Episode 155: Am I Letting Him Off the Hook

Welcome to the Loving Truth Podcast, where it's all about finding clarity, confidence, and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host relationship expert and certified master life coach, Sharon Pope. Hello, loves. This is Sharon Pope and this is The Loving Truth. Today we're going to be talking about are you letting your partner off the hook?

So here's where we're going to begin. We're going to start with our thoughts, create our emotions. Right now, most people don't know this. Most people move through their lives thinking that the circumstance creates how they feel. So something happens in your life and the way that you feel about it. In your mind, that's the only way that there is to feel about it.

That's the only way to look at it. It's the only way to possibly feel about it. So for instance, your husband, let's say he's, he started consistently staying really late at the office, and you make that mean that he doesn't care about the marriage anymore. He doesn't care about the family anymore. All he cares about is his job, and that makes you feel hurt and maybe scared for the future and maybe a little rejected.

So it was your thought about him staying at work late. It was your thought that he doesn't care about the marriage. That made you feel hurt, scared, rejected. If you had the thought that, oh, the circumstances, my husband is staying late at work, and you had the thought, my goodness, he is working really hard for our family, then you would feel appreciative.

You might feel loving. You might have more compassion, you might have more patience, right? So it's our thoughts about the circumstances of our lives that create how we feel. So when someone first learns that many times inside my community, they learn this and they're like, so wait a minute, you just want me to let him off the hook?

You just want me to change my thought about this bad and hurtful behavior that he is doing. Yes and no. Yes and no. This is never about justifying bad or hurtful behavior. It's changing your thoughts isn't about that. It's also not about lying to yourself. 'cause you might be able to lie to someone else for a little bit, but you can't lie to yourself for very long.

You know what feels true for you and what doesn't. Right. So when it's really bad and hurtful behavior, I'm not suggesting that we overlook it, but I'm suggesting we step back from it and become more of an objective observer to what's happening and realizing that I have more power and control in my own life to determine how I wanna feel, how I want to feel about the circumstances in my life.

You know how we've all heard this saying like, you can't control. The world, but you can control your reaction to it. That's what they mean is that when you control how you think about any circumstance, knowing that your thoughts are going to drive how you feel, then you get to choose how you feel as you move through your life because no one can think for you.

No one can create those thoughts for you. So this isn't, this isn't about overlooking or justifying hurtful behavior. It's not about lying to yourself. It's also not about punishing someone else so that they will then bend to your will as though they're here to do your bidding, to do it the way you think that they should do it.

Changing your thoughts is about feeling better. Feeling better in your marriage, feeling better in your life. It's about owning your power and realizing how really powerful you are in terms of being able to create how you feel. And if you wanna feel good, we have to have to start reaching for some better thoughts in order to feel better.

So it's not really about them changing your thoughts isn't about someone else, it's about you. So let's dive in. Let me give you kind of a silly example. In our bathroom, in our master bath, we have these two, um, stone containers. And in one of them is where I keep the little cotton pads. And in the other one is where we keep the Q-tips.

And every night my husband uses a Q-tip, you know, cleans out his ears, right? And so he takes the lid off the Q-tip container, takes out the Q-tip, does whatever he does right? And then he never puts the lid back on the Q-tip container. Like almost never. And for a long time I was like, put the lid back on.

Like you take the lid off, you put it back on. And then for a while I was just doing it. And then I would, I would sort of make jokes about it or be sarcastic about it. And none of that felt good, right? Like so I could sit here and nag him and I could make sarcastic jokes about how he never puts the lid back on.

What's wrong with you? Who does that I could torment myself with that doesn't even make any sense. You know, it's right there. It's not even like he takes the lid off and has to set it over across the room. He sets it right next to it, right? I could stay in that energy, and by the way, I could probably convince you and a thousand other people that I am right in this situation and that he is wrong.

Right. You put the lid back on. When you take it off, you put it back where it goes. That's my, that's how my brain works, right? But.

If I keep doing that, if I keep nagging him or being sarcastic or you know, just like tormenting myself about it, I am not going to feel very loving towards him or about him. I'm not going to take very loving actions towards him. Right? But I don't do that. So now I just. Put the lid back on because it's only bothering me.

It's not bothering him. If it was his choice, he probably would have a Q-tip container that doesn't have a lid on it so that he can always just have easy access every day to the Q-tip container. But because I have bought these jars with lids on them and I like things very clean and organized, I've decided that it only bothers me.

So when the Q-tip container lid is not on the Q-tip container, I take the lid and I put it back on the container. And then, you know what I do? I think to myself, look at me being, being accepting and being loving. Look at me. I sort of give myself a little pat on the back right now. Am I letting him off the hook?

You might say, yeah, because he should do what's right and put that lid back on. But all I'm doing is causing myself mostly suffering and probably with some nagging a little bit of suffering for him. Because who likes to be told by their wife that they're kind of an idiot or implied idiot because they don't put the lid back on the container.

When I could just go, you know what? It's only bothering me and it's no big deal. It takes almost no effort for me to do that. Right? So my husband is many, many things, but the guy who, he's never gonna be that guy who puts the container, the lid back on the container, he's just not. So I choose to not make a big deal out of it at all anymore.

It's not even a topic of conversation. So here's, that's just kind of a funny light example. We're gonna get to a heavier example. 'cause you're probably sitting here thinking, well Sharon, if that's the extent of your marital challenges, of course you see it as just put the lid back on the container. But my situation is different.

I know, I know. We'll get there, but these times when we are triggered by our partner, these upsets, what they really are is an opportunity for us to go a little deeper to understand where it's coming from, right? Why? Why does, why does he choose to not put the lid back on? Why does your partner choose to default to anger?

When there's an upset, why does your partner lie to you when there's no need to lie? Like there's, so why does he or she do what they do? Why are they choosing that? Where did it come from in their history? And by the way, it also gives us the opportunity to look a little deeper at our own selves, our own assumptions about how things should be and our expectations of our partner.

Like, I didn't know, maybe I should have written into the marriage vows that whenever you take a lid off, I'm gonna need for you to put that lid back on. Or my assumptions that the world should be an orderly place and that lids should always be on the containers. Right. That's just a thought. It doesn't make it true.

It's just true in my, in my brain, in my world, the way I think. That's all. In my OCD brain, right? So now let's get to, your situation might be really different. Like, let's take the example of your husband being a compulsive liar, right? Maybe you would come to me and say, you know, Sharon, I hear you. I hear you, but that feels really simple.

Your Q-tip container example compared to my husband is a compulsive liar. He lies about big things. He lies about small things. He lies about where he was, how long he was there, who he was with, and it's really eroding any degree of trust inside of our relationship. I can't trust him, so I'm not suggesting that you should overlook the fact that your husband's a compulsive liar.

I am not saying that, but, and I also don't think that you should pretend that it's okay, but we've gotta be able to approach it differently because if you just come at him like you're a compulsive liar and you need to stop it, well, you're a compulsive liar, is gonna feel like an insult, a criticism, and a judgment all rolled up into one and you need to stop it.

It feels very controlling and that's not gonna feel good. So trying to tell someone how they should be because it's wrong because you don't like it. Like it's just if, if it worked, I'd tell you to do it. It just doesn't work, right? So how can we approach it differently? And the place where I'm gonna have you begin is reaching for understanding.

As opposed to reaching for control to change the behavior. I want you to reach for understanding, and I need you to do it without the judgment that they're wrong in your right. You gotta release the judgment as you go into trying to understand more deeply. So here's what this is gonna sound like, and we're gonna take the compulsive liar example.

Okay. Maybe you go to your partner and you say there's something important that I feel like we need to address as a couple. I want you to know that I love you and I care deeply about the health of our marriage. There's been a few occasions recently where you've not been honest with me, and I know you're not intentionally trying to lie to me or keep secrets from me, and I certainly know you're not trying to hurt me.

So I'd like for us to explore together where this comes from. When you were a kid, did you feel like you often had to lie or hide things from your parents or from your teachers? Let him answer, why did you feel that way? What was going on? Like, just dive in there a little bit with him. I know you might be thinking like, oh, so I'm supposed to play coach or therapist?

Like, well, why not? I mean, if you think about therapy as, as they ask you a lot of questions. So that you can come to some answers. You just ask probing questions so that you can dive in and unearth what's really going on. So all you're doing as their spouse is just being curious about their experience as opposed to judging them and insulting them and criticizing them and thinking that's gonna lead to change.

We've gotta go into it, assuming that they're not trying to be a compulsive liar. Like no one woke up at age, I don't know, 38, and said, you know what? From here on out, I'm just gonna lie about everything. That'll feel really good. Like no one made that conscious choice, but somehow he's landed Here. You might say, I suspect your behavior is something you've used as a protection mechanism growing up, and that's just carried over into adulthood.

We all have those things, right? All the protective mechanisms that we learned on how to deal with life growing up is what we carry into our lives as adults. But once we can see them. Then we can determine whether they're still helping us or hurting us in our lives today. So what's going on between us?

When you feel the need to lie or hide something from me, am I doing something in particular that makes you feel like you need to lie or hide? In those moments when you've lied to me, how are you feeling about our marriage? So what you're looking for here is what are the trigger points? What are the places where your spouse is like, oh, can't tell the truth, or I won't be loved, or I won't be accepted, or I'll be criticized, or I whatever.

Or I'll be in trouble. She can't know right? What's going on, not just within him, but also then within the context of the relationship. Now I'm gonna tell you something. You are not gonna wanna do this, you will want to stay on your high horse and be like, lying is wrong. I'm your wife. You need to stop. I'm a hundred percent right.

And this is a hundred percent on you to change. That's where your ego is going to want you to stay. You are not gonna wanna dive into understanding it more, right? Because, well, because you're just gonna feel like you're right. And therefore you're gonna. Come across as more than a little righteous. But if you do that, you're going to suffer.

So what I'm asking you to do is just to try to dive in and understand what's the motivation behind it. 'cause like I said,

he didn't just wake up one day and say, I think I wanna do, I wanna be a compulsive liar. You could assume he's intentionally not trying to hurt you. He's more than likely scared of you seeing the truth of something.

And that stemmed from somewhere. And by the way, you could choose to show up for him in this moment, the same way that you would want someone to give you the same kind of grace of if there was something from your childhood that was just a protection mechanism that was showing up in your daily life.

Would you want someone coming at you with criticisms and judgment, or would you want them coming at you and sitting with you? Holding space with you and saying like, what's going on? Let's, let's dive into it. Let's understand it right? Before you feel like you need to hide or you need to lie about something, what are you feeling?

What's happening? What are the thoughts that you're carrying that are then creating this feeling? Right? So you're helping them get at it. The other thing that you are not gonna wanna do, that I'm asking you to do is look at your role in the creation of this experience. Right, because you still believe that you're a hundred percent right and that he is the problem.

Lying is wrong, period. End of discussion, right? So you're not gonna wanna look at yourself like, is there something that I'm doing or is there something that I'm saying that is making you feel like you need to hide from me, or you need to lie to me? Because if I knew the truth, you wouldn't feel loved.

You wouldn't feel respected. You wouldn't want, uh, you wouldn't wanna be married to me anymore. You wouldn't like what's going on. And I think just going into it, assuming good intent, you know, let's assume that your partner doesn't wake up every day going, how can I lie to her today? Right. How can I hurt her today?

Right. If that's the case, then he's a sociopath and. We probably need to end this relationship sooner rather than later, but let's assume that this is a wound playing out as opposed to some deliberate, intentional path to hurting you. Okay. That's a way to look at it without then going to, well, am I just letting him off the hook?

It's so much bigger than that. Until next time, take really good care. If you're listening to this podcast because you're struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you're serious about finding that answer, it's time to book a Truth and Clarity session with a member of my team on the call.

We'll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there's a fit for you and I to work together so you can make and execute the right decision for you and your marriage. Go to Clarity for my marriage.com to fill out an application now that's clarity for my marriage.com.