Dear Crucial Skills,
I have been with my husband for twenty-five years and I am fed up with his gaslighting! I don’t think he knows he does it, but when I try to talk about it, he gets defensive. Whenever we disagree about something, he walks off muttering to himself. When I ask, “What did you say?” he says, “Oh, nothing.” Or he makes something up. I feel he thinks I’m stupid. How can I address this?
Signed,
Gaslighted
Dear Gaslighted,
I’m sorry.
I’m in my twenty-fourth year of marriage and I know how hurtful even the slightest of slights can be (as does my wife). The roll of the eyes, the muttered dismissal, the silent withdrawal and similar behaviors can feel manipulative and almost intolerable in our close relationships.
I will share a few ideas to help you address this longstanding pattern in your relationship, but let me begin with a couple of disclaimers. I want to ensure my response is appropriate to your challenge and that you’re in a space to receive it.
First, if you’re enduring emotional abuse, skip my advice and seek professional help. Emotional abuse looks like your partner calling you names, demeaning you, controlling you, invading your privacy, or manipulating you with lies and threats.
Second, although I believe your spouse could benefit from learning to communicate better, I don’t believe there is much I can say that would help you make him a better communicator. Therefore, my suggestions will be directed to you. Not to correct you, but hopefully to empower you.
If you’re good with all that, let’s proceed.
Embrace the Call to Grow
The first thing I want to say is what you’re experiencing is common. Given the time you’ve been married, I’ll assume you’re in midlife, which is known to correspond with personal growth and less tolerance for unhealthy behaviors, attitudes, and relationships. So, it’s quite normal to feel fed up with a partner’s behavior after twenty-five years. You recognize it’s time for a healthy shift.
Let Go of Labels
Please know that this suggestion is not meant to excuse your husband’s behavior, nor is it meant to dismiss your hurt.
Terms like “gaslighting” and “narcissism”—which have become increasingly popular in recent years—may have value in clinical settings, but outside of that they seem to have equal chance of being harmful as helpful.
Labels often contain a story that suggests those we have labeled are calculating villains or irreversibly toxic. When we label others in our anger or frustration, we relinquish our responsibility, and that’s unproductive.
Try to see the situation more broadly. Ask yourself what could be contributing to it, and why someone might behave like this.
“Is there something contributing to my husband’s tendencies I’m overlooking (stress, personal history, other influences)?”
“How am I contributing to our patterns of interacting?”
Asking ourselves questions like these is not about denying the truth—a person’s behavior may indeed be harmful or hurtful. They’re about restoring humility and our sense of agency. They help us identify what we can do about a situation aside from blame it on somebody else.
Take Responsibility for Your Needs and Feelings
It’s clear in your question that you feel disrespected. While the disrespect isn’t your fault, you won’t resolve this unless you take responsibility for feeling respected.
One way you can begin to do that is to openly communicate when you feel disrespected, while taking ownership for how you feel.
For example, “When you walk off muttering, I feel you don’t respect me. I’m not saying you don’t; it’s just how it feels. Can you understand that?”
Share your perspective in a way that increases your spouse’s awareness of what’s happening with you, not in a way that suggests he is responsible for how you feel.
“When you do X, I feel Y. I’m not blaming you; I’m being open with you.”
Focus on Relationship
There’s a heuristic we teach in Crucial Conversations called CPR, and it helps us identify the problem to address.
CPR stands for Content, Pattern, Relationship. Content refers to an instance or event—a problem to be discussed. Pattern refers to a recurring problem, in which case the recurrence becomes the subject of conversation. And Relationship refers to the health of the relationship, which suffers any time recurring problems are allowed to fester.
The behavior you describe might have been the problem twenty-five years ago, but now you have a bona fide relationship problem, and that’s what you need to address. That might sound like this:
“I feel like we’ve lost respect for each other. I know we haven’t meant to, but maybe we could discuss what we both need to feel respected and appreciated.”
Or, “I feel our relationship has gotten way off track. If we want it to survive, we need to find a way to improve our understanding of each other and how we interact.”
Make It Safe
We often say “the truth hurts.”
Although sometimes uncomfortable, it’s usually not the truth that hurts; it’s the mode of delivery.
People can hear the truth as long as they feel it’s nonthreatening, and they can usually tell the truth nonthreateningly if they don’t fear retaliation or shame. Your task is to tell your truth in a way that doesn’t hurt, and hear his truth without taking it personally.
To make it safe for him to hear, establish and convey good intent. That means ensuring your motives are positive—whether to improve the relationship and increase respect (not change him)—and then sharing that.
“I want us to have a better relationship so we can connect and enjoy each other’s company again. I’m not mad or upset. But I do have concerns, and I want to share them because I believe sharing our concerns openly will help us improve.”
To make it safe for him to share, make it clear you can handle his perspective. If this is something you struggle with, you may need work on developing the inner confidence that his perspectives do not reflect your worth.
“I’m sorry, can we try again? If I’m saying or doing something that makes you not want to talk, please tell me. I promise to listen and not react. What is it you’re thinking?”
(This does not mean accepting putdowns, name-calling, or the like. While your question didn’t mention that, if that’s occurring, find professional help.)
Seek Mutual Purpose
If your goal is to change your husband, that’s probably not a goal he shares. Try to find something you both want.
Maybe it’s more respect and appreciation. Maybe it’s connection like you had in the early years of marriage. Maybe it’s simply less tension and conflict. Identify a common desire, then make that a shared goal.
“Ok, I hear you—you want to feel more respected and appreciated. Can we make it a goal to work on that together? I also want to feel respected and appreciated. We could start by sharing with each other what we need for that.”
Work on Yourself
In addition to working on the behaviors I’ve outlined, find ways to work on your own emotional growth.
While good communication skills are crucial to healthy and productive relationships, they don’t necessarily resolve our immature tendencies and emotional triggers, which are significant contributors to conflict.
Emotional maturity includes the ability to stay present when we feel dismissed, not retaliate when we feel criticized, take ownership for our needs and perspectives, and work with our strengths and limitations—which is improved by a deeper and more honest understanding of ourselves.
Combining personal psychological insights with learnable behaviors makes the behaviors more durable, and vice versa. Apply effort in both domains.
In most cases, these behaviors and shifts have a reciprocal and ripple effect. Work on yourself, and you’re almost guaranteed to see a change in him and your relationship.
Respectfully,
Ryan
This is beautiful, Ryan. Thank you for your insight. I especially love the thought that we can embrace the call to grow.
I ‘feel’ like people need to have tougher skin. If they can’t take their spouse when they lash out, how can they expect to raise difficult children? Buck-up buttercup.
Why do spouses need to lash out in the first place? Learn to control your anger and express in a healthy way.
There are two differences there: 1) Parents have a responsibility to care for and emotionally support their children. By contrast, no one has a responsibility to take any flak from their spouse. And 2) A spouse is an adult, not a child, and has different behavioural expectations. A spouse should be a respectful member of a household partnership. If your spouse is someone you need to “buck-up” with then they’re probably someone you should leave.
We have been married 39 years and I have to say that your words are still very good reminders of the effects our words and actions have on our spouse. Thank you.
Another thought:
As you look at yourself first, make a recording (internally; the presence of mic will change what you say.) Do you expressly and out loud ask for immediate input or do you make a statement then Full Stop.
As I observe people “talking” I hear the Full Stop method (actually a lecture) frequently called a conversation. It, categorically, is not. This is especially true if the “receiver/audience” is under some stress and has a need to be heard; they may be waiting for an invitation that never comes.
The simplest way to start is to memorize (and use!) a script. “Blah, blah, blah. What do you think?” After a while, it becomes a habit.
-The greatest error in communication is the illusion that it has actually occurred.- George Bernard Shaw
Thank you for the useful advice. What are the next steps after I express “when you do X, I feel Y,” ask if I’m saying or doing something to contribute, and the response from my not-crucial-conversation-trained partner is something like, “you never listen” or “you always have to be right”? I haven’t been successful in drawing out their perspectives.
Hi Clare, that sounds really difficult.
The responses from your partner indicate they still do not feel safe. When a sense of safety has been lacking for a long period of time, it can take some time to restore. If you get that type of response, try, “Ok, tell me about it.” And just listen. You’ll need to be in a space where you can receive whatever your partner volleys, so you don’t get annoyed at the apparent defensiveness. Just listen. Be patient.
That’s what you can do. Now, here are a couple of ideas that aren’t necessarily actionable, but hopefully illuminating.
It is common for men to struggle with being vulnerable. Personal history and cultural norms can make vulnerability seem practically taboo for some men, and they may not even know they view it this way. So, establishing a sense of safety can take significant effort. If they can become conscious of their beliefs regarding vulnerability, improvement quickens. Of course, people generally resist assessing unconscious beliefs that were formerly constructed to protect them. Pointing this out may be helpful if the timing and conditions are right, but probably less helpful than simply demonstrating openness.
I don’t know whether you have children, but if you do, this can be a helpful heuristic. If you have a child who comes to you hurt or afraid, I’m guessing you don’t scold them. You reassure them that they are safe, that it’s ok to feel how they do, and so on. This is easy to do with our children. It is difficult to do with our partners. But it’s that kind of concern, in essence, we need to bring to such interactions. Defensiveness communicates “I’m scared. I’m hurt. I’m confused.” We all have a child within, and the closer we can get to speaking to the child within during conflict, the better we can make it safe for fears and hurts and concerns to be expressed.