The Vine: June 30, 2010
Dear Sars,
I have a question for you (and the readers) about therapy. And essentially it’s this: how do you know if you just dislike your therapist because you’re dealing with stuff you’d rather not, versus them just being the wrong therapist for you?
Over the years I have seen therapists at three particularly stressful parts of my life, but only ever for a few sessions to deal with the particular trauma. One was fantastic, and I would contemplate going back to her, but I was honestly so messed up at the time that I’d be almost embarrassed to see her again. One was provided free by work (perks of a government job) and she was a joke. I have recently started seeing someone else.
My boyfriend has treated me badly in the past, he cheated on me early in the relationship, and three years and cohabitation later, the scars haven’t healed and I’m still irrationally jealous. He also has all his own baggage, and is quite a jealous person himself, and though I love him very much I am finding it increasingly hard to deal with. I arranged for us to go to therapy together, but he bailed at the last minute, which was so upsetting (and I guess maybe a sign that he is really not interested in working on our relationship).
I did the session anyway. I was feeling vulnerable and very upset and on the verge of ending my relationship. But what bothered me is that the therapist had basically formed the view that because I was there on my own it was definitely not worth continuing the relationship, and we would use the therapy to talk about how best to manage the break-up. At the time, I was pretty angry and that seemed fine, but in retrospect, I’m not so sure. I was there to talk about how I could try and work though our/my issues, not necessarily jump straight to that conclusion.
I also felt like she marginalised my concerns about being single again (a long story), breaking up a household, and overplayed how much my life would be ruined if I stayed with my boyfriend and found him cheating on me again in the future (to wit: “that’s unrecoverable-from”).
And on top of all this, I felt railroaded into another ($200+ — nearly a week’s rent for me) session next week.
So, should I throw her in, and find someone else (maybe the therapist I saw years ago)? Or am I just resisting this because she’s telling me a hard truth (that my boyfriend is an ass-hat) that I just don’t want to hear?
Sticky
Dear Sticky,
It sounds like both to me. You aren’t happy, you don’t trust your boyfriend, you don’t trust yourself to make a happy life without him — and he’s either not interested in looking at the deeper issues, or scared his own self that doing so will lead you to leave. It’s not a state of affairs that should continue, and I do think part of a therapist’s job in that situation is to say without sugarcoating, even if — especially if — the patient doesn’t want to hear it, how the situation is perceived by a third party.
You also have to factor in that, if this is a couples’ therapist, and if she is only seeing one half of a couple that scheduled time to work on their issues together, her experience may lead her to the conclusion that your boyfriend isn’t going to make this important, and that you should proceed from there. I mean, I can come up with any number of reasons why he bailed, but…on the first session? Either he can’t make himself be there, or he won’t, but either way, there it is, and in this case, “making it work” may actually mean “making your peace with the fact that it isn’t working, and can’t.”
But that takes time, and it’s also a therapist’s job to help you explore the issues and neuroses in play for you. She may believe that you should break up and move on, but she should also know that people have to come to decisions like that on their own — and that there’s a way to talk about fears, both rational and irrational, that makes them manageable and less scary. “It sounds like you might be better off apart. Why hasn’t that happened? …Not wanting to start all over is a very normal issue. Why don’t you tell me more about that, and how you see that ending up.”
I think you should tell the therapist what you just told me, particularly the part where she marginalized your concerns; I think you should then ask for a referral to an individual therapist whose focus is on you specifically and not you as part of a couple. But I also think you should prepare yourself for any future therapist to point out that it sounds like the relationship is foundering. It is, but to say so isn’t a judgment of you, and that you feel like it is is what you really should probably work on.
Dear Sars,
Standard disclaimers apply: wonderful husband, great dad, he loves me and I love him, we very rarely fight, and so on. Generally speaking, our marriage and our life together is pretty much perfect. We’ve been through some physical health issues with me and a nasty detour through infertility, but the latter’s in the past, the former are under control, and everything’s good. Our seven-year anniversary was yesterday, and we’ve been together for ten years in July.
Except, of course, that perfect people don’t write letters asking the internets for advice.
During a random conversation yesterday, we got on the subject of introversion. I consider myself to be borderline introverted — I like people and conversation, and have several friends with whom we socialize regularly, but I need a pretty good bit of non-people downtime in between. I’ve always known that he was far more introverted than I was, but he’s also always had buddies and participated in people-oriented activities. I took over the “social director” role pretty early in the relationship, but I think that’s pretty common; I consult him before making plans, and he rarely declines unless he’s not feeling well or we’ve been REALLY busy.
“My” friends all like him, and often invite him to come along and do things with the guys. He has buddies at work, with whom he regularly eats lunch and plays golf. We don’t exactly have a punishing social schedule: Sunday-night suppers with my mom and brother (both of whom he’s always appeared to like) most weeks, and maybe twice a month we get together with one or two other families, or he goes golfing or something. He always seems to enjoy himself — he makes chitchat rather than hiding in a corner — and when I say “Hey, why don’t we do X with Y,” he usually says some variation of “Sure, that’d be great!” Overall, I thought he was pretty content with our social life.
So during this conversation yesterday, he says to me that he doesn’t think I understand the extent to which he really dislikes people and socializing. I’ve heard him say some variations of “I don’t like people” before, but I thought it was just a general Sartre sort of thing, and that he liked specific people such as our friends and my family. So when he pops out and tells me that no, he really doesn’t especially like any of them (or much of anyone else except me), and that the most pleasure he gets out of social events is “well, that wasn’t as awful as I was expecting”…well, I was pretty floored.
I thought he was neutral beforehand, willing to participate if I made the arrangements, and ultimately has a good time. Now he’s telling me that no, he’s negative beforehand, participates entirely for the sake of making me happy, and the best-case scenario is that he’s neutral about it afterward. When I started to get pretty upset, he “clarified” that he’s not VERY negative about it, and that he REALLY enjoys making me happy by going along with things I enjoy, and that he really doesn’t mind at all, and that he will in fact be upset if we stop social activities and become hermits. I don’t know if I really believe that, though, or if he just got scared enough that he’s trying to backpedal to calm me down.
Stop me if I’m overreacting, but I am honestly pretty devastated. I’m not the kind of person who wants my spouse to do things he doesn’t like for my sake alone, and I’m not sure how I’ll ever get through another get-together without thinking, “He hates this and would rather not be here.” I don’t know how I’ll interact with my family and our close friends, all of whom think that he likes them just fine, knowing that he’d happily never see any of them again if it weren’t for me.
I can’t just start doing things by myself or with just the kids, because then everyone would know something was wrong anyway, and he doesn’t want that. I could dial way back on friend interactions, but family stuff is another matter; they would all be tremendously hurt if they knew, but I’m a pretty straight shooter, and this is a big secret to keep. I can’t even talk to anyone about what’s wrong, because everyone I’d normally talk to is a family member or a friend, and therefore involved in the situation.
I tried to explain it to him as the equivalent of faking orgasms; if I told him, after ten years, that I’d been faking it and really didn’t like having sex with him at all, how would he feel about that? Would he be able to keep on pretending everything was fine, wondering if I were secretly hating it the whole time? He agreed that such a situation would be incredibly problematic, but insists that this isn’t at all the same, because sex is a much more fundamental component of a marriage than a social life. That may be so, but this affects my relationship with every single person we know, and that’s a very big deal to me.
I know you’re probably going to tell me to go to marriage counseling, and I’m sure that will happen because what-else-do-you-do, but honestly, I feel pretty hopeless about that. This is a pretty fundamental personal thing for him, not something that can be resolved by improving communication skills or whatever. I’m sure that if I try hard enough, I can probably manage to stick my head back in the sand in time, but I’m pretty angry right now, and I wonder if this is going to keep eating away at me, and at him.
I feel self-deluded and stupid for having failed to understand this about him for ten years — like I’ve been lied to, except that I don’t necessarily think he actively intended any deception. He’s unhappy too, because he thought I understood how he felt, which in turn just makes me unhappier because what does that say about me, if he thought I knew how he felt and kept up the status quo anyway?
I really want to believe that perhaps I have misunderstood and am blowing this entirely out of proportion, and I certainly think he wants me to believe that as well, because he’s pretty scared too about how this is going to play out. I love him and I don’t want to tear my marriage or my family apart, but I haven’t the first clue about how to get past this.
I Wish He’d Just Cheated, It Would Be Easier
Dear Easy,
I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I would react the same way. In fact, I have reacted the same way, albeit to a smaller-scale version of the same revelation — a boyfriend saying, “Actually, I’ve never liked X close friend of yours,” for example. I felt bad for putting him in that position, but I also felt lied to, and worried about what it said for the relationship’s future that he couldn’t integrate with every single person I cared about.
But…I also think you are overreacting, a little bit. “Tearing your marriage or your family apart” is not necessarily on the menu unless you put it there; you feel like everything you knew was wrong, which is anger- and fear-making, and you should let yourself feel those things, but I think you also know that couples more often than not have different social styles between the two parties, and it’s not the end of the world if one is more social and/or the other checks out of certain activities.
And here’s the other thing: he hasn’t. “But he was only there to make me happy and I feel so guilty and why didn’t he just say someth–” whoa whoa whoa. Yes, I think that’s true to an extent. I think that’s most likely how it started out, that he felt obligated to spend time with your family and friends when in an ideal world he’d get to stay home reading a book or playing Scrabble with just you.
But nobody is that good of a faker. If he really hated it, really had gritted his teeth through every function he’d attended, you’d have gotten a sense of that. He’d have made more excuses, I think, to get out of going to things, and you’d have picked up on more unhappy/bored vibes when he did go.
I’m not saying he loves it, but you have to consider the possibility that 1) he has come to think of himself in a way that isn’t exactly accurate, so that’s how he phrased it, and 2) he may not have phrased it perfectly, because in the heat of the moment, talking about feelings, most people don’t.
Give it a few days. Be upset; tell him that you’re upset and you need some time with it. But it’s not impossible that the backpedaling is closer to how he actually feels, once he was given a chance to refine his answer.
It’s also not impossible that you have an overly rosy conception of how much fun it is for any one half of a couple to attend social obligations. Yes, he feels obliged to go to various dinners and parties to make you happy, but that’s true of any couple and there’s a reason we call them “obligations.” Dinners with druncles, heels-required work functions, weddings of people you don’t know at all…that’s just part of it. Sometimes it feels like a chore, because sometimes it is a chore. Generally, this goes without saying because nobody wants to get into the score-keeping, but think about the times where, for example, you might have dragged your pregnant and over-it ass to a work dinner for him…or even stayed home to celebrate an accomplishment when, really, you felt like making a triple date or party out of it. It goes both ways. You just kept it to yourself.
He should have done the same, obviously, but I really don’t think this has to be the end of your shared world. I think he may have exaggerated his distaste for these functions somewhat, but I think you need to let him know that you’re worried about how to handle this going forward — that you can’t unknow what he said, but you do want him by your side for certain functions without stressing him out unduly or feeling like you’re jointly lying to your friends and family, so maybe he could tell you when he really doesn’t want to go so that you can feel a bit better about the times you do ask him to go, and so on and so forth.
But I’m telling you, he doesn’t hate it that much, and it doesn’t have to be that big a deal if he does. Keep talking about it; the marriage-ender would be bottling up your reaction to this.
Dear Sars,
I have a bad knee, and as a result I need crutches to walk. People — usually slightly socially inept men in their early twenties, around my age — frequently ask me why I need them. I live in a sporty college town, and they’re probably expecting an icebreaking answer about a bicycle accident or a soccer injury.
The thing is, though, I need the crutches because I have cancer in my femur. I usually answer “What happened?” with “Oh, I had some surgery on my knee” (which is true, I had a biopsy). Unfortunately, most people who’re rude enough to ask a stranger about their medical condition also aren’t sensitive enough to take the hint, and want to know what kind of surgery, and then I say I have cancer. And then their friendly expression turns so sad, and they have to think of something nice to say to me.
Is there a better way to handle this? I don’t like making people sad for me, but…I have cancer (and not one of the friendly kinds, either), and there’s no nice way to say that. I even like it when guys ask, sort of; getting hit on reminds me that not everyone sees me as a fragile disease vessel, the way my friends and family do. So I don’t want to give a tart answer, but I also don’t want to see that shocked expression anymore.
Any suggestions how I can answer the question gently, but without making people look like I just punched them in the stomach?
“Oh, that’s okay!” doesn’t cut it
Dear Cut,
First of all, I hope everything’s under control with your treatment. Second of all, I don’t see why you have to get specific at all; it’s not their business, and you have better things to do than manage their awkwardness.
“What happened?” “Oh, it’s a long story.” “Chuck Norris one, me zero.” “[after looking both ways furtively] Ninjas.” Resist the urge to fill a questioning silence with more information; thank them for their concern, and change the subject to their shoes, the weather, or another topic that doesn’t put you in the position of handling a stranger’s emotions for him/her.
Remember, the asking of the question does not per se obligate you to answer, so a simple “I’d rather not get into it, but thanks for caring” is fine.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette the fam
Easy, as a lifelong introvert, I would say that sometimes “we” say things like that when “we” are particularly annoyed one day or with one particular social engagement, and because it is difficult to put our feelings into words and things have been bottled up and perhaps 3 other things went wrong that day. . . this is how the frustration gets voiced. Obviously, I don’t know your spouse, but as a sometimes extreme introvert, I can tell you that, even though I don’t dislike any of our friends/family/etc., there are days when I am definitely fed up or feeling uncomfortable about a pending engagement. . . and I end up saying things that are more extreme than I really feel.
Please consider taking your spouse’s statement with a tiny grain of salt and be sure to weigh the happiness you’ve (both) had over the last 10 years along with this recently-voiced issue and don’t let it turn into something perhaps bigger than your spouse intended.
To paraphrase a sort of well known quote, “If you don’t hate your therapist sometimes, she’s not doing her job.”
Easy, in a certain mood I’m prone to extremely dramatic overstatement (I once told a boyfriend “I feel like there’s no joy in my life anymore.” I had like, a paper due and a flat tire), and I bet your husband is the same way. I agree with Sars that whatever is going on with him it probably doesn’t stretch back for the entire ten years. Maybe he’s been feeling bad for the last six months, maybe it was just his mood that day, but this conversation desperately needs a follow-up.
Although, I will also mention that my dad is a bit of a cranky dude who also hates social interactions and that my mom has spent the last thirty years going to parties, dinners, and weddings mostly alone. People who know my dad just understand–dressing up and making small talk is not his thing. I imagine at some point early on my mom made the decision that she has more fun if she’s not worrying about whether he’s having fun and that makes up for having to continually be a party of one.
Easy, I can understand what your husband meant–he may see your friends and family as just that, *yours*, and a serious introvert (has he exhibited low self esteem as well?) will rarely see them becoming “his” friends and family. Therefore every social engagement is an obligation to spend time with people who are only tolerating you (in his mind) because of your relationship to their friend, sister, daughter, etc.
My fiance has a bigger family and much bigger circle of friends than I do, and that means I attend more events of his than of mine. His family lives close by (and mine is out of state) so it feels overwhelming to me sometimes how much time I spend with his family. The huge beer-soaked parties his friends throw are OK once in a great while, but I have excused myself more than once from social events I am just not up to. My fiance knows this, we have discussed it, and it is an acceptable solution to both of us.
To be honest, I got some flags from your letter that your husband might be depressed. As Sars pointed out, he has appeared to enjoy himself at these social functions, but suddenly now claims they have all made him miserable and will continue to do so? Has anything else recently changed–a job, childcare duties, health issues?
That said, the onus is on your husband to offer some clarity. He says he attends these events because it is important to you, and he wants to make you happy. Let him know that it’s OK if he wants to bail now and then on the social scene, but it is *his* obligation to let you know. He cannot spend the next ten years stewing silently about the parade of socializing, which in turn makes you feel unneccesarily guilty. Ask him to set a schedule if he can: can he handle twice a month? Once a week? And I would also ask him how he feels about the socializing he does with his friends and family–does that feel like a burden too? If not, why not?
@Sticky: There is pretty good documentation out there that the rapport between client and therapist accounts for about 50% of the work that gets done, ie: if you don’t feel comfortable with your therapist, or you don’t have a good rapport, whatever work you’re trying to do is going to be doubly difficult (and pricey to boot). Rapport, however, doesn’t mean you have to “like” your therapist; sometimes it’s their job to go to the hard, ugly places. But you should always feel like s/he’s in your corner, and your ally as you head down those dark roads, and not like s/he’s sending you on your way to figure it our for yourself.
@Easy: I think Sars is right on the money here. We tell our partners our deepest feelings because they’re our partners, and clearly he felt safe enough in his partnership with you to do that, which in and of itself is a good sign. But at the risk of stating the obvious, feelings and behaviour are vastly different, and it’s possible he may just have been looking for an acknowledgment of the fact that this social stuff is harder for him than he makes it seem. It sounds to me from your letter like you two have a pretty solid relationship, and I think your reaction is completely understandable. My own take on this is that maybe he was just reaching out to you – his favourite person in the world – for some support with something he feels is challenging for him. Which, again: a really good sign.
Just my two cents.
Hey Cut –
I’m sorry to hear about your cancer, that sucks. As some one who was recently on crutches for months, I feel where you’re coming from with everyone asking you about it. Unlike you I had a good, fun(true) story about how I ended up like that. I still got annoyed and frustrated with people’s nosiness.
You can always say “there’s a tumor in my leg” and when people ask if it’s caner or if it’s bad or what ever thing pops in their head say “why would you ask that?”
People are mostly curious, so sometimes reminding them that they’re asking about a stranger’s medical condition reminds them there’s some questions that are totally rude to ask.
[I referred to “pretty good documentation” in my comment above. For those interested in one of those documents: http://bit.ly/aGvruD%5D
Like Dorine said, it can be very frustrating for introverts when we feel like we’re not being taken seriously. I’m not saying this is what you do to your husband, Easy, but I’ve had people tell me that I don’t actually feel the way I feel, that I wasn’t really terrified of trying to make small talk with a room full of strangers, that if I would just force myself to go I would end up having a lot of fun.
It took a long time, but I was eventually able to convince my family and my closest friends that we are all better off if I’m able to have some time by myself sometimes. It doesn’t mean I’m rejecting the person who invited me, or that I dislike the people who will be there. It’s just a real struggle sometimes for me to be sociable, even with people I love, and once in a while I need to be allowed to not make the effort.
Easy, like Sars said, maybe you and your husband can talk about some kind of compromise – you let him know if a particular event is very important to you and he’ll go, even if he’s not thrilled about it, and you can let him slide on less important ones? This approach saved my friendship with my best friend, and we’re both happy about it now.
Dear Cut,
My boyfriend actually went through a very similar experience to yours. He said that most of the time he’d give a somewhat humorous statement, like Sars suggested, and they’d leave it alone. Of course he also said there was always the person who’d be a pest and do the whole, “no, really…†bit at which point he’d do one of three things, give them what he calls the Dalai Lama stare(silent and serene) until they got the hint, or he’d say, ‘It’s a long story for another time,’ or he’d just flat out say, ‘I have cancer and it’s related to my treatment which is going fine.’ He also said he had to develop a healthy sense of humor about it because he didn’t want to waste time feeling annoyed or awkward.
That said, best wishes and if all else fails you could always hit them with your crutch and tell them to snap out of it. ;)
@Sticky: It does sound to me like your therapist is doing a lot more telling than listening. (i.e. saying “that’s unrecoverable from”)-really? For who? You? She knows you well enough after one session to proclaim that you could never recover from another instance of cheating? I don’t think so. I would look for another therapist, and if BF isn’t going to participate anyway, look for someone who does individual, versus couples, therapy. That said, I agree with everyone else that you might also be resisting hearing things you don’t want to face yet.
@Cut – from a complete stranger – best of luck to you – said a little prayer
@Easy – don’t have much to add other than i’m in a slightly same boat, other than i am WAY more extroverted than HtB – we have pretty much compromised and he sucks it up on the things that I say are pretty important, and every once in a while, I get him to do something he’s anxious about knowing that most likely he’ll have a good time – we keep an open line of communication about EVERY event – if he came and hated it, we talk about it and i go solo next time – and i’m okay with that because, like someone said – i’d rather have fun then worry if he is having fun…
i imagine after 10 years, though, that’s hard to get used to, but i also completely agree with thinking back about the times you sucked it up for him – and maybe next time you do that if you both hate it – you can joke more on the way home about how much that blew chunks… and sometimes i just put on a happy face when i’m sitting at his brother’s, waiting for the food – for hours – getting bit by bugs… because he’s happy and having a great time hanging with this boys… and there is a 7-week-old baby who is so freakin’ adorable…
Easy, my husband voices the very same sort of feelings as yours does. We’ve been together 7 years and I’ve known about his feelings on these issues pretty much the whole time, so I never did have the kind of bombshell you got. I completely agree that he was probably speaking in hyperbole — my fatalistic husband uses superlatives like that all the time (@Erin W I can totally hear him saying “There’s no joy in my life any more”) and after talking about it more or observing his behavior for a while, it pretty much always becomes clear that his bark is MUCH louder than his bite! Behavior speaks — and like Sars said, nobody’s that good of a faker.
Anyway, here’s how we deal with it: I tell him faaaaaar in advance of any social engagements I would like to attend with him. I always make it clear weather or not I will go regardless of his attendance, or if my going is dependent on him. He goes to things about 50% of the time. Often if he chooses not to go, we negotiate which ones and how many of our children stay with him / go with me (if it’s a kid-appropriate event). So I show up at things alone or with one child pretty frequently. NOBODY thinks something is wrong with our marriage. Seriously. He just “Couldn’t make it. Sorry!” Nobody has EVER been more nosy than that.
There are a few non-negotiable functions (family holidays, work events – maybe 6 a year) that he fusses about, but he knows they are not up for debate and TBH, he has a strong drink beforehand and then he does just fine. ;)
Also, your husband is in charge of his own RSVPs, you know? If he gets invited to golf or lunch with some dudes, he can say no if he doesn’t want to go! Maybe folks will just think he’s mysterious. People do actually think that of my husband and all he’s really doing is playing Farmville or reading Tom Clancy books!
Also, if I might, perhaps you overstate things a little, too? Your sig leads me to believe maybe you use hyperbole for effect as well, because I really don’t think cheating would be easier. Maybe it seems like that today, but you can get past this, you really can.
Easy, my husband is an introvert as well (I am a textbook extrovert, so this took some getting used to on my part), and he and I have had very similar conversations over the years. It’s really frustrating, especially when you think things are going really well. To be honest, counseling could do some real good for you two, because communication sounds like a part of the problem. My husband is notorious for bottling things up forever and then spilling his guts when I least expect it. Couples therapy helped a ton in getting our communications styles and expectations closer in line with each other. I also agree that your husband is showing some signs of depression–that happened with mine as well, since he suffers from SAD and living in the rainy, cloudy PNW doesn’t always help with that.
Cut, I used to work for an orthopaedic oncologist, so I hope that yours is awesome and that you get better soon. Also, you could try a tactic that some of our patients used (not everyone will get it, but dorky medical humor works on some people) and tell the nosy people that HIPAA rules prevent you from discussing your medical history with them. It might sail over their heads, but at least you might get a giggle!
Sticky – as a therapist, I think it’s likely that your former fantastic therapist would be excited and pleased to hear from you and glad to see how much better you’re doing than you were in the past. She’s probably seen much worse.
If this therapist’s style didn’t work for you, go elsewhere. OR, if you are up to it, tell her how what she said made you feel and see where it goes from there – sometimes therapists activate certain parts of our baggage and it’s almost always productive, even if it’s really hard. I prefer to build a bit more of a relationship and let my clients come to their own conclusions, but people work differently. You can always say no to a therapist, especially if the therapist is wrong (or so right that you can’t admit it at that time). It should be a safe space for you to disagree.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
“I Wish He’d Just Cheated, It Would Be Easier”? Wow. Take a hold of yourself sister.
You are discounting the fact that your husband gets some psychological benefit from doing things that make you happy. No it’s not like faking an orgasm! It’s like, your husband doesn’t particularly like mushrooms, and if he was widowed tomorrow he would probably never eat another mushroom again, but he doesn’t find them revolting either, and he knows your favourite pizza in all the world is ham and mushroom, and really, it’s just food, so he has going along with the ham and mushroom pizza you have been ordering all these years. Because, he doesn’t dislike mushroom as much as you love it, and he’s not that fussed about food anyway, and HE IS HAPPY THAT YOU ARE HAPPY.
(projecting. wildly. but it’s probably true in your case too).
Easy – Establish that you’re hurt that he’s just now sharing his dislike with you, see if it’s a sudden change in his perception/coping ability/energy, and ask what he would like to have happen in the future. Does he want to be able to leave early from functions? Does he want to stay home & let you go to events? My girlfriend is extroverted, I’m introverted, we figure out when it’s important that I be present & when it’s important that I stay home. I have no problem letting friends know that I am just not up for a big event, but that’s me.
Talk about what you each want to happen from now on, focusing on the future.
@Easy, Sars & commenters are dead-on. My father is a severely antisocial introvert, and my mother a cheerful extrovert. Now, in their retirement, they’ve worked out a compromise about which social events are couples-mandated, and which my dad can bow out of.
One thing that seems to affect his genuine enjoyment of the socialization she occasionally pressures him into is the nature of the socialization. Are all these events similar in what they offer as entertainment/socialization, i.e. just conversation? This raised a flag for me:
For extroverts, chatting with friends may be, in itself, a worthwhile and fun activity, but for introverts, it can be hard work, and boring at that.
What Kelly calls “small talk with a room full of strangers†is an introvert’s nightmare. Eating does not count as an activity: it just gives you a brief break from having to come up with something to say. An introvert myself, I’m putting this badly, so check out Philosophy, Etc for a very good discussion of why this is so.
If the social event has something to do, like play a round of golf, or something to pay attention to, like a game or a movie, this offers the introvert some purpose for being around other people, as well as something more purposeful to talk about. To an introvert, talk without purpose is a mill without grist, either an hours-long exercise in politeness or actively excruciating. Without making a big deal of it, could you for instance propose that your next outing with friends be a game night or group cooking or, I don’t know, helping stain a buddy’s new deck (with snacks and drinks!!)–anything that doesn’t need to be taken too seriously but has an activity to it?
Easy:
I agree with Bitts about it likely not being that big of a deal if he doesn’t go to every event. I mean, people will notice that he’s not there, and then they will ask, and then you will say, “oh, he couldn’t make it,” or, “he’s feeling a little tired from work tonight,” or, “he had another event he couldn’t get out of,” and unless they’re very rude, they’ll take that at face value and move on. I’m very introverted and my boyfriend goes out without me at least half the time.
I also agree with pretty much everybody that when he first told you this, he may have been overstating. He’s been dealing with this for ten years–I think something else may have been weighing on his mind that finally made the social situations too hard to deal with, at least mentally.
My strategy for dealing with situations like this one is to never agree to something I really don’t want to do; if I agree to something, I can’t complain about it. It took a few parties where I basically sat in the corner and sulked for me to realize that neither I nor my boyfriend were enjoying ourselves, and we’d both be happier if I stayed home. Now he knows (I hope) that if I agree to go somewhere, I’m enjoying myself and he doesn’t have to feel guilty about “dragging” me along. Maybe you and your husband can come up with something like that–if he really doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t go, but if he agrees to go, it’s his job to make sure he enjoys himself and you don’t have to worry about it. (Also, don’t worry about it. He’s an adult–he’s capable of dealing with the consequences of his decisions, and if he chooses not to tell you that he’s uncomfortable in a situation, that is his problem to deal with.)
“So when he pops out and tells me that no, he really doesn’t especially like any of them (or much of anyone else except me)”
I would personally find this statement to be terrifying. Really, I’m the only person you like? You don’t even like our kids? Or your own friends or family? What if you suddenly decide you don’t like me that much either?
Maybe he was exaggerating so he could get out of going to events that make him uncomfortable but what a shitty way to do it.
@Easy,
Is it possible something in the conversation itself made him a little more animated than he meant to be? To be honest, the way you describe yourself doesn’t strike me as introverted at all. You enjoy time with people, and you enjoy time by yourself. If your husband is introverted in the sense that being around other people tends to be stressful and a lot of work for him, he may have felt the need to play up his dislike and dread of social situations in order to establish his introvert creds.
Maybe you guys can find a decent compromise? If your husband never comes to another social event, that would be odd. If he comes to one less in a month – not that odd. If you leave the kids with him and do some less kid-friendly activities with your friends more often, that probably won’t strike people as all that odd either. And if your friends are really friends of you, as opposed to friends of you both, they might not mind his absence all that much. ‘Like him fine’ is not necessarily the same as ‘really care if he comes to the barbeque’. Weekly dinners with my in-laws would be a nightmare for me, but I can understand that it might look odd for him not to be at those unless it gets established that the third Sunday of the month he has a regular golf date with is buddy Fred or whatever.
I also realize you may not be accurately quoting yourself for every invitation ever, but even the way you phrased ‘Why don’t we do X with Y?’ puts the onus on him to come up with an acceptable reason why *not* to do it, and also indicates that you want to do X so he doesn’t want to try to wriggle out of it. You might try doing something more like, ‘I’m thinking I’ll take the kids to Bonnie’s party on the 4th. Would you like to come?’. Might he still just go along to get along? Sure.
Anyway, a very long way of saying that there’s no reason different levels of socialization frequency need to be the doom of your marriage.
@clobbered: love your comment!
Spot on with the introvert talk here; it is not that introverts hide in a corner. We can be sparkly social and engaging, it’s just that it exhausts us to do so, and then we need some time to recharge.
I agree with everyone who thinks the husband was just particularly frustrated at the time and exaggerated, and I definitely don’t think this warrants telling the entire family, “Oh, husband hates to be with you and only does it for me,” whether that feels like a big secret to keep or not. That part sounds like you want to get him trouble with family and friends to punish him for lying, which is a totally natural reaction and also a totally understandable one, but one that I don’t feel should be acted on.
Easy – just chiming in to agree with KTB that in my opinion, it really could be a communication issue even though you think it’s not. As another extrovert married to an introvert, we had to figure out how differently we handled conflict. Whereas I talk through problems and concerns immediately, he takes time to think about them. After we talk I think we’re through with the issue, and then he brings it up again a few days later. This really bothered me at first but I realized that he just needs more time to process these things than I do – he can’t just think out loud and figure out how he feels that way. SO my point is that his “backpedaling” may actually represent his true feelings. Maybe he just needed time to think about it more before he could articulate what he was thinking. Of course, he could just be trying to appease you, but I do think it’s at least possible that he means what he says now.
Hmmm. Could it be that Easy’s husband has some kind of social anxiety? I suffer from that to an extent, and there are times when I accept an invitation only to back out at the last minute, which makes me seem flaky and I’m sure is super-annoying to people. I’m working on it, but sometimes I just can’t make myself go. It’s frustrating, because I’m smart and [generally] articulate and occasionally hilarious, but I do need a lot of down-time. After years of gritting my teeth and getting through things, I finally told my husband that I really really don’t like going to things where I don’t know anyone, and he quit making me go.
The upside? Fewer events that require pantyhose. :-)
Easy, your husband sounds a lot like mine. He’s quite prone to tell me afterwards that he didn’t enjoy things at all that he agreed willingly to go to and that he appeared to be enjoying at the time. This sometimes throws me, but I’ve come to the conclusion after 12 years together that as people have commented above, he tends to make dramatic statements when something or someone has set him off. Seriously, no-one is good enough at pretending to like people to do it convincingly for 10 years if they don’t like them at least a bit some of the time.
I try not to make my husband go to social things if I think he won’t enjoy them, but over the years we have learnt to compromise. Some sessions with a couples’ counsellor have helped us a lot with understanding what goes on in the other one’s head. I also strongly second the suggestion above that introverted people often seem to get on better when there is some sort of intermediary object or activity. I once spotted my husband spontaneously making conversation with a stranger in Italian (which he doesn’t really speak) while both admiring the same classic car!
Easy:
One of Gretchen Rubin’s happiness tips is something that I’ve almost understood for years, and then very much appreciated seeing put into words. She tells people to “control your exits.” I can imagine that an introvert would feel more relaxed at gatherings if he knew he could leave when he wants, perhaps taking a kid or two with him. Maybe you guys could negotiate occasions when he has the ability to leave (someone would drop you off?) when it suits him.
Hey Easy–
I’m pretty introverted myself; I was talking to my oldest friend the other day about how I view social situations: “It’s kind of like going to the gym. It’s hard to make yourself get up and do it, it’s work while you’re there, you’re tired when it’s over, and it’s never exactly enjoyable, but you’d feel worse if you didn’t do it.” I don’t know if that still sounds dire, but that’s not how I mean it. If he’s anything like me, maybe he’s GLAD that you’re making him do this thing that he wouldn’t be able to force himself to do, but he knows he needs to be a happy person. I mean, talking to people is hard, but it’s worth it to know that you’re part of a community of people, that there are people you can go to if you need a favor, that you are capable of socializing, no matter how you felt in high school. If that makes sense.
As the daughter of a man who would’ve preferred a sharp stick in the eye to forced socialization, I remember the way at parties he’d just kind of . . . mentally go away, while my mother continued to socialize. They’ve been married 40 years, and sometimes my mother went to stuff by herself because my dad didn’t want to put on his game face. Other times, my dad went and made small talk (sometimes he’d ask on the way home, “Who was that blonde lady, anyway?” or something equally socially inept) and made a brave go of it until they escaped. Both knew the other’s social temperament, and they made their social life and their marriage work anyway.
I’m an introvert like my father, and realized some time back that I was never going to get back all those hours I spent hanging around with people I didn’t care about, looking at the clock. I’ve quietly made it known that I’m a great one-on-one companion, but I don’t want to come to your party or your shower or your gallery opening or your wedding or any other gathering of more than a handful of people. I didn’t used to feel so strongly about it, but my job is more stressful and my life is more full of to-do list items, and I really want to make my own decisions about my free time. My friends find me odd, but the fact that I enforce the policy consistently prevents hurt feelings.
Has anything in your husband’s existence changed? Has he lost opportunities for precious alone time, or is he under stress? In such situations, I’m apt to make dramatic statements about becoming a hermit, but I don’t really always mean them. A lot of times, it’s the stress talking, and what I really need is a break.
@Cut I’m disabled and use a wheelchair and spent years giving people accurate answers that were none of their business. I eventually concluded that it wasn’t my job to educate them about my disability, it was in fact my job to guide them to better etiquette. Therefore, I sometimes say “I don’t discuss that with people I don’t know.” A humorous answer is a good way to avoid awkwardness. And there’s always Ms. Manners’ response, “why do you want to know?”
@Easy: this is echoing what a lot of folks here have already said, but I’m an extrovert married to an introvert, and we make it work without too many issues. For instance, we had plans with a bunch of friends tonight, and last night he asked, “Would you be mad if I opted out of tomorrow night?” to which I immediately responded, “No.” They’re my friends, and though he likes them, the discussion always ends up revolving around what we do (we’re grad students) and talk he can’t really contribute to. And we’re moving in a month, so I want to see my friends as much as possible, but we’re also really busy and stressed out, and he needs the time alone. Fine, no problem.
When we were first together, I was sort of bothered by this–I kept saying, “I know you don’t want to go, but I promise you’ll have fun!” Over the years, I’ve learned the difference between things he’s dreading but will enjoy and the things he’s dreading and will not enjoy. And I’ve let him opt out of the latter whenever he wants. And certainly no one thinks there’s anything wrong with our marriage…and if they think Andrew’s weird for not being as sociable as them/their spouses…well…whatever. That’s on them.
But I agree with the commenter above who said that this really isn’t like faking orgasms. It’s about your husband deciding that he hates socializing less than you enjoy it, and he wants to do nice things for you. We all do this all the time in our relationships (or should!)–it’s called compromising.
As Sars said, give yourself some time to calm down, and then talk frankly about this stuff and figure out how to proceed. I promise it’s no big deal.
Easy:
In addition to all the helpful experiences people have shared above, I’d recommend checking out the book The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, by Marti Olsen Laney. My husband and I both read it last year, and it definitely helped me understand and talk about my own introverted tendencies with more clarity. If you and your husband both read it, I think it might really help you get on the same page and understand how to move forward.
@easy I agree with f.lane–as an introvert myself, I sometimes find myself uneasy (occassionally approaching dread) of a social situation. However, I often find that once there, I get along okay. Even (gasp!) have a great time. Especially when I ask other people questions (like prompt them for wacky stories about their jobs, etc). Sometimes I have to make a point to remind myself, “You’ll like it when you get there” when I start to think about bailing. Sometimes I stay home because I need extra time alone.
Okay, there was the time when I went to an ex’s wedding reception along…that was pretty awkward for a time especially when I got the cold shoulder by one of the groomsmen’s wives (its funny now, but it was dicey)…until I plopped myself down at a table with some people I vaguely recognized and rambled until I discovered one of them worked at the zoo! The zoo! How awesome. Then I got hit on by one of the groomsmen and it wasn’t so bad.
Anyway, I’m not saying there might not be other problems, but it might be that he’s let this build up (the pre-social gathering anxiety part) for 10 years and then it exploded all over the living room. Bad idea for him, bad idea for you.
@Easy: It strikes me that you’re talking about two different things. One is introversion; the other is misanthropy.
That your husband is an introvert would simply mean that he needs time to recharge alone, or that he doesn’t enjoy large, noisy group situations, or that he treasures time with one or two other people more than with a gang. What it doesn’t mean is that he doesn’t like anyone. I have introvert tendencies myself (nobody ever believes me because I talk so much, but I absolutely freak out in overstimulating situations and can wind up actually putting my fingers in my ears to briefly experience quiet), but it has nothing to do with disliking people. I can need time alone even when I’m around the people I love the most.
When your husband says he doesn’t like social events and only goes to please you, that sounds to me like it might be a reference to, say, dinner parties, or “event” events. I think those things can be overwhelming to introverted people, and he might mean that sincerely without actually meaning he dislikes everyone (like your friends and your family). If he frequently plays golf and has lunch with friends and that doesn’t involve you, then he’s presumably doing that for himself, and he doesn’t actually dread that or dislike those guys.
If, on the other hand, he’s actually telling you that he dislikes everyone except you, then that’s not introversion and you’d be entitled to take it more seriously. (I agree with Sarah that the rest of what you’ve said doesn’t suggest this is true.) As I said, that’s being a misanthrope, and I can completely understand how staring down the barrel of an entire life with a misanthrope who tells you all his pleasant interactions with other humans are phony would feel lonely and gross, and maybe that accounts for your reaction.
I also agree with Sarah that you should give it some time, but then it might make sense to clarify with him, along the lines of, “You know, it freaks me out when you tell me you don’t like anyone, and if you’re just saying you don’t like arranged socializing, it would be helpful if you said that and didn’t suggest to me that you dislike all the actual people involved.” Not liking people and not liking the kinds of social situations in which you usually encounter them are really different, and it’s worth your telling him that if he’s confusing those two things in the way he describes his feelings, you’d like him to stop.
Wow, thanks Sars and everyone else for the excellent advice.
To give a little update, I never did end up going back to that therapist. I think ferretrick was right on, I just didn’t feel like she was really listening to me, and that she was jumping to conclusions that I wasn’t ready for.
However, I did have a long and frank (or more accurately, many long and frank) conversations with boy about how upset I was by him bailing on the session and how it left me to conclude that he wasn’t interested in working on the relationship.
He made an appointment with a different couples therapist, whom we have seen several times now. I feel so much more comfortable with this therapist, so I am confident that it was the right decision.
As for the relationship, not everything is resolved, obviously, but we’ve got some excellent strategies in place that are already working and more sessions to come.
So thanks everyone!
Easy, my ex is an introvert, and I’m not. He would go to parties if he didn’t have to arrange anything and if I was there to be a buffer for him. Going out without me was not an option for him. He’s a lot like my dad, and the two of them got along well and either talked together or sat silently together at my rowdy family events. He seemed to like my close friends, but was often kind of freaked out when too many of my girlfriends were together talking over one another and moving from topic to topic faster than he could handle. Basically, he would have been happy to spend all his time with me and not have to deal with other people very often at all, even his own family.
Even though I like being social and dealing with people, it wore on me to always be the one organizing the social stuff and having him rely on me to talk to people–even calling people or dealing with customer service stuff bothered him. And now that we’re not together anymore he still wants to hang out with me and me only, while I’m happy to have moved on and just be with my friends.
I hope you two come to an arrangement that works for BOTH of you. It obviously didn’t work out for us, and not for lack of trying on my part. I just never felt like there was enough give and too much taking, and eventually it fell apart. If I had a partner like yours who said it made him happy to socialize with people because it made me happy, I might have hung in there, so I think there’s hope for you two to figure this out. Best wishes to both of you.
we have moved on, but I have one other extrovert/introvert thing to add (even though it’s been touched upon already)
A huge, huge eye-opener for me was when I learned that introvert didn’t mean hiding in the corner, but it more meant that the person (ie: fiance in my case) got his batteries recharged by being home, on the couch, with me and the dog.
Where as I (who trends toward extrovert on the Meyers-Briggs, but only ever so slightly) can get my batteries recharged by being social.
This was HUGE in our relationship – all of a sudden I understood why after my cousin’s wedding I wanted to go to bowling league the next night to see my family and fiance wanted to stay home – we were both exhausted (and possibly hungover…) but I was going to recharge by seeing the people I loved again, he was going to by staying on the couch. This was awesome for me.
And, all of a sudden, I now can let myself (again, slightly trending toward extrovert) acknowledge the times when maybe the socialization isn’t going to recharge me, but exhaust me more and I need some introvert-time on the couch – and you know what? No one cares. If people really like you and want you around, there will be more opportunities. So awesome.
As someone who feels, at times, a lot like Easy’s husband, I want to chime in with the idea that this may not be as earth-shattering a concern as it feels like, even if he WASN’T exaggerating how he feels. I consider myself an introvert, but certainly not a misanthrope (thanks for the distinction, Linda!), and feel frequently as though I don’t “like” some of the people my husband and I hang out with. And yet, while it’s not my preference, it also doesn’t bother me to spend time with those people – I’m not depressed, and there are people I like to interact with who aren’t my spouse. He’s not my whole world. But overall, I need very, very little socialization to be content, he IS my best friend, and the social stimulation I get interacting with coworkers and talking on the phone with my mom is very often enough for long stretches of time (also, the Internet helps). But I’m also something of a people-pleaser, and so I can come across much more extroverted than I am – even to the extent that my husband will be the one to suggest leaving an event first, whereas I’m more willing to stay as long as I feel the host wants me there.
All this to say, sometimes, it really is ok with us “haters” to go out and socialize because it makes other people happy. If Easy’s husband has been doing it without complaint for all these years, and continues to be willing to do it (as he indicated, it sounds like, during their “bombshell” conversation) there’s really no reason not to take him at his word. He may just realize that shunning everyone to spend time only with one’s immediate spouse isn’t all that realistic or healthy in the long run, no matter how much he’d prefer to do it.
If she does decide to make some changes or compromises with her husband based on this information, though, Easy might want to examine just what their social schedule *really* looks like from his perspective. Weekly dinners with her family, for example, seems excessive to me – it’s obviously not for many people, but I don’t think I’d enjoy that with my *own* family, and I adore them. What she sees as an undemanding schedule may be VERY demanding for him. And I find that when my friends start to feel too demanding, I start to feel like I’d be happy if they never called again. Absence really can make the heart grow fonder, and for me, it’s a great way to figure out who I really would regret never seeing again, and who I can do without. Easy’s husband might find out he enjoys the socializing more if he does it with certain people a lot less.
Cut: I hope you’re doing well, and continue to do so. If someone is too rude to take a *pause* as a hint that they aren’t owed your medical history as conversational fodder, you aren’t obligated to make them feel comfortable for being so blasted rude in the first place! Someone asks about crutches in a college town; ok, that’s not a -totally- idiotic assumption that it might be a sport injury – but if you’ve given them that neutral *oh, some surgery on my knee* – and they continue to dig? Really, as long as you maintain a fairly civil tone (dulce et decorum), feel free to answer as you choose: I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you TOO; It was an Alien Probe; and the ever-popular aghast look and “Whyever would you ask me that?”
It’s really OK if they eventually figure out that asking a question like that of a stranger really might be intrusive and inconsiderate and RUDE.