Hey Spouse,
It hurts for your partner to no longer believe in you. It steals your possibilities away, right?
Basically, it says that you are a robot that cannot escape your programming. As if you didn’t have free choice.
So why did they convince themselves in the first place that that was you? What’s the motivation to not believe in you? Well, THEY’VE told you to change and you didn’t. That’s their answer.
And you may be surprised to hear that. “They did not tell me to change. I don’t know where they get that from” you may be thinking. There’s the rub. Was it that you didn’t hear them or was it that they didn’t know how to communicate?
Maybe a little of both?
When I work with couples I always find it’s a little of both. One person will tell me that she or he repeatedly told their spouse what was bothering them and I believe them. I believe they did. But somehow it did not register.
Why?
Well, we tune out our spouses when we’re sick and tired of
*being nagged
*being criticized
*feeling like we are always wrong
*being made to feel less than, dumb, somehow inferior stuff
*not being trusted
*not feeling appreciated, liked, enjoyed
*feeling used in bed, the kitchen, or the checkbook
When none of these things ever happened, the unfortunate truth is that we will also tune out our spouse’s complaints when we’re comfortable.
Yup.
I said it.
That’s kind of selfish, isn’t it?
Well, it is.
We get comfortable and we watch our spouse vacuum, make dinners, shop, work at the office, come home late, drive the kids around, do homework with them – and sit there just watching. Happy to sit and take it easy while they do their thing.
And we allow their complaints to blow past us just like we allowed our mom’s or dad’s complaints to evaporate into air. After all, if we weren’t punished by them for it, it meant that what we did wasn’t so terrible, right?
So we could just tune them out.
And we get away with it for a long, long time. Until they leave. Or file papers. Then we cry. The whole world is falling apart.
Now, there’s a third possibility. Maybe you meant to listen and do what was expected of you but you just didn’t really understand.
You were told they wanted more time so you gave them more time. And then they told you that you were smothering them with too much attention!
It happens.
Sometimes what is really missing is understanding the finer points. Being attuned. Having the same vocabulary.
Bottom line, of course your partner can change. Whether the problem is that they’ve been tuning you out from habit or because you need to change your approach, or they never tuned you out at all but didn’t exactly “get it,” I can help.
Because I do get it. And I can pretty quickly tell which of the reasons is the real one – and what to do about it.
Book a call with me to get the ball rolling: https://drdeb.com/book