My (27F) lawyer husband’s (36M) debating skills are ruining my marriage. I feel absolutely crushed. How do I get through to him?

A 27-year-old woman expresses her frustration and emotional exhaustion in her marriage to a 36-year-old lawyer. While she loves him deeply, his use of debating tactics and legal jargon to dismiss her feelings during disagreements has left her feeling powerless, unheard, and defeated.

Despite her attempts to communicate how this dynamic hurts her, her husband continues to undermine her concerns with logical arguments, leaving her feeling isolated and crushed. She seeks advice on how to get through to him and find a way to communicate effectively without feeling belittled.

‘ My (27F) lawyer husband’s (36M) debating skills are ruining my marriage. I feel absolutely crushed. How do I get through to him? ‘

We’ve been together for 5 years now. I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m feeling absolutely crushed and powerless in my relationship, and I’m breaking down just writing this. My husband is a lawyer, and his debating skills are ruining everything. It feels like every time we have a disagreement, he turns it into a debate competition.

He’s brilliant at pointing out logical fallacies in my arguments, but it makes me feel so unheard and undervalued. I don’t even know what some of these terms mean, and it’s frustrating when he uses them to dismiss my feelings. Every argument we have turns into a nightmare where he uses his lawyer tricks to make me feel completely worthless.

He throws around all these terms I don’t understand—like “appeal to emotion,” “ad hominem,” and “false dichotomy”—and I’m left feeling like I’m small and stupid. Last week, we fought about where to spend the holidays. I tried to explain how much it means to me to be with my family this year.

Instead of listening, he just said I was making an “appeal to emotion” and that my feelings were irrelevant compared to his logic. Another time, I told him I felt ignored because he’s always working late. He said I was making a “hasty generalization” and that just because he works late sometimes doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about me.

I don’t get any of these terms or arguments, and it feels like I’m constantly losing. Every conversation turns into him tearing apart my feelings with these fancy words, and I’m left feeling utterly defeated and alone. I feel like I’m constantly on the defensive because I can’t keep up with his arguments.

I love him so much, but I’m struggling so much to keep up. I feel completely powerless. I want to have meaningful conversations without feeling belittled. I’ve tried explaining how this makes me feel, but it seems like I’m just hit with more technical jargon.

Even when I try to use I-statements and be honest with my feelings (I try to, but I’m not the best), he says I am “catastrophizing” things. Not sure what that even means. I’ll tell him I’m feeling isolated and unheard and what he says is not helpful at all, but he again manages to come up with some term or argument that I cannot refute.

I don’t even remember the last time I truly felt like my concerns and feelings were valid or real or mattered. Maybe that’s what I’m seeking here too. It’s so frustrating sometimes. I want to smack him with a rolling pin.

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

Baboon_Stew −  Just yell “Objection! This is our home, not a courtroom. Do you want to win the argument or fix the problem?”

BreqsCousin −  You should be appealing to emotion because your spouse should care about your emotions.. He’s being a twat.

FairyCompetent −  He’s invalidating your feelings and negotiating in bad faith. He is deliberately deflecting from the root issue and purposefully using dense language so he never has to have a genuine conversation. 

heyallday1988 −  I’m a lawyer and I’m pretty good at it. Your husband sounds like (1) a d**k, and (2) not a great lawyer. Lawyers who are actually good at this don’t really use those terms in argument because we’re trying to convince juries, who are just normal people like the rest of us.

Big words and Latin phrases don’t convey real meaning. Telling a story does. The people who rely on identifying the type of argument you’re making in order to defeat it are usually law students who want to take their new dictionary for a test drive, or insecure lawyers who are afraid of not looking smart.

Go watch Legally Blonde, the scene where Elle gets Paulette’s dog back from her ex for her. That’s what your husband looks like.

summertime214 −  Hey OP, I’m a lawyer who spends plenty of time arguing with other lawyers. I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t think there’s a way to get through to your husband. He’s not acting like this because that’s how lawyers act, he’s acting like this because he’s an a**hole who wants to control you, and knows he can out-talk you.

As a lawyer, I can tell you that no one argues like that in a courtroom. I know about logical fallacies and how to spot them, but the idea of just throwing out the name of a logical fallacy is laughable. It’s actually called the fallacy fallacy. In actual courtroom situations,

he would need to address your arguments head on and he would need to account for relevant factors, like his wife’s emotions. He’s not doing that because he’s a j**k who wants to win. I really like the book “Why Does He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft. It sounds like your husband is a Mr. right, and he’s using his lawyer skills as an excuse.

Posterbomber −  It’s time for you to stop blaming this on his profession. Millions of lawyers are married and don’t b**ly their spouses. Please get a copy of Patricia Evens book called The Verbally A**sive Relationship, it’s free with the 7 day trial on audible and about $9 on amazon. Also free today at your local public library.

TroublesomeTurnip −  22 and 31. Seesh, he picked you so he’d b**ly you easily. He sounds exhausting and not at all pleasant to be around…

[Reddit User] −  He doesn’t see you as an intellectual equal at all. It’s as simple as that. He probably doesn’t even love you either or he wouldn’t do this to you.

Miserable_Seat6834 −  He sounds like he just took his first college rhetoric class. 🙄. No one wants to be around that.