Loaded words

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I found a text message from my husband to his friend in our old phone that said, "Need to borrow $$. Wife sabotaged [emphasis mine] finances again."

I think this was from the time I was trying to add up in my head some checks we had out. I am VERY VERY BAD at arithmetic and made a mistake somewhere. He knows I have trouble with arithmetic, especially when being rushed like I was. The way he phrased it makes it sound like I intended harm (and makes me sound passive-aggressive). He is an extremely literate person so I'm pretty certain he understands the nuances of what he said.

This bothers me because the friend he was talking to doesn't know me very well and if this is how my husband talks about me, he probably thinks I'm a nutcase. I'd rather have found out he was cheating on me!

I hate loaded words. Like my dad said that I was BOYCOTTING doing laundry, when in fact every week he ASKED if I WANTED to do it, and I said no. Where on earth would he get boycotting from? I sure as heck wasn't punishing him, and I definitely wasn't protesting against doing laundry outside the house. He asked a question, he should have expected an honest answer.

He'll also say I "won't" do something when the CORRECT term is that I "can't" or that it just never crossed my mind.

I think the thing is is that NTs, even if they are literate, tend to interpret words with a more malleable meaning.

I think he just meant "did something that had the effect of sabotage", not that you did it on purpose. The tone I imagine him saying it in is one of exasperated affection for your quirks- not actual hostility.

But even if he had said it in the tone you imagine-so what?

What would you HAVE him say?

"My wife is a well meaning dumbass"?

What options are there?

If you were in his shoes how would you have said it?

When somebody who you love is an ass, especially in these noncatastrophic type ways that mine and your husbands tend to be asses, you end up with limited choices about it.

You can either;
1. Confront him with the text in a calm way and talk to him and tell him how you feel and ask that he tell you if he is upset with you
2. Confront him with the text in an angry way because of how he portrayed you. Tell him to keep your damn name up out his mouth unless he wants you to give him a reason to b*tch
3. tell him you get a feeling that he's upset with you about something and apologize in general for whatever it is you did and ask him what you can do to be a better wife
4. take him to counseling and hope a professional will get through to whatever passes for a psyche up there
5. do absolutely nothing and do not let yourself get mad because he will not change and that's just how passive aggressive men are, (mine is one big time) and you have to work around their behavior to make the marriage work
6. say f*ck it, take out a large loan in his name, pack a suitcase with only the stuff you really like in it and fly off to some warm tropical location with only hot, well built shirtless men and the women outnumber them 50 -1 and their sex symbol/goddess is a middle aged woman.

Here is what will happen if you do any of those choices;
1. He may get defensive that you looked through his phone but he really doesn't care because if it was truly private he would have deleted it, it's just a phone - that's a technique to distract you from the topic at hand. He may tell you that he's not upset you are misunderstanding what he said, which would serve to take any blame off him and put it on you. He may also just say ok he will from now on and then promptly forget everything you said and do exactly what he wants to do anyway.
2. He may get defensive that you looked through his phone but he really doesn't care because if it was truly private he would have deleted it, it's just a phone - that's a technique to distract you from the topic at hand. He may tell you that he's not upset you are misunderstanding what he said, which would serve to take any blame off him and put it on you. He may get angry because you have gotten angry first and will prove to you that he can get angrier than you so he won't listen to anything you say, make responses that don't make much sense in the context of the argument, yell at you, tell you that he doesn't have to live like this, he can't stay here, he's not taking this anymore, and slam out the door and be gone for a while then come back and either not speak to you for a while or be completely ok. He may also just answer you by saying ok and then promptly forget everything you said and do exactly what he wants to do anyway.
4. When he talks to the therapist he may get defensive that you looked through his phone but he really doesn't care because if it was truly private he would have deleted it, it's just a phone - that's a technique to distract the therapist from the topic at hand. He may say that he wasn't upset and that you misunderstood him, which would serve to take any blame off him and put it on you. He may complain that you brought him there when he doesn't need to go and complain about wasting time and or money that could have been spent on other things, then say but if you think ya'll need counseling he will go to counseling - this is an attempt to try and make you feel guilty about making him do something he doesn't want to do and make him look cooperative and you look and feel unreasonable, and is an excuse to refuse to go somewhere or do something you want to do later because he doesn't have the time/money because it was used for the counseling. He may also answer the therapists questions and be cooperative and agree to do exactly what the therapist says from now on in ya'll relationship and follow her suggestions and then promptly forget everything she said to him and do exactly what he wants to do anyway.
5. He will continue to do exactly what he wants to do and talk about you exactly how he wants to talk about you, but will do the things you tell him to exactly how you tell him to do them but will never take the initiative to do them and will look for any loophole to not do it the way you want it done, as long as you only expect him to do physical actions that you direct him to do and you do not expect him to take any initiative or do anything above or beyond the very least that can be expected of him. As long as you treat him like a grown son who lives at home and is just a little slow or maybe is a big stoner, but either way needs to be told what to do and when to do it about every single thing, and not expected to do anything that is too far outside of his comfort zone, things will work out. While you will have a semi-obedient son who will sneak to do the things he knows you don't want him to do, and not a husband, the marriage can still work if you accept your role as his mother/authority figure and never, ever expect him to give you any security or emotional support or anything at all that an equal partner in the marriage would give you.
6. I can be packed in 300 minutes and we can get a two for one deal on that loan because I'll take one out in my husbands name too and we can fly off together to man island to live happily ever after.

Good luck, and ((hugs))

He is prone to making statements like this about other people, too. When I've questioned him on it, he always says that he believes that X did Y knowing that it would have the effect it did.

I'd rather be thought of as a well-meaning dumbass than a sneaky saboteur (saboteuse?).

I would have said, "R goofed up when he balanced the checkbook," which is exactly what happened.

OOM: I'd vote for the last option, but we'd have to take my ADHD 4 YO son with us. I'm not leaving him alone with Grouchy. It's like he expects me to think with his brain sometimes.

I'm fine with bringing your son. I'm used to kids, remember? I have 4 and they all have kids over here all the time, so I never have peace and quiet. I have two boys and both were ADHD, so I'm down with that.

Mine has pissed me off to no end today, and that's probably why I wrote so much in response lol. I'm about to write about what he did. it's honestly something that could be so petty if I didn't know how it was meant. He's passive aggressive, very passive aggressive, and he really is like having a grown son who is a little slow or maybe a heavy stoner, same thing, living at home. He does ONLY what I tell him to do, and I can't ask if he would do something because in his mind that leaves the option of not doing it after saying yes, so I say "I need you to do....."

Anyway, I'm fixing to post it. If I get through the rest of this day without wringing his neck it'll be a miracle!

I don't bother asking my guy to do anything. Maybe your guy just really needs you to be very specific. I need very specific instructions when I'm asked to do something. If R's idea of washing the dishes involves drying them and putting them away and then wiping down the counters and the stove, he needs to tell me to do all of that, or else I'll just wash the dishes and leave them in the dishrack. I hate when he gives me a grocery list asking for a particular brand of something because if the store is out of the exact thing, I don't know what to substitute--and of course, I don't remember to carry my cell phone around.

I feel kinda bad that I always have such negative things to say about R on here. He really can be so great and supportive sometimes. And he's really, really cute. And he did single-handedly re-roof our house and redo the kitchen. And he stayed home with our boy for his first 3-4 years (not like I had much choice in that matter, but he talks about it as if I foisted the burden upon him so that I could go kiting off to work).

Never heard the term "saboteuse" before.

Its sounds kinda.....sexy!