How do I [21F] stop myself from always apologizing to my wife [21F] first?

This is really getting to me. My wife and I are trying to save money to cover some costs for a long-term overseas job opportunity for her (not a point of contention between us at all, I'm totally okay with her going and she knows that). I'm the primary money manager in the house, and I've made some serious alterations to my lifestyle so that we can put away more money for her, but she still spends quite a bit on little things (mostly outside food, usually between $1-4, but a few higher-ticket purchases too) that add up to be more than she realizes. I talked to her last month about how it was necessary to stop spending the extra money, and she did cut back somewhat, but not entirely. This hurt my feelings quite a bit honestly, since I've given up almost all non-necessary expenses in the interest of saving money for her. I confronted her about it again today, and she was initially receptive, but then got angry when she perceived the conversation as "going on too long" and "going in circles". She tried to shut me down, but when I wouldn't quiet down, she told me I wasn't "respecting her boundaries" and left to go sleep in the spare bedroom.

The thing about all this is that my wife has always been a stringent, kind of self-righteous person who keeps tally if I make the same mistake multiple times in a row, and has no qualms dishing out very involved verbal lashings about her problems with me, and doesn't care in the slightest if I tell her that I'm not interested in continuing a conversation with her. She literally tells me she doesn't care, that I brought it on myself, and she has the right to yell at me for as long as she likes because I fucked up. This has gone on for all of the five years we've been together, and she ignores me every time I try to point out the hypocrisy of her behavior. She'll stone-wall me completely if an argument goes in a direction she doesn't want it to (either I don't shut up when she wants me to, or I don't obediently listen when she's angry) and I nearly always go to her first and apologize even if I know I've done nothing wrong, and that was my first instinct when we had this latest argument. I have to play by her rules, but she's not subject to them.

And I'm so fucking tired of it. I don't want to do it anymore, I don't want to apologize, but I have no idea how to handle her otherwise. She never takes the initiative to apologize first, and I'm so tired of feeling disrespected (I'm also never allowed to tell her I feel disrespected; she's a parental abuse survivor, and to her it means something akin to "you've disregarded my authority over you"). It's gone on too long, and I don't deserve this kind of treatment.

Tldr; my wife is a hypocrite who more or less always forces me to extend the olive branch first. What can I do to make it stop?

Submitted October 12, 2019 at 11:50PM

This is really getting to me. My wife and I are trying to save money to cover some costs for a long-term overseas job opportunity for her (not a point of contention between us at all, I'm totally okay with her going and she knows that). I'm the primary money manager in the house, and I've made some serious alterations to my lifestyle so that we can put away more money for her, but she still spends quite a bit on little things (mostly outside food, usually between $1-4, but a few higher-ticket purchases too) that add up to be more than she realizes. I talked to her last month about how it was necessary to stop spending the extra money, and she did cut back somewhat, but not entirely. This hurt my feelings quite a bit honestly, since I've given up almost all non-necessary expenses in the interest of saving money for her. I confronted her about it again today, and she was initially receptive, but then got angry when she perceived the conversation as "going on too long" and "going in circles". She tried to shut me down, but when I wouldn't quiet down, she told me I wasn't "respecting her boundaries" and left to go sleep in the spare bedroom.The thing about all this is that my wife has always been a stringent, kind of self-righteous person who keeps tally if I make the same mistake multiple times in a row, and has no qualms dishing out very involved verbal lashings about her problems with me, and doesn't care in the slightest if I tell her that I'm not interested in continuing a conversation with her. She literally tells me she doesn't care, that I brought it on myself, and she has the right to yell at me for as long as she likes because I fucked up. This has gone on for all of the five years we've been together, and she ignores me every time I try to point out the hypocrisy of her behavior. She'll stone-wall me completely if an argument goes in a direction she doesn't want it to (either I don't shut up when she wants me to, or I don't obediently listen when she's angry) and I nearly always go to her first and apologize even if I know I've done nothing wrong, and that was my first instinct when we had this latest argument. I have to play by her rules, but she's not subject to them.And I'm so fucking tired of it. I don't want to do it anymore, I don't want to apologize, but I have no idea how to handle her otherwise. She never takes the initiative to apologize first, and I'm so tired of feeling disrespected (I'm also never allowed to tell her I feel disrespected; she's a parental abuse survivor, and to her it means something akin to "you've disregarded my authority over you"). It's gone on too long, and I don't deserve this kind of treatment.Tldr; my wife is a hypocrite who more or less always forces me to extend the olive branch first. What can I do to make it stop?