Appropriate response when you let someone down?

[Jaunty]

21 hours ago, Daisygirl25 said:

  Marriage counseling would definitely help us, but he will not try it again.  He's very old school and doesn't believe in talking about his feelings and says he doesn't need someone else to listen to/ talk about his feelings.  

This marriage counseling could be more tactical  than "feelings" oriented.  Getting a third party to assist you both in figuring out how to improve your teamwork.

 

21 hours ago, Daisygirl25 said:

 

You're right, I may just have to seek out individual counseling on my own and just focus on self improvement. 

Instead of thinking of "self improvement" - I'm sure you could use some improvement because who doesn't?  But this is not necessarily about improving yourself.  It's about how to improve  the way you two function in your marriage.

Frankly, you're married to a man who's driving you crazy with the way he does, or does not, do things.   You are not succeeding in changing him, so since you want to stay married, you will need to get some help with acceptance.  

[Daisygirl25]

2 hours ago, Jaunty said:

This marriage counseling could be more tactical  than "feelings" oriented.  Getting a third party to assist you both in figuring out how to improve your teamwork.

I understand what counseling is, and I fully see the benefit.  My spouse does not.  He is willing to work on things together with me, but he is not receptive to seeking outside help at this point.  This is his choice, not mine.

 

2 hours ago, Jaunty said:

Instead of thinking of "self improvement" - I'm sure you could use some improvement because who doesn't?  But this is not necessarily about improving yourself.  It's about how to improve  the way you two function in your marriage.

counseling for myself would be to continue to better learn how to handle my anxiety/control issues that I am very well aware of.  It very much would be for "self improvement".  To be the best person I can be.  This would inadvertently help my marriage when I can better learn how to cope with and handle my mental health and not have it affect those around me as much.  I would not be going to individual counseling to improve my marriage.  I believe this takes two people.  BUT I do believe that it could improve my marriage by helping me to learn how to better deal with situations like this in a healthy way.

 

[ShySoul]

Daisygirl, you've got a good handle on this. All you can do is focus on you and how to best handle your emotions. Self improvement, in whatever form it takes, is a great goal. Concentrate on being the best version of yourself, the person you want to be.

Rather or not it helps the marriage is really up to him. I think you've been doing a good job of dealing so far. You can try to learn new ways to cope and hopefully it will work. But you can only do so much. Even if you handle everything perfect, there has to be more from his side. At some point you'll have to decide if you are going to get it or not. I really hope you do. But realize that it still might not come. 

Have an idea in your mind of what your limit is. Hopefully you'll never get there.

Wishing you luck.