The neighbors who lived on the west side of my apartment were a young couple in their twenties. To say that their relationship had problems is like saying if you fall into Niagara Falls you will get a little wet. Their marriage arguments were hard to drown out with my TV.
Being their neighbor rather than their counselor, I found myself hoping they would be very mad at each other so that I could have some peace and quiet in my own apartment.
In the time it takes to drive to the store and buy a whole cartload of groceries, the husband could repeatedly blame his wife for forgetting to buy the milk and always forgetting things, while the wife could spend the entire time blaming her husband for always expecting her to be a mind reader.
It certainly wasn’t helping their relationship and it wasn’t really fixing their problems. I got the answer one day when I noticed that a woman would sometimes visit their apartment while the wife was working. The husband’s routine with this “guest” seemed quite different from that with his wife and from the sound of things, they had quite a good time.
It is very hard for the average human being to cheat on someone he has a good relationship with. But if the relationship is not so good, if there is something to hold against his partner, then it becomes easier to rationalize his (or her) behavior, like having an affair.
Sometimes when people first commit to a relationship, it’s not done wholeheartedly, and even after the marriage ceremony there remains much doubt. Emotional distancing can be a way of trying to hold on to independence and individuality even while married. This is common for people who marry very young or when people marry after having been single for most of their life. And people who were previously committed to their relationship may push away if they feel they are being controlled by their husband or wife.
A close relationship would take away the person’s excuse to behave this way. Blaming others helps us to get off the hook–even if we deserve to be on it. Of course you are not to blame for your partner’s personal choices and an affair can’t really be justified based on a couple not getting along. None of the other harmful behaviors can either, for that matter. Guilt leads people to either give up their behavior or to justify it. If your husband (or wife) sees you as “bad”, then he will feel less bad about his own behavior.
The reason is that your husband or wife could have responded in a better way. He or she could go to drug or alcohol rehab; she can work on her relationship with you. Together or separately, you both could have consulted a relationship coach or marriage counselor. We can decide to break the cycle of arguing by not justifying our own distancing based on our husband’s or wife’s behavior. To start to change things you need to realize that you have more choices than to either fight or withdraw. Neither of these choices will fix anything.
First, we can look at a couple of things. 1) Is our spouse arguing in order to create a comfortable emotional distance from us; and 2) Is our spouse pushing us away because he or she feels pushed away by us? Sometimes when the arguments have gone on for a while, the original reason for arguing is long gone. Then it’s all attack and defense with no good reason at all. Knowing which is the case will help us to react in an appropriate way.
I help people to make their husband’s or wife’s bad behavior toward them not work anymore. Imagine if your husband or wife pushes you away by marriage arguments and you respond in a way that is actually loving and helpful (but never, ever sarcastic). What would happen? Interestingly, instead of your husband or wife pushing away more, he or she would tends to decrease the bad behavior. Real communication would start to happen. Then there would be less need for games, pornography, affairs, etc. Remember–to be effective, your response must make your spouse’s actions toward you not work anymore. At the same time, you will need to have a way to help your husband or wife get what she really needs. Like a lock and a key both parts are necessary.
But, that is what we signed on for. We will never feel peace when we do something to hurt someone else, even if they have hurt us. We need to help our husband or wife to have the best relationship with us as possible. We need to work for our spouse’s benefit because that is to our benefit to. We need to see our husband or wife as an imperfect human being who is doing what he or she knows to get a little bit of happiness out of life. Then, we can help him or her to get more. At first, it’s a tough job when you just feel like striking back. But you need your spouse’s love too. Helping is always going to create more love than hurting. You can choose now to learn how to help your husband or wife and end the distance between you two. I help others with this every day. I would be happy to help you, too.
Isn’t that what a marriage “partner” does? Help the other one when he or she really needs it?
