“I think about them and make decisions on their behalf all the time. They don’t do that in return.”
I don’t know about this line. I suspect that there are a lot of people, both women and men, who tell themselves this. But while they do think about their partners all the time, and do make decisions based on what they think, what they are really doing is trying to control things by being the only one who makes decisions, and doing so without actually talking to or being curious about how their spouse feels or what they are thinking. Their main concern is to assuage their own anxiety by controlling things. Are there that many people who really begin their relationships who aren’t concerned and don’t want to know what’s going on with their partner? It seems way more plausible to me that there is a vicious cycle in these relationships. So while this man could have acted differently, would he ever have had a good marriage? I am skeptical. Should he have tried to be a better husband? Definitely. But unfortunately that in itself isn’t enough to save a marriage. It would have set him up better for future relationships. But I think that in a lot of things, you have to act according to your values, not in the hope of obtaining a certain outcome, because other people’s actions are outside of your control.
There are, almost always, bigger things going on beneath the surface in the minds and hearts of the people I work with. Bent and broken things that doctors and therapists and people much smarter than me are working on.
I try to stay in my lane, and I can be a little flippant with words sometimes while trying to do so. I think your analysis is spot on.
I think there are a lot of people who grow up for various reasons not feeling like they have much control of their environment. People who move a lot. People in abusive/neglectful homes. People who lost loved ones to accidents or illness. And people who didn't have stable, secure home lives or relationships do tend to wrestle for control in order to quell their own anxiety. I think that's spot on and really insightful. But I hope nothing I've written here contradicts that idea.
Most marriages consist of flawed, hurting people just trying to do their best, and sometimes that isn't currently enough to soothe the pain or fix what's broken. The work is adjusting oneself in an effort to be capable of meeting the needs of another person, and the needs of a relationship/household.
Often that requires some deep, difficult emotional and mental work to heal past "injuries." Sometimes, we're not so good at looking out for others until we learn how to effectively look out for ourselves (without hurting others).
It wasn't unhung pictures or undone tasks. It was walks in the woods not taken, not joining frisbee games with the dog, not going with me for a sick dog's PTS, contempt for my post-cancer treatment spiritual awakening, and finally not coming to my very first art gallery show -- my own work on the walls -- that pushed me over the edge from separation to insisting on divorce. I could swallow cooking and cleaning up the kitchen afterwards. I could sigh and shrug over meals not appreciated, flowers never bought for birthday and Valentine's and anniversary. But my first art show? That was a bridge too far.
So much of it is about empathy--being able to experience events from our partner's perspective. Sometimes I think the years spent together with someone creates a familiarity that is an enemy of empathy. We think we know them, and we do, but we haven't taken the extra step to really experience things from their point of view. It seems like we shouldn't HAVE to do that. We reserve empathy for people we don't know nearly as well. I admit I do struggle with empathy and it's an area I need to grow in. If anyone knows of resources that have helped them develop this skill I am all ears!
It takes two to make a marriage work but only one to decide it's over.
Obviously he could have done better. But she didn't have to turn it into 'you dont care about me enough'. It's her prerogative of course, but not the only option.
What about the things he does do to show he cares? What about the things she does, or doesn't, that he overlooks?
We're never going to be perfect partners, and it's always going to take some willingness to see beyond the scorekeeping, to accept the Person who is my Partner, and love them the Way They Are, if we want to stay together and enjoy it.
Right, it takes two to make a marriage work. So if only one person is doing that work, and that person "decides" to end it... didn't the other person sort of decide to end it by not doing the work?
Matt, as always, you have gotten so much right here! I just want to tweak it a little. This:
"Only two things can be true: 1.He made a conscious decision day after day after day to not hang the paintings knowing full well how meaningful and upsetting it was to his wife, and thought: Ehh. I don’t really care. I only care about me. That’s not what happened. But she has to consider it. 2. He didn’t notice. He didn’t realize it. He walked by the bare spot on the wall every day, or the paintings in their shipping boxes, and it never occurred to him to think about how his wife was experiencing it."
Actually, there is a third thing that can be, and probably is, true. There's something between "He only cares about himself" and "He didn't realize...It never occurred to him."
Because it did occur to him. Because you said:
"When she does mention it, he minimizes, deflects, or dismisses..." So obviously he did realize. She told him. More than once. So you can't say he didn't realize.
And then you say, "A time of disconnection and broken promises and demonstrations of I prioritize me over you. It’s not what anyone meant to say or do. It’s not. It’s just what happened."
It didn't just happen, Matt. Choices were made. And how can we change if we don't take responsibility for our actions? How else can it get better? Do we have to wait for something better to "just happen"? When you say (again) "it just happened", you're absolving everyone of responsibility, and also taking away response-ability.
"Family or friends dying. Big deal. War. Big deal. Starving families with little access to clean water in third-world countries. Big deal."
Not sure if you realize this, but the above is a very male-centric statement. Yes, a death in the family will impact you, especially if it is a parent or child. But if it's someone who you do not live with, I'm not sure if the impact is the same. War? Is that war in your country? Your neighborhood? Is your child in the armed services there? Starving families? Once again, are YOU starving? Oh, it's in third world countries and you are not personally impacted by them? These are all more far off things that do not impact people in their daily lives.
Not doing something your spouse requests? That impacts YOU. Because your spouse gets upset. Even if they don't say so, they're upset. At the very least, they are being ignored and disregarded. That's a person you see every single day.
One thing to consider is... procrastination. Have you written about this? It can be a huge problem if one person is a procrastinator or if one likes to start projects but not finish them.
That might be a whole new topic for you to consider.
The procrastination thing is real. And so often it's not a result of laziness. For a lot of older adults, especially older women, it's overwhelm that is part and parcel of undiagnosed ADHD. A lot of us were never diagnosed as children or teens because, well, our symptoms didn't cause classroom disruptions. Given how crazy our society and culture have become over the last 30-40 years, the usual coping mechanisms just don't work well anymore.
Communication again is a big hairy deal in this situation. It's hard to talk things through when your brain is misfiring every single cylinder. Sometimes the only thing that helps is a really long hug.
El, if you knew how common that is, maybe you'd be less embarrassed? In the knitting world, we refer to those as UFOs - UnFinished Objects - and we all have piles of them.
“I think about them and make decisions on their behalf all the time. They don’t do that in return.”
I don’t know about this line. I suspect that there are a lot of people, both women and men, who tell themselves this. But while they do think about their partners all the time, and do make decisions based on what they think, what they are really doing is trying to control things by being the only one who makes decisions, and doing so without actually talking to or being curious about how their spouse feels or what they are thinking. Their main concern is to assuage their own anxiety by controlling things. Are there that many people who really begin their relationships who aren’t concerned and don’t want to know what’s going on with their partner? It seems way more plausible to me that there is a vicious cycle in these relationships. So while this man could have acted differently, would he ever have had a good marriage? I am skeptical. Should he have tried to be a better husband? Definitely. But unfortunately that in itself isn’t enough to save a marriage. It would have set him up better for future relationships. But I think that in a lot of things, you have to act according to your values, not in the hope of obtaining a certain outcome, because other people’s actions are outside of your control.
There are, almost always, bigger things going on beneath the surface in the minds and hearts of the people I work with. Bent and broken things that doctors and therapists and people much smarter than me are working on.
I try to stay in my lane, and I can be a little flippant with words sometimes while trying to do so. I think your analysis is spot on.
I think there are a lot of people who grow up for various reasons not feeling like they have much control of their environment. People who move a lot. People in abusive/neglectful homes. People who lost loved ones to accidents or illness. And people who didn't have stable, secure home lives or relationships do tend to wrestle for control in order to quell their own anxiety. I think that's spot on and really insightful. But I hope nothing I've written here contradicts that idea.
Most marriages consist of flawed, hurting people just trying to do their best, and sometimes that isn't currently enough to soothe the pain or fix what's broken. The work is adjusting oneself in an effort to be capable of meeting the needs of another person, and the needs of a relationship/household.
Often that requires some deep, difficult emotional and mental work to heal past "injuries." Sometimes, we're not so good at looking out for others until we learn how to effectively look out for ourselves (without hurting others).
Anyway, thanks for reading and sharing this.
It wasn't unhung pictures or undone tasks. It was walks in the woods not taken, not joining frisbee games with the dog, not going with me for a sick dog's PTS, contempt for my post-cancer treatment spiritual awakening, and finally not coming to my very first art gallery show -- my own work on the walls -- that pushed me over the edge from separation to insisting on divorce. I could swallow cooking and cleaning up the kitchen afterwards. I could sigh and shrug over meals not appreciated, flowers never bought for birthday and Valentine's and anniversary. But my first art show? That was a bridge too far.
So much of it is about empathy--being able to experience events from our partner's perspective. Sometimes I think the years spent together with someone creates a familiarity that is an enemy of empathy. We think we know them, and we do, but we haven't taken the extra step to really experience things from their point of view. It seems like we shouldn't HAVE to do that. We reserve empathy for people we don't know nearly as well. I admit I do struggle with empathy and it's an area I need to grow in. If anyone knows of resources that have helped them develop this skill I am all ears!
It takes two to make a marriage work but only one to decide it's over.
Obviously he could have done better. But she didn't have to turn it into 'you dont care about me enough'. It's her prerogative of course, but not the only option.
What about the things he does do to show he cares? What about the things she does, or doesn't, that he overlooks?
We're never going to be perfect partners, and it's always going to take some willingness to see beyond the scorekeeping, to accept the Person who is my Partner, and love them the Way They Are, if we want to stay together and enjoy it.
Right, it takes two to make a marriage work. So if only one person is doing that work, and that person "decides" to end it... didn't the other person sort of decide to end it by not doing the work?
Interesting way to look at it.
Matt, as always, you have gotten so much right here! I just want to tweak it a little. This:
"Only two things can be true: 1.He made a conscious decision day after day after day to not hang the paintings knowing full well how meaningful and upsetting it was to his wife, and thought: Ehh. I don’t really care. I only care about me. That’s not what happened. But she has to consider it. 2. He didn’t notice. He didn’t realize it. He walked by the bare spot on the wall every day, or the paintings in their shipping boxes, and it never occurred to him to think about how his wife was experiencing it."
Actually, there is a third thing that can be, and probably is, true. There's something between "He only cares about himself" and "He didn't realize...It never occurred to him."
Because it did occur to him. Because you said:
"When she does mention it, he minimizes, deflects, or dismisses..." So obviously he did realize. She told him. More than once. So you can't say he didn't realize.
And then you say, "A time of disconnection and broken promises and demonstrations of I prioritize me over you. It’s not what anyone meant to say or do. It’s not. It’s just what happened."
It didn't just happen, Matt. Choices were made. And how can we change if we don't take responsibility for our actions? How else can it get better? Do we have to wait for something better to "just happen"? When you say (again) "it just happened", you're absolving everyone of responsibility, and also taking away response-ability.
"Family or friends dying. Big deal. War. Big deal. Starving families with little access to clean water in third-world countries. Big deal."
Not sure if you realize this, but the above is a very male-centric statement. Yes, a death in the family will impact you, especially if it is a parent or child. But if it's someone who you do not live with, I'm not sure if the impact is the same. War? Is that war in your country? Your neighborhood? Is your child in the armed services there? Starving families? Once again, are YOU starving? Oh, it's in third world countries and you are not personally impacted by them? These are all more far off things that do not impact people in their daily lives.
Not doing something your spouse requests? That impacts YOU. Because your spouse gets upset. Even if they don't say so, they're upset. At the very least, they are being ignored and disregarded. That's a person you see every single day.
One thing to consider is... procrastination. Have you written about this? It can be a huge problem if one person is a procrastinator or if one likes to start projects but not finish them.
That might be a whole new topic for you to consider.
The procrastination thing is real. And so often it's not a result of laziness. For a lot of older adults, especially older women, it's overwhelm that is part and parcel of undiagnosed ADHD. A lot of us were never diagnosed as children or teens because, well, our symptoms didn't cause classroom disruptions. Given how crazy our society and culture have become over the last 30-40 years, the usual coping mechanisms just don't work well anymore.
Communication again is a big hairy deal in this situation. It's hard to talk things through when your brain is misfiring every single cylinder. Sometimes the only thing that helps is a really long hug.
Example: I have lost track of how many unfinished sewing projects I have. It's embarrassing as hell.
El, if you knew how common that is, maybe you'd be less embarrassed? In the knitting world, we refer to those as UFOs - UnFinished Objects - and we all have piles of them.