Dear Dr. Yael,
I am writing to you about a most unusual situation. I am by nature a happy go lucky person and I am married to a very devoted man who treats me very well. My only problem is that he really gets annoyed when I am so happy and even too loving to him and our children. It sounds strange but I can say to him that I love him so much in a real way, and if I say it too often, he finds me annoying. Baruch Hashem I have amazing, loving parents and great siblings. I also have great friends, so I am able to focus my positive feelings on them as well as our wonderful young adorable healthy children. I feel so blessed with all our brachot. How can you help me channel my positive feelings to him so that we can share a more loving relationship? He unfortunately comes from a negative home that is somewhat dysfunctional.
Too Happy
Dear T.H.,
I appreciate your letter and I admire your ability to maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity. You write that your husband comes from a negative home. Is it possible that your positive attitude is uncomfortable for him? You may be ego-dystonic to him. The concept “ego-dystonic” is generally used in a negative manner. Ego-dystonic means thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that are inconsistent with a person’s self-concept, values, or goals. Ego-dystonic thoughts can cause distress, anxiety or discomfort. This term is generally used for OCD thoughts or negative issues. It appears that your warmth and positive attitude may be uncomfortable for your husband who appears to have grown up with more negativity in his home. He may be jealous that he can’t seem to be as positive as you are. He may know cognitively that it is healthy to be this way, but may emotionally shut down since it is so strange and different from what he was used to experiencing in his formative years.
This situation is not simple and can be challenging for you. However, if you understand his annoyance as a discomfort instead of as something that is wrong with you, it may help you not feel hurt when he feels this way. He was obviously attracted to your personality as he married you, but it is different than what he experienced, so it likely makes him uncomfortable.
Please don’t feel that this situation is hopeless. You appear to have the appropriate attitude to life. I think it would be most helpful if you find something that your husband does enjoy that is healthy emotionally and physically, and build on that. Please try to rechannel the negativity into more positive feelings. Do you and your husband share any interests or enjoy doing certain things together? Perhaps you can use these interests or time together to build positive feelings. Maybe you can also be loving in a less verbal manner so your husband does not get annoyed. This doesn’t mean that you should change your personality or stop being loving; however, maybe you can tone it down a little when you are with your husband. Of course you should not tone it down with the children, but if it makes your husband uncomfortable, you can try to learn his love language and express your love to him in that way. Gary Chapman wrote a book on the five love languages. The Five Love Languages are as follows:
Words of affirmation
Quality time
Physical touch
Acts of service
Receiving gifts
Do you know which of these five things makes your husband feel loved? Perhaps it is acts of service as you said your husband is very devoted and treats you well. If this is true, you can start to show your love to your husband through doing loving things for him instead of using loving words. If this is not his love language, please try to figure out which one it is (if you can’t just ask your husband which one he thinks makes him feel loved and you will know what his love language is). It is also possible that just feeling loved is ego-dystonic for your husband. If this is the case, perhaps he can go for help to work on this as it is healthy for you both to be able to give and receive love, and if he is unable to receive love, he may need to work on figuring this out and work on dealing with some of his past issues. Hatzlacha!
