Carolyn Hax: Wife's anger issues make her spouse feel like a 'doormat'

July 07, 2024

Dear Carolyn: My wife has what I would call some anger issues. I don’t know whether she would agree. But I have asked her at various times to be “nicer” to me. (I hate putting it that way, as it makes me feel like, well, a weenie.) I’m realizing now that she has told me who she is, and she’s not going to be nicer to me. She’ll respond: “What? I can never be moody? I can’t live that way.”; “You just want me to be like one of those ‘sweet’ women.” (Said disdainfully.); or “You just want me to be like this [hand motion indicating a perfectly straight line, meaning completely even and without emotion].”

All that is bad enough. What makes it so much worse, and so devastating, is that she’s a person who, on many occasions, has spent an hour talking to me and obsessing about how she has screwed up by saying something that might have offended or insulted someone or that could be perceived as mean or derogatory. Maybe what she said could have been said better, but in every instance, there is little indication that the person has perceived her comment the way she fears it has been perceived.

I should add that my wife has (she would concede) rejection sensitivity associated with her diagnosed atypical depression, as well as abandonment fears.

So, in short, my wife is so concerned about how other people may feel about her not-very-bad-at-all comments but couldn’t care less about my explicit requests that she talk differently to me. I can’t help analogizing to the child who is nearly perfect at school, but, because that takes so much energy, they let loose when they come home.

In this case, I feel like the doormat where my wife wipes the dirt off her feet that she spares from other people. I’m broken. Help.

— Just the Doormat?

Just the Doormat?: Every word of this is a case for you to get individual counseling ASAP. Your therapist can’t diagnose your wife for you but can give you an idea of the scope and severity of the issues you’re facing, plus tools to deal with them. Your wife’s mental health challenges have thrown you in over your head and have also subjected you to what sounds like emotional abuse. So, I mean it: ASAP.

I know this is a bad time to try to start with a new therapist, so be persistent and flexible, but don’t quit till you find something. Suggested places to start looking are here, on my resource page. Take care.

Oh — and we all deserve kindness, especially from our chosen people. Nothing even remotely “weenie” about asking for it. Asking shows us who refuses to give it.

A reader’s thought:

· “You can be moody. You just can’t take your mood out on me. I didn’t do anything to deserve it.” It’s HER responsibility not to inflict her moodiness on you. I second the recommendation for therapy.

And also, for what it’s worth, asking someone to be nicer to you — in what should be your most comfortable of safe spaces, both your physical home location and your emotional relationship — is in no way a weenie thing. Nobody should have to live with their guard up all the time. It’s EXHAUSTING. It’s okay to say, “I don’t have the energy for that.” It does not make you a weenie in any way, shape or form. It makes you a human who deserves to be treated better and who is willing to ask for it. That’s a good thing.

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