My Husband Complains About Everything I Do: My Husband Complains About Me To My Parents
My husband complains about everything I do - My husband complains about me to my parents.
Could you believe that it is possible to have a marriage relationship unpolluted by criticism? If that is possible, you might then ask, "Could a relationship without criticism be healthy?" Could you express your emotions and strongly disagree about something and yet still not criticize? The answer to all of these questions is yes (And, contrary to what and uncle once told me, one of them would not have to be dead).
The Upward Spiral of Communion
When you first meet someone, you talk, you get to know each other, you find you like each other, and you both want to talk more. Communication, knowledge and affection lead to a deep connection between you. I call this process "the upward spiral of communion." You are connecting at the heart, mind and spirit level. There can be no criticism.
If he or she were to criticize you early in your relationship, it would break the connection and you would part. If you were to feel critical, you would just leave with a silent "I don't need this."
Consider that I'm talking about adult relationships, not the adolescent "I-can-change-him-after-we're-married" version, or the "but-he-says-he'll-change" version of relationships.
You Don't Own Your Marriage Partner
Criticizing your marriage partner implies right of ownership and a right to control. You might believe you are responsible for your partner's behavior, and they might even buy into it. But, you're not. In fact I have met people who actually believe it's their right to sit in judgment of everyone, including their spouse. That is not a healthy attitude for life, let alone a marriage.
Criticism, sitting in judgment over your spouse, can kick start you down the slippery slope towards a codependent, entangled marriage. It sneaks up on you. The entanglement of codependency leads to embarrassment, shame, family secrets, and a host of other dysfunctional behavior that makes true intimacy impossible.
Criticism as a Pollutant within a Marriage
True intimacy has no agenda, but for both of you it is full acceptance and connection at mental, emotional, spiritual and physical levels. Criticism kills intimacy.
Unfortunately, the frustration of lack of intimacy in a relationship leads to more criticism and to alienation.
Handling Disagreements without Criticism
Self care comes first. Both of you have gained a good understanding of and caring for your own needs as individual people. You have each developed a strong sense of self.
From this base you are each comfortable with expressing your needs, desires, wants, dreams and emotions with each other. You each are genuinely interested hearing your partner's words about anything, because that is how you stay connected.
When two people are able to maintain this level of communion, there is little place for criticism.
When your spouse's behavior upsets you, you express your upset. But at the same time you look inward to find the real cause of your frustration. After all, it is your problem, not your partner's. You are the one that's upset.
On the other hand your spouse was just expressing feelings about something, not intending to upset you; so seeing your upset, he or she may make changes if appropriate.
It is only unsolicited feedback, "criticism," that causes disconnection, alienation and the destruction of intimacy. With that in mind, you can both ask for feedback on anything without fear of being judged.
If you are already in a relationship with criticism, make changes. Do it takes to reverse that life-sucking slide towards alienation.
Do you want to learn the secret to a devoted marriage? How do those couples do it? How do they stay together for 10, 20, 30 years…and still feel that love, connection, and unbreakable desire for each other? The secret is revealed on the next page. So if you feel like your marriage is about to take its last few breaths, then I urge you to visit the next page: Click Here Now!
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It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
~Friedrich Nietzsche.
This is a profound truth. We get eternally confused when we picture marriage as that ever-continuing dreamy romance that punctuated the early going... I mean, where did it go?
In marriage relationships a queer thing occurs. The 'easy romance' transforms beyond a return to it--no matter how hard we try. And yet, the way back to the romance is, paradoxically, through the friendship we engender in our ever-developing bond. We are confounded in our selfishness for wanting something for ourselves when the answer was easily as simple; it lies in pleasing our partners. For this is true love.
And besides, we can't easily find marital bliss unless we can start to begin to know ourselves.
Most people will scoff at that thought; 'Of course, I know myself, idiot!' Sorry, but my response is, 'Don't be so sure!' We're a long way from ourselves unless we make it a deliberate and intentional mission in life--many people will not do this unless they're forced there. Life's too comfortable.
Yet, the comfortable groove that we exist in is often the very nexus of our problem.
When we don't connect with ourselves well, how can we possibly connect with our partners in the necessarily sacrificial way that love implicitly requires?
But let's get back to our original concern: friendship in marriage. How many of us desire not simply a partner but a soul-mate? That was and is my desire. Yet, to become soul-mates requires action, and that on a continual basis. Being a soul-mate is about being such a well-connected friend we don't survive well without continual "helpings" of our partner. We're desperate for them; lost without them--but not to the point where we're no longer adequately independent people. Is your relationship this "connected?" (If it isn't, don't stress. It can only develop this way over time. Action is required.)
I recall a work colleague lauding to me, upon my quizzing, the blessings of wondrous sex in his thirty-five year old marriage; it just got better and better. His secret? He and his wife had simply endured the worst entwined together and now they were enjoying the best--entwined together.
And the product of this journeying in marital friendship is a centralisation on trust and respect--both partners looking positively to each other, entrenched in the purity of love's most basic rapport--friendship.
Friendship is devotion. Devotion is friendship. This is relational love and the very best input to the unsurpassed marriage.
You CAN save your marriage - even if your spouse says that they want a divorce.
You CAN rebuild that passion you felt for one another when you first kissed. And you can bring back that love and devotion you felt for one another when both of you said, "I love you" for the first time.
If you feel like your marriage is worth fighting for, then do yourself a favour and visit the next page that will teach you everything you need to know about salvaging the most important thing in the world: Save Your Marriage Now
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