Relationship Problems and Women: Can You See Your Part?

balancing relationship problemsWhat Makes it Hard for Women to See Their Part in Relationship Problems?

When you feel like you do everything for everyone and get no consideration in return, it’s hard to have sympathy for your spouse’s complaints about relationship problems. Maybe you can’t see anything but how you are being taken for granted. When you are struggling for years in not being heard, or having your emotional needs met, it makes you deaf to the needs of your spouse. Relationship problems seem like they happen despite all of your efforts.

If you are miserable, it hardens you. If you are trying to get through to your spouse to do more, care more, listen more, the anger can put you into a position of doing a lot of yelling, criticizing, and nagging. You feel justified. You’re angry and exasperated, and that’s what happens when you aren’t getting a response from your partner. This can happen to either a man or a woman experiencing relationship problems, but women are often the ones who are more emotionally dissatisfied  in a relationship. Add in the feeling that you are doing more than your fair share, and you have an understandable recipe for resentment and blame:

“So what if he’s hurting, I’ve been hurting for a long time.”

“Maybe if he hurts now, he’ll understand how I feel.”

“If he really cared, he’d do more and he wouldn’t turn me into this nagging, yelling monster.”

But, there’s a price to this.

If you are in so much pain that you can’t see your contribution to your relationship problems, you’ll both be very stuck. I see a lot of women who bring their husbands or partners to therapy hoping that it will make them change. Do more to help. Be more respectful. Listen and care.

Women have a lot on their plates, and maybe you do too. They are often responsible for the lion share of what goes on in a household or family. Career (or not), children, housework, shopping, it all adds up. Factor in your partner’s need for physical intimacy and you may just feel like you are going to scream.

Burnout has a price: When it comes to solving relationship problems, there can be so much anger that you can’t feel empathy for your partner. You can’t take your share of the responsibility for the state of the relationship. 

This leaves you feeling alone and taken advantage of in the relationship.  If your partner didn’t care, why would you try very hard to meet their needs?  This makes for a vicious cycle that blinds you to your own contributions to these relationship problems.

I would never pin all of the blame for unhappiness on one partner in non-abusive relationships. What I’m suggesting is that if you think that all of the problems in your relationship are your partner’s fault, there’s more to the story. You may feel like this partly because of being overloaded and burned out.  Understanding this, catch yourself when you are feeling like the victim. Notice what your mind is telling you about the story here. Even if you aren’t sure of a way out of the patterns you have created together, remember that you have created them together. This can go a long way toward paving a path for you to get your needs met.

It’s tempting to think that if your partner would “just stop being an emotional cripple” that your life would suddenly improve, but believe me, it’s not that simple. Recognizing that things like burnout or overwork can make you less friendly toward your partner’s needs or complaints is a good first step toward avoiding the pitfall of being unable to take any ownership of what’s going on in your relationship.

If your mind is saying, “It’s because I’m burned out that this makes me so mad that my partner can’t clearly see what’s going on with me,” then couples therapy can really help with this. We specialize in helping you get through to each other in new ways that are totally different from what you are used to.

Next, I’ll be writing a post on why some men can’t see their contribution to the problems in their relationship, so stay tuned! In the meantime, let’s meet for a free consultation with one of our excellent Denver couples therapists.