Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question, I'm constantly feeling like my husband is apologizing for the same thing over and over, but nothing ever changes. What is the way to approach this when I feel very hurt and frustrated when we have spoken about it many times? There are two sections to this answer. The first section speaks about communication, and the second section will speak about acceptance. When it comes to communication, it's not enough to let our spouses know We have to engage in a deeper level of conversation, which looks like this. When your husband authentically is curious, not just about what it is that he is doing that bothers you, but about why it bothers you, what does it mean to you? So for example, if your husband is constantly leaving his socks on the floor, and you've told him a thousand times, please don't leave You can leave your socks on the floor Sit down have a real conversation explain to him what it means to you
Share with him the frustration that you have said it many times And he has apologized many times but it feels like you are not giving through Explain to him what that means to you Make sure that he understands exactly what it is that bothers you Sometimes that sensitivity will be able to help curb a behavior The Second Part is about acceptance. At the end of the day, resentment is like drinking poison water and hoping that it kills the other person. The resentment feels powerful to us, and that resentment is like water and that it hydrates us, but it's laced with poison. The resentment flu can eat away at the very foundation of a marriage, because what you The first thing you do is you start to build a narrative about your husband. And the narrative is, he doesn't care about me. He thinks I'm a maid.
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He doesn't treat me well. And then you're going to start to interpret his actions through the lens of that narrative. And slowly but surely it erodes the foundation of the marriage. So there's real value in understanding that a large part of marriage is accepting the humanity of our spouses. The Bittersweet Peace of Acceptance This behavior is bitter because it means recognizing this behavior is not going to change and that can be really frustrating to deal with. But it can also be sweet because once you let go and you don't make it your issue, so then it doesn't have to bother you anymore. Now you may choose as a result of your acceptance to have certain behaviors that help you cope for yourself. So back to our example, if your husband is constantly leaving his socks on the floor, You may feel like the maid because you're constantly doing laundry.
You may also choose as a function of your acceptance to say, he has every right to leave his socks on the floor. But that doesn't mean I have to pick them up. It might bother you that there are socks in the middle of the floor. You can move them to the side. But you'll do the laundry when it's in the basket. It's not your responsibility to go around collecting his clothes. And you can share that with him, not as a threat. You can say to him it makes me feel like a maid when I have to go around collecting your laundry And so I'm going to choose not because I'm angry at you or not because I'm frustrated With you but authentically because this is not a healthy feeling for me to have I don't Want rizat meant to aroad at our marriage so I'm going to do whatever laundry is in that Basket but I'm not going to go around picking up your socks that by itself letting go in Acceptance is a very powerful tool
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