How and when did your spouse become uncooperative? They certainly were not this uncooperative when you first married them, or you would have never agreed to tie the knot. What happened, and what can be done about it?
Here is a plausible explanation. When you were first married, things went well because you felt love for each other; love was the defining characteristic of the relationship. When issues did arise, you were willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt. But then, as weeks stretched to months and months to years, a curious but not unusual phenomenon began to unfold: each of you began to say and do things that were experienced by the other as being hurtful.
I am not necessarily talking about intentionally hurtful, major incidents, such as committing adultery or gambling away the grocery money, though of course these things can and do occur. I am talking about minor, unintentionally hurtful incidents, such as not calling when you are going to be late, failing to remember to pick up milk on your way home, or eating the last cookie out of the cookie jar without replacing it. These things sound silly, right? They sound like such minor occurrences that they ought not merit any attention.
Herein lies the rub. That they are such minor infractions, we consider them not worth caring about. And we are likely to view anybody who does care about them as touchy, spoiled, or thin-skinned. And thus a fatal virus is spawned: a minor infraction combined with a lack of remorse. Over time, as these incidents accumulate and go unaddressed, they form a film that coats everything in the relationship. Because they are minor, they go largely unnoticed; when they are noticed, they usually result in a flare-up of emotion where one party is considered touchy and the other inconsiderate.
This situation promotes feelings of bitterness and resentment, and soon these feelings, not love, become the defining characteristics of the relationship. Like Louis Pasteur in the mid-nineteenth century, who could have imagined such a little thing could have such a major impact? Each spouse begins to pull back from the other. The little niceties that used to occur become less frequent. Signs of affection and regard disappear. Things grow colder in the bedroom. Arguments flare up more frequently and are rarely resolved. Long, dark silences emerge, and each spouse begins taking on a more and more separate lifestyle. Cooperation becomes a thing of the past.
So what can be done about this sad situation? First, it is important to realize that both sides have been hurt and that each side considers itself the offended party. And each side has its own list of charges to justify that determination.
Now is a good time to recall that we are not in a court of law here; no judge and jury is going to hear the evidence and declare one party wrong and the other right. No matter how justified you are in maintaining your claims, you are going to have to be willing to give them up if you want a happy marriage. Being “right” is the booby prize. Divorce courts are full of people who are right. You can be right, or you can have a happy marriage; you cannot have both.
Pride becomes the real problem here. It is exceedingly difficult for any of us to admit how much we have been hurt by someone we love and thought loved us. Repeatedly hurt, intentionally hurt, cruelly hurt; a difficult place inside us to look at, accept and heal. It awakens wounds from the past. That is where pride enters in: pride saves us from having to acknowledge how hurt, humiliated, and ashamed we feel inside. Even if we allow pride to dominate and wind up in a divorce court, that hurt is going to remain inside us, like a cancer, until we open to it and heal it.
Sometimes the hurt is such that we may require professional help and support for a time, until we are able to learn to tolerate it. Whether or not that is the case, the time will come when we realize we do not want to continue living our lives like this anymore; we want to act, to do something about it. Many people, having reached this conclusion, begin thinking of divorce; while that is always an option, I encourage people to try to salvage their marriage if they can. If nothing else, you will learn a great deal about yourself in the process, that will help prepare you for life in the future, wherever that may be.
The good news (you were hoping there would be some good news, no?) is that your spouse is as sick and tired of the status quo as you are and may well be ready to negotiate. Remember the love you once felt for them and from them? Well, it has not gone away, it has only been covered over by the film of bitterness and resentment I mentioned earlier. Not to minimize that film – it is both thick and sticky – but the love you remember remains there, underneath it.
You begin to dissolve this film by the conscious application of honesty, love and, above all, vulnerability. You can begin by asking your spouse to sit down with you; sometimes a quiet public place is best suited to promote civility and decorum. You can say something like: Look, our life together has become fairly miserable; I don’t like it this way and imagine you don’t either. I want to see if we can make things better, and I believe we can do so only if we leave blaming each other behind. So, without falling into the rut of continuously blaming each other, what do you think we can do to improve things between us?
Anticipate that your spouse may have a poor reaction to this kind of overture. Remember, you have been giving this plea thought for quite some time; for them, it is coming like a bolt from the blue. So do not be too ambitious; ask them to give what you have said some thought and ask if they would be willing to revisit the subject again in a few days.
While it is not your role to play therapist, you are assuming a leadership role in the relationship, at least for the moment. I think this a legitimate situation, particularly if your spouse is willing to wear the same mantle farther down the road.
While this experiment is serious, it need not be tedious; see if together you can say and do the things you said and did when you were first in love. Reminisce. Recall old times, old friends, old places. So doing will help recall the faith and love you have for each other that has inadvertently become displaced over time. The love, trust and warmth are still there, and, if you are willing to forgo the dubious glee of holding on to bitterness and resentment, you both can tap into and employ it once again.
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