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I recently had a dream that I’m going to use as the basis for a couple of posts here and over on The XY Code.
In the dream, I was a teenager and I had a girlfriend. The girl in my dream was not my high school girlfriend, but the dream mother was the mother of my real girlfriend. The girl in the dream was a sort of worst-case version of my actual girlfriend. When she wanted to be with me, I’d better be there. When I wanted to be with her she was only available if she wanted to be together. She was controlling and manipulative, doing things for me only to get something. And while there was no sex in the dream, I knew we were having sex and that it was being metered out with an eye dropper.
In the dream, I was starting to see how wrong the situation was and I was trying to figure out what to do. In real life, I realise my relationship with my girlfriend was not healthy and I set some things in my mind that had to change before I’d consider marrying her. I also stopped letting what she did and didn’t do control me. I never gave her any demands and I didn’t stop doing things for her; I just stopped being manipulated. I guess she didn’t like not having control over me, because a few months later she dumped me.
I see a lot of married men living out the nightmare that would have been mine had I not stopped being manipulated. Their wife shows her displeasure by limiting or withholding things from words to sex and kindness to household chores. Hubby either does what she wants, or stops doing what she dislikes, or it gets worse. Sometimes something the husband wants to do that his wife will dislike feels worth the cost to him, but overall he’s not a free man.
Putting up with this kind of thing is wrong, it’s destructive to your marriage long term, and it sends a bad message. When we choose to continue in a dysfunctional marriage we give our children and those around us a bad example. We also send a bad message to the world.
I realise that doing something about this will be painful and worst-case scenario could end your marriage. But I think agreeing to it by not speaking up is wrong. At the very least, you have to stop playing, no matter what it costs. I’ve seen the long-term consequences of letting this go and it’s not pretty. The best case is you end up with a cranky roommate. Another common result is the wife eventually goes too far and the husband won’t bend. After decades of being in control, the wife reacts with anger, threats, or divorce.
If you’ve been putting up with a light version of this kind of manipulation, rest assured compliance almost always results in more of the same. If it seems too minor to bother with, it’s going to get worse.
There are two reasons a woman acts like this. Some came into the marriage this way. They did it as a child to get their way or they watched mom do it with dad. Or maybe it’s a bad habit she developed in a previous relationship that was unhealthy. The other cause of this is a husband who’s not doing what his wife wants and needs. If manipulation gets her what she has been lacking, then she will almost certainly continue and escalate.
What if this has been happening in your marriage, you’ve been playing along, and now realise you need to stop? I’d suggest stopping without saying anything. But be ready to tell her what and why when she complains. Be sure to continue doing loving things for her regardless of what she says or refuses to do. Show her she doesn’t have to manipulate because you will give her things out of love.
A post worth reading:
PsyPost | Longitudinal study examines the effects of adversity on wise reasoning ◄ Nope – being manipulated doesn’t have a silver lining.
Image Credit: © pathdoc | stock.adobe.com
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That’s rough. It’s true and needs to be said but it will be rough going for a while for those who stand up for themselves against manipulation. Some may end badly and have a difficult time seeing how it was worth it but that’s because we can’t see “what would have been.” We can only see what is and speculate on the other based on what very often happens. For most, it will be far better on the other side if they do take that stand in love and stick with it.
I tend to agree. My wife’s brother had a marriage that seemed to me to be like that, the wife calling all the shots and being quite manipulative, and and my wife and I counseled him to simply start saying no. He wasn’t totally able to do so, and the marriage ended, and she’s still using family court and visitation to try and enforce her will.
Now obviously, I have mostly only one person’s view here, but what little we’ve heard from his ex-wife seems to match the pattern.
For others, make darned sure that you’re in the right, but yes, there are times that one should not simply go along to get along. I personally see this especially when we’ve got “evangelical culture” telling us something that we really cannot support with Scripture. One of the factors that is especially helpful is to appeal to the narrative passages–“if we are not supposed to do this, why does Jesus/Paul/prophets do this?”