Am I the only one who experiences this?

My wife and I constantly argue. When i am with her, I am in bad mood and feel very negative. I snap at her when she wants me to buy something or makes me buy the groceries. I get in a bad mood when I am forced to buy since I pay most of the bills. She pays me less 30% of the mortgage and only when she didn't splurge the money on her multi-tiered marketing business. So it just ****es me off when I have to spend more money when we go out with the kids.

I am very hypersensitive to many things she says to me and thus get into an arguments over small things.

She doesn't understand me and says she is disappointed in me because I keep forgetting, don't do anything and thus lazy, play games too much, and my mood swings. So alot of arguments spring from that.

We went on a trip today when she finally has a Saturday off from her nursing job. I argue with her over small things while driving there. We had a fairly good time and then argue in the car on the way home about me not getting more involved in her multi-tiered marketing business. I don't want to be involved. I am not a salesman and hate dealing with people. I always bring other things into an argument that has nothing to do with the argument.

There is so much more. Am I alone in this? What can I do?

Am I the only one who experiences this?

My wife and I constantly argue. When i am with her, I am in bad mood and feel very negative. I snap at her when she wants me to buy something or makes me buy the groceries. I get in a bad mood when I am forced to buy since I pay most of the bills. She pays me less 30% of the mortgage and only when she didn't splurge the money on her multi-tiered marketing business. So it just ****es me off when I have to spend more money when we go out with the kids.

I am very hypersensitive to many things she says to me and thus get into an arguments over small things.

She doesn't understand me and says she is disappointed in me because I keep forgetting, don't do anything and thus lazy, play games too much, and my mood swings. So alot of arguments spring from that.

We went on a trip today when she finally has a Saturday off from her nursing job. I argue with her over small things while driving there. We had a fairly good time and then argue in the car on the way home about me not getting more involved in her multi-tiered marketing business. I don't want to be involved. I am not a salesman and hate dealing with people. I always bring other things into an argument that has nothing to do with the argument.

There is so much more. Am I alone in this? What can I do?

It sounds to me like she doesn't understand you or respect your views. If you have declined interest in her scam.........errr.........mlm "opportunity" (sorry, but I abhor those things and what they get people into) and she continues to push you, then you have boundary issues.

Also, you say that she doesn't undestand you. That is a HUGE problem. Does she want to? Has she ever looked into ADD and how it hurts your relationship because she doesn't understand it? My wife listened to Driven To Distraction with me because she wanted to understand, and it made a HUGE difference in our marriage. We had been fighting and arguing a lot, mostly caused by me, and things weren't looking good for us. Then I found out that I have ADD, and we went from there.

Every good relationship is built upon good communication. Whether it is a friendship, or a marriage, without good communication and understanding, it will be rocky. So, you need to work on calming down and not letting your frustrations get the best of you, and she needs to respect you and do so enough to understand you and respect your boundaries. It takes 2 to argue, and 2 to make up and fix it.

I hope that helps. I would venture to say that if she would just back off and respect your boundaries while trying to learn about what makes you tick, things would probably calm down a lot. But then again, this is just one side of the coin, and you may be just as guilty of not trying to understand her.

Mike

you are not a unique snowflake... if you want to stay married i recommend reading Dr. Laura's The Proper Care and Feeding of a Marriage. Nothing is perfect. But realize your complaints are common. screw MLM. the only people that make money on MLM are the ones peddling their crap from the top to the salespeople/distributors. If you are not selling to the idiots attending the meetings, get out. They are the customers. The top doesn't care if you actually sell the product or service, only if you BUY from them. MLM's are disgusting in my book.

Thanks for your words, guys.

My wife's pastor peddled this MLM scam to her congregation. I dislike her pastor and her church. But my church is far away since we moved after we married. My wife sees the success the others husband-wife teams are doing and want that.

My wife and I have communication problems. Yes it is not all my wife's fault. I too have an attitude and don't like seeing things her way. She is head-strong and the exact opposite of me. She gets things done and doesn't hesitate. Though she is impulsive like me. She wants to see results and I don't produce the results she wants. She suspects I have ADD too and thinks it sucks and doesn't care to understand. She wants me to change overnight.

I do need to calm down. I am like a bomb with a short fuse and it is hard for me to calmly talk about things.

IS Drive to Distraction a book? Dr. Laura's The Proper Care and Feeding of a Marriage sounds interesting. I will look into these books. Thanks.

MLMers love churches, because they can use people and peer pressure within a group to promote the scam. Greed......in a church.........say it ain't so! :eek:

Driven To Distraction is a book, written by Dr. Edward Hallowell. It is the first thing recommended to me to read when I was diagnosed. Of course, I'm not a reader, so I bought it on MP3 to listen to. There is also a book by him called Delivered From Distraction, which I liked too, but it seems to be moreso the treatment of ADD, which is great, but Driven explains more of what we think and promotes greater understanding, in my opinion.

You say that your wife suspects that you have ADD too. Does that mean that you aren't sure about it yourself? If so, reading Driven To Distraction might really be of help. It struck a chord in me like no other book, and for the first time in my life, I felt like someone understood me. It changed my life, because I went from a very negative person that hated himself, was very angry and frustrated, and even somewhat suicidal at times, to a person that finally realized he wasn't just a bad person, that there were reasons for what I did and how I thought, and that I finally knew what I was battling. It opened my eyes, and I've become a more positive person for it. I've changed a lot in my life to work moreso toward my strengths, and to minimize my weaknesses. It sure beats banging my head against the same wall over and over, trying to do things that just don't mesh with my ADD. It is quite the contrast, and my fuse has gotten longer, my outlook better, etc. Now, if my wife didn't want to undertand and picked at me a lot about it, things would be pretty ugly.

Maybe you can calm down when reading these books, and adjusting your expectations of yourself and your marriage along with your wife. I hope so. I lived the very angry, self-destructive, negative, argumentative course for many years. It's no fun. I came to realize that I had thought wrong and needed to change my perception, and it changed my life for the better. That isn't to say that I don't still struggle with my ADD, or just being negative or getting down at times, as I do. I still have ADD, and still battle, but I get up faster and fight back better than I ever did before.

Mike

I second that! (advice of Mike's)

She doesn't understand me and says she is disappointed in me because I keep forgetting, don't do anything and thus lazy, play games too much, and my mood swings. So alot of arguments spring from that.

Well hell you pay 70% of the bills you can't be to lazy.

Messy maybe but it sounds like you are earning your keep.

She wants to do what she wants to do why begrudge you your choice of leisure time activities. Gary used to watch to much TV I **tched for a couple of month until I lost interest and found some thing else to do - which is how I wound up here

Now HE **tches I spend to much time on the computer. Darn spouses are never satisfied - I don't bother him when he watches re-runs of Frasier and that 70's show I get on-line he can deal with it. . . .he looses interest in fighting and gets on ebay.

I think we would fight more if we had longer attention spans - some time we forget what we are fighting about in mid-argument.


Then argue in the car on the way home about me not getting more involved in her multi-tiered marketing business. I don't want to be involved. I am not a salesman and hate dealing with people.

Gary is our resident sales person me I couldn't sale a drowning man a life preserver at 50% off . . . .Just because she wants to mess with this MLM thing doesn't mean you have to. . . . .maybe both people in those other couples wanted to get involved in this "business" I am gathering you never wanted to and frankly I don't blame you,.


Remind her where your boundaries are and insist she respect them while respecting hers. She can want you to do this marketing thing but that in no way obligates you to do it - I hate selling crap I have always hated trying to sale stuff

is the money your money and her money, or YOUR money? (meaning "our" money)

do you work as a team financially or are you very separate. If your money is teamed up you need to relax and just realize that it's all shared money and quit worrying about paying for things...

and she needs to stop trying to get you to do work you do not have an affinity for...maybe if you both did those things, compromise...


But I am not the best person for relationship advice :)