Loving Your Spouse When You Feel Like Walking Away summary

Sadness is infectious. When you’re in a situation that makes you unhappy, it’s easy to end up getting stuck in a quagmire of misery. But the only way out is to stay upbeat. Staying focused on the positive is what’ll get you through tough times.

So how do you apply that idea to your marriage? Well, the place to start is recognizing that you’re responsible for your own responses. If you’re constantly thinking about everything that’s going wrong and letting that upset you, things will inevitably get a whole lot worse. Keep the positives in mind, however, and you’ll be well on your way to turning the situation around.

If you married someone, it was probably because you assumed they were responsible enough to share the burdens of married life. But sometimes it doesn’t work out like that. Marriages often run into difficulties when one spouse doesn’t meet the expectations of the other.

Take the author’s clients Suzanne and Jamal. Suzanne was a highly motivated and competent saleswoman as well as a dedicated mother to her first daughter from a previous marriage. Those were the qualities Jamal found attractive in his soon-to-be wife. He assumed that he could take on the role of provider while Suzanne took charge of the domestic side of things.

When the author gives public talks, he often encounters the same question. How, someone in the audience will inevitably ask, do you deal with a workaholic spouse? After all, it’s not easy to work through problems with someone who’s never there in the first place!

Sometimes the only way of addressing unresolved issues is to give your partner a shock. Take it from Amy and Jim. The latter was a confirmed workaholic. Amy barely saw her husband due to the long hours he put in at the office. She’d tried to broach the subject a couple of times, but nothing had come of it.

Sometimes spouses start to become overly controlling. They want to know where and with whom their husband or wife has been as soon as they get home. That can quickly leave their partners feeling caged in. But there are solutions. The key? Trying to understand what’s driving their controlling behavior rather than confronting them head-on. And that requires coming to grips with the psychology behind it.

Two points stand out. First, controlling spouses love freedom – as long as it’s their freedom. Making their partner go along with their wishes enhances that sense of being free. Second, most controlling spouses have a strong need to feel important. Achieving the goals they set for themselves is their way of getting that feeling. If their partner’s own wishes get in the way, so much the worse for them.

Sadly, verbal abuse isn’t all that uncommon in marriages. Partners belittle their husbands or wives all the time, suggesting that they’re stupid or inadequate. Dealing with this kind of vitriol isn’t easy, but it can be done. What you need is a plan and plenty of love.

Let’s start with your plan. Think of it as a roadmap to a healthier marriage. The first step is to share your intentions with your partner. If they’re willing to change their abusive behavior, you can draw up your plan together with or without the help of a therapist. If they’re not, you’ll have to inform them that you’re no longer willing to deal with their verbal abuse.

You can be the most upbeat and communicative person in the world and still run into marital problems if your partner refuses to talk things through with you. What makes matters even trickier is that there’s nothing quite as infuriating as being on the receiving end of the silent treatment.

Take it from Katelyn, a woman who sought out the author’s advice after her husband Chris refused to talk to her for days on end. The situation had left her feeling powerless. Every time she asked him what was wrong, he’d simply get up and stomp out of the room.

Ever heard the phrase “I plight thee my troth?” It’s essentially an old-fashioned way of saying that you’ll be true to your partner, and it was long used in wedding vows. The basic idea that fidelity is the linchpin of marriage is still very powerful – so much so, in fact, that infidelity is commonly considered a deal breaker.

If you look at it from another angle, however, infidelity can actually be seen as a chance to heal a relationship. Sounds counterintuitive, right? But there are good reasons to think about it in this way.