Michael was the culprit in this relationship with his wife, Jeanette, only he didn’t know it. As is often the case with abusive people, he blamed Jeanette for not “understanding” him.
But today, as this couple speaks with me, Michael claims, “We have an unshakeable reliability on each other.”
Jeanette echoes, “To put it in once sentence, I feel like we’re married. We’re in an equal relationship.”
But that was not how it was back before they reached out to me.
Jeanette struggled with emotion as she explained, “His to do list took priority over everyone else’s. Sometimes it was shirking from parental or household responsibilities. Sometimes he was resentful that I wasn’t available for him physically or emotionally.”
He would blame her when things didn’t go his way.
She went on, “It was lonely and a burden. So I became less respectful towards him even in front of the children. They didn’t have a father that was engaged in their well-being, not according to their needs or on their terms. I was done being involved emotionally.”
Michael’s experience is so similar to people I’ve met who don’t intend to hurt their spouses but they do.
They know they’re out of control, but somehow think – magically – it shouldn’t affect their spouses.
He admitted, “I realized that I was unbalanced. I was getting flare-ups of emotions that I didn’t know how to cope with and I would lash out. I had frustration, disappointment that things weren’t going my way.”
But here’s the kicker from Michael – and you will recognize this from your own experience -“I thought, ‘Why can’t you just be understanding if I make a mistake?’ ”
Naturally, Jeanette and Michael tried conventional therapy. They didn’t get very much out of it, though. Shockingly, given the out-of-control temper, Michael says of the therapists, “None of them made me feel like I had to get to work on something.”
One therapist told Michael to do more around the house, but as Jeanette explained, “It was done very resentfully so there was a price to pay.”
So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back?
Michael admitted that when Jeanette had a miscarriage, he “disregarded it.” She finally told him she was “done.” She couldn’t take it.
Jeanette wanted him to understand why she was done, why she no longer trusted him. She didn’t think therapy would or could help, but she wanted him to at least understand her. So she turned to Google like we all do when we want answers.
She explains, “I found an article written by you. After searching and searching. It described exactly what I was feeling. I sent it to him, saying, this is why I can’t trust you anymore.” [They laugh at this serendipity.]
I always wonder how people feel about my homework assignments once they get started with me. Apparently two of them stuck out in their minds.
Michael: “Right at the beginning, you asked me to recite an affirmation about patience. When you first mentioned it, I did not believe it would change me or mold the way I think about things. But I did it. And it gave me a feeling of being centered and in control of myself in two weeks.”
Jeanette adds, “I noticed a difference in the first two weeks, too. Whenever something got challenging he would pause and lay down on the floor and start breathing! I would tell him, ‘go outside.’ I have to say, you grew 19 years” in such a short time.
How is it today?
Michael confides, “I have this new self-reflection aspect. So whatever I’m doing, I check in: What is this doing to my tension level? Is it going up? So I will take extra time to calm myself down and do the breathing.”
But Jeanette wants me to understand that it was not just about the temper. That was good, but not having a temper is not a marriage, either. She explains:
“There were two distinct phases in his work. In the first, he worked a lot on self-regulation and being less volatile and reactive. In the second section, he learned how to relate and be empathetic to others. That’s where the transformation happened.”
How did that transformation happen, anyway, I wanted to know.
Michael explained, “You taught me that once I’m done calming myself down, I have to do some stock taking of what are my needs, because if I only take care of others, it will backfire. And to make that clear to Jeanette and whoever else it was relevant to.
“The second point is being in tune to Jeanette. How is she feeling right now and what would make her happy? Being mindful of that is the doorway to having a marriage, a relationship. It’s a daily work. I’m highly motivated to do it because I know it’s very good for her and for me.”
But if that’s true, then how does he balance his own needs with hers? Does he always give in to hers?
Michael has a clear answer to that: “I have to prioritize how would I feel if this need weren’t fulfilled. And assess her needs. I get a sense from her how urgent her need is. Usually if she communicates with me then I know it is important for her. Rarely will our needs collide.”
But I press Michael. I want to know how he balances it all.
“You know, I never put a scale on it,” Michael answers.
Jeanette is very pleased with his answer. She adds, “He is also realizing when he is stretching himself too far. That’s when he has to communicate his needs. And he’s flexible and reasonable about bringing it up. Like if there’s a crazy week, like if I’m taking care of a child every day and he has to do carpool for the rest, he might say at the end of the week, ‘I’m feeling like I’m starting to lose it. Can I have an hour to go down to the beach?’ “
“That makes it easier to deal with rather than the old way of stonewalling, being resentful, not communicating for two weeks. So, yeah, it’s different.”
There was one flare-up that was a couple months ago that was resolved in two days. I wondered what they did about it. Michael had to “reach back into the tools.”
Jeanette was very hurt but did not lose trust. She was scared that he was backsliding and let him know. He did something reasonable. He asked for time to figure it out and that’s just what he did.
Jeanette relates that “He came back a few days later and he had it worked out. I didn’t know if he assimilated the lessons he had learned well enough to use them now, but he did, so that was very reassuring.”
I ask Michael and Jeanette what they would like my readers to know.
- Michael: “Tell your readers that we have built in tools to handle ourselves and our shortcomings and we have to know how to access them and use them. It took a professional working with me to implement them.”
- But Jeanette wants you to know something else: “#1 that I wasn’t crazy in wondering what was wrong, that no matter what I did wasn’t good enough. It really wasn’t enough; it wasn’t just in my head.”
- “And the other one is that it’s not true that jerks will remain jerks. That’s our society but it’s not true. I just want to say thank you. When we started, I didn’t have hope. And I wasn’t looking for help because I didn’t think there could be help. I never imagined things could be this way today.
“I can’t say you gave me my marriage back because I don’t think we had it in the first place. We never had it because we each weren’t a complete half. We became a complete half so we could merge into a whole.”
This half and whole thing maybe needs explanation. I totally believe that we need to be past our triggers and our early hurts in order to give generously to the marriage. That’s why to get the marriage you want, we have to start with the Love Yourself, Love Your Marriage program which focuses on being deeply happy with who you are so you can communicate from a place of love and respect.
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