I am lost

[Frangipanni63]

.Hi, I am over 60 years old, married for 40 years and most of the time my marriage is just perfect. But there are times where I get less tolerant and snap at my husband and this is ruining our marriage to the point where he loves me but says he can’t be with me anymore. I am beside myself sick as he is my life. I’m not sure how. I can help me to be a better person but I don’t want him to be away from me as we have never been apart in this way. HELP

[x__]

Hello frangipani 

Congratulations on 40 years of happy marriage, that is an achievement you can rightly be proud of!

Without presuming anything about your situation, this sounds like it might be a stress response.  Are there any stressors that have crept up on you that might be shortening your fuse?

I've been known to be excessively grumpy and I found a couple of things that help me.

The first thing is just to find more humour and joy!  Joy and grumpiness are incompatible, so more joy means less grumpy.  Maybe you can ask your husband to make a silly joke when you snap, or you can do things together that bring you both joy.

The second thing is to slow down and put some distance between the stimulus and the response, for example by closing your eyes and taking some deep breaths. and counting to 10.

Otherwise it sounds like you are already a fine person and don't need to be "better" at all.

[Frangipanni63]

Thankyou . There are always stresses in my life at the moment, but I think I hav become very reactive to comments which probably aren’t meant to anger me but I do! I have times where I am good for a while but then I snap again. I’m going to seek a counsellor for some assistance but am scared of losing my marriage and my life as it is now, which on the whole is happy. 

[therising]

Hi Frangipanni63

I think we can become less tolerant under a variety of circumstances. As x__ mentions, we can be less tolerant under stress. We can also be less tolerant when feeling agitated or upset. Time and experience can also be another factor. Kind of like 'I've been tolerating this particular behaviour or those particular comments for years and I just can't tolerate it/them anymore'. Then there's the 'becoming more sensitive' factor. With this, it's about having become better at sensing when compassion's needed, when more joy is needed in the life of someone we care about who's suffering without joy, when greater understanding or a more open mind is needed etc. You could say the down side of becoming more sensitive in this way can involve becoming more sensitive to a lot of other things too, perhaps without fully realising at first.

Maybe the question could be 'What can I sense when my husband triggers me?'. Could it be frustration, in relation to something he says or does? Could it be resentment, disappointment or something else? My intention is not to slam my husband, it's just to offer an example. For years he'd say to me on occasion 'Are you okay?'. On the odd occasion I'd say 'No, I can feel myself becoming depressed'. His response would typically be 'I hate hearing that because I love you so much. It really upsets me to hear you're upset' and then he'd walk away upset, following the words 'You'll be right'. Going off to watch tv would lead him to feel better. In the earlier years of our marriage, I would become even more down when he walked away, as I'd feel broken in some way while wishing I could be a happier partner for him. Eventually, I came to my senses you could say. I could sense him leaving me alone to feel depressed. I could sense him being largely all talk about love, without the actions of a loving partner. I could sense him leaving me to work out for myself what was bringing me down. I could sense his words 'You'll be right', words without a plan in the way of things becoming all right. I could sense him walking away so as not to feel upset. Above all else, I could sense his reaction being very different to mine. I would always sit with him, get a better sense of how he was feeling, while trying to help him envision the way forward until he could see it for himself. I'd never leave him feeling stressed or down. So, while my initial feelings in regard to him walking away were depressing, they eventually became feelings of anger, resentment and intolerance. I questioned what those feelings were about and then finally made sense of them all. Yay! Needless to say, he's not my 'go to' person for problem solving because he doesn't like to feel or face problems. I have other people in my life for that, who are brilliant when it comes to helping me make better sense of things, while also helping me create a vision regarding the best way forward.

I can't help but wonder whether you're waking up to certain feelings. Could be completely wrong but sometimes it pays to wonder what it is we're actually sensing. Could it be a matter of 'As long as I'm happy and not too challenging, our marriage is good'?