Submitted by brangpal t3_10kc0mj in relationship_advice
I'm trying to be a better partner.
I (29F) have the most amazing fiancé (35M). He is the sweetest, most thoughtful, caring person. He grew up in a happier home with a more regulated and sane household; while I experienced a divorced household and definitely more dis-regulation and dysfunction between my parents. My mother was very critical and hard on us according to other members of my family.
I have been accused of criticizing in past relationships but I'm not sure what that means or what I was doing wrong. My now fiancé has also mentioned that I do it and I am worried! I don't want to be that way with him, but I also don't know when I'm being critical/criticizing him. I just want the best for him and I feel like I make suggestions on how he can do things better. But from more of a helpful place from me, at least from my perspective.
How can I work on this? Any advice?
Thank you in advance!
EDIT: I really wasn’t expecting this to turn into everyone just shitting on me and telling me how awful I am. I was posting because I really wanted to be better. I said in the original post that I’m not sure when I’m being critical. I was asked for specific examples, and I gave my best guesses on what I think is me being critical. I answered and people took that as me making those comments for every single thing in my fiancés life. As well as making other negative assumptions about me. Even going as far as to say it must be exhausting living with me, I’m toxic/abusive and that my fiancé needs to leave me. How you could make such a bold statement about my life with only a few sentences of context is beyond me. So here is some context: first of all we’re engaged, and seeing as I didn’t make him propose at gunpoint, I would assume it’s because he actually does want to marry me. We have a very healthy relationship, with open communication, honesty, and trust. We are both constantly complimenting each other and give each other love with various different love languages daily. We give each other foot rubs and back rubs almost every night. And we both put in effort to be supportive of each other’s hobbies, actively participating in the others hobby often. We both plan surprise dates for each other and do sweet things for the other regularly. It is a very loving and mutually beneficial relationship full of laughter, love, and care. Our sex life is wonderful too. We describe our relationship as being team mates and work hard together to have a nurturing and successful team. I do 85% of the cooking and 75% of the cleaning. And before someone inevitably says I should be cooking/cleaning if he is providing for the family… I’m the breadwinner. I just work a little less hours during the work week, so I’d rather do chores during the week so we can have the weekends for quality time together. I’m not complaining or saying he doesn’t help, he actually does help so much. If I cook, he will clean, and I have never critiqued him on his dishwashing, and there have been times when I have had to rewash a few things myself. I do the laundry most of the time, and I have no issues remembering what of his things needs to be hand washed. So I don’t think expecting him to remember what is hand wash is a lot to ask. But I have asked him to just leave my laundry out since it seems to be an ongoing issue. Most of the time it’s not an issue as I’m doing the majority of the laundry. (And for everyone saying leggings don’t have to be hand washed, they are Lululemon and it says on the tag that they do.) And the sleep/phone, I have asked him to go downstairs or to another room to play on his phone so it won’t bother me sleeping and he says he doesn’t want to and he wants to be close to me. So he doesn’t want to stay up late to “savor the time when I’m not nagging him.” He is the one complaining all the time about how tired he is, which in addition to it effecting my sleep, is why I find myself mentioning it to him often. He has asked me multiple times to give him suggestions on clothes I like etc. So I’m not just insulting his appearance randomly. He has asked for my input with style. And most of the time I will buy him new shirts or clothing that I think is stylish without saying anything negative to him about what he already has. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll take it back but most of the time he appreciates new clothes and likes what I pick out. I will make sure moving forward that I don’t criticize what he is wearing, even jokingly. For everyone saying I need therapy, I have been in therapy since I was 5. My mother put me in after my parents divorce and it’s been a tool I’ve always appreciated and have continued to use through my teens and adult life. I have worked on lots of things and am very self-aware. Which is why I wanted to work on this criticizing issue, because I know it’s not going to be beneficial and I want to work on it now before we’re married in a few months. (And for people accusing me of being a bridezilla, we decided to elope and just have him and I at the wedding for a special intimate moment.) I have lived with multiple people and partners and have never been told I have been difficult to live with. In fact many friends describe me as laid back and easy going. My profession requires lots of critical thinking and being flexible and adapting to constant changes, so I feel like I have also learned to integrate those things into my personal life as well. And I think I roll with the punches well. I decided to bring the issue up with my fiancé last night and I asked him if he thinks I criticize him a lot (to open up the conversation) and he actually to my surprise said no, not often, just sometimes. We did talk about it and I told him my concerns. So it’s something we plan to work on together. But he seemed surprised that I was so concerned/worried about it, saying it wasn’t really something he considered an issue or often enough to be a big problem in our relationship. So maybe I’m just overthinking the severity of it, probably because we get married in a few months and I want to be the best partner I can be for him. The only thing I wholeheartedly agree with that was commented on is the parenting book/critique comments. While he is an active participant, he picks the parenting books half the time, and enjoys our discussions on the topic, I do understand how that is criticizing and I will work on it. I think it stems from my intense fear of being a bad mother, which is something I am also working on in therapy. Thank you for everyone that actually gave helpful advice, I plan to use those helpful comments to work on being a better partner, I really appreciate it!