Will Ignoring My Husband Change His Behavior?
By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who hate the conflict that has cropped up in their marriage. Sometimes, this conflict comes because their husband is exhibiting repeat, troublesome behaviors that cause problems. Perhaps they have tried confronting him about these behaviors. Perhaps they have tried to convince him that he needs to change without any success. Whatever the reason, the wives have been unsuccessful. So, they try a new strategy. They figure that perhaps if they just ignore him, he will get the hint and eventually change his behavior.
Someone might ask a question like this one: “my husband is becoming a worse and worse spouse with every passing year. He went from being merely inattentive to sometimes being very cold. He dismisses me a lot of the time. At first, he would just forget things that were important to me. I chalked it up to him being stressed or just forgetful. But then he started being dismissive. And then sarcastic and mean. I’ve tried to call him on this, but he gets angry, defensive, and he starts an argument. This may sound odd, but I had some behavioral issues with my child. I took him to a behavioral specialist. The doctor told me that I should just ignore the most troublesome behavior. Specially, my son would throw tantrums and act out. The specialist told me to just act as if my son wasn’t doing what I didn’t want him to do and only address good behavior (assuming that the behavior wasn’t truly dangerous or serious.) I thought that this was crazy at first. And I thought that I was wasting my money on this guy. Well, honestly, the ignoring strategy worked. My son eventually tapered down on the bad behavior. And now I am wondering if I should try the same strategy with my husband. If I just ignore his slights and his somewhat insensitive behavior toward me, will he stop? Would this be a good idea?”
Ask Yourself If You Have Already Used This Strategy: Before I answer that, I would question whether you haven’t used some form of this strategy already. Frankly, most of us do this without even knowing it. We see the writing on the wall, but we don’t want to accept it. So we pretend that it doesn’t exist for a while, or we think that perhaps we are mistaken in our perceptions, or that we are asking too much. What I mean by this is that, if you are typical of many wives, you have already used the ignore strategy, even if you didn’t mean to or didn’t realize that you were doing it.
The Difference Between Undesirable Behavior In Children And Adults: If you truly haven’t already done this, you can certainly try it out for a couple of weeks. But in my opinion and experience, if you don’t address it, then it may reinforce in your husband that his behavior is acceptable. This is different for children because they have not been alive long enough to understand acceptable behavior and what is expected. They are naturally going to push the boundaries because they are hardwired to do so. It is a natural part of growing up.
That’s not to say that adults do not push boundaries. Adults most certainly do attempt to see what they can get away with. That is part of human nature, too. But adults are well aware of what is optimal behavior and what is not. Behavior isn’t part of their development, which is why I’m not sure that ignoring the problem will work here.
That said, as you have already seen, when you dwell on the behavior or react in a negative way, your husband is going to respond with his own brand of negativity. So you have to be careful about how you approach it. I have always found that if you can address something positively (and with positive reinforcement) you will get better results. This is true of both children and adults. In this sense, you aren’t ignoring the behavior, but you are approaching it in another way.
A New Approach: Here’s an example, if he forgets your anniversary, rather than getting very angry and lashing out, you might simply ask if he can believe that the two of you have been married this long and give him a hug. Why would you do this? Because this strategy is much more likely to get you the reaction that you really want. If you approach it in this way, it’s more likely that he is going to apologize profusely and follow this up by being more nice.
Sometimes, you have to hesitate with your actions and then ask yourself what you really want. Most of us don’t want for anger to be matched with anger. It’s natural for you to be angry and hurt. But if you allow this to cloud how you approach him, you are likely to get anger and hurt mirrored right back at you, which truly doesn’t solve anything.
There is a difference between simply ignoring a behavior and trying to find a way to use a positive angle to address it. In short, you want to make your husband WANT to do better. You don’t want to guilt or force him into doing better simply because he’s trying to avoid an argument. If the wish to do better comes from him, then he is much more likely to keep it up and it is much more likely to come from a genuine place.
Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. I tried the negativity strategy with my husband and I ended up separated because of it. Then, I tried to guilt and shame him into reconciling. That didn’t work, either. Using the more positive approach takes enthusiasm and finesse, but it often works much better. And it is the reason that I was finally able to save my marriage. You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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