Difficult Spouse? Get Improvement without Conflict (Part 1: Taking Charge)

Trying to end your spouse’s bad behavior in one step usually results in more conflict and only temporary change. There is a better way that not only ends the bad behavior–it strengthens your marriage.

How conflict is created in marriage and leads to distancing

When we are treated badly, such as by blaming or criticism, it feels like a personal attack. And, it hurts because it is coming from someone we love. As a result, we feel like we need to protect ourselves and close off emotionally from our spouse. If this happens often enough, this defensive response will lead to emotional, and sometimes physically distance from our spouse. Then, we get blamed for being distant.

We fall into a no-win situation where if we get close, we get hurt, but if we distance, then we become emotionally isolated from our spouse.

An obvious solution to this would be your spouse treating you well to begin with. Then you wouldn’t become defensive or distant. You and your husband or wife could enjoy your marriage as a couple rather than as roommates or business partners.

Explaining this to your spouse is not likely to create any change at all.

Why trying to directly fix a difficult spouse leads to more conflict

A lot of fighting in marriage starts with one spouse explaining how the other one is wrong. If you do this, even though you are right, your spouse will explain that you are the one beginning the cycle instead of him or her. You do something that supposedly makes your spouse blame, criticize, or otherwise mistreat you. You will think that your spouse needs to change so your marriage can improve; your spouse will think that you need to change before your marriage can improve.

This is how couples get stuck in the zone between enjoyable relationship and an unacceptably painful one. It’s kind of a dead zone where no change occurs one way or the other. Eventually this dead zone ends by an affair, a divorce, or both. If you are in a dead zone, don’t be disillusioned thinking that your marriage will just go on till death do you part. You are likely to part long before then.

There is a way to avoid getting into this marriage dead zone and a good way to get out of it while still keeping your marriage. Let’s get into that…

Who actually has the power to improve a marriage?

Although I learned a lot of useless and false information working on my doctorate, a few of the things I learned are actually true and helpful. One of them is that the healthiest person in the family is the one most capable of creating change. This concept is pretty nearly hidden from most people. Most people believe instead that that the sickest person in the family needs to get therapy. You may have this kind of thinking: “It’s my spouse who needs help, not me.”

Do you know what will happen if you convince a blaming or critical spouse to go to therapy? What will happen? Your spouse will talk to the therapist about how all of his or her problems are your fault. The therapist will then validate your spouse. If not, then your spouse will quit therapy.

How counseling can lead your spouse to divorce

Never send your spouse to therapy thinking the therapist is going to someone convince your spouse that you are right and your spouse is wrong. Many people learn the hard way that rather than fixing the marriage, individual therapy for a dissatisfied spouse often leads to divorce. This is because the spouse gets validated for their dissatisfaction and is encouraged to do what makes them feel good. It is you who has to learn how to deal with a critical or otherwise difficult spouse.

I have found that many people do not have the capacity to reflect on how their behavior may be exacerbating or maintaining a problem. The only thing they can do is to blame their spouse and others for all of their problems. The will not stop the fighting in their marriage if it means they are the ones who have to make changes first. I do not know how to help such people. I think they either need supportive therapy or an intervention from God.

Why reconciliation coaching works when therapy fails

Reconciliation coaching is not supportive therapy. It requires people to take responsibility for creating positive change, no matter who started the problems.

The premise is that how you behave influences how your spouse treats you and how your spouse feels about you. The same is true for your spouse of course. How your spouse behaves influences how you feel about your spouse and how you treat your spouse.

When you are working on improving your relationship, you have to rise above what you feel like doing and intentionally treat your spouse in a way that fosters attraction, connection, and respect. That won’t happen if you just go with your feelings. Going with your feelings will lead to the dead zone, a relational stalemate, between you and your spouse.

The right question to ask for real relationship change

Naturally you want your spouse to change, but asking “how can I get him or her to change” is less useful than the following questions. In fact, these questions will help you with all relationships if you are disciplined an wise.

“How can I change my behavior so that:

• This person likes me?
• This person is attracted to me?
• This person enjoys talking to me?
• This person respects me?
• This person looks forward to being with me again?

When you are married or want to get married, these questions come as a set. That means you need to have a way to achieve all five of those results. If you want to change your spouse so that he or she likes you, is attracted to you, enjoys you, respects you, and looks forward to being with you again, you have entirely the wrong idea.

It is what you do or don’t do that determines all of these things. You can’t change any of them without making changes in yourself.

The obviously needy things that people do

Nagging, complaining, criticizing, blaming, or shouting at your spouse will not get you any of these things. Neither will going through your day thinking about how bad your spouse is. No matter how many books you read, sessions you attend, or videos you watch, these attempts to control your spouse or justify your feelings will only get you rejection.

Replay or re-read this as often as you have to until it sinks in bone deep. If you use any of these needy behaviors, they will turn off your loving feelings for your spouse and your spouse’s loving feelings for you.

If you don’t believe it, go ahead and do some experiments. Test your beliefs. It is the only way you are going to be able to figure out which things you learned are wrong or right.

Success results from doing the right things, in the right order, at the right pace, so if you are having continued problems, then you are messing up in the steps, the order, the pace, or some combination.

Look for skills, not just answers

Because I like to teach people how to fish rather than just throw them fish, I spent a few minutes to help you with this insight because if you can be this way, it will dramatically improve all of your relationships. In a nutshell, whether you are talking about your spouse, your kids, your parents, or anyone else (I’m talking about humans, not God),

• To be liked you must be likable,
• to be desired, you must be desirable,
• to have companionship, you must be enjoyable,
• to be loved, you must be lovable,
• to be respected, you must earn respect,

These things may sound like common sense. That’s just because they make sense. Most people do not have this knowledge and believe that their spouse should naturally love them, like them, be attracted to them, and respect them, no matter how they behave, no matter how they look, no matter what they say, and no matter what they do.

In short, they believe:

(False Belief) “If you love me, you will treat me very well, no matter what I am like.”

Seeing reality helps us to have exciting possibilities

The reality is that no matter how much you demand unconditional love, you are never going to get that from your spouse. It might make you feel sad, but I would suggest to you that it is actually exciting! Why is it exciting? It is exciting because it means that you can have a lot of control over your spouse’s feelings and behavior. It is exciting because you can have many friends just by working on yourself. It is exciting because even if your relationship has been going badly for years, you can still change it now. It is exciting because it puts you in control of rebuilding your marriage.

As a reconciliation coach, I love helping people to make the changes that re-interest their spouse and reinvigorate their marriage.

Are you ready to fix your marriage to a difficult spouse?

Remember I said that when you are married, being likable, lovable, respectable, desirable, and enjoyable come as a set? Once you get that set in place you will be able handle anything. But, you have to start with one step. No one can start by taking two steps. Taking two steps would mean missing one and then it wouldn’t work.

The first step to take is to stop all behaviors that make you unenjoyable, disrepectable, undesirable, unlikeable, and unlovable. It might sound like more than one step, but the same behaviors call for all of these. They are the needy behaviors. They include such behaviors as criticism, complaining, arguing, and so on. They can be very hard habits to break. My book on overcoming neediness is about stopping such behaviors.

If you are willing to work on these things but only after your spouse desires and respects you, then you will be stuck.

(To be continued)

In the next episode, we’ll get practical—how to stop the behaviors that damage trust and replace them with ones that make your spouse desire you and behave better.

For further study:

Fincham, F. D., & Beach, S. R. H. (1999). Conflict in marriage: Implications for working with couples. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 47–77. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.47

A classic review of how conflict behavior affects mental health, physical health, family outcomes, and marital change trajectories.