Many people (usually men) type into internet search engines: “my wife is never happy no matter what I do.”
Safety and trust in relationships isn’t just about not being harmed physically, financially, or even emotionally; or being someone who is sexually faithful and tells the truth. Safety can also be about the idea of reliability. Of sustainability. Of consistency.
In my marriage, my wife learned that she couldn’t trust me. Not because I was a liar or a sneak. But because the math result of our interactions amounted to feeling unheard, misunderstood, neglected, abandoned, disrespected, invalidated.
When she felt bad about something and had to think about how she wanted to approach me about it, what she learned after 12 years was that I would always choose what I believed and felt OVER what she believed and felt any time we disagreed.
She realized that the rest of her life would be spent being told that what she thought was wrong, and what she felt was crazy. That her experiences didn’t make sense. That she was too sensitive, or that it was all in her head. The only thing she could trust was that she would continue to hurt more and more the longer she lived with me, because it always seemed as if I mattered so much more to me than she did.
Check out the video to better understand how and why our bids for connection in our relationships might sometimes be rebuffed or rebuked when our partners lack the requisite amount of safety and trust to feel good about their lives, and the pain they feel from our shared lives.
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Previously Published on matthewfray.com
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This so perfectly describes why I chose estrangement with my brother. The frustrating thing about these types of articles are that they’re written from a romantic relationship perspective, so if I sent this to him, hoping to reconnect, to maybe break through so that he’d even just consider for a moment to treat my feels as important as his, he’d probably dismiss that I’m being too needy, since I’m just his younger sibling, not his wife. Is it at all possible to edit this article/video, or to write another one about this topic but with family or close friendships included… Read more »
This is exactly why the vast majority of divorces are initiated by women. Not because of infidelity, finances or abuse – it is because of leaving dirty dishes behind. No joke! Although, the video doesn’t go into how to fix this since I’m pretty sure if you washed every dish and catered to her every whim, she would still find a way to be unhappy. Who is really accountable for such behavior and why is it largely women who initiate the breakup.