will keep doing it.
If you want that to change then you need to hold firm. Next time he starts crying and playing the victim show zero sympathy and remind him that the tears do not work on you. Do not soften at all and remain firm on him taking accountability and actually talking about the issue on hand.
This is what my Mil does so I’ve had some practice lol
This is called DARVO. Recommend reading up on. They want to make *your reaction* the problem instead of dealing with/talking about *their behavior* that brought on your reaction. And it doesn’t matter how calmly/respectfully you bring up what they did that hurt you; they will still flip the script and act like you’re the villain for daring to tell them they hurt you.
I’m so sorry. My ex was like this. When it’s a pattern, it’s highly narcissistic behavior, because the focus must always be on THEM. Sadly, he’s unlikely to change. My only regret now is not leaving that man sooner!
Get out before you have kids. You do not want him to be this terrible example for children. He is a child himself. Ick.