 |
||
 |
|
|
My spouse has been extremely upset with me for quite a while now. How do I best listen to such an angry, resentful, blaming partner?
1~STOP focusing on HOW your partner is talking to you. Don't engage his anger, resentment, and blame. INSTEAD, LISTEN and focus in on WHAT your partner is saying about your behavior or attitude.
When things have gotten to this level of ill will, acknowledging the person's feeling is NOT enough. In fact, research shows that at this level of distress it will probably make matters worse. You will need to take a totally new direction that focuses more on awareness and action.
If you follow these instructions closely, you will have a better chance of calming things down, getting your partner's attention in a significantly new way, and, most importantly, finding where you need to have more awareness of your own actions. Here are the steps to take to listen productively to your angry spouse.
Face Tough Relationship Conversations In A Fundamentally New Way What Is The Difference Between A Complaint And A Criticism? What Is The Difference Between Resentment and Hatred? How do I best listen to an angry, resentful and blaming spouse? Why Are Our Conversations At Home Like TV Courtroom Drama?! |
2~Don't waste time building a reactive, fear-based, defensive rebuttal in your head while he is yapping. INSTEAD, come up with more examples of how he is speaking the truth about you. With this much upset your partner is NOT talking about a one-time thing. He is trying to get your attention to a long-term, chronic habit that you are blind to, meaning that you are unaware of WHAT you are actually doing and the effect it has on others close to you.
3~After experiencing this long-term habit of yours for years, your partner has probably collected poisonous resentment that is now spewing forth at you. Try to ignore his delivery and read examples back to him of how the actions and attitudes he is upset by are actually true about you.
Make sure the examples are specific, not sarcastic, not exaggerated or minimized. You may have to come back to him later with your list if you are too overwhelmed or angry to take WHAT he is saying seriously. What is most important is that YOU respond differently than all the years before. This takes work on your part because your mind is going to try to discredit what he says because of how he is saying it. That is NOT the point in this new way of listening. You are now listening to the WHAT, not the HOW.
This will most likely shock him out of his rant and confuse him about you. By DOING EXACTLY WHAT I AM DESCRIBING, you are most likely showing him that you can be aware and responsible for when you have acted badly, defensively, and rejecting in the past and that there is more to you than that. You are demonstrating it right now. DON'T SAY THIS. Just DO this.
4~INSTEAD of using excuses, ask your partner to make a list of more examples for you. The reason for this is that, one, he has been having imaginary, angry conversations in his head about this for a long time and has gathered a catalogue of your "greatest hurts”. So, it would be good for him to vent more of this poison. Imaginary, angry conversations are poison for the person having them and are eventually spewed onto the partner in some way. Real conversations with real people make imaginary ones go away.
And, two, YOU NEED TO TAKE THIS LIST MOST SERIOUSLY--for the rest of your life. These are the actions that your spouse is most hurt by. And yes, he has a pile of hurtful behaviors also, but this is about you right now. As you investigate further, you will find these are behaviors and attitude that you, yourself, are not proud of either and are keeping you from your own self-respect. You need to see how the hurtful behavior is real, a poison to you, and let the rest of it go.
5~I am not advising you to swallow his feedback whole and accept it at face value. I am recommending that you take it in, chew on it and digest it for the truth about you. NOT to rewrite it to make you feel better about whom you THINK you are. Be careful NOT to assume after one "listening" that you fully understand. You don't. You have been blind to it for a long time and that won't change quickly. This is a life-long conversation not a one-time chat. Most people who try this at first "THINK" they got it and later find out they still have not.
"Who you THINK you are" created this situation. What you actually do doesn't always match what you THINK you have done. It is your partner who sees--and most importantly FEELS--this more than anyone else.
Digest this information about how you have been hurtful and own it, face it, work with it, and grow from it. As you own it and grow from it, you will feel much better about yourself. Set your own behavior standards in relationships based on how you need to behave so you can have respect for yourself and not based on a floating standard that changes as how you are treated changes. And, leave your list about him for another time far away from this conversation. Of course he needs feedback about his blindness toward you, but not now. Once you have established some credibility by owning up and making sustained, realistic changes where you can, he might be willing to listen to your list about him. If you really work on your list for 3 to 6 months, he might even ask you for feedback about his behavior and attitude toward you. But first things first.
Right now, this is about YOU and for YOU. Lucky you. You can't get this important feedback from anyone else other than a spouse. Why is this happening to you? Is it because you are bad? Worthless? Unlovable? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
This is happening to you because you are MARRIED. The School of Marriage is trying to teach you something important about yourself that you can only know when you live with someone long enough who is desperate enough, and hurt enough, to tell you the truth about how your ACTIONS, or LACK of actions, affects others. When you see through your fearful defensiveness, you will see how you don't even like yourself when you act that way!
6~Now take that list, sit down at your desk, right here in the School of Marriage. Step up to what marriage is trying to teach you that you refuse to learn. The play at recess gets much sweeter when you do!
Marriage gives no one special treatment. It's relentless in its effort to try and get you to become aware of what you are actually doing. This is just the way the feedback system of marriage works. It is going to force you to look at yourself in a new way whether you like it or not. What you do with what you find is then up to you.
7~Instead of a blindsided ending, let this be a new beginning . . . Take a deep breath with a totally new perspective in facing the things you actually do that has been outside of your awareness and a continuing of the life-long conversation of marriage.
And, not everybody stays married. That is just the way it is for at least 50% of modern marriages.
However, if you do choose to divorce and move on, I highly suggest--in order to save time and money--write the list of what your soon-to-be-divorced-from partner hates about your behavior and attitude. That is part of the core of Your Marriage Textbook with your name on the cover. It travels with you wherever you go.
Keep it in a safe place to be referred to when you re-enter the School of Marriage with someone else: same lessons--different person--continues. Another opportunity to become more aware and to make choices you want to live with instead of allowing blindness--fear-based-emotional-defensive reactions-and-attitudes--to choose what you have to live with.
Now, Let's Get To It!
Don
Don Elium, and his wife Jeanne, are currrenly working on their fifth book: YOUR Relationship Blind Spot. Keep up to date with the progress and related colums through the Don Elium Newsletter, by clicking here!
Email Don Elium By Clicking Here
Or call 925 256-8282 Walnut Creek, CA San Francisco Bay Area
Don, and his wife Jeanne, are currrenly working on their fifth book: YOUR Relationship Blind Spot. To be available in the near future! Keep up to date in the progress through the Don Elium Newsletter, by clicking here!
