Sometimes I hear of wives who have recently been bitten by something horribly hurtful that their husband has said. Sometimes this happens during an argument or in the heat of the moment. Other times, it seems like your husband is just trying to be honest and has no intention of hurting his wife. Still, whatever the case of the comments, they hurt. And they can make the wife wonder about the future of her marriage.

An example of the type of comment you may hear is something like, “My husband and I have been fighting nonstop due to financial problems. Immediately after my husband lost his job, we kept up pretty well.” But as time has passed and we have become increasingly unable to pay our bills, things have become increasingly heated between us. It seems all we do is fight more. The other night, we were fighting and I got tired. I told my husband that we needed to come together and remember what brought us together. I told him that we had a lot going for us. I told him that he was a quality person and a good guy and that his unemployment did not define who he was. He said there must be something he could remember that first drew him to me. And do you know what his response was? He said ‘I can’t think of anything I like about you.’ At first, I thought that I was not hearing him well or that he had gotten the wrong word. So he clarified and said that although he is sure I have redeeming qualities, they no longer sign up for him because the only thing he notices is my scolding, and my criticisms and nasty comments. This hurts a lot. I will admit that I have said things to you recently that I wish I could retract. But, no matter how angry I am with him, I always know in my heart that he is a good man. I never thought that I am not a good person. But now I get the impression that this is how he feels about me. Where does this leave our marriage? How much longer can I wait? stay with someone you don’t even like? “

I know it must have hurt that way. And I would never tell you not to pay attention to something your spouse says in the heat of the moment. Sometimes these words have some truth. But even if this is true, when your spouse is angry with you, then he will express his statements as strongly as possible. They probably know exactly what is going to hurt you the most, and they might be looking for a high-impact comment. This does not mean that you do not have a legitimate problem that is bothering you. And this deserves your attention. I kind of ignored my husband when he made these kinds of hurtful comments and told myself that he was just venting. This turned out to be very expensive because things escalated to the point where we parted ways, so obviously I should have been paying attention. That being said, I highly doubt that there is absolutely nothing your husband likes about you. That goes against all logic. Would he really marry a woman who had no remarkable or worthy qualities? I doubt that very much. Who would sentence himself to a life of unhappiness with someone who is not a valuable and high quality person?

You are probably basing your words on your frustrations: I think it’s a safer bet that this husband was trying to communicate that he was upset and hurt when his wife made comments that made him feel guilty or embarrassed about losing his job. In his wrong way, he was probably trying to get her attention and give him a wrong plea to stop making him feel worse about this than he already felt. To be fair, the wife probably didn’t even know that her comments were so objectionable to her husband. This could have been the first time she brought it up and she may have been letting it build and unfold until it exploded with her husband throwing out the hurtful comments. And she had already said that she was sorry for what she said.

Suggestions on how to handle this: So how do you handle this? You look at the general message under the words. And the overall message is that this is a husband who is struggling to feel good about himself and his situation. For whatever reason (and if it’s fair, accurate, valid), you feel like your wife was being a little more critical than supportive. So you might wonder if there is any validity to the underlying message. Because there is certainly no validity in the claim that he doesn’t like anything about you. You probably don’t like your current situation very much. And you probably don’t like what this job loss has done to your marriage. But it seems unlikely to me that he doesn’t like you. He might wish it was easier for him to remember those wonderful qualities in any of you when things were better.

If you want to talk to him about this, you could say something like, “I’d really like to think you’re not serious. I know you’re upset and we’re both struggling. I’ll make a real effort to observe what I’m saying and make sure that I understand. I focus on positive support. Maybe then it will be easier for you to remember what you like about me. I like to think that when this happens, you will remember that I am your biggest fan and your most caring supporter. Yes, we have been concerned about our situation financial and this has stressed us both. But somewhere behind all this, those two people who used to work so well together are still there. I think we could meet them again if we work together. I’ll try a little harder, right? It hurts to hear you say that you don’t like me. I am very clear about the fact that you have many wonderful qualities. I would like to think that you could say the same about me. “

I can’t promise that you will suddenly be overwhelmed by apologies, but I suspect this would clear the air and improve things a bit. And honestly, I have a hard time believing that many people would marry someone they don’t like at all. I think it was the strong emotions that influenced the husband’s words.