Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: One of the most common complaints that I hear from wives is about husbands who are always responding to everything with negativity. These wives will describe a husband who is critical and controlling. And this husband is not silent about his displeasure. No, he’ll loudly complain to anyone who will listen. Even those who aren’t particularly interested in his negativity can’t help but hear his constant complaints. In short, he attempts to make everyone around him as miserable as he is.

Needless to say, when your spouse acts this way, your marriage isn’t always tons of fun. And although you may love your husband deeply, you don’t necessarily like being around him when he’s one of these negative moods. You may even wonder if you’ll have to live this way for the rest of your life, or if your marriage is in trouble.

A wife may be dealing with a situation like this one, “My husband constantly complains about everything under the sun. If we go out and try to have a nice family dinner, he’ll complain that the kids are too loud in the car. Or that his steak if overdone in the restaurant. He might ask me why I’d ordered the special, since everyone knows the special is only leftovers. He may act as if the waitress is incompetent if she’s not as attentive as he’d like. He is not just critical outside of our home, though. He can also be a nightmare within it. He stands over me as I’m trying to carry out basic tasks, and will tell me how I could do it better. He acts as if living in a world with everyone else is very trying to him because no one lives up to his standards. It’s exhausting for me to live this way. And he wasn’t always like this. He used to be much more pleasant and optimistic. But lately, negativity is his go-to behavior. I worry about our marriage. He always seems so unhappy, and he’s making me unhappy too. Am I overreacting?”

Why You Aren’t Overreacting: Constant, unrelenting negativity and criticism can irrevocably harm your marriage by harboring resentment and damaging intimacy. It is very challenging (if not impossible) to not eventually feel disappointment and resentment when the person who should be your biggest supporter and cheerleader is constantly pointing out where you (and everyone else) are supposedly falling short. This can negatively affect your self-esteem and your level of satisfaction in your marriage.

When this happens, you may understandably begin to feed into the cycle of negativity because this situation is unjust and unfair.  So no, you aren’t overreacting. But you don’t have to watch helplessly as your marriage succumbs to his negativity, criticism, and complaints. You can not only react to neutralize this, but it is possible to eventually turn this situation around.

Understand Why His Complaining And Controlling Is A Mirror: No one would blame you if you were eventually fooled into believing that your husband’s behavior is about you or about the circumstances. But it isn’t. Not really. It is mostly about him.

I once had a brilliant counselor tell me that spouses tend to criticize others for issues on which they themselves have the most work to do. In other words, people tend to lash out over the perceived “shortcomings” of their spouse when they are the ones with the shortcoming.

For example, a spouse who makes you feel incompetent may have insecurities about his own competence. A spouse who comes off as a “control freak” may feel that he has to keep up this very negative persona in order to give the appearance of being in control when in reality he feels the exact opposite of this. Control freaks often act out of fear and anxiety about not being good enough, not out of superiority.

Once you understand this, you can respond very differently and much more effectively. Once you see that your spouse is not a superior bully, but someone acting out a fear of inadequacy, your mindset is more equipped to address this.

How To Most Effectively Handle A Controlling, Complaining Spouse: I know that it is very tempting to confront your spouse or to respond with the same negativity that he is projecting. Unfortunately, doing so will often only make the situation worse. He’ll either feel that he needs to ramp up his negativity to get the desired response, or he will become defensive or combative.

Since neither of those responses is what you want, I think that you’re better off trying something else. Humor can be extremely effective sometimes. As an example, when the husband above told his wife that her restaurant special was leftovers, she could have playfully said, “Awesome! I love leftovers,” with a laugh. This deflects the situation so that hopefully, everyone can enjoy their dinner. It also lets the husband know that he’s not going to bring everyone down during an outing that should be fun.

Another thing that you can try is to have a heart-to-heart. Don’t mention the negativity in moments of high tension. But the next time he begins with a slight that isn’t too out-of-control, try, “Honey, can I talk to you about something that is bothering me? Lately, there’s been a lot of negativity and complaining between us. I know that times are stressful, and some of these complaints are legitimate. But honestly, right now, they just pile up and make things worse. I’d like to bring this to your attention when I notice this so that we can work together to make our marriage and home more positive. You’re welcome to tell me when I’m being negative. We both deserve to be as happy as possible. But that’s harder to accomplish when we allow negativity into our relationship. I’ll bring it up when I notice it, and I’d encourage you to do the same.”

After you’ve had this conversation and you’re on the same page, the next time he’s overly-critical or falling into this pattern, playfully say, “negativity incoming,” and put your arms around him, or something similar that works for you. You’re not trying to feed into the pattern. You’re trying to deflect it. And you’re trying to feel close to him and supported instead of feeling distant from him and criticized.

When he sees how much better he feels and how much less anxiety this approach causes, he will likely slowly begin to change his behavior. Of course, old habits die hard. So you’ll likely need to keep reminding him when he resorts back to old patterns. But if you can increase intimacy and decrease his criticisms, you will likely find that he falls back into this behavior less often, because he just doesn’t need to. He feels better about himself, so he’s going to project positivity instead.

Please take this seriously.  Negativity and criticisms were one of the factors that contributed to my separation.  It was a very painful time and it’s possible I could have avoided this.  Although we did save our marriage, it would have been better to never separate in the first place.  That story is at https://isavedmymarriage.com

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