Tell Me About It: Wife uses details against him

Question: My wife has been telling me for as long as we've known each other (around 10 years now) that she wants nothing but openness and honesty from me. So when she asks me personal questions, especially questions that bring up things from my past or that I have deep personal connections to, such as sexual attractiveness and other very intimate subjects, I answer as honestly as I know how.

My problem is that she reacts in a way that undermines the trust and confidence I put in her, and uses what I tell her against me when we fight. Such as: "You can't criticize me for that because you [insert incident from when I was 15 that I told her about]" or my favorite, the snide comment about some personal anecdote about my sexual history, which she likes to drag out when we haven't had sex in a while.

I find myself confiding less and less in her and in general just not offering her information from the heart because I fear everything I say will be used against me at some point. How do we break this habit?

Answer: "We" break it by realizing you have done your part by voicing your concerns, asking not to have your secrets used against you, and withholding further intimacy until you can feel confident your partner understands.

Her part now is to hear you, respect you, apologize to you for her profound abuse of your trust, behave herself hereafter - and then be patient with your continued guardedness as you see whether her newfound decency sticks.

There's no intimate future left for you two unless she recognizes, admits, and renounces these tactics of her own volition.

I'd advise marriage counseling to nudge her in that direction, but, unfortunately, the caution against counseling with one's abuser applies here.

So I suggest instead that you talk to a skilled therapist by yourself to learn more about the dynamic in your marriage, where it comes from, why it's so unhealthy, and what your options are if - when - she keeps refusing to do her part. That's when you focus on saving yourself.

tellme@washpost.com.

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