Brassy

He's been working on this off an on for a while. I am not a retiring sort, so I am willing to fight him on things. Some things have improved for sure. However, this keeps just morphing into new things.

I'll give an example. When we need to get new things for our house, I check with him to be sure that he'll like it or can live with it - it is his house too right? Sometimes he'll act like he is going to cooperate and then he'll just not cooperate, but by putting it off indefinately.

We buy a couch (*I* buy a couch) because he loves it and I think it is pretty good. $5000.00 couch. I buy a bed - a bed I think is good and he loves.

We need a new TV stand. We go get a new TV. We get the TV, and he buys a TV stand. One that he asked me about, and I told him I didn't like. I told him why I thought it was inappropriate. It doesn't match anything. etc.

So we have a TV stand I don't like and he yells about how *I* would be wasting money if I got another one (it has been in the house for about 2 years now, and has a rust spot on it....and I still hate it.)

We needed to paint the house. He's colour blind. I have a dozen artists in the family. I wanted to paint, because we only had primer on the walls for 3 years. (can't say I'm not patient). No dice. I had to PAY someone to come in and pick colours. Which we both now don't like....but now he still won't cooperate on changing it. AGAIN.

Subtle, constant power plays. Some overt. Some not.

I try to take him into consideration and make sure he is okay with things.

He avoids taking me into consideration unless I have fought my way in. Then I'm a cow for having disrupted the peace in the relationship.

This is killing me. I want to get out a big "get a clue" bat and smack him with it. I don't want to have to have a big fight so that I can pick out a table cloth. Because if he doesn't like it I'll NEVER hear the end of it. I don't want to have to patiently wait for him to get around to helping me pick something out, he'll also never do so but act like he might soon. Dragging it out for no apparent reason.

When we are looking to buy a new house, he acts like I have no right to discuss or question how a particular house might work for us. Like, my financial contribution of several hundreds of thousands of dollars over time towards it doesn't give me a voice in the way my own home will look. Then when I fight him on it, he does see it. But now he's doing it about the house we are trying to sell (and can't, even though we get more showing than just about anyone in our city. Clean, decent house.)

So......what do you see here? How would fix it?

I don't want to have to just do things I think are right without including him. I think that is disrespectful.