In married life, sometimes a conversation can get out of hand. As a wife, you may have ever felt deeply hurt by your husband’s hurtful words; and the scenarios like below may have ever happened to your marriage:
- Emily found that her husband, Mike, constantly picked on her; then she said to Mike, “I feel like you don’t love me, you just want to punish and criticize me!” Mike replied, “Right! I just want to punish and criticize you!”
- During a heated conflict, Ann complained, “We have problems but you have never considered making a change for me!” Her man, Jeff, replied, “That’s right! I just don’t want to make any changes for you at all!”
- After a long and bitter argument, Anderson told his wife, Caroline, in a low voice, “I am tired of the relationship! I want to break up!” This gave Caroline a fearful shock and she suddenly became speechless.
So when your husband says hurtful words, how to deal with the situation properly?
The following are some simple but useful tips:
(1) Don’t react to those hurtful words:
Understandably, it is easy to fire back at your man when he says something hurtful to you. After all, it is a natural human instinct to attack back when we get offended; the harder we push back, the more secure we feel behind the wall of our words. However, that only serves to continue the vicious cycle of hurt and escalate the hostility towards each other.
But anyway, as long as you can remind yourself that you should think of the interest of your marriage before thinking of your own interest, you will not be obsessed with getting the last word, paying your spouse back, or winning the fight. The more you fire back your volley of hurtful words, the worse things will be. Therefore, if you feel that you are about to lose control of your emotions when your man hurts you deeply with his words, a rational approach is to call a time out to get away from the conflict; and don’t think that not responding means you are knocked under him; instead, you might comfort yourself by telling yourself that it makes no sense to argue with a man when he is overwhelmed by negative emotions.
(2) Be open to more hurt:
It is quite common to put up barriers when we confront someone who hurts us, especially someone who repeatedly hurts us. Doing so can make sure we do not get hurt again. However, if the person who hurts you is your husband, such an approach is inadvisable because this will serve to isolate you from him and steal away emotional intimacy in your marriage.
Being vulnerable means you allow your man to fully know your feelings, thoughts, weaknesses, challenges… sometimes, it is scary to show those sides to your spouse out of fear of being unfairly judged, though, it is a necessary part of a long-term relationship. If you do not dare to show vulnerability to your man, you will lose a good chance to establish a deep connection with him.
(3) Manage your anger constructively:
When your husband says hurtful words to you, don’t just suppress your resentment or anger; instead, you are supposed to take a constructive, positive approach to manage your anger/resentment and deal with your spouse’s anger/resentment.
For more tips on how to deal with anger/resentment in marriage, you might go on to read the posts below:
How to manage anger in marriage – Deal with your & your spouse’s anger.
How to deal with resentment in your marriage – Reduce resentment.
(4) Take responsibility, and don’t play the blame game:
When your husband says hurtful words and places blame on you, probably you are very tempted to put all the blame on him/her. But don’t be caught in the cycle of the blame game; understandably, your man’s harsh words have caused you much pain, but don’t dwell too much on this; instead, you need to take enough time to ponder what responsibility you should take for the status quo; after all, it takes two to tangle; then you might admit the responsibility in front of your man. And when your man sees you doing this, he will feel a bit relieved because he secretly wants you to accept some responsibility. Surely, you don’t have to accept the responsibility that your man deliberately shifts to you.
(5) Don’t make a major decision on the spur of the moment:
When your husband says hurtful words, probably you both (especially your spouse) are excessively emotional, and you both don’t have the necessary clarity to make a weighty decision. Again, we are inclined to say and do things that we don’t mean in the heat of the moment. So you should avoid making any impulsive decision, no matter how hurtful and provocative your spouse’s words are; otherwise, probably you will regret it afterward. Now, just wait until you and your man’s emotions have cooled down.
In short, when our emotions run high, our judgment tends to run low; therefore, during this time, you should refrain from making any major decision; on the other hand, probably your spouse has a strong impulse to make a significant decision, you had better not listen to his request; for example, in a fit of bad temper, your spouse may angrily say that he wants a divorce; in this case, you are not supposed to follow him, just tell him you need to calm down now.
(6) Figure out what was behind your man’s hurtful words:
Many times, a spouse does not say hurtful words out of a strong desire to damage the other spouse, nor a particular hatred for the other spouse; those hurtful words may be used when the spouse feels cornered and perceive a threat during an argument/fight. This can be interpreted that a spouse feels like he/she is losing an argument and is using this way to “win” the other spouse. No doubt, this is never a legitimate reason to use hurtful words. However, it happens often in a marriage.
Furthermore, the hurtful words may be used as retaliation against some perceived hurt that you have caused to your man. Specifically, sometimes you feel your man hurts you deeply with his words, but you do not realize that you have done something that has gotten up his nose early; and he always thinks that you have not taken the responsibility that you should take.
In the situation above, you might ask your spouse to give you some time to reflect on what you have done wrong or what has caused the misunderstanding; if you realize that you have made some mistakes that hurt him, you should admit your responsibility for your part in this conflict; and if you found that the conflict originates in a serious misunderstanding, then you should discuss with him how to avoid such a misunderstanding in the future; by the way, afterward, don’t forget to remind him that this is not a good reason to offend you.
Anyway, real healing lies in addressing problems behind your husband’s hurtful words, rather than dwell on the words themselves. As you work hard on the underlying problems, the verbal level attacks will naturally subside.
(7) Revisit your man’s comment in a non-conflict time:
More often than not, after a discussion over some major conflict has passed, we don’t want to re-engage in the same discussion because we are afraid that it may spark another round of fighting. Probably, it will be the case; however, leaving a serious relationship issue unresolved is just like leaving a serious wound untreated; the wound tends to get infected and spread to other areas of the body, affecting more and more areas until it kills the body. As difficult as it may be, you should seek to revisit the discussion during which your man ever hurt you, and try to re-identify what caused the hurt, and meanwhile, tell him clearly that you aim to heal and reconcile the damaged marriage by enhancing the mutual understanding of the purpose of the discussion.
Remember, at this stage, your husband will not be willing to revisit the discussion unless he knows that you don’t wanna pick a fight with him again.
Be clear about your perspective when you revisit the negative and hurtful discussion:
When you two are sharing each other’s concerns, make sure to give your man some uninterrupted time. If you trade bars back and forth during the conversation, you will be too busy plotting your next comeback to really hear each other. And when it is your turn to talk, you should try to help your man understand your frustration or hurt, help him see why his words and actions had a great negative impact. Likewise, as the offending spouse, he should also have the opportunity to explain his aggressive behavior. It may be that you misinterpreted his motives; and once this is cleared up, it can go a long way towards healing the rift in your relationship.
(8) Be forgiving and let go of the hurt:
Every long-term relationship needs forgiveness to move forward and thrive. After all, everyone inevitably makes mistakes over time. We all have grumpy days or bad days. From time to time, we may say and do something that we don’t mean. In this sense, everyone deserves forgiveness.
Forgiveness can be perceived as something that you do for yourself to give up on anger, hurt, and revenge. This is especially true for your spouse who has already hurt you but now is attempting to seek forgiveness and make amends; surely, if your husband has not shown remorse for his wrongdoings, it is difficult for you to forgive him. But even then, maybe you still can find value in offering him forgiveness. Again, no long-term relationships can sustain for a long time without forgiveness.
When your forgiveness is not enough, how to deal with the relationship:
If your man continues to hurt you without making any effort to change, it may be time to tell him that enough is enough. And this calls for you to evaluate your marriage seriously.
The final word:
As a mature adult, your man does not say hurtful words for no reason. And when your husband says hurtful words to you, it is very likely an indicator that your marriage is on the rocks; there may be a series of things you need to do to fix the marriage as soon as possible; for example, you may need to figure out how to defuse/avoid unnecessary conflict, gain a more in-depth understanding of what your man wants from you, improve the emotional connection with your spouse…
For more marriage-saving tips, you might go on to read the page below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
What should you do when your husband says he hates you?
What to do when your husband is not affectionate towards you?
How to keep your husband happy and faithful – Be a better wife?
Signs your husband is pulling away – Why he seems distant?
The 5 most important emotional needs of a man – Meet his needs.
How to defuse conflict in marriage – Calm down a heated argument.
What to do when your spouse wants to leave you – Save your marriage.
What not to do when your spouse wants out – Save the marriage.