Welcome back, manslatees! And welcome to 2008! Today, we’re going to start off with a touchy one. What happens when your man just won’t stop criticizing you? Jenya writes:
Hi Jeff,My husband wants to have sex very often and it would be great, but he destroys EVERYTHING by constantly criticizing me in bed and out.Any suggestions?Jenya
Dear Jenya,
Well, as I think you might already know, this has nothing to do with sex. If a man (or anyone) is constantly criticizing you or anyone else, it’s not really even about YOU, let alone any one specific thing you’re doing.
WHY MIGHT HE BE CONSTANTLY CRITICIZING?
I’ve met a few of these guys in my time here on earth. (I don’t know why I had to add “on earth.” If I’m being honest, that’s where I’ve spent almost all my time.) I was even semi-related to one for a while there. Given that your message wasn’t too explicit about it, I can’t be sure what his deal is. There are a bunch of reasons to do this. Let’s go through some of the possible reasons for this behavior:
- He just loves you and wants to help you improve yourself. Yeah, this is never the reason. He might SAY it is. Hell, I’m almost SURE he says that. But honestly? No way. Why? Because it never, never works, right? I mean, he’s not actually “improving” you as much as just “annoying the shart out of you.”
- He feels insecure. Ok, we’re getting somewhere now. Often a constant criticizer feels like people around him don’t believe that he’s smart or in control (because HE doesn’t believe it) and so he makes DAMN sure everybody knows how smart he is by telling YOU how much smarter he is than you. Nice, huh?
- He wants YOU to feel insecure. This is possibly the ugliest reason. And very possible. This one, again, comes from insecurity. He’s afraid you’re not going to need him anymore. He wants you to hear all the criticism and think to yourself, “Wow. I am a real screwup. Thank all the gods of Olympus I’ve got this guy to straighten me out!” (Hey, I don’t know what religion you are.)
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT? It’s up to him whether or not he’s going to be able to even HEAR that he’s doing anything wrong in the first place. I mean, that’s the whole thing about constantly criticizing — you’re making sure that you’re throwing all the focus off of yourself and onto what everyone ELSE is doing wrong.
I consulted with my main squeeze about this, and we kicked some ideas around. She asked, “What if she told him that she just wanted criticism to be off-limits in their relationship?” As in, she’d get that sort of feedback from other sources, but that she needed support from him? We thought about that, and because she was so wrong, wrong, wrong, I criticized her until…Kidding, of course. No, but what I thought about THAT sort of thing is, it might stop the criticism, but it would be the beginning of the end. Anytime you put barbed wire around a part of yourself (even if it’s to save your sanity) it’s going to feel like you’ve separated each other. This is not a coincidence because, you know, you HAVE.
No, I think that the only way through (if it’s possible) is by OPENING doors, not closing them. This kind of behavior seems to be a symptom of a lack of communication on SOME front. I mean, at the very least, he must not know that it is “ruining everything” as you say. The two of you have to come to some kind of a meeting of the minds about this.
Well, either that or you have to agree not to mind that you aren’t that close. Which, you know, some folk do, I suppose.
WHAT NOT TO BOTHER WITH
Don’t even trouble yourself trying to “convince” him to stop via logic. A constant criticizer won’t likely admit to having flawed logic of any kind. You don’t want to bother to fight him about it.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STOP PLAYING ALONG
Here’s something to know about dealing with a guy like this. If it really is an insecurity thing, when you stop accepting this sort of criticism…uh…he’s not gonna like it. It will smack right up against the insecurity that is making him do it in the first place.
“Holy crap. She’s calling my bluff! Battlestations!”
His reaction might very well be to defend his criticism as so, so helpful. He might accuse YOU of being overly defensive. (Which sounds to me like, wait, I’m trying to remember — there’s something about a pot and a kettle and…hm, probably not important.)
He might get sulky and pouty. He might act wounded and offended. He might get MORE critical.
What he is NOT so likely to do is to say, “You know what? You’re right. I’ve been such a jerk about this.”
SO HOW BEST TO APPROACH IT?
I think that however you get this conversation going is going to be a little bumpy. The question is, what’s going on? Is this a NEW behavior? And if so, what started it? Did something change in your lives? Or is it just your displeasure with it that is new? Why is this happening NOW?
What do you want to happen here? What’s the outcome that you want? I know you want him to stop criticizing you, but more importantly, what do you want him to START doing? That would be a great place to begin the conversation. Telling him what you need, rather than focusing first on what you don’t need. It could be that this has just become a habit, and all he needs is a course correction with a little help from you.
He needs to know that, regardless of what he THINKS is happening when he criticizes, your reaction is to feel lousy. And even if he THINKS that you shouldn’t feel that way, you do. And even if he THINKS that criticism helpful, the result is that he is hurting you. He needs to be able to hear that.
Good Luck, Jenya. This is a tough one. And to be very honest it’s not one that every couple survives (nor should they, in many cases.) But if you want to work this out, I’d say that MORE communication, MORE vulnerability, and MORE understanding of what you want to happen between the two of you is a great place to get started.
What do you say, manslatees? Anybody recovered from a Konstant Krazy Kriticizer? How’d you do it?
Комментарии
Отправить комментарий