My husband and I had a miscommunication where I misheard what he said and responded according to that mishearing which was the opposite of what he actually said. We clarified the miscommunication and then he brought up one of the things I’ve talked about from our shared home office during virtual company conferences: what we hear isn’t necessarily what the other person said or what they think. He didn’t seem happy that he could recite that.

I said, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He said, “It is when I don’t ascribe to that way of thinking and it’s always in my head now.”

I said, “You don’t have to stay in the room when I present.”

And then he said “I know,” and it just kind of petered out from there.

I took it personally that he thinks it’s a bad thing that he’s absorbing this way of thinking “against his own will” yet he still chooses to stay in the room when I’m speaking on conferences. I told him that he gets to believe whatever he wants and he interpreted that as talking down to him and that it was frustrating (but he wasn’t offended or upset).

I think it would be better if he agreed with my way of thinking, and he said “yeah, it probably would be better” but I know that he’s not interested in doing that.

I still have a problem with letting him feel his own feels because I think he would think that doing so means I don’t care about him or his feelings enough to avoid saying or doing things that he would interpret as negative towards him.

He has acted in the past as if I’m responsible for his feelings and has made it sound insulting that I say I’m not.