Not only can a spouse's reaction to honesty be a Love Buster, but the honest revelation can actually be a Love Buster in disguise.
What if you were to express your unhappiness by throwing a lamp and crying out, You never have time for me anymore. I don't know why I ever married you, you selfish jerk. You might get points for honesty but they'd all be lost because of your angry outburst. It does no good to express genuine feelings if your spouse is running for cover.
Instead of getting angry, you might say, I'm the least important person in your fife. Your priorities are certainly screwed up. You seem to think that money is more important than I am. That may be your honest opinion, but you are wrapping it in a disrespectful judgment - you are telling your spouse how he or she feels. The truth is that you don't know how your spouse feels, unless he or she tells you.
Or you might say, if you don't start spending more time with me soon, l'll find someone else to spend time with and you'll be sleeping with your money. That's a selfish demand. It's an ultimatum with a threat of punishment if the demand is not met.
There are better ways to express your honesty. For example, I become upset when I'm left alone at night, l'd love to spend more time with you. Can we talk about ways to make this happen? These are honest statements of your feelings, because you are telling your spouse how you feel and what you would like and you are suggesting the creation of a plan to see that it happens.
Sometimes it feels awkward to avoid angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, and selfish demands. If you are in the habit of using these Love Busters to try to get your way, they may seem to be a part of your normal conversation. But anyone can learn to avoid them if a concerted effort is made to drive them out completely. And once they are no longer a part of your conversation, the chances that your spouse will listen to you and grant your requests are greatly increased.
If you are to be honest with your spouse, you must be willing to reveal your feelings but you must reveal them without Love Busters. That way honesty will help your marriage instead of hurting it.
Honesty Means Being Persistent
It is not true that Sue never told Jon how she felt. She occasionally said, I'm lonely. But Jon would say, Well, I don't know how we can pay the bills if I'm home all the time. Sue eventually stopped saying it but she continued to feel lonely. She just learned to live with it. Jon thought it was no longer a problem because Sue stopped talking about it.
Communication cannot happen unless two people are both expressing and receiving honest feelings, hearing and honoring complaints, and understanding and accepting important data. But it will often be the case that your complaints are not heard or the data you convey is not received. Then persistence is important. Your commitment to honesty does not end when you have reported a feeling. You must continue to express your feelings honestly until the problem is resolved. In other words, Sue should have confronted Jon on a regular basis because she was feeling lonely on a regular basis.
Sues repeated request for a resolution to her problem may seem like nagging, but there is a difference between repeating your negative emotional reactions and nagging. The difference is Love Busters. Nagging adds angry outbursts, disrespect, and demands to your honest expression. Expressing negative emotional reactions without Love Busters is fulfilling your commitment to honesty. When you tell your spouse that a problem has not yet been solved and the two of you need to keep thinking of solutions, you are being honest.
I encourage you to repeat that expression of dissatisfaction until your problem is solved. But do it in a cheerful and nonthreatening way.
Remember, honesty is essential for a successful marriage. Persistently sharing your honest feelings until a problem is solved is also essential. This combination gives a couple opportunities to make appropriate adjustments to each other that lead to mutual happiness.
Managing Resentment And Restoring Trust
Jon felt betrayed, deceived, abandoned, and very angry when he discovered Sue's affair. After all, it was hatched with full knowledge of the pain it would inflict on him. It reflected a total disregard for Jon's feelings, someone whom Sue had promised to cherish and protect for life.
At first, Jon could not imagine ever having a normal relationship with Sue again. The image of Sue in bed with Greg was not only sickening to him, but also infuriating. Resentment greatly understates what he actually felt whenever that memory came to his mind.
When Sue left him, she told him that she needed time to "sort out" her feelings. Jon knew what that meant - whoever made her feel the best, he or Greg, would win the prize of having her as a wife. The resentment that Jon felt seemed unbearable.
But there was more. After going back and forth a few times, trying to "get in touch" with her feelings, Sue tossed Jon out of his own home, separating him from his own children. And then, when the affair finally ended and Sue was rejected by her lover, she asked Jon to return. It wasn't Sue's choice; it was her lover's choice. Jon won by default. Resentment doesn't begin to describe Jon's angry reaction.
But remarkably, the resentment that a betrayed spouse feels does not usually lead to divorce. In fact most betrayed spouses, like Jon, are willing to reconcile in spite of their resentment. However, when these couples try to reconcile, resentment and the fear of a new affair often threaten the ultimate success of the recovery.
Resentment is a normal reaction to someone who has made you suffer. It is the way your emotions have of warning you to avoid people who have hurt you in the past - they may hurt you again in the future! But resentment can also be an irrational reaction to something that is no longer a real threat. Resentment itself may become a greater obstacle to your happiness than what it is you resent.
Most couples I have counseled know how damaging their feelings of resentment are to their happiness and to the future of their marriage. But some seem unable to stop it. It's an interesting subject for a psychologist who is supposed to know how to help people control their thoughts and emotions. But, I must admit, this is a tough reaction to control, especially when memories are so painful. Next post, I'll show you how to live with memory of an affair. Before that, you can check out How To Have Trust In A Relationship for more details.
