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There’s a level of control that occurs in relatively few marriages that we would see as part of an abusive power and control dynamic. But then there’s a lower level of control that doesn’t come from an abusive spouse that can still be frustrating and lead to conflict in the marriage.

We’ve talked about the abusive kind of control before, so if you want to learn more about that kind of control feel free to go back to our previous episodes of the podcast to learn more about what that looks like. 

Today, we’re talking about the annoying kind of controlling. This is not so much about the spouse’s power and dominance as the controlling spouse’s worry, fear, anxiety, and maybe even mental health issues that are driving this behavior. And sometimes the non-controlling spouse may also be acting in ways that prompt this behavior. If you’re listening to this to try to figure out your spouse, you may ask yourself what your role might be and how might you help your spouse feel less of a need to be in control.

Where Control Issues Come From

1. Fear

Control issues are often rooted in fear. This is the first place to look. If you’re afraid and you want to make it safer, you’re going to want to control the variables. This is quite a common response to fear.

Fear can come from a number of different places. One place fear can come from is trauma. When something very frightening or overwhelming happens, it may cause a person to install certain requirements or demands in order to preserve safety. For example, you’ve been in a late night car accident, and you now want to control all of the family travel so that there’s no late-night travel going on and no one is allowed to go out after dark. So now you’ve become “controlling.” You’ve installed requirements or demands on others in order to preserve your sense of safety and well-being, to stop the horror from repeating itself.

Another source of control is abandonment (fear of being left alone). If you were left alone at some point as a child or at a point in your marriage, that may result in the kind of controlling behavior where you don’t let your spouse do things on their own or do certain things on their own. You always have to be there, or you always have to do things together.

2. Betrayal

Betrayal may also lead to controlling relationships with certain kinds of people in order to prevent re-betrayal. For example, if in your first marriage you were sexually betrayed by your spouse, in your second marriage you may marry a faithful person, but you exert control on them to make sure that that previous betrayal doesn’t re-occur, much to the frustration of your current spouse. That can get difficult because it can cause such distress in your marriage that there’s an emotional separation, or drifting apart that occurs between you. Thus, controlling behavior can lead to further dysfunction. 

3. Mental Health Issues

Now that we’ve talked about a few fear-related causes of control, we’re going to move on to look at mental health. Some mental health issues can cause controlling behavior. Take personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Someone with BPD may say if you leave, I’ll hurt myself, or I might not be ok somehow (there’s a clinging aspect of BPD that does relate to fear of abandonment, but it is also a mental health condition and the fear piece is a part of that). 

BPD is something some individuals suffer with, but it is not a common disorder. A more common mental health issue would be anxiety of various forms: generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia (we can’t go out, or we go there and I make you turn around and take me back home), etc. which may manifest as need to control/limit behaviors or activities with others in attempt to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. The other spouse may find themselves saying “why are you always controlling the time that we have to leave. Why can’t we just stay and have a good time. Or, even symptoms of OCD or relational OCD where there is an obsession over the quality of the bond between you.[1] This is not a formally recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5, but it is fairly well documented anecdotally. With relational OCD, there’s an obsession over the quality of the bond between the two of you. One person is always checking up on how things are going, controlling all the things we’re doing together to make sure we’re ok, things are going well, we’re having conversations, etc. The other spouse may feel like “can we not just be together.” Those are experiences in the marriage that are born out of one person’s mental health struggles.

4. Perfectionism 

Perfectionism is another possible source of control issues. Perfectionistic people may feel the need to do things right or be seen as doing things right, as having that ideal marriage or that ideal family. This is related to a deep, often unacknowledged sense of personal shame, so they need to appear really well before others, and this may extend to their spouse as well. So, there’s a lot of control about how you both appear when you’re in public, what you both behave like when you’re in public, etc.[2]

5. Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem is another cause for control issues. One study reported that 35% of controlling people believe they are “nobody’ and have no value unless they are in a relationship.[3] This means that you are drawing a lot of value from being in a marriage to build up your self-esteem that you are a wanted, loveable person.

Underneath the low self-esteem, there could be a fear of being useless without their spouse or a fear their spouse will reject them if they express their true feelings. Or there may be a belief that nobody else would love them so will do anything to keep their spouse.

6. Insecurity in your relationship

Insecurity in your relationship can also lead to control issues. You may feel insecure in the relationship so that you need to control what your spouse is doing, how they’re doing it, and who they are with. You may push away any alternatives to yourself. This may also be due to spousal bad behavior. If your husband flirts with certain kinds of women, and you don’t want to be around those kinds of women as a result and he thinks you’re controlling, he actually needs to face up to what’s going on for him. This is a situation where a spouse may be controlling things because you (as the husband) can’t reliably demonstrate the security of your marriage bond to her.

Research shows that 53% of controlling people indicated they “cling to their relationship as though their life depended on it.”[4] They have a deep concern about not being loved enough, and may feel that they love you more than you love them.

Research shows that 54% of controlling people worry about being dumped to the point where their fear keeps them up at night. That fear/insecurity might result in controlling a lot of the things you do together, or making sure that it’s just you guys together all the time because they’re trying to still this uncertainty they are carrying around.

If you’re listening to this and your spouse is saying “you’re kind of controlling” and you say “you know I do stay up at night worried about our marriage,” that might be something to explore with a therapist. It may be an attachment issue; maybe you had a parent that was unreliably available and you had to work hard to feel some sense of connection. Now your spouse might be a reliably available person, but you can’t rest on that because of that template that was formed in you early on in your life. 

You may be wondering how to tell the difference between this kind of worry about your marriage and the idea that you should go with your gut if you suspect your husband of cheating on you (as an example). This is an important distinction to make. To really understand the fear, you have to look at the evidence surrounding the source of your fear. If you’re thinking about the fear when you are in a calm moment and you think, my husband has actually never done anything that would cause me to doubt him. When I really stop and look at the evidence, I realize it’s ok, but I still have this gnawing fear. Then you want to look for evidence in your family of origin. If there’s a ton of evidence in your family of origin and none in your husband’s life then our gut is sending a warning signal, but it’s sending a warning signal based on a past template. If you grew up in a family that was always there for you and there’s clear, ongoing evidence in your husband’s behavior, then the fear is likely telling you that there may be cause for concern. In short, go for your gut, but make sure the source of the data is based on evidence.

7. Unhealthy ideas of love

Another reason a spouse might be controlling is having unhealthy ideas of love or what an ideal spouse/marriage looks like. Research shows that 47% of controlling people find themselves drawn to romantic partners who have serious personal, relationship, or psychological issues. So, if you find yourself trying to control your spouse, you might ask yourself if you came to the relationship with the person you are married to with a mentality of trying to fix their problem, or out of some belief that they would be lost without you. 

Sometimes the word codependency comes up (though this has come into some disfavor in the counselling community). It may be more helpful to consider whether you draw worth from supporting, improving, or caretaking your spouse. That means that you really have to control them because they’re a very broken person and they need a lot of help, and when you help them you feel really good about who you are and your ability to make this world a better place. You’re needed and valuable. So, control really gets wrapped up into this mentality. And it’s hard for a person to make a shift from that to the idea that they have to let their spouse take ownership for their life. 

Sometimes, when you take a step back, your spouse’s problems make life harder for you. This raises the question “what is legitimately in your control that you should be taking care of and what is something that your spouse needs to take care of and left to face consequences for. That can be a hard line to walk, but it can bring a great deal of freedom for you both when you walk through it carefully and thoughtfully. (Controlling behavior is tiring for the person doing the controlling as well as the person being controlled).

How to Support a Controlling Spouse

If there is a mental health issue, it’s important to seek a proper diagnosis and treatment. It can often take some time to face that challenge of figuring out what the issue is and pursuing psychiatric treatment. That requires a lot of support, compassion, care, and thoughtfulness from you as their spouse. 

If you notice that your spouse is exerting controlling behavior in the moment, try to look for the fear. Speak to that fear and reassure it. Stay present and help your spouse to stay present. Voice their fears by saying things like “are you afraid of losing me here? Are you afraid that I might give more attention to these other people than you? I want you to know that I’m aware of this, and I’m going to work really hard tonight to make sure that you know that our marriage is secure, I’m here for you, and you’re my main point of interest. We’re going to go through this together. In doing this, you’re making the commitment more explicit than you may otherwise have thought you need to by verbalizing your commitment to your spouse and allowing your spouse to feel held emotionally and highly valued by you. That reassurance will likely help your spouse feel less of a need for control. If you can communicate and provide some of the safety so that they won’t feel that they have to establish that for themselves. In doing this, you can help your spouse to stay present. You are essentially saying you may fear losing me, but right now I am here, I am present with you, you are loved, you are held. 

Managing Power Struggles

A crucial thing to do during a power struggle is to be firm but kind. Articulate your understanding of what is appropriate in a given situation, and what you have decided to do. Remember, you cannot control (or reverse-control) your spouse’s behavior or thoughts. It’s important to focus on your own actions, but in the interest of the marriage bond, not just self-interest.[5]

Sometimes, this can also come back to power struggles. There may be a point where you need to be firm but kind as well. We would encourage spouses to try the more compassionate approach that we’ve just suggested first, and work with that for a while, but there may be other times where you need to articulate your understanding of what’s appropriate in a given situation and what you have decided to do. For example, if your wife doesn’t want you to go to a business meeting with other women, you may say “I have to have this business meeting even though there will be women in the room. I need to have the meeting or I will lose my job” (this is assuming there has been no betrayal, but your spouse has a fear or insecurity). You may need to set a boundary and go to the meeting, but you can ask your wife what she needs in order to feel reassured (e.g. I can check in with you before and after the meeting). Focus on your own actions rather than your spouse’s. You want to act in the interest of the marriage bond as well, not just self-interest. So, rather than saying “I’m going to do this whether you like it or not,” you could say “I’m going to take care of our marriage and I need to do what’s required for my work.” So, it’s marriage interest, not just self-interest that’s motivating this discussion.

Sometimes, you will need to exercise your own power to choose what you will do. Then you can step out of the power struggle and leave your spouse free to decide what they will do.[6] For example, if you’re supposed to go out to dinner at a friend’s house, your spouse’s anxiety sets in, and 30 minutes before going your spouse says “our family isn’t going. We’re staying home.” You may say “I want you to know that I love you, I’m here for you, but these people have put a lot of effort into this, I’m going to go out for dinner. What do you want me to tell them about why you’re not coming? I don’t want to throw you under the bus, but I do need to go.” In this way, you’re setting a boundary by keeping your commitment, but also giving your spouse the freedom to decide whether or not they will go.

In some situations, you can concede and work through the issue later, but other times you need to do what you’ve committed to do, so you’re striving to preserve the integrity of your marriage without allowing it to become the defining feature of your relationship. This can be tough to navigate, and you want to choose carefully where you’re going to exercise your own power to choose, but sometimes you do need to compassionately step out of the power struggle and encourage your spouse to face their fears.

• References
• [1] Kristina Randle, “Anxiety & Control Issues,” PsychCentral (blog), 2018, https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2011/12/06/anxiety-control-issues/.
• [2] “GoodTherapy,” GoodTherapy (blog), n.d., https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/control-issues.
• [3] Ilona Jerabek, “Fragile Ego-Trip – New Study Reveals Factors Behind Control Issues in Relationships,” Cision (blog),2018, https://www.prweb.com/releases/fragile_ego_trip_new_study_reveals_factors_behind_control_issues_in_relationships/prweb15906327.htm.
• [4] Jerabek.
• [5] Richard Kop, “It Just Takes One: Resolving Power Struggles in Love and Marriage” 63, no. 3 (2007), https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=8631e5dc-ffae-474a-a42e-e7c7c77bba9f%40sdc-v-sessmgr01.
• [6] Kop.

 

This is a subject we’ve wanted to address for some time. We see some irony in the work we do with couples or individuals when it comes to abuse. Often, though not always, people who are in a relationship with a truly abusive person do not realize it. On the other hand, couples who are in high conflict often label the other person as abusive when they are not really an abusive person, although they may relate to abusive tactics from time to time. So, the ‘abuse’ word gets abused sometimes. And other times, when it should be used, it’s not. So, we hope we can provide some clarity today by going through some of these emotionally abusive behaviors.

One distinction we want to make right off the bat is that probably all of us at some point in time have resorted to using one or more of the abusive tactics we are going to discuss in this episode. There’s a difference between bad behavior and a more fundamental problem of being an abusive person. The latter is a more characterological issue: it’s a way of seeing one’s intimate partner all the time as someone to be controlled, dominated, manipulated to serve you, as less than you. On the other hand, many of us in conflict may use some abusive tactics — that’s not acceptable either, but it’s nowhere near the scale of severity compared to a spouse who faces a characterologically abusive person every day. It may just be that your marriage is normal, there’s no cycle in that sense, but when you get into conflict, you might use unpredictability or blame. That’s bad too, but not problematic in the same way as abuse.

The key distinction between resorting to abusive behavior when in conflict and being in an abusive marriage is that the cycle of abuse is always happening in an abusive marriage. We talk extensively about being in an abusive marriage in episodes 123, 124, and 125.

Generally, abusive behavior can be verbal, emotional, and/or physical. Right now, we’re focusing on emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can include verbal assault, dominance, control, isolation, ridicule, or the use of intimate knowledge for degradation. This is the kind of abuse that targets the emotional and psychological well-being of the victim in order to gain power over them. It is often (though not always) a precursor to physical abuse.[1]

Some types of physical behavior can be considered emotional abuse in that they involve acts of physical violence although the victim is never physically impacted. Examples include: throwing objects, kicking a wall, shaking a finger or fist at the victim (threateningly), driving recklessly while the victim is in the car, or threatening to destroy objects the victim values.[2]

Emotionally Abusive Behavior 1. Gaslighting

According to Paige Sweet, gaslighting is “a type of psychological abuse aimed at making victims seem or feel ‘crazy,’ creating a ‘surreal’ interpersonal environment (so bad it didn’t seem real) (p. 851).[3] It’s more of a gendered phenomenon that occurs in power-laden intimate relationships where the wife is dependent, not the husband. The husband brings the social and economic capital to the relationship, and so has a degree of power that he can abuse. It promotes the idea that women are overly emotional, irrational and not in control of their emotions.

Signs of Gaslighting:

• Spouses who gaslight will often “flip the script.” That’s the basic tactic: whatever actually happened, they’ll say something else happened. You heard them say XYZ, they’ll deny saying it at all or tell you it was actually ZYX and you must be losing it for not remembering. When there’s not another witness and your spouse is doing this constantly, it erodes your sense of self-trust. There’s lots of lies: about what was said, what actually happened, and who did what. This is usually more subtle, rather than a blatant thing.

• Another tactic is to use your insecurities against you: you’re worried because he didn’t come home last night? He says that that’s your own foolish paranoia. Rather than being willing to be accountable, the emphasis is placed on what’s wrong with you and why you’re upset over this in order to remove the spotlight from themselves.

• Another example of gaslighting is a constant challenge of past events. Again, couples in conflict often disagree on details, but this is an extreme, constant rewriting of past history that leaves you bewildered and disorientated.

• Another example is if your belief that his behavior is wrong is turned around on you and you are being blamed for being too emotional, for having inappropriate thoughts yourself, for being hormonal, or just labeled crazy. One startling thing that studies have shown is that some women preferred physical to psychological abuse, and would sometimes provoke physical violence to avoid being called crazy.[4]

In our experience, women coming out of this kind of contact are often very disoriented, it’s like their magnetic compass doesn’t work and just spins on the dial. They don’t know where true north is anymore, or what the facts are, or what’s real, or is it just me? They’re extremely bewildered because this has been such a steady thing.

2. Unpredictability

Abusive people may seem to make situations chaotic for no other reason than to keep the other in check and hanging on to them to control what’s happening. The abuser feels like everything is stable for them, but they still cause chaos for their spouse so that they can remain in control of the situation. Other types of unpredictable behavior include:

• Putting on a drastic mood swing, such as going from being very affectionate to full of rage and breaking things. There may be emotional outbursts that they create that keep you dancing on edge and taking care of them.
• Starting arguments for seemingly no reason.
• Self-contradiction, such as making a statement that contradicts the one they just said and acting like there’s something wrong with you for not following.
• Acting two-faced, such as being charming in public but completely changing the minute they get home.[5] This is an emotional tactic to keep you on edge and ungrounded so that the power and control remain with the person who is acting this way.

So, you can see that things that are this severe are not what most people are doing when they’re in conflict. This is a different level and a consistent cycle.

3. Isolation Tactics

Isolation tactics are forms of emotional abuse and include such behaviors as restricting a person’s contact with family and friends, or physically confining a person (such as blocking a doorway so that they can’t leave). Isolation aims to undermine the victim’s life and identity outside the relationship and foster a sense of dependency on them.[6] Sometimes, this can happen geographically. But be very cautious about being whisked away in a long-distance relationship and taken to the other side of the country, or somehow compelled to abandon your education or a successful career, or taken away from family and friends.  Geographic relocation is one tactic for isolating someone. 

Sometimes these kinds of things happen in normal marriages, but if that’s happening and these other signs are going on, that’s when you want to be cautious. It doesn’t mean that every time a couple moves it’s because the husband is abusive, but this is a way that an emotionally abusive spouse can isolate their partner from their support network so that they can be controlled. In our organization, we’ve seen this happen to very professional, intelligent women.

4. Criticism and blaming

Isolation can also happen as an abusive tactic through turning a person against their support network.  Watch for a romantic partner who villainizes your family and friends so that you end up feeling very alone.

If you’re trying to see if a relationship is abusive from the outside, remember that you’re looking for a number of signs of abuse. If, for example, you’re trying to determine if your daughter is in an abusive relationship and her spouse is using isolation tactics, or if she’s just cut contact with you, remember that you’re watching for a constellation of behavior, not just one particular sign of abuse. Furthermore, if you are a parent of someone in an abusive relationship, you also don’t want to take over control from the controller. You want to empower your daughter to make wise decisions that are in support of her own personhood. 

5. Avoiding Responsibility for Unacceptable Behaviour

Extreme manipulators may recruit friends, law officers and court officials, even the victim’s own family to their side, while shifting blame to the victim. They deny the violence or abuse or rationalize it and tend to use such types of defenses:

• Total outright denial (It never happened. You are just imagining it. You want to hurt me),
• Alloplastic defense (It was your fault, your behavior provoked me into such reactions, if you didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be so mad). In other episodes, we talked about the fundamental attribution error where if I do something wrong, I’m just a victim of my circumstances, but if you do something wrong there’s something wrong with your character. That to an extreme is the alloplastic defense, which is a tactic for avoiding taking responsibility for your own unacceptable behavior.
• Altruistic defense (I did it for you, in your best interests! It was your fault).
• Transformative defense (What I did to you, it was common and accepted behavior).[7] I did this for you in your best interest. I’m taking you away from your family and friends so that you’re going to be a better person, so I can help you. Or, what I did to you, that’s a common and accepted behavior. (E.g. in this part of Canada/America, everyone slaps their wife when they don’t do something, so why are you freaking out? What’s your problem?).

Perpetrators are often concerned with their reputation and image in the community – among neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, bosses, friends, extended family. They use specific forms of denial when they are in public which can include:

• Family honor stricture (We don’t air dirty laundry publicly, the family’s honor and repute must be preserved, what will the neighbors say?), and
• Family function stricture (If you snitch and inform the authorities, they will take me away, and the whole family will disintegrate).[8]

5. Deliberate Accidents

A spouse can abuse their power over you in some fashion, such as “forgetting” to mail your light bill so that your lights are turned off.[9] (Of course, if you simply forget, that’s different, you’re not doing it to establish power and control.) Another example would be not catching something on the stove from burning so that you are made to feel inferior for burning supper.    

6. Control

There are a number of signs of control including:

1. Making demands or orders and expecting them to be fulfilled.
2. Making all the decisions, even canceling another’s plans without asking.
3. Continually monitoring a spouse’s whereabouts.
4. Insisting on regular calls, texts, or pictures detailing where the person is and even showing up to these places to make sure they are not lying.
5. Requiring immediate responses from calls or texts.
6. Exerting financial control over the other, such as by keeping accounts in their name or only giving them a limited allowance.
7. Spying by going through the person’s phone, checking their internet history, or looking through their communications with others. Now, a lot of these do occur when there’s been a betrayal. But that’s a need to re-establish safety after a break in trust. And you want to take this along with the whole list of everything we’ve talked about today.
8. Demanding a spouse’s passwords for their phone, social media accounts, and email at any time and really taking away their privacy and independence.
9. Belittling a spouse by treating them as though they are a child, including telling them what to eat, what to wear, or where they can go.
10. Yelling, which is frequently a scare tactic and can be a way for an abusive person to let the other know who is in control (like they’re intimidating you into a submissive position).
11. Using the other person’s fears; abusive people will often manipulate a person’s fears to control them.
12. Withholding affection; abusers may punish a person for “bad” behavior by withholding affection or making them feel they are undeserving of love.
13. Giving excessive gifts with the implication that these gifts may disappear at any time, or as a reminder of what they would lose if they left the relationship.[10]

7. Blame

Playing the victim: The abusive person may try to turn the tables on the other person by blaming them for the issues they have not dealt with. They may even accuse the other person (the actual victim) of being the abusive one in the relationship. So, they push you to the point that you are angry enough to have an outburst at them, and then say that you’re verbally and emotionally abusive towards them, therefore you need to modify your behavior. Now they’re back in control because they’ve pushed you out of control, and they blame you for doing that.[11] We’ve worked with cases where the husband provoked the wife to screaming and raging, and then calmly pointed out her irrational and crazy behavior as proof she was the problem. This also goes along with the gaslighting point we started with. 

8. Shame

There are a number of ways that an abusive partner can shame their spouse:

• Lectures: The abusive person may give lectures about the other person’s behavior in a way to make it clear that the other person is inferior.
• Outbursts: This involves aspects of control, as well. Not doing what an abusive person wants may result in an outburst of angry behavior from them. It is both a way to control the person and make them feel shame for “not listening,” paying attention, or attending to them properly.
• Lies: Abusive spouses may blatantly lie, telling the person false opinions from their friends about their “bad” behavior. For example, “even your mom can see that you’re not a good housewife and has made comments to me about that.” This is often done in a way that you can’t verify whether the accusation is true or not.
• Walkouts: Abusive spouses may leave a situation rather than resolve it. In a disagreement at home, for example, they may remark about how the other person is “crazy.” This can put all the blame on the other person and make them feel ashamed while also not solving the issue and then the other person just walks away. So, they’ll leave you, and then they just detach from everything.
• Trivializing: If the other person wishes to talk about their issues or problems, the abusive person may criticize them for even having the issue or tell them that they are making a big deal out of nothing.[12]

An example of trivializing is if you had a concern about an abusive spouse’s behavior and you want to talk about that and they turn around and tell you how ridiculous it is that you would even bring this up and act like you are you always nitpicking on them, and now there’s something wrong with you because you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Thus, they are trivializing you into feeling shame for even having brought up concern about me. 

So, if there’s no chance ever to discuss what your spouse is doing wrong as the abuser in the relationship, that’s a good sign that the behavior is abusive. If you can’t get anything to stick to your spouse, again along with some of the other behaviors, that’s a sign of genuine emotional abuse. It’s not necessarily the defensiveness, but more the fact that your spouse is dumping it all back on you and indicating that the fact that you even brought it up means that the problem is you. Even though we’re almost always defensive at times as couples, even in healthy marriages, this is referring to when a spouse is never taking responsibility. 

9. Humiliation

This can take a number of forms including:

• Blatant name-calling: abusive partners may blatantly call the other stupid, “an idiot,” or other harmful names. If confronted, they may try to pass it off as sarcasm or emphasize the times you may have called them a name back.
• Joking or sarcasm: Although sarcasm can be a tool for comedic release if both people enjoy the joke, abusive people can also disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. Sarcasm can be a tool for comedic relief if you both enjoy the joke, but often abusive people disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. If the other person feels offended, the abusive spouse may make fun of them further for “lacking a sense of humor.”
• Harmful nicknames: nicknames or pet names may be normal in relationships. However, a name that hurts is unacceptable if it harms one’s spouse.
• Public displays: abusive people may openly pick fights in public, only to blame the other person if they become angry. They may also pick on the other person or openly make fun of them in a social setting.
• Patronizing: this may include talking down to another person for trying to learn something new, or making it obvious that the person is “not on their level.” Again, in a healthy relationship, you should be able to talk about things that the other person doesn’t know, but there should be give and take. There shouldn’t be a sense of “you’re stupid” because I’m having to tell you this and I know so much more, which can go along with lecturing, or there’s no point in even telling you because you won’t get it (in a demeaning way), which is withholding information, another power tactic.
• Insults on appearance: an abusive person may insult the other’s appearance around others. Comments may include remarks about weight, body shape, or postpartum changes in your body.
• Cheating: abusive people may cheat on their partners to hurt or humiliate them, or to imply that they are highly desirable and you’re not, therefore you’re stuck with them, you’re lucky to have them, and you should be trying to please them.[13]

If you’re listening and thinking that a lot of this is happening (it doesn’t have to be all of it), you went through the assessment and it indicated that your spouse is abusive, what now? It’s important to realize that you can’t fix the abuser, but there is a point where knowledge is power. You want to study, understand, expand your awareness. Two books that we recommend are The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans and Why Does He do That by Lundy Bankcroft. If it’s not safe to have those physical books around, you can get the Kindle app on your phone and download it there or go read it at a local library and leave the book there. They’re commonly available books. 

Sometimes hope comes from leaving an abusive relationship because you can’t change the other person. And research shows that abusive men are most motivated to change when their spouse has left and they want them back. As long as you’re there and you can be controlled, there’s no reason for him to face his own demons.

Regardless of what action you decide to take, you certainly want to educate yourself about abuse and what it looks like. In some cases, you can start to call these things out and set boundaries and insist that they stop. In this way, you can renormalize the power in your relationship. But if doing that puts you in more danger or makes it worse, then your right to safety, emotionally and physically, is a greater moral importance than staying in the marriage. We’re pretty strong in upholding marriages, but there are certain cases where the right to respect, health, etc. takes priority over that and so you might consider making an action plan in that case. A person’s right to life, respect, and dignity is of higher value than upholding a marriage. Again, listen to our content on abusive relationships. This episode and the following two episodes are about abusive relationships. We talk about when you need to leave, how to leave, and how to make a safety plan.

References

[1] Gunnur Karakurt and Kristin Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 5 (2013): 804–21.
[2] Karakurt and Silver.
[3] Paige Sweet, “The Sociology of Gaslighting,” American Sociological Review 84, no. 5 (2019): 851–75, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419874843.
[4] Sweet.
[5] Susan M. Johnson, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, 2 edition (New York: Routledge, 2004).
[6] Karakurt and Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age.”
[7] Zlatka Rakovec-Felser, “Domestic Violence and Abuse in Intimate Relationship from Public Health Perspective,” Health Pyschol Res. 2, no. 3 (2014): 1821, https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2014.1821.
[8] Rakovec-Felser.
[9] Tamara Hill, “10 Common Behaviors of the Abuser,” 2019,
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/caregivers/2017/04/10-common-behaviors-of-the-abuser/.
[10] Johnson, Jon, “What Are the Signs of Emotional Abuse?,” Medical News Daily (blog), accessed May 22, 2020, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325792.
[11] Johnson, Jon.
[12] Johnson, Jon.
[13] Johnson, Jon.

If you have betrayed your spouse and disclosed that betrayal to them, one thing you will have become very aware of is the rage that betrayal can cause. In our experience in working with couples, many people who are working through their own infidelity and trying to recover their marriage find that they aren’t sure how to respond to this rage or what to do with it.

Today we are going to look at why anger is a normal part of responding to betrayal, where it comes from, and how to best support your spouse in the face of it.

Anger Is A Common Reaction to Betrayal

When a person is betrayed, there are a lot of potential responses that often come in waves and in varying degrees of intensity. According to researcher MeowLan Chan (2009) “Typical responses to betrayal include: retaliation, reduction in trust, distrust or suspicion, increase in monitoring, negative emotions (e.g., anger, disappointment, frustration), deterioration in the quality or even termination of the relationship, withdrawal of effort and cooperation within the relationship, and demand for more legalistic forms of trust as substitutes for interpersonal trust.”[1] These reactions affect both your spouse and your relationship.

One of the most prominent negative emotions is anger, or even rage. In all fairness, when anyone is faced with an extreme threat they will often respond with anger. Anger helps a person survive by shifting their focus toward doing the things necessary for survival.

Since a marriage is usually grounded on what was seen to be a reliable foundation of trust, when that foundation is shattered by betrayal, this significant breakdown in one’s foundation is often experienced as a threat to survival. Furthermore, anger is a common response to events that seem unfair or to circumstances that set you up to be a victim of the choices of others, especially a situation like a betrayal event.[2]

Understanding Trauma and PTSD from Betrayal

The severity of a spouse’s response to betrayal can come as a surprise to the betraying spouse. Often, a betraying spouse wants to justify their actions and the way they may have gone against their values with those actions. They do this by denying and minimizing their actions in their mind. As a result, they tend to mentally turn the dial down on what the anticipated consequences will be.

Regardless of how much denial is occurring, it does not affect the severity of the impact on the betrayed spouse. Quite often, a betrayal becomes a traumatic event, even causing many of the symptoms of PTSD. Your spouse may experience other negative effects of trauma such as forgetting important parts of the traumatic event, exaggerating negative thoughts about oneself, others, or the world, distorted blame of self or others, detachment or estrangement from others, inability to experience positive emotions, lack of interest in activities, or globally negative experiences of fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame.[3] This is all due to the trauma that frequently comes with betrayal. It’s such a blow to a person that it becomes a shattering event.

Looking at the rage response more specifically, some of the criteria for rage include:    

1. Having an experience that exceeds healthy anger.
2. Losing the rational component of brain functioning that enables a person to think clearly and logically.     
3. Losing the ability to consider consequences for actions.
4. Even seeking to hurt your spouse in a physical way.

It should be noted that these particular features of rage were observed in a study of violent women who experienced rage towards their partner, but not in a betrayal context.[4] However, we hear about betrayed spouses experiencing the same symptoms when they have experienced spousal betrayal. It’s important to note that even when you have been betrayed, it is still not acceptable to resort to physical violence. Yes, it’s also unacceptable to be betrayed, but two wrongs won’t make a right and physical violence won’t help you feel safer.

Why Your Spouse Ends up Raging

Basically, the reason your spouse experiences rage is because the part of their nervous system that is responsible for calming and stabilizing him or her under stress breaks down under situations of extreme stress. It just cannot keep up with something as severe as betrayal. And in that scenario the part of their brain that helps with social engagement goes offline and they resort to more primitive fight or flight behaviors such as withdrawing or lashing out angrily.[5] In any case, the important thing to remember is that this is a protective function that is active now.

In plain English: your betrayed wife is raging at you because she is trying to restore a sense of safety within herself. That safety was torn away by the betrayal. We all need to have a basic sense of safety that the people closest to us are trustworthy and reliable. And when they prove they are not through something like infidelity, our survival systems kick in to try to restore or bring us back to that place of safety. This happens at a very core level within our nervous system.

How to Respond and Support Your Spouse 1. During the rage

It is helpful if you can keep in mind that your betrayed spouse’s rage is an effort to restore safety that feels as if it has been torn from her (or him), then you will be in a better position to adequately respond to these very intense emotions.

If you can, try to hear what your spouse is saying and carefully note the underlying fear. The fear is often not overtly expressed, but it will definitely be there behind the rage. Responding in a reassuring and empathic way to that fear (and avoiding becoming defensive) will often calm the rage because it is showing your spouse that you get it: that you see what is happening for him/her and you are willing to acknowledge that reality.

When your spouse understands that you see, acknowledge, and are appropriately responding to their pain, then they can begin to feel safe again. Because all of us carry some faith in humanity that says, “If this person really sees and acknowledges how hurt I am they will do everything in their power to make sure I don’t get hurt more.” That’s what empathy does.

Of course, it’s difficult to respond with empathy in the face of rage. You likely won’t get it the first few times. But if you’ve researched this topic and found this episode/article, then you are likely starting to realize that it is much more effective to respond gently to your spouse, rather than meeting their rage with your own anger or defensiveness.

On a broader scale, there are a number of other useful strategies to help with your spouse’s betrayal trauma. These efforts will help reduce the amount of anger and rage your spouse feels as well.

2. Recognize That You Are on Different Timelines

A betrayal is traumatic. It takes time to heal. It comes with a flood of thoughts and feelings and confusion. Just like you would expect someone to need time to work through grief after the loss of a loved one, so your spouse needs time to work through the loss of the marriage they thought they had.

You may be feeling better almost immediately because your confession or disclosure has relieved you of this great burden of shame and secrecy that you’ve been carrying. But your spouse is going to be on a different timeline, so you should not have the expectation that they will feel relief from this as rapidly as you will.[6]

Everyone is different, but in some cases, it would not be unreasonable to expect it to take a year or more to fully process through grief and forgiveness after a betrayal.

3. Offer Compassion, Comfort and Care

Your spouse’s rage or anger may activate those feelings of shame and guilt that you first experienced with the betrayal. But it’s important to work hard at staying non-defensive and refraining from responding with anger.

One common recommendation is to think about responding with compassion, comfort and care.[7] Compassion is just extending the empathy and concern we talked about previously. Comfort is about providing reassurance and care attending to your spouse’s extra needs as they go through this difficult process. As you consistently provide these, it helps your spouse see you again as a source of comfort and safety. 

4. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

It can be tempting to try to take your spouse back to the past and to resurrect that in the present. But that won’t work. Recovering from betrayal, especially a significant betrayal, means rebuilding your marriage. You will have to work together to build something new and beautiful, rather than trying to regain what was past.

The past is what brought you to a place where betrayal was possible and then it became a reality. A new trust, a new bond, and a new authentic vulnerability will need to be built between you.[8]

5. Encourage Your Spouse to Get Support

Quite often, betrayed spouses feel very isolated. If they do reach out to a friend and disclose what has happened, then they bear the shame and stigma of being that poor wife/husband that got cheated on. On the other hand, being alone in your pain is a greater misery than just having the pain. This can leave them caught between a rock and a hard place.

Encourage your spouse to reach out to a trustworthy, confidential friend or two, or to family members. Ideally, if you want to save your marriage, these people should be friends of the marriage, and not just someone who is going to give your spouse pity or vilify you. Yes, they will need to provide support for your spouse, but they need to be able to do so with the aim of helping you rebuild your marriage.

As well, it is good to help your spouse understand what we have already discussed: that betrayal often causes symptoms of trauma. And while you have caused that trauma, you cannot heal it for him/her and so, regrettably, you have also tasked them with the need to get some counseling help as well. There are therapists who specialize in betrayal trauma: we offer this in our online counseling agency, and we can help people via secure video calls. In many parts of the country, these specialists are also available.

References

[1] MeowLan Evelyn Chan, “‘Why Did You Hurt Me?’ Victim’s Interpersonal Betrayal Attribution and Trust Implications” 13, no. 3 (2009): 262–74, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017138.
[2] “PTSD: National Centre for PTSD,” n.d., https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/anger.asp.
[3] J.S. Fraser, “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Unifying Effective Pyschotherapies: Tracing the Process of Change, 2018, 20, https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1037/0000078-009.
[4] Kimberly Flemke, “Triggering Rage: Unresolved Trauma in Women’s Lives” 31, no. 2 (2009), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-009-9084-8.
[5] Stephen Porges, Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation
(London, 2011), https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0-nxBGHj36oC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=polyvagal+theory+rage&ots=tfyDgln2gk&sig=4rFi-k45sMVkXSYsq1BMaD–C1s&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=polyvagal%20theory%20rage&f=false.
[6] John Mark Haney and Leslie Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 35 (2014): 401–13, https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1073.
[7] Carl Stewart, “3 Essential Responses to Your Spouse’s Betrayal Trauma Triggers,” CovenantEyes (blog), 2019, https://www.covenanteyes.com/2019/02/25/3-essential-responses-to-your-spouses-betrayal-trauma-triggers/.
[8] Haney and Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model.”

Today we are going to unpack the virtue of admiration. By the way, did you know that admiration has a dark side?  I had no idea until we tackled this subject too, but it does make a lot of sense!

If you’ve ever read the Song of Solomon in the Bible I think you have a pretty clear example there of how admiration is so helpful for fostering love and affection between lovers.

What is Admiration?

I imagine everyone knows what admiration is, generally. But actually describing it might be a little harder. Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate admiration from other similar positive emotions in marriage. Here’s a helpful quote from a study we reviewed: “Admiration is a feeling of delighted approval of the accomplishment or character of another person[i]”

A lot of the time admiration comes from pleasant surprises: when someone does something or shows characteristics that prompt feelings of fondness, awe, approval and respect[ii]. I think that we can also benefit from being intentional about admiration though, and seek to notice and focus on those attributes in others and in our spouse in particular.

But there are other emotions linked to admiration. These include[iii]:

1. 1. Gratitude: thankfulness for someone’s actions and who they are. Strongly linked to feelings of admiration and often naturally follows on from it. Both have positive effects for relationships
   2. Elevation: researchers describe this as a specific form of admiration felt in response to “witnessing an act of virtue or moral beauty”. It’s like when you see your spouse do something especially incredible you “elevate” them in your mind.
   3. Envy: now this is the dark side of admiration, where instead of approving of the qualities of others, you feel bad about your lack of these qualities. Or you desire to take those qualities for yourself. Envy is desiring the good others have rather than just admiring them. You see, admiration is wholly focused on the other person, while envy is more introspective
   4. Joy: feelings of admiration are physically and psychologically similar to feeling joy. We often experience these together.

Admiration Impacts Marriage Stability and Satisfaction

Here’s a neat, long-term study. Shapiro et al[iv] interviewed 43 newlywed couples and then observed them for 6 years of their marriage. They found that the key qualities which predicted a stable, happy marriage were:

1. 1. Fondness and admiration expressed. Expressed is the keyword there: not just felt.
   2. Awareness of your spouse’s needs and their world
   3. Amount of unity expressed through use of phrases including “we” and “us” rather than “I”

These factors were strongly linked to both marital satisfaction for husbands and wives, and marital stability. Using these factors they were able to predict stability/divorce 6 years later with 94% accuracy.

How fascinating is that? From one conversation the researchers could predict the trajectory of a marriage with almost total success. By the way — we worked really hard in designing our content for our marriage retreat to build these three items up in the couples who attended.

Buffering

Fondness and admiration were also seen as a buffer which protected couples from the stress of major life events such as the birth of the first child.

This was especially true for husbands expressing admiration for their wives: “The fondness and admiration system in a couple’s relationship can be thought of as the glue that holds the relationship together… The more fondness for his wife the husband expresses, or the more glue he puts into the relationship, the more satisfied the wife is with the marriage.[v]” (Shapiro et al, 2000)

Inspiration

Admiration for someone can inspire you to want to be a better person yourself. This kind of inspiration “involves the transcendence of the ordinary preoccupations or limitations of human agency[vi]”, meaning that admiring and being inspired by someone motivates you to push yourself beyond what you would normally think yourself capable of.

Feelings of elevation (admiration for moral excellence) motivates you to be more like your spouse, increases your desire to help those around you, and increases our appreciation for the good things you have in life[vii].

I thought this was a brilliant piece of learning from the research, too. You would think admiring others only builds them up but it has this reflective impact that inspires you to become more and to push yourself towards better things, too.

Finally, researchers have also found that inspiration creates a sense of connectedness between admirer and admired, and can increase openness levels between them and even increase the energy and enthusiasm you feel when together[viii]. All good mojo for marriage, right?

How To Create More Admiration in Your Marriage

So we’ve seen some of the benefits of making admiration a key part of your marriage. So how do you turn this into a reality?

Build Your Admiration System

You might think this stuff maybe sounds too lofty and out of reach. Let me give you a very concrete example of how you can start to make this work today, and of course, if you want to go deeper — get the exercise that we have created to go with this episode.

Remember: admiration is part of a cycle that brings couples together and helps them resolve problems[ix]. So, here’s a simple process to illustrate how you can develop a positive cycle of admiration. Notice how achievable this is:

1. 1. One spouse is experiencing difficulty or some of their needs aren’t being met
   2. The other spouse notices this
   3. The other spouse attempts to meet the needs
   4. The first spouse notices this attempt to help them
   5. The first spouse expresses this admiration for their husband/wife’s ability to meet their needs

This forms a cycle where the expression of admiration motivates the admired spouse to continue finding ways to meet the admiring spouse’s needs, leading to further admiration. Boom. Easy, right?

There’s a couple things more that we want to note, just to give you a leg up on this.

Awareness of Needs

Work on becoming more aware of your spouse’s needs. This is not hard to do.

Expression of admiration and awareness of your spouse’s needs work together to strengthen a marriage. Remember: these are two of the predictors of stability in a marriage. You can work on them simultaneously to make all this easier.

Awareness of your spouse’s needs means you notice when they are stressed or upset, and you express more admiration and affection to help them cope. “If the husband is aware of the stress the wife is going through, for example, he may respond by putting more glue into the relationship or expressing more fondness or admiration toward his wife.[x]“. The wife then notices that her husband is making a particular effort to help her, which strengthens the marriage and helps reduce the stress she is under.

So, to express admiration effectively just slow down and observe your spouse more closely so that you can become aware of your spouse’s needs and how s/he is coping with the stresses of life[xi] (Shapiro et al, 2000).

Meeting Needs

Now that you have got the awareness thing going, the next step is to start thinking about how to better meet those needs. This requires an awareness of your spouse’s inner world.

You see, in order to receive admiration from your spouse you have to be able to meet his or her needs[xii] (Harley, 2011).

If you feel for yourself that you are not being admired enough, it could be because you are not meeting your spouse’s needs properly. This is counterintuitive. But it is really empowering too, because it gives you something to do to change this problem that you are facing.

To be admired you have to do things which are worthy of admiration.

Start by becoming aware of what your spouse’s needs are. Next, determine if those needs are being met. If not, seek to meet those needs. The normal consequence of this kind of interest and effort in your spouse is admiration from your spouse.

Expressing Admiration

There’s a sense in which I want to say, do not make this into too large a project. Like an event. Instead, admiration and respect should be expressed often and simply in small, everyday moments. Don’t go for epic moments…just nurture this in the everyday life of your marriage.

This helps build the fondness and admiration cycle, strengthening the marriage[xiii]. Part of this is learning to form a “habit” of admiration where spouses are constantly “scanning” the environment to notice things to admire about each other.

And don’t think this is just for happy marriages. The mental habit of looking for the good things to admire can help distressed couples too, who may be more prone to only noticing the bad things their spouses do.

So whatever the situation is in your marriage: admiration can help. Give it a shot. Let us know how it goes!

References

[i] Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Rik Pieters, ‘Why Envy Outperforms Admiration’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37.6 (2011), 784–95 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211400421>.

[ii] Sara B. Algoe and Jonathan Haidt, ‘Witnessing Excellence in Action: The “Other-Praising” Emotions of Elevation, Gratitude, and Admiration’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4.2 (2009), 105–27 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760802650519>.

[iii] Algoe and Haidt.

[iv] Alyson Fearnley Shapiro, John M. Gottman, and Sybil Carrere, ‘The Baby and the Marriage: Identifying Factors That Buffer against Decline in Marital Satisfaction after the First Baby Arrives’, Journal of Family Psychology, 14.1 (2000), 59–70.

[v] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[vi] Ven, Zeelenberg, and Pieters.

[vii] Algoe and Haidt.

[viii] Ven, Zeelenberg, and Pieters.

[ix] JOHN MORDECHAI Gottman, ‘Gottman Method Couple Therapy’, Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, 4.8 (2008), 138–64.

[x] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[xi] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[xii] Willard F. Harley Jr, His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage (Revell, 2011).

[xiii] Gottman.

Can you remember what it was like to flirt with your spouse before you were together? The fun and excitement of figuring out you were into each other… don’t you wish you could bring that spice into your relationship now that you’ve been together for years? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to look at today!

What is Flirting?

Here’s a simple definition: flirting is any behavior with has the potential to be seen as sexual[i]. Actually I think that’s just a sexualized definition of flirting. I think flirting can be suggestive of romance without needing to lead to sex. I say that for the benefit of Christian singles and married folk alike.

Flirting is often more nonverbal than verbal: smiles, touch, eye contact and so on. It is often playful and ambiguous: you may not be quite sure if you’re being flirted with or not and that’s all part of the fun.

And let me just say, that while I don’t want to take flirting away from singles who are looking for a marriage partner, in this episode we are talking about a couple who are flirting between themselves.

Now it’s hard to imagine that researchers could investigate something like flirting without sucking all the fun out of it but one researcher noted that flirting is often used to achieve one of six main goals[ii]:

1. 1. Sex motivation: flirting to initiate sex
   2. Relational motivation: flirting to increase intimacy in an existing relationship
   3. Exploring motivation: testing a potential marriage partner’s interest in a relationship (this one is definitely for the singles rather than the married couples!)
   4. Fun motivation: flirting simply to have fun
   5. Esteem motivation: flirting to increase your own self esteem
   6. Instrumental motivation: flirting to gain some form of reward from the other person.

Other than the exploring option, I think we can look at all of the others and say that flirtation in marriage can and should be a normal part of our interactions. It may look different than the flirting that happens outside of marriage, but between a husband and wife it can really just be a normal part of marital interaction and can really be used to reinforce the sense of togetherness in the marriage[iii].

One researcher actually noted that long-term marriages use a particular style of flirting called authentic flirting. It has one of those holographic stickers on the side. No, just kidding. No, this study in 2017[iv] suggests that authentic flirting is not aimed at having fun or experimenting or trying to get something from your spouse: it is simply an expression of love.

Here’s a quote: “Authentic flirting is defined as an affectionate, creative, or playful action for connecting emotionally and sexually with another person. The motive is to see and be seen lovingly by a partner through expressing spontaneously a combination of curiosity, play, humor, or flirting gestures for increased emotional intimacy.”

So let me just say on that point: just because your wife flirted with you doesn’t mean you need to expect anything in bed. If flirting in your books only exists as a signal that you are going to have sex tonight, you are actually missing out on a lot of other fun flirting. It is truly a very diverse and flavorful way of expressing love. Don’t make your wife afraid to flirt.

Flirting and Marriage

On that note, sometimes there are barriers to flirting in marriage.

Barriers to Flirting in Marriage

One of those barriers could be just what we mentioned: your spouse may want some flirting just to be for the joy of it. But you sexualize it every time. Leave some room for your spouse to be utterly exhausted and still feeling like throwing some flirt your way without creating expectations that he or she is going to be too tired to meet.

Another challenge that can come up is if the passionate love in our marriage declines over time. It is normal to experience a more stable, companionate love after the first 18 months of marriage but this doesn’t mean you have to lose the fire. We looked at this in an episode on how to date your spouse again.

And then the other barrier is the simple fact that life happens: children, increased work pressures and so on. That can make it hard to have energy for flirting or to feel unburdened enough to do so.

Marital Benefits of Flirting

While some of these things can get in the way, I want to encourage you today to think about the upside.

A study in 2007[v] found that flirting in married couples could serve as a helpful relationship maintenance strategy. You can use flirting to:

1. 1. Reaffirm your love and attraction to your spouse
   2. Increase intimacy between the two of you
   3. Just have fun together
   4. Show positivity
   5. Manage and reduce conflict

Flirting in married couples also serves a purpose not seen in flirting outside of marriage: the desire to create a “private world” between you and your spouse. This is done by using words or actions which you would only use with your spouse. So it can take on this really neat exclusive aspect: like an inside joke.

Flirting was therefore linked to higher marital satisfaction, for both men and women[vi]. However, the outcomes of flirting do vary depending on the motivation behind it, and we’ll get to that below.

Ways of Flirting When Married

Ok, so how does flirting look when you’ve been married ten years and you’ve barely got time to speak to each other, let alone get your flirt on?

As mentioned above, flirting in married couples is often aimed at creating a joint private world. Flirting using language or actions you only use with each other, or flirting in a way that draws on your shared history together can achieve this, leading to a stronger bond and better marital satisfaction[vii]. So just be thinking about how you can develop those areas in your marriage.

Flirting in marriage should also try to be a natural part of the daily routines of the family, and integrated with the rest of your daily interactions[viii]. So instead of setting aside specific times for flirting and romance it should be a natural part of your interactions together, and fit around other responsibilities.

This is especially true if there are lots of demands on your time, due to kids, work etc. It really probably will do better as something spontaneous — that surprise element is always fun. Send a text message if you think of it at work. Whatever it takes.

Similarly, a study in 2017[ix] writes that marital flirting doesn’t have to be planned out or carefully planned, and should instead be “spontaneous and playful”, taking advantage of any time you have together. Flirting in this sense can become automatic, like a habit, and therefore doesn’t require any extra time or effort- it just happens.

Remember that flirting in married couples looks different and has different outcomes depending on the motivation behind it. It’s not going to look the same as when you guys were dating.

For example, research in 2012[x] found that flirting driven by esteem motivation (flirting to increase your own self esteem) is negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Flirting as a way to manage conflict was also negatively correlated with marital quality, so trying to flirt your way out of arguments can be a fail.

I would qualify that by saying that there are times that you can effectively defuse conflict through the use of humor — as long as you’re only defusing and not constantly deflecting. You still need to solve the issue — but humor along the way can make it easier.

One of the studies we looked at thought that two good ways of flirting as married couples were display flirting and attentive flirting. Who knew, these are on top of the six kinds we mentioned earlier!

Display Flirting

This means overt displays of affection or sexual interest, such as:

1. 1. Direct sexual comments and compliments
   2. Boasting/showing off
   3. Acting, dressing or talking in a seductive or romantic way
   4. Big romantic gestures to impress and seduce

Display flirting is often based on sex motivation, or the desire to have fun and create a shared world. This kind of flirting creates greater feelings of romantic love. It also (hopefully) increases sexual satisfaction, leading to higher marital satisfaction.

Attentive Flirting

This is flirting which is focused on the spouse, rather than yourself. Such as:

1. 1. Gifts
   2. Compliments
   3. Romantic touch
   4. Acts of service/gestures of “chivalry” or attentiveness to spouse’s needs

This style of flirting is driven by motivation for intimacy, fun and desire to strengthen the relationship, but could also be driven by instrumental motivation: desire for the spouse to do you favors in return. If done with a good motivation to reaffirm your love/attraction for your spouse this style of flirting increases marital satisfaction and also strengthens commitment.

Researchers also noted that women are much more likely to use this attentive style of flirting than men. They also note that women and men often have similar standards in what they want from marriage, but men more often report having hose needs met than women do.

So husbands should aim to get better at this to help meet their wives emotional needs. Guys: you probably have the display flirting down pat…work on the attentive flirting.

References

[i] Brandi N. Frisby and Melanie Booth-Butterfield, ‘The “How” and “Why” of Flirtatious Communication Between Marital Partners’, Communication Quarterly, 60.4 (2012), 465–80 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2012.704568>.

[ii] David Dryden Henningsen, ‘Flirting with Meaning: An Examination of Miscommunication in Flirting Interactions’, Sex Roles, 50.7–8 (2004), 481–89 <https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SERS.0000023068.49352.4b>.

[iii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[iv] Tarin Olson, ‘An Exploration of Authentic Flirting Within Romantic Marriage – ProQuest’ <https://search.proquest.com/openview/5ef2e4b9d8644b4733428ef0a54dd84a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y> [accessed 7 March 2018].

[v] Brandi N. Frisby, ‘“Without Flirting It Wouldn’t Be a Marriage” : The Relationship between Flirting, Relational Maintenance and Marital Satisfaction’, Virtual Press, 2007 <https://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/188385> [accessed 7 March 2018].

[vi] Frisby.

[vii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[viii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[ix] Olson.

[x] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

Sarcasm: it can be one cutting comment that is never forgotten. Or, an easy habit that becomes part of our normal day-to-day interaction as couples. Turns out there’s a lot more to it than just a bit of sass as we shall see.

Why Do We Use Sarcasm?

There can be a lot of reasons why we resort to sarcasm but I think it is really good to pause and just peel back the layers on sarcasm. It turns out there’s some important but often very subtle underlying psychological things happening around this sarcasm issue.

Sometimes we use sarcasm to communicate complaints or criticism. We actually do this with the intent to come across in a less hostile way because we are couching our negativity in a touch of humor. Perhaps we feel it makes us appear less rude or less unfair when making a complaint about the person receiving the criticism[i].

In that way, sarcasm can be about me trying to save face while still extending the criticism or complaint in a more superficially polite way.

Other times sarcasm can be used on the other end of that: as a way to respond to criticism. We can dismiss someone’s feedback or argue against them while still appearing calm.

Sometimes it is just about finding a way to express annoyance in a way that is more socially acceptable than outright rage. When you make a cutting remark your peers may laugh and think you funny rather than be disappointed when you lose your temper.

Another interesting way we use sarcasm is for conflict resolution: sometimes we defuse a situation or de-escalate conflict by using sarcasm. Of course, since it has an edge to it, this does not always work.

When you pause and survey these possibilities, one theme that does emerge is that sarcasm is often about finding a way to express negative emotion in a less vulnerable, less directly-critical way. There is a sense in which it can be a little more polite because it is more indirect. In sarcasm, the actual negative intent is left for the listener to interpret. There’s also a relational component because in using sarcasm in this way we also create a sense of distance between ourselves and the recipient.

So you may think your sarcastic comments are just intended to be funny, but if you step back are they serving another, less wholesome purpose?

Sarcastic Communication in Marriage

Let’s examine the behavior more specifically. Sarcasm is often misinterpreted and can be easy to miss, so let’s run down the common characteristics of this form of speech.

Characteristics of Sarcastic Speech

1. 1. Exaggerated tone of voice OR blank, monotone voice
   2. Blank expression
   3. Raised eyebrows
   4. Rolling eyes
   5. Exaggerated fake smile or smirk
   6. False sympathy (“wow, that must have been soooo hard for youuuu”)
   7. Expressing the opposite emotion of what your words are saying (“I’m so glad you did that”)[ii]

What Does Sarcasm Convey in Marriage?

How does sarcasm work in an intimate relationship like marriage? In marriage, sarcasm is most often an expression of contempt[iii]. Contempt in marriage is very dangerous to the longevity of the marriage.

In this context, it often takes the form of expressing superiority or showing a lack of respect (looking down your nose at your spouse) and often has a distant or icy quality to it. Because sarcasm falls under the domain of contempt, it is also a reliable predictor of divorce in a marriage. That’s why we really want you to pause and think about this one if it is part of how you guys interact.

Other researchers see sarcasm as a form of rejection or as defensiveness—because it dismisses or undermines your spouse and what he or she is saying[iv]. Again, this is a distancing effect.

Perception of Sarcasm

As we mentioned earlier, sarcasm is often used to express negative emotions in a more polite, calm way. This makes the sarcastic comment seem less offensive and hurtful to the person saying it[v]. Note that the perceived benefit is only a perception in the mind of the person saying the sarcasm.

The target of the sarcasm, on the other hand, often perceives it as being more hurtful and aggressive than a conventional non-sarcastic attack. You see, sarcastic comments often highlight the gap between what a person did and what they were expected to do (e.g., saying “thanks for your help with that” when your spouse did nothing to help highlights the perceived error) and can also come across as more cold, calculated and deliberately hurtful[vi]. An angry outburst might be easier to forgive as just a momentary feeling, but for someone to take the time to think of a sarcastic putdown adds another layer of deliberate choice, which makes what they say harder to ignore.

The right thing to have said in that example would be more like “When I have to work all day, like you do, and then do household chores alone all evening, I really struggle with feeling resentful towards you”.

It is good to note here: I am not saying you have to stop offering your spouse feedback, just that doing so in a sarcastic tone of voice is likely to end in disaster over time.

Responses to Sarcasm

There may be some of you listening today and you are thinking that you send or receive the odd sarcastic comment with your spouse and it is not a big deal. Fair enough: I’m not saying the very occasional comment means that your marriage is going to fail. But I do want you to seriously consider if even the occasional comment is really a good thing. Whether sarcastic comments and sarcastic responses are seen as humorous or offensive often comes down to the relationship quality of the individual couple. We’ll get back to this in a bit.

Sarcasm also works differently in a close relationship, becoming something of an unseen destructive force if you aren’t careful. Being in a close relationship with someone (having shared experiences and a common understanding of situations) can make sarcasm seem more normal, and a more appropriate way of speaking. However, this sense of common ground does NOT make sarcasm less hurtful. So in a marriage context, sarcasm may seem like a normal, commonplace way of speaking, but this does not actually reduce its negative effects[vii].

There is a difference between laughing together and laughing at ourselves and sarcasm. It is that negative edge.

As we look now at the effect on marriage and then more about how to stop this habit, I want to share a verse that really struck me a few years back. It is a verse from the Bible, in Ephesians 4:28 “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (ESV) It’s just such a crystal clear goal and a wonderful challenge for us all.

Sarcasm’s Effect on Marriage

We’ve talked about sarcasm more generally. What about in marriage specifically?

Overall Satisfaction. Research in 2013[viii] found a strong link between marital dysfunction and “negative” forms of humor, which includes sarcasm and harsh jokes at the spouse’s expense. Remember this is correlation not causation. This effect goes both ways: sarcasm can create dysfunction in marriage, but low satisfaction with marriage can also lead to more sarcastic communication. So this creates a downward spiral of “less satisfying communication that ultimately results in a less satisfying relationship[ix]“.

Sarcasm also has a stronger negative effect in couples who are already struggling in their marriage. Most sarcastic humor contains an element of aggression or accusation (pointing out a flaw, expressing annoyance etc). While well-adjusted couples may see the humor in it and choose to interpret the comment as being harmless, distressed couples will only see the aggressive intent of the comment and will typically react badly to it.

Conflict. Some couples see sarcasm as a tool to manage or resolve conflict, but research shows this is not an effective strategy.

What about humor for reducing conflict? Turns out the use of humor to reduce conflict more often works when the couple are well adjusted and have high relationship satisfaction. Such couples may be able to use benign or playful humor to diffuse conflict situations.

However, in couples where satisfaction is low, attempts to use sarcastic humor as a conflict resolution tool will often be ignored or rejected. Attempts to dismiss the conflict issue using sarcasm can therefore backfire and actually escalate the conflict further[x].

Stability. Research in 1993[xi] found that displays of contempt (such as sarcasm) predicted both spouses seriously considering divorce or separation. We really need to pause and consider the impact.

How To Stop

So maybe sarcasm isn’t the harmless humor you thought. If you’ve identified that it could be a problem for you, or for your spouse, what can you do?

Understanding the Intent. Try to distinguish whether your spouse is using sarcasm to be hurtful or in an attempt to be funny. One way to determine this is to observe whether they are often sarcastic in other contexts, or just when talking/arguing with you. If someone is sarcastic all the time to lots of different people, they may not be aware of the negative effect it has. As noted above, people using sarcasm often think it to be less hurtful than it really is, so just letting them know its real effect may convince them they need to stop[xii]. That’s one approach.

On the other side, if you are the person using sarcasm, remember that it probably feels more hurtful to your spouse than you perceive it as being[xiii]. In fact, I would suggest you tell your spouse that you have a serious question and would appreciate an honest answer: is my sarcasm hurtful?

Convey humor. We don’t want to take all your fun away. Working on how you express yourself while being sarcastic can help your sarcasm come across as funny rather than hurtful. Part of this is picking the right context and knowing which issues are likely to upset your spouse if you approach them sarcastically. You are the expert on your spouse so work out how best to use sarcasm in a way that’s fun rather than harmful.

But it can also be to do with your communication skills and how you express yourself through tone and facial expression. For example a study in 2014[xiv] found that raising your eyebrows while speaking can “guide” the listener to interpret your sarcastic comments as intended to be funny rather than mean. Just little cues like that can help your comments be seen as funny rather than spiteful.

There are times when it may be funny to sarcastically say, “Thanks for your help on that!” for example, if you both know the person you were speaking to was working much harder than you on the task. So I do not want to be a kill joy but there is a way of making sure folks know there is no underlying negative intent to the comment.

Genuine Communication. Sarcasm is a way of expressing yourself while not having to genuinely say what you mean, therefore making it “safer”[xv]. Learning to feel safe expressing yourself therefore reduces the need for sarcasm. This can be can be done by learning conflict managing and communication skills, and by learning to express your needs in a more genuine way. We dive into this specifically for sarcasm in our bonus content, and our flagship communication product, Talk To Me 101 is our online video course that really helps you develop highly effective communication with your spouse. So be sure to check that out too if this is a growth area for you guys.

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References

[i] Julia Jorgensen, ‘The Functions of Sarcastic Irony in Speech’, Journal of Pragmatics, 26.5 (1996), 613–34 <https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00067-4>.

[ii] Salvatore Attardo and others, ‘Multimodal Markers of Irony and Sarcasm.’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 16.2 (2003), 243–60 <https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2003.012>.

[iii] Lynn Katz and J.M. Gottman, Patterns of Marital Conflict Predict Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors, 1993, xxix <https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.29.6.940>.

[iv] Dudley D. Cahn, Intimates in Conflict: A Communication Perspective (Routledge, 2013).

[v] Andrea Bowes and Albert Katz, ‘When Sarcasm Stings’, Discourse Processes, 48.4 (2011), 215–36 <https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2010.532757>.

[vi] Bowes and Katz.

[vii] Joel Mounts, ‘A History of Sarcasm: Effects of Balanced Use of Sarcasm in a Relationship’, 2012.

[viii] Cahn.

[ix] Cahn.

[x] Cahn.

[xi] Katz and Gottman, xxix.

[xii] Bowes and Katz.

[xiii] Bowes and Katz.

[xiv] Sabina Tabacaru and Maarten Lemmens, ‘Raised Eyebrows as Gestural Triggers in Humour: The Case of Sarcasm and Hyper-Understanding’, The European Journal of Humour Research, 2.2 (2014), 11–31.

[xv] Jorgensen.

Ogling or objectifying the bodies of others by staring with obvious sexual interest can be an easy habit to get into. Especially in a culture that objectifies women. It’s also something that recovering porn addicts have to work really hard at to break. But: there are plenty of non-addicts that deal with this too, so let’s break this down and figure out how to break free of this habit.

I think the first thing I want to note here is that while this activity or habit of checking people out can become almost mundane and very normal for a person, we have to realize it really is a betrayal event for our spouses. So it can be generating a lot of ongoing pain and hurt for one person while the other person is like “What? I was hardly even looking!”

Why Do Men Ogle?

Why is this such a common problem? The short answer is that our culture socializes us to look at women this way. In fact, both men and women are socialized to see women as objects to be viewed and admired[i].

Don’t believe me? Just look on Instagram…if a man or woman posts a photo of him/herself posing — it gets a ton of comments. Even though this is seen as a positive when it’s women complimenting each other…it is still objectifying. Men are taught to look at women in this way, and women are taught to think of and display themselves accordingly.

This socialization happens through advertising, films, television and all the media that almost exclusively portrays women with ideal body shapes. And they emphasize their physical appearance over their personalities and qualities as a person.

The effect of this is that men are trained to view women as sexual objects. In that context, ogling and “checking out” women becomes acceptable. We say things like “I was just looking!” to minimize and defend the behavior. And then the fact that so many people buy into this worldview is also used as a defense — as if you aren’t personally making a choice to check out other women, you’re just conforming to how everyone else acts.

But just because something is commonplace, that doesn’t in any way mean it isn’t harmful. This objectifying of women has a dehumanizing effect. A rather alarming study from 2014[ii] found that when thinking about women in terms of their physical appearance, men would use less human words to describe them, and assign fewer human traits to them than they would to men. This effect can even be seen at the neurological level: focusing on women’s bodies activates the same brain areas that are activated when looking at inanimate objects[iii].

How frightening is that? Men looking at women think of them as less human. Of course, you can only imagine the moral challenges this brings because we hold a different moral standard for what we do to an object versus what we would do to a human being.

The Effect of Ogling on Women

A common defense made is that nobody is being hurt. We are “only looking”. But the research shows that objectifying gaze has tangible, negative effects on the target of the gaze. Even the perception that one might be the target of objectification can have a negative effect. These effects include[iv]:

1. 1. Increased body shame and dissatisfaction with your own appearance
   2. Increased body surveillance — monitoring and worrying about your own appearance
   3. Internalizing the beauty standards of society and trying to live up to them
   4. Increased belief that looks are all that matter
   5. Reduced concentration, cognitive ability and performance (e.g., at work or in sports)
   6. Increased “self objectification” by women: thinking of themselves in more objectifying terms and being constantly preoccupied with how others will see you
   7. Acting less individually and more in line with expectations. For example, talking less and not standing up for yourself[v]

What is really sad is that you begin to get the picture that as you objectify people they begin to internalize that view, and begin to believe this about themselves as well. Women affected in this way actually start acting more like objects, even when the gaze is “complimentary” (making a positive impression about a woman’s appearance).

Along with this, women begin to believe that their physical attractiveness is more important than their qualities as a person. As you can imagine, this can lead to unrealistic standards of beauty which can lead to shame when they fail to live up to those unachievable standards[vi]. If beauty is all that matters, and you’ll never be as beautiful as the airbrushed models on TV and in fashion ads, what does that leave you with?

Does this happen to men? No: this was actually tested and the effects are found for women being gazed on by men, but not the other way around[vii]. This highlights our responsibility as men to break this habit and to challenge our culture about how we view and look at women. Literally.

How Ogling Affects Marriage

Of course this does have a significant impact on marriage. It really is a betrayal and this objectification can happen both through ogling or other means like porn use. Here are some documented negative effects on wives if their husbands display these objectifying attitudes[viii] :

1. 1. Sadness and negative emotions
   2. Increased body shame
   3. Internalization of unattainable beauty standards
   4. Reduced self esteem
   5. Greater likelihood of having eating disorder symptoms caused by body shame

Other researchers have found the same thing. For example, a study in 2011[ix] found that highly objectifying views in the husband predicted self-objectification in the wife. Wives will see themselves how husbands look at other women. Naturally, this impacts the marriage, creating reduced sexual satisfaction for both the husband and wife and reduced relationship satisfaction.

By the way: if you are wondering how it reduces sexual satisfaction…it reduces women’s self esteem and it reduces intimacy. Self-esteem is necessary for desire…if you’re lost in your own insecurities it is going to be hard to feel a lot of desire. Also if you feel like you are actually just part of a larger harem of women but you happen to be the one your husband has physical sex with (rather than virtual) then of course there is a reduction in intimacy that’s going to happen.

It is also really important to note that reduced sexual satisfaction does not lead to husbands engaging in more ogling or objectification in this context[x]. So a husband ogling other woman is not because he is not getting enough sex. What I mean is that withholding sex does not cause ogling. That may be used by him to justify ogling but I would challenge guys to be very careful about going down that road.

At the same time, there are some spouses in a lot of pain because sex is being withheld from them: I do not want to dismiss that pain, but just to gently challenge you to think about how you may be choosing to adjust your own moral values as a result. I’d encourage you both: if you guys have a legit sex problem, go ahead and tackle that, but don’t try to justify ogling by blaming it on your spouse.

Ogling is a Betrayal of Commitment

Don’t forget that in all of this I’ve been calling ogling out as a betrayal event.

Marital commitment is made up of three components:

1. 1. satisfaction with the relationship
   2. exclusivity vs. attention to alternatives
   3. investment in the current relationship

You can see how increased attention to other women really erodes commitment. It is a betrayal.

A few episodes ago when we looked at the dark realities of the porn industry we created a bonus guide that helps men deal with this objectification and ogling issue. So for this episode we’re coming at it from the other side.

This week our bonus guide is for wives who find themselves influenced by popular thought and although it is painful to admit — you’ve really objectified yourself as well. Not necessarily in an immoral way, but you’re noticing you spend a lot of time on body image and concerns there rather than thinking of yourself as a whole person and focusing on personal growth.

What To Do About Ogling Understand the Damage It Causes

Despite the damage ogling and objectification do to women (both the target and the wives of ogling husbands), many people are resistant to the idea that it needs to stop. Men see it as “normal” or “harmless” and in some cases even women are taught that being the object of male attention is desirable[xi].

I think this needs to be a conversation in your marriage if it is a problem. For wives, make your husbands aware of the personal impact of their ogling behavior on you. For some, that may provide motivation to change.

And I want to challenge men out there too — I am challenged by lust as much as the next guy. Character is what you are when nobody is watching — when you can ogle someone do you? I have to stay on top of this…it is an easy habit to get into and in the summer time or in a mall or going past some billboards it takes a concerted effort to bounce your eyes.

And yet, if all of us were intentional about this I believe it would actually begin to change our culture and make it a safer place for women and also safer for our marriages too.

Change How You See Women

Ogling and being drawn to look at attractive women’s bodies may be an automatic or nearly unconscious process, and so can be hard for men to stop. However, we can choose to focus instead on other aspects of women: seeing them as equal human beings rather than objects to be viewed. This is really about how you think about women now.

Over time this will make you less likely to think of women as objects and you will be able to “catch” yourself when you are drawn to start ogling. To demonstrate this effect, a study in 2014[xii] found that focusing on women’s physical appearance caused men to see them as being less competent, less warm and less capable of making moral decisions.

Seeing women as objects and seeing them as having these human qualities was incompatible. So learning to focus on these kinds of qualities in women will naturally make you less likely to look at them in an objectifying way.

It is about reminding yourself: she is a person, not an object. Even if she is objectifying herself.

There’s one other aspect of changing how you see women. This one is delicate but can be very helpful and freeing, so please pay careful attention to my language as you read.

What happens — particularly for porn and sex addicts but I think also this happens to many men — maybe even close to all men (and women too) — is you see an attractive person. Now if you are a Christian you have already been taught that the Lord Jesus said that “…everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28, ESV). I’ll talk to guys here, but gals can translate the genders: you see a very attractive woman and you notice her and then you jump right into guilt and even shame because you think you’ve committed adultery in your heart.

But the verse is very clear: looks at a woman with lustful intent.

What happens is that we end up obsessing about NOT sexualizing or NOT objectifying and then the issue becomes that we find ourselves obsessing over an attractive woman even though we’re trying to point that obsession in the right direction, morally. This still doesn’t feel healthy, right?

What I recommend is that when you see an attractive woman, acknowledge that. This is evidence that God vests beauty in His creation and one of the ways he does that is through physical beauty. Remind yourself that this is a person with a story. Notice the woman beside her: not as attractive, and just take a moment to wonder to yourself about the beauty that lies within that person: virtues of character and personhood. Again, because you know that God vests beauty in every part of His creation. And then move on.

I do not think it is wrong to acknowledge attractiveness. Even to appreciate it — briefly. You will know when you go from acknowledging and appreciating to cross the line into lustful intent. When the appreciation becomes about your own personal gratification or sexual pleasure.

At the same time, start noticing other women and men and acknowledging that every person bears the image of God and so there is some beauty in every person. In my mind, I believe that God dishes out beauty in equal proportions — I think He is fair — but that beauty takes on a thousand varieties of which physical beauty is only one facet. And not nearly as important a facet as popular media wants us to believe.

Filtering Media

As we’ve mentioned, media such as TV, films and advertising all portray attractiveness as being the most important thing for women to aspire to, leading to objectification and ogling by men and self-objectification by women.

This could theoretically be reduced by limiting how much exposure to media you have, or by looking for media which portrays women in less objectifying terms. Fine in principle, but in reality shutting yourself off from all media isn’t really feasible.

Instead, an interesting study in 2013[xiii] suggests developing media literacy in both men and women—  developing the ability to analyze the media you watch, noticing when it is objectifying women and not getting “taken in” by this view. This does help. Watching TV or films with this more analytical mindset can help men to notice when they are acting in a way that objectifies women, and can also help women to stop internalizing societies’ beauty standards.

The mental filter: surprisingly effective.

Reducing Self-Objectification

As a woman there are ways to respond to this as well.

A husband’s ogling and objectifying behavior/attitudes are most harmful to a wife when she starts to internalize these views and compares herself to outside standards of beauty.

Working to prevent this self-objectification can therefore remove most of the negative effects of ogling and objectification[xiv]. So while your husband is working on the ogling issue (or even if he isn’t ready to yet), you can minimize the damage by learning to break the mindset of objectifying yourself. Grab hold of our bonus guide for some practical ways you can get started on this right away.

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References:

[i] Daniel M. Downs, Shaan James, and Gloria Cowan, ‘Body Objectification, Self-Esteem, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Comparison of Exotic Dancers and College Women’, Sex Roles, 54.11–12 (2006), 745–52 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9042-y>.

[ii] Nathan A. Heflick and Jamie L. Goldenberg, ‘Seeing Eye to Body: The Literal Objectification of Women.’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23.3 (2014), 225–29 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414531599>.

[iii] Heflick and Goldenberg.

[iv] Sarah J. Gervais, Theresa K. Vescio, and Jill Allen, ‘When What You See Is What You Get: The Consequences of the Objectifying Gaze for Women and Men’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35.1 (2011), 5–17 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684310386121>.

[v] Tamar Saguy and others, ‘Interacting Like a Body: Objectification Can Lead Women to Narrow Their Presence in Social Interactions’, Psychological Science, 21.2 (2010), 178–82 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609357751>.

[vi] Downs, James, and Cowan.

[vii] Gervais, Vescio, and Allen.

[viii] Tracy L. Tylka and Ashley M. Kroon Van Diest, ‘You Looking at Her “Hot” Body May Not Be “Cool” for Me: Integrating Male Partners’ Pornography Use into Objectification Theory for Women’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39.1 (2015), 67–84 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684314521784>.

[ix] Eileen L. Zurbriggen, Laura R. Ramsey, and Beth K. Jaworski, ‘Self- and Partner-Objectification in Romantic Relationships: Associations with Media Consumption and Relationship Satisfaction’, Sex Roles, 64.7–8 (2011), 449–62 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9933-4>.

[x] Tylka and Kroon Van Diest.

[xi] Tanjare’ McKay, ‘Female Self-Objectification: Causes, Consequences and Prevention’, McNair Scholars Research Journal, 6.1 (2013) <https://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/vol6/iss1/7>.

[xii] Heflick and Goldenberg.

[xiii] McKay.

[xiv] McKay.

Balancing work and family can be a tricky task for any marriage. In fact, sometimes it can seem like it’s impossible to really satisfy either area: either work is going to be unhappy if you put too much emphasis on family, or family is going to be unhappy if there’s too much emphasis on work.

Or: both will be unhappy! This is really hard to figure out!

Work-Family Conflict

Work and family are probably the two biggest demands on your time and energy. When both your career and your family responsibilities are competing for the same hours in the day it can easily lead to conflict in one area or the other.

Work life and home life run into issues usually in one of two ways:

1. 1. When the demands of work interfere with your ability to manage family life, or
   2. When the demands of marriage and family life interfere with the ability to manage work

This can go two ways and consequently there are different causes, different consequences and ways of coping[i]. If you pay attention, what you will usually notice is that stress is caused in one area and then most prominently felt in the opposite area: for example, stress caused at work is felt most strongly in the marriage, and vice versa[ii].

This can be hard for your marriage because you have something outside the marriage that’s bringing stress in. Also, just to be clear, this can happen in dual-income families or it can happen in single-income families: all you need is a demanding or successful job, some long hours or a lot of travel.

Competing Roles

It is good to be compassionate with ourselves here because having a career and being a spouse/parent are two very different roles to hold simultaneously. On top of that, these two roles can compete for the same time and emotional energy[iii].

When that happens there are two processes that can cause conflict between these roles:

1. 1. Spillover: where stress and difficulties in one role spill over into the other (e.g., stress at work leading to conflict at home)
   2. Congruence: where there is a separate factor affecting both home and work equally (e.g., poor conflict resolution skills)

Basically you can either bring stress from one role into the other, or you can bring some other factor with you that’s causing stress in both roles. A tight deadline at work creates stress at home, but a bad attitude creates stress everywhere you go.

Not Enough Resources

What happens is we all have a limited amount of resources such as energy, time, money, knowledge, emotional effort etc. When you do not have enough resources to take care of all the roles this creates tension. Or maybe you have to use an excessive amount of resources trying to balance the roles[iv]. Think about it: is this happening to you? Are you stretching yourself too thin?

Further, work-family conflict can also occur when behavior resources are carried over from one role to another inappropriately. For example: someone who is stressed at work may try to use the same authoritarian management style at home. That’s never going to go well. Then you get conflict in the home[v].

These are all dynamics that we need to be aware of in order to solve work-family conflict.

So is Work the Problem? Or Family?

High demands at home naturally pull your resources away from work, and conflict at home reduces your capacity to handle conflict at work[vi].

Here is a helpful way of figuring out where the stress is and what the impact is:

Factors Consequences Work Interfering with Family

• Stressful or high pressure working conditions
• Conflict with colleagues at work
• Long hours and physically/emotionally tiring work
• Inflexible working hours
• Having to do work you don’t find meaningful or engaging

• Dissatisfaction with family life
• Marital tension, leading to conflict
• Higher overall life stress
• Symptoms of depression and anxiety
• Reduced physical health- such as high blood pressure, sleep disturbances and increased susceptibility to illness
• Higher likelihood of turning to destructive behaviors such as smoking, poor eating and substance abuse

Family Interfering with Work

• Marital conflict
• Number of hours spent on household labor
• Childcare, especially having multiple young children
• Financial instability
• Caring for elderly parents as well as children
• Major events which could drain your resources, such as sickness, injury, financial

• Poorer performance at work
• More days off work due to sickness and stress
• Higher rates of burnout
• Increased likelihood of leaving the job and high turnover rate between jobs

Ways to Reduce Work-Family Conflict

Research on reducing work-family conflict has focused on ways employers can reduce the conflict for their employees, and on issues you as individuals can work on to reduce the conflict as well. Let’s take a quick look at both.

Things Your Employer Can Do

Many employers offer services to address work-life balancing issues. These include:

1. 1. Flexible work hours
   2. Options to work from home
   3. Ability to work part time
   4. Extended maternity/paternity leave
   5. Paid family leave
   6. On-site childcare
   7. Assistance finding childcare and other support

Which of these are actually helpful? In 2008[vii] some researchers conducted a meta-review of studies examining which of these services actually help reduce WFC.

Results were very mixed: some studies show that flexible work arrangements like working from home and on-site childcare can improve work-life balance and reduce conflict, while others show little effect. Some studies even show that these arrangements can increase WFC. For some people working from home meant taking the stress of work home with you rather than reducing the stress.

The research does show that these services work for some people, so whether they are useful or not is probably a matter of personal preference and individual circumstances. So if your employer offers these kinds of services, try taking advantage of them and see what works. Remember that employers have a responsibility to minimize the stress your job causes, so if these services aren’t offered, could you ask for them to be set up?

Things You Can Do

Now let’s look at what you can do to redress this balance. This is the most important part, really, because you can’t control what your employer and your job demands are like, but you can always take steps to learn new skills and look at news ways to manage.

Managing Resources

Like we saw above, conflict between work and marriage is due to a strain on your emotional and practical resources. This means you can reduce the conflict by learning to manage your various resources more effectively. We really dive into this in the bonus content, so give that a really good look if you want to figure out how you can pull all your different strengths and resources together to make things easier.

Time Management Skills

Having good time management skills reduces both work and home stress, and prevents stress from one area spilling over into the other[viii].

This is a great option, by the way, because these are simple skills that anyone can learn. And they’ll help in pretty much every area of life.

Self Esteem

Self esteem has an interesting relationship to work-family conflict. According to a study in 1999[ix], self esteem is not correlated to work-family conflict and does not help prevent it. However, high levels of self esteem are negatively correlated with all the bad outcomes work-family conflict normally produces, such as stress, marital conflict, poor physical health, poor performance at work etc.

So working on building your self esteem doesn’t stop work-family conflict from happening, but it does stop it from having any negative effects on your marriage or work life. Self esteem isn’t the easiest thing to work on but it’s about learning to be comfortable with who you are, and developing the skills and knowledge to act with confidence at work and at home.

Settling Boundaries

How are you at setting boundaries? A study 2009[x] identified some simple strategies people used to create boundaries between work and home, which reduced work-family conflict:

1. 1. Enlisting Help: using other people to help protect your home times from work demands, such as having work colleagues screen calls while you are away, asking colleagues to help with work to reduce stress, or asking your spouse to act as a “buffer” to control which aspects of work are allowed to come home with you.
   2. Prioritizing: only allowing the really essential work demands to interfere with home life and leaving the non-urgent stuff until you are back at work.
   3. Controlling work time: setting clear time boundaries as to when you are at work, and when you have to leave.
   4. Holidays: taking regular time off to recover from work stress.

Sometimes creating healthy work-life boundaries is about standing up for yourself and choosing to make your marriage and family a priority over work. Which leads us on to the final point.

Priorities

This is one to think about carefully.

According to Role theory[xi] individuals with multiple competing roles will naturally lean towards one, developing a primary role and seeing the other role as secondary.

People then come to “specialize” in their primary role by getting better at it and investing more time and effort in it. This often negatively impacts the secondary role(s). This is reflected in the fact that people who choose to spend more hours in work and engage more in their work life experienced reduced quality of marital life, and vice versa[xii].

In this sense, individuals with competing roles may simply need to choose which one is their priority: their job or their marriage. If they choose to prioritize the marriage they may need to accept that there will be some detrimental effects to the job, or vice versa, and use some of the above strategies to minimize the problems.

As I sometimes tell folks, you cannot expect to have different values from your coworkers (e.g., prioritizing family life) and have the same standard of living they do. It’s certainly possible to have a happy marriage and a successful career, but you can’t make both of them your main priority. You can’t wholly pour your heart and soul into both or you’ll run dry.

So sometimes this can come down to making some tough decisions: saying yes to one thing means saying no to another. Whether you like or not. So make a choice that you will look back on with gratitude and satisfaction rather than one you’ll look back on with regret.

References:

[i] Kristin Byron, ‘A Meta-Analytic Review of Work–family Conflict and Its Antecedents’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67.2 (2005), 169–98.

[ii] Paul E. Spector, Tammy D. Allen, and Jeffrey H. Greenhaus, ‘Health Consequences of Work?Family Conflict: The Dark Side of the Work?Family Interface’, in Employee Health, Coping and Methodologies, Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being, 5, 0 vols (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2006), v, 61–98 <https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3555(05)05002-X>.

[iii] Byron.

[iv] Alicia A. Grandey and Russell Cropanzano, ‘The Conservation of Resources Model Applied to Work–family Conflict and Strain’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54.2 (1999), 350–70.

[v] Spector, Allen, and Greenhaus, v.

[vi] Byron.

[vii] ERIN L. KELLY and others, ‘Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes’, The Academy of Management Annals, 2 (2008), 305–49 <https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520802211610>.

[viii] Byron.

[ix] Grandey and Cropanzano.

[x] Glen E. Kreiner, Elaine C. Hollensbe, and Mathew L. Sheep, ‘Balancing Borders and Bridges: Negotiating the Work-Home Interface via Boundary Work Tactics’, Academy of Management Journal, 52.4 (2009), 704–30 <https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2009.43669916>.

[xi] Joseph H. Pleck, ‘The Work-Family Role System’, Social Problems, 24.4 (1977), 417–27 <https://doi.org/10.2307/800135>.

[xii] Byron.

Loyalty is the second strongest predictor of a long term, stable marriage. In other words, this is one of the most important features of creating a thriving, passionate marriage. We’ll see what the most important predictor is a bit later, but today we are going to focus in on why loyalty is so powerful and how to create more of it in your marriage — especially in areas that we commonly get derailed.

What Does Loyalty in Marriage Look Like?

What do you think about when you consider the idea of loyalty in marriage?

Turns out that loyalty is more than just staying faithful to your spouse.

Fletcher[i] gave a very helpful differentiation between minimum loyalty and maximum loyalty. Minimum loyalty is simply not betraying your spouse: not having affairs, not betraying trust, and not being dishonest. It’s the bare minimum: the baseline.

Maximum loyalty is “becoming one” with your spouse through long-term commitment, partnership and devotion. You can see that minimum is about what you do not do — the major taboos of marriage. But maximum is about investing into and pouring yourself into something very deeply.

Maximum loyalty is achieved through a sense of companionship and partnership based on[ii]:

1. 1. A shared vision for life: wanting the same things from life, valuing the same qualities and agreeing on important life issues.
   2. Joint life goals: having goals which matter to both of you which you can work towards, such as parenting, community or charity work, spiritual practice, joint business ventures and so on.
   3. Generosity: investing in your spouse through affection, time, gifts, acts of service etc
   4. Fairness: sharing workloads and taking joint responsibility for the relationship
   5. Openness, vulnerability and honesty

So it turns out there is a lot to this whole subject of loyalty, right?

The other beautiful aspect of loyalty in marriage is not only the commitment to the covenant of marriage, but to the personal growth that comes from marriage. You see, loyalty also implies that I am willing to improve my own character and to bring more of myself to the marriage and allow myself to be challenged to grow and develop as a person.

This brings a “richness and vitality that may be dormant” in the marriage[iii]. So loyalty is something developed both intra-personally (within myself) and inter-personally (between ourselves).

Benefits of Loyalty in Marriage

A loyal marriage is a strong marriage. Let’s go through some of the many benefits loyalty can bring to you and your spouse.

Satisfaction

Loyalty is an important mediating factor between the actions and interactions in a marriage. It also impacts the overall levels of happiness and satisfaction.

According to a study in 2004[iv], actions and behaviors such as displays of affection, agreement, intimacy and sex only positively influence marital satisfaction if love and loyalty are there as mediators. So doing these positive actions in marriage doesn’t necessarily lead to a happy marriage unless the underlying characteristics of love and loyalty are there.

This reality echoes the teaching of 1 Corinthians 13 — the most well known chapter on love in the Bible. That chapter profoundly underscores the reality that you can do all sorts of wonderful things but unless you are doing them in love, the actions really are meaningless. So this is a really good self-check to ask: yeah, I may be checking all the good husband boxes or all the good wife boxes, but is it really clear that these things I’m doing are saturated with love and loyalty?

So loyalty is the hidden link between all these good actions and real satisfaction. Now, loyalty can also lead to marital satisfaction directly. For couples who value loyalty and see devotion to each other as a priority in marriage, being happy with the loyalty displayed by your spouse is enough to create high marital satisfaction independent of any other factors[v]. This is also a great point from the research because it means we need to be willing to stop and notice and be grateful for the loyalty that we may already be experiencing but taking for granted. If we do, we can find contentment and satisfaction in any circumstances, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Long-term Stability and Commitment

A study in 1993[vi] interview 147 couples who had been happily married over 20 years and found that loyalty to the spouse was the second strongest predictor of a long-term and stable marriage.

We just wanted to note this so that you do not miss the significance of this subject of loyalty.

Now, I told you in the intro that we would let you know what the #1 predictor was: it is seeing marriage as a lifelong commitment.

Related concepts like close friendship and companionship were also in the top 10. So there is this constellation of factors in the top 10 that are all on the same spectrum of loyalty, commitment, oneness…all super-important to a lifelong, satisfying marriage.

There’s a couple more benefits to loyalty we should look at before we explore common areas of conflicting loyalty and how to resolve them.

Loyalty Buffers Against Fear

This is an interesting study. Florian et al[vii] found that making participants think about frightening existential issues, such as death and mortality, caused them to report higher levels of commitment and loyalty to their spouse. Thoughts about loyalty and commitment then acted as a buffer, reducing participant’s fear of death.

The researchers concluded that a strong and loyal relationship helps reduce fears of death, since in relationships like this your sense of self has expanded to include the other person: so even if you die, part of your “self” lives on.

A loyal and devoted relationship also helps you find meaning and feel like your life has purpose, causing people to fear death less since their life has been meaningful. Here’s a quote from their study: “Unlike most other threats, the threat of death is inescapable, and support from close others cannot remove the threat itself. In this case, perhaps, the affirmation of one’s importance in others’ lives engenders feelings of meaning that render the prospect of death more tolerable.[viii]”

I think what they were observing is that loyalty also facilitates the creation of legacy: leaving something behind that endures beyond the span of your own life.

Vulnerability and Conflict

Loyalty helps with vulnerability. No surprise there!

When you are in a loyal relationship with your spouse, one that emphasizes partnership and togetherness, this allows you to express vulnerability and respond to one another in positive affirming ways. This makes so much sense, right?

But it also helps the couple to manage conflict: high levels of underlying loyalty allow spouses to “use positive affect — positive emotions such as humor— to maintain calmness and flexibility, attack the issue and not the spouse, and notice opportunities for repair attempts rather than focusing on each other’s negative traits”[ix].

Conflicting Loyalties

While you and I may value loyalty as a top priority, we need to be aware that this is not always going to be easy. Let’s talk about three situations. The first one is not common to all marriages but I think the last two definitely are something that every couple has or will struggle with.

Loyalty Conflicts in Stepfamilies

In blended families there may be conflicting loyalties between your new spouse and children/family from a previous marriage[x]. When you’re trying to make this work it can be hard to know which side to come down on: do you support your spouse or your kids?

Couples should understand that creating a stable marriage and a stable home is the best way to help the children adjust to the new family[xi]. The couple should therefore aim to side with each other over the kids (especially when disciplining and setting rules) or other family members, as doing so will create stability and help the children’s wellbeing in the long run. Creating a new family dynamic and new family rituals can help strengthen the sense of family cohesion, helping couples see loyalty to the spouse and loyalty to the children as being the same thing.

What I see there is that it is really critical to embrace the whole package, not just focus on loyalty in one area especially or at the cost of other areas (e.g., protecting your biological kids vs. your spouse, or siding with your spouse over your biological children). The whole system needs to be embraced with loyalty.

Work-Family Conflict Can Be a Loyalty Issue

Loyalties can be divided between family life and successful careers. For example, demands from one area can make it hard to meet the demands from the other, leading to stress and conflict in both areas[xii]. We’ll actually be doing a full episode on this in the near future, so if balancing loyalty between family and work is an issue for you, stay tuned.

This can be especially true where one spouse has a very successful or prestigious job, or where they run their own business, making a healthy work-life balance difficult. But it can also be an issue for long-distance marriages and especially military couples, where the stay-at-home spouse may feel that their husband/wife is more loyal to their job or country than to them[xiii]. Those are really difficult issues to tease apart.

So how do you create more loyalty in the face of these kinds of challenges? Because it often feels impossible to back off from the work side of things.

One thing couples can do is to plan the time they do get together as effectively as possible so as to get the most satisfaction it, and also to make use of flexible working arrangements in order to reduce conflict. This is a time to be creative: can you work from home? Add a lunch date once a week? Reduce hours on Fridays?

Since joint goals and vision are a big part of loyalty in marriage, couples should also aim to make both spouse’s careers part of their joint vision for their lives. This way even when the job puts a strain on the home life, both spouses can still see it as being an important part of who they are[xiv]. They are both invested. So what would have to change for you to both feel invested in getting the business off the ground? Or established in that particular career? Or, possibly, for the career person: do you need to come up with a mid- or long-term strategy to move to a different career or position which is more honoring of the loyalty you feel towards your spouse? Are you both prepared to accept the sacrifices necessary to prioritize your marriage and family over your career?

These are tough but honest conversations that some of us need to have.

Family vs. Spouse Loyalty

Finally, loyalties can be torn between your spouse and your family of origin. Everyone has a strong attachment bond to both their parents and their spouse, and so conflict between them, or even having to choose which to spend time with, can be hard to deal with and really difficult to balance[xv]. Marital conflict can arise if one spouse supports their family of origin over their husband/wife, or a spouse may resent their husband/wife for putting them in a position where they have to pick a side.

In my opinion, spouses should always aim to side with each other and support one another over their family, but you also need to be sensitive to the fact this can be hard and can feel like you are betraying your family[xvi].

There are some aspects of this that are good to be aware of. Families develop norms and ways of acting over many years, which they come to see as fixed: everything from how they talk to each other to how they celebrate holidays etc.

These norms and rituals can be hard for the new spouse to adjust to. Refusal to change these norms once married can lead to a spouse feeling that their husband/wife is being more loyal to their family than to their marriage. For example, refusing to change a Christmas tradition by saying “that’s just how we do things” or justifying a parent’s behavior by saying “that’s just how she is”. Those kinds of comments indicate loyalty to your family over loyalty to your spouse.

One specific way that spouses can remain loyal to each other is to see these norms as no longer being set in stone, and making an effort to accommodate the new spouse into the family norms, or setting up new norms and traditions of their own[xvii]. Sometimes you need to have a discussion with your family as well to help them understand how or why you are wanting to change norms that you’ve accepted in the past.

So loyalty is something that can be challenging to navigate, and certainly takes time and effort to maintain. But: don’t forget, it is a top 2 predictor of creating a lasting, satisfying marriage. So it is worth figuring out.

References:

[i] George P. Fletcher, Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (Oxford University Press, 1995).

[ii] Elizabeth Fawcett, ‘Helping with the Transition to Parenthood: An Evaluation of the Marriage Moments Program’, All Theses and Dissertations, 2004 <https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1135>.

[iii] Blaine J. Fowers, Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness: How Embracing the Virtues of Loyalty, Generosity, Justice, and Courage Can Strengthen Your Relationship (Wiley, 2000).

[iv] Jane R. Rosen-Grandon, Jane E. Myers, and John A. Hattie, ‘The Relationship Between Marital Characteristics, Marital Interaction Processes, and Marital Satisfaction’, Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD, 82.1 (2004), 58–68.

[v] Rosen-Grandon, Myers, and Hattie.

[vi] David L. Fenell, ‘Characteristics of Long-Term First Marriages.’, Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 1993.

[vii] Victor Florian, Mario Mikulincer, and Gilad Hirschberger, ‘The Anxiety-Buffering Function of Close Relationships: Evidence That Relationship Commitment Acts as a Terror Management Mechanism.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82.4 (2002), 527.

[viii] Florian, Mikulincer, and Hirschberger.

[ix] Jill D. Duba and others, ‘Areas of Marital Dissatisfaction Among Long‐Term Couples’, Adultspan Journal, 11.1 (2012), 39–54.

[x] Kay Pasley and others, ‘SUCCESSFUL STEPFAMILY THERAPY: CLIENTS’PERSPECTIVES’, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 22.3 (1996), 343–57.

[xi] ERIN L. KELLY and others, ‘Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes’, The Academy of Management Annals, 2 (2008), 305–49 <https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520802211610>.

[xii] Jennifer DeNicolis Bragger and others, ‘Work-Family Conflict, Work-Family Culture, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior among Teachers’, Journal of Business and Psychology, 20.2 (2005), 303–24.

[xiii] Daniel J. Canary and Marianne Dainton, Maintaining Relationships Through Communication: Relational, Contextual, and Cultural Variations (Routledge, 2003).

[xiv] Fawcett.

[xv] T. E. Apter, What Do You Want from Me?: Learning to Get Along with In-Laws (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009).

[xvi] Apter.

[xvii] Apter.

I do not think that there is a human being on the face of our planet right now who does not struggle at least a little bit with defensives. Some of us struggle a lot. And defensiveness in marriage is definitely going to make you unhappy and dissatisfied with your marriage. Turns out, it’s not an easy one to overcome either—but today we’re going to show you how.

This week we are gonna call you out and expose this gremlin running around in all our marriages called Defensiveness.

I know what you’re thinking…”I’m not defensive!!” But, that’s the problem right there.

How Defensiveness Works

The Bible says that “A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.” (Proverbs 18:19 ESV) Or we could say a “Wife offended” or “Husband offended”… Once you hit that point where there’s an attack, there’s a known flaw, there’s known issues then it is really easy to become defensive.

So we have some cool stuff to start with because we are really going to break down this defensiveness thing — you have to know the enemy in order to defeat it — and the enemy is not your spouse, the enemy is the defensiveness that happens between you.

Defensiveness happens when four things line up[i]. What I really like about this is that if you take any of these out, you begin to undermine defensiveness in your own life. So the four things are:

1. 1. A self-perceived flaw which you refuses to admit
   2. Sensitivity to that flaw (e.g., you are embarrassed or even ashamed about it)
   3. An attack by another person (doesn’t have to be a huge attack — could just be a blunt observation)
   4. The attacker seeing the same flaw which the defender does not want to admit

Defensiveness Could Be a Personality Trait

The first two items above are more characteristic issues: they enter into that area of ways of thinking and/or personality traits. I have a flaw — I do not want to admit to it — and I am sensitive about it. That’s getting into that character realm of things.

Often we might feel quite inadequate around a flaw or at least insecure about it. We certainly do not want to admit it to others and we may not even really admit it to ourselves.

In order to become defensive, that real or perceived flaw has to relate to something that is an important part of my own sense of self or self-worth, and my identity[ii]. It’s like a closely guarded secret that you’re trying your hardest to hide from everyone— maybe even yourself— so when it’s brought to light you instantly try to shoot it down.

So we get defensive in situations in which our identity is threatened.

A classic example is an addiction — even take it on the lighter end of the scale, like a phone addiction. For me to be defensive, go through the four parts:

1. 1. I perceive it but do not want to admit to it
   2. I am sensitive — I do not want it pointed out
   3. You point it out to me with a harsh edge on your voice because it is a problem that is coming between us
   4. You see the flaw, and I know that.

And then I am beginning to think, I am an addict. I am a bad husband. Good husbands do not have this problem. I stake a lot of my self-identity on being a good husband and father.

Now we have all the ingredients for defensiveness. So how does this get talked (or fought!) through in a marriage?

Defensive Communication in Marriage

There are two sides to defensive communication: the defensive reaction, and the action which caused it. We need to separate these. Just think carefully about how you either trigger defensiveness in your spouse, or how you respond to your spouse when you are feeling defensive[iii]. Let’s start with the first.

How to Trigger Defensiveness In Your Spouse

Here are some sure-fire ways to put your spouse into a defensive mindset:

1. 1. Use words or tone of voice that evaluates or judges the listener (“I see you are on your phone…again”)
   2. Attempt to control or coerce the listener (“If you don’t put that down I am going to freak on you.”)
   3. Strategic or manipulative communication (targeting, needling or guilting over it)
   4. Neutral speech that conveys a lack of concern (#hairflip you’re on your phone again)
   5. Implications of superiority
   6. Dogmatism or certainty in your own opinion
   7. Any behavior that your spouse deems threatening or punishing
   8. Loud or rapid speech
   9. Frequent interruptions or corrections

These last 2-3 are typical of conflict scenarios: you’re shouting and demanding in every way you can think of but nothing is getting through, and the angrier you get, the more defensive your spouse gets.

What You Likely Do When You Are Feeling Defensive

And here’s how you’re likely to react when you’re in defense-mode:

1. 1. Dismiss your spouse’s concerns (“what, I’m just looking for a place to eat tonight”)
   2. Denying or minimizing your own responsibility (“People from work keep asking me for stuff”)
   3. Shifting blame to the attacker (“If you’d be a little friendlier I wouldn’t have to use my phone for an escape”)
   4. Making excuses (“Why? Other people use their phones way more than me!”)
   5. Justifications of your actions (“This is how I make a living, OK!”)

How Defensiveness Impacts Marriage

This is one of those “you can win the battle but you’re going to lose the war” scenarios.

Defensive styles of communication lead to increased sensitivity and escalation of the conflict, as the attacker feels like they are not being heard and the defender keeps trying to deflect responsibility[iv].

Where this really hits a marriage in the gut is it is sending a signal to your spouse (when you are defensive) that s/he is not getting through to you. Basically it is an abandonment or rejection signal. It is saying you are alone in what you think because you cannot get through to me. Or it is saying I do not care what you think, go away.

And you thought you were just being defensive!

Researchers have noted a couple important things about why defensiveness really never has anything positive to offer your marriage:

1. 1. Defensiveness in one spouse also makes the other spouse more prone to defensiveness, creating a destructive cycle that perpetuates itself[v].
   2. Couples who frequently engage in defensive communication report fewer positive feelings for each other and experience lower marital quality and satisfaction[vi]

Ok so that’s how defensiveness works to wreck marriages. Now let’s explore how to stop it.

Reducing Defensiveness Owning Your Flaws

The built-in objection within defensiveness is that we do not want to be flawed people. Nor do we wish to be seen by the most important people in our lives as being flawed.

If you can change your perspective of marriage to one that includes seeing your marriage as a crucible for personal growth, then you are going to be receptive to the complaints that your spouse makes.

So when she says, “You’re on your phone too much” you can respond differently. You choose to be married because you wish to grow, and your spouse just offered you some feedback that could trigger growth. So instead of becoming defensive, you are now in a position to embrace the feedback even if it hurts.

Remember, one of the core components of defensiveness is a self-perceived flaw which you refuse to admit. When you admit and own the flaw, you are no longer in the position of being defensive.

Part of this is based on the perspective that we are all broken as human beings. So when someone points out one of my flaws, they may do so in a hurtful manner, but because I know that I am already flawed my identity is not threatened.

So there’s an attack but there is no sensitivity because I’ve already embraced my brokenness. Now, I may choose to set a boundary on people who consistently point out flaws in a hurtful way because they are toxic or unhealthy — they’re corrosive — but when it is someone who cares and is normally respectful I can much more readily embrace the feedback.

Believing in Self-Determination

If you’re from a Christian background like us, you may get a little nervous around the idea of self-determination, which is the ability to make decisions without relying on others, and doing things out of your own free will rather than being coerced and manipulated.

We believe in the will of God, but we also believe that God has given to every person the ability to make their own choices. I believe in free will.

In this context, then, you can make choices based on the values that matter to you. As opposed to being forced into things by other people.

So take my phone example, and our definition of how defensiveness happens: someone points out a flaw which you are sensitive to and refuse to admit. Defensiveness says that you can choose to deny the flaw, conceal what is sensitive and try to protect yourself. Self-Determination says that you have chosen to enter marriage, you are invested in the health of that marriage and in the care of your spouse. With this mindset you see the problem as a challenge to be faced together rather than something that needs to be denied, minimized or hidden[vii].

When you see yourself as capable of addressing something rather than as a victim or someone with an unchangeable character flaw, that is a more empowered position to act from. When you see your marriage as part of this in the sense that this is where you get to be seen, warts and all, then you will be even less defensive. In that way, you’re acknowledging this is what you signed up for: refinement, growth, and challenges.

People who show this kind of self-determination generally experience better emotional wellbeing and better relationship satisfaction overall[viii]. Being confident in your ability to face challenges together helps you move past defensiveness and strengthens your marriage across the board.

References:

[i] Glen H. Stamp, Anita L. Vangelisti, and John A. Daly, ‘The Creation of Defensiveness in Social Interaction’, Communication Quarterly, 40.2 (1992), 177–90.

[ii] Stamp, Vangelisti, and Daly.

[iii] Stamp, Vangelisti, and Daly.

[iv] Jennifer Becker, Barbara Ellevold, and Glen Stamp, The Creation of Defensiveness in Social Interaction II: A Model of Defensive Communication among Romantic Couples, 2008, lxxv <https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750701885415>.

[v] Becker, Ellevold, and Stamp, lxxv.

[vi] C. Raymond Knee and others, ‘Self-Determination and Conflict in Romantic Relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89.6 (2005), 997–1009 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.997>.

[vii] Knee and others.

[viii] Knee and others.