Is Your Spouse’s Belittling Behavior Breaking Your Marriage?
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Every marriage can benefit from humor and joking. Teasing each other is a show of affection. Sometimes joking and teasing can go too far when it becomes personally belittling. Belittling can be a misguided, insulting joke or teasing that goes too far. “Oh, oh, you’re wearing the “fat dress” again.”
At the opposite end of the spectrum belittling is a form of verbal abuse used to make another person feel small, unimportant or disrespected. It tears at a person’s confidence and sense of self-esteem. Belittling can be used to exert control over someone else.
What is Belittling?
- Yelling or screaming at you to get a reaction.
- Insulting you—calling you fat, ugly or stupid—or criticizing your parenting skills or intelligence.
- Ignoring how you feel, disregarding your opinion or failing to recognize your contributions.
- Humiliating or embarrassing you, especially in front of family or friends.
- Bringing up past failures or mistakes as evidence of your incompetence or lack of intelligence.
- Forcing you to agree with them instead of forming or expressing your own opinion.
- Treating you as their property or as someone who has no value other than as a sex object.
- Denying the belittling, blaming it on you or criticizing you for making too big a deal out of it.
- Blaming you for their abusive behavior, but then turning around and telling you how much they love you.
How do you know if you are being verbally abused?
- By the way it makes you feel less than, and by the lack of a sincere apology when you express how hurtful the comment was.
- By how frequently the belittling comments occur.
- Are you afraid of your partner?
- Are you extra cautious whenever your partner is around not to do something to upset them?
It is hard to believe that someone you love and trust would deliberately try to hurt you in order to control you or make themselves seem powerful. However, no one deserves to be demeaned or insulted. In a health relationship, partners do not hurt each other intentionally. Respectful partners should build each other up, not purposefully put each other down.
How do you deal with belittling behavior?
Don’t underestimate belittling or brush it off. If a comment or action makes you feel bad, it’s your right to express your discomfort directly and to expect a genuine apology.
- Don’t retaliate or insult them back.
- Identify how the comment makes you feel, so that you can express your emotions.
- Tell your partner exactly how they made you feel and that you didn’t like it.
Healthy expression of feelings can strengthen a marriage, but unhealthy expressions of feelings can create distance and tear the marriage apart. If you suspect that your partner’s belittling behavior is more than just an innocent mistake, take time to discuss it with your partner or see a marriage counselor.
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