What If I Am the Abusive Spouse? Healthy Detachment Vs Harmful Detachment
Hello Friends! Spring is in full force and I am overjoyed! I hope you are able to see God in creation. I pray that you are delighted by His goodness.
Today’s Question: I've been reading through the blogs and they are all so helpful, but a terrifying thought is gripping me and won't let me go: What if I'm the abusive spouse? Some of the decisions I've made to allow myself emotional space to survive a husband who idolizes work and his talents more than me or the kids could be called “stonewalling”, “controlling”, or “the silent treatment.” Also, since I have worked so hard on this marriage for so long and multiple times asked my husband to let me know how I hurt him so I can change and we can stay close, he has denied I hurt him. He denied our need for help and would say “We're getting stronger, the best is yet to come.” I chose to believe that rather than push my case. I've drawn a boundary where if he wants to talk to me, I need him to first acknowledge how hurt and angry I am before we talk. This allows me to feel he is understanding me before I open myself up to conversation. Often this leads to him bringing up how it takes two to have a bad marriage and mentions how I've hurt him a lot as well. I shut down because in order for me to believe he wants to change and make amends, I need to see him putting the focus on me for the conversation. But is this me making it black and white (something he has accused me of multiple times): he's wrong/bad and I'm right/good? I'm just so exhausted by apologizing and changing through the years that I want to see him take responsibility. I fear my behavior could look like I'm the one with NPD. Perhaps I do? As you can see, I'm in a terrible mind cloud of confusion and condemnation. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Susan’s Response: Thank you for your question. I first want to put your mind at ease; one of the hallmark signs of a person with narcissistic personality disorder is a lack of true empathy for how their actions affect others as well as a resistance to taking responsibility for their own emotions and decisions. Your deep concern over this tells me you likely do not fit the criteria. Your desire to ask for help to be healthy says a lot about your character.
I can imagine you have some intense feelings about your husband's choices to spend his time and focus on working and developing his talents. It is important to process those feelings and decide what you want to do about your loss of expectations for the marriage. It is possible to detach in a healthy way to create the emotional space you need. Let’s define the tactics of stonewalling, controlling behaviors, and silent treatment and take a closer look at their ineffectiveness in relationships.
As renowned researcher and couples expert, John Gottman, defines it, stonewalling happens when a person becomes emotionally flooded to the point that the heart rate exceeds 100 beats per minute. Out of protection, that person closes themself off (like a stone wall) to stop the escalation of emotion. When this unhealthy form of detaching becomes a pattern in the relationship, growth, and connection are impeded. The ability to regulate emotions and self-soothe is a crucial skill to learn to have healthy relationships.
Controlling behaviors could stem from an anxious pressure to force connection or the prideful desire to prove yourself right. The strong attachment to your desire (“need”) to have your husband acknowledge your hurt and anger or understand you may be causing you to suffer when that desire is not met. It is natural to want your partner to validate your emotions and know you deeply. After all, God’s desire for marriage is true intimacy. What happens when that is not your reality? Can you accept it and still be the best version of yourself? Or do you work harder to make him do what you “need” him to do? That is not a healthy way to approach relationship connection. Healthy relationships require freedom. Letting go of the control over your desired outcome is what it means to detach in a healthy way.
The silent treatment is a tactic used to manipulate another person into doing or feeling what you want them to do or feel through the practice of intentionally ignoring them. The silent treatment sends a loud message that you want someone to change to meet your desires. It is used to exert power and control over someone else. This is not part of healthy detachment either. I will add that it is healthy, however, to take some time alone to reflect and regulate, which may look similar to the silent treatment initially. The difference is, that the issue is later addressed once regulation and reflection have taken place.
I understand the decision to create emotional space to better survive a relationship that lacks depth and connection. I can hear your desire for a relationship that feels more loving and caring. To what extent have you been able to make that happen on your own? You stated, “I want to see him take responsibility.” How attached are you to that ‘want’ of seeing him take responsibility and what behaviors have you engaged in to force that desire to be met? What if instead of going silent, you detached from your ‘want’ to see him take responsibility?
When we get attached to our desires, we can begin to struggle internally as well as externally to get those desires met. James 4:1-3 NIV says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but you do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do have it because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” The ability to hold our desires loosely and yet invite God into those can bring peace as well as depth. Each of us has God-given yearnings. God works to meet those deep yearnings within us and He helps us see what it is we really need.
It only takes one person to create destruction in a marriage, however, it takes two healthy people to have a healthy marriage. It takes two people who know how to tango to dance the tango beautifully. It only takes one to make a mess of the dance steps. Protection from someone else’s messy dance steps means accepting where they are in their skill level, desire, and training and therefore, no longer expecting them to dance the way you want them to. Similarly in relationships, you can kindly and respectfully decide for yourself how to get your need for connection met with girlfriends or family members who are capable and available to join you in that desire for deep connection.
Healthy detachment means letting go of the outcome, not separating or silencing yourself to control the outcome to be what you want it to be. Healthy detachment means caring enough about others to allow them freedom and the opportunity to learn from their mistakes through natural consequences. It also means being responsible for your safety and well-being and making decisions without using tactics to control others. It means compassionately allowing others to be different from you, to be responsible for themself, and to allow them the right to design their own life.
Romans 8:1-4 NIV reminds us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
What would it be like to let go of the condemnation of him and yourself? Holding on to the idea that reality should be different than it is, is likely what is maintaining your confusion. What would be different if you attached yourself to the truth of reality? Two things are true; It is healthy to notice the disconnection between the two of you; and you can not force connection. Sadly, some people never decide to take responsibility for their harmfulness. There will be grief in allowing this realization; but once you move through the grief, acceptance and healthy detachment will begin to appear.
Be Well!
Beloved Reader, how have stonewalling, controlling behaviors, and the silent treatment negatively affected your relationships? What have you done to create emotional safety by detaching in a healthy way?
