The Importance Of Valuing Your Spouse

Recently, I came across a video that spoke about how some men are afraid of their wives learning to value themselves & leaving them.  To prevent this from happening, they tear these women down by criticizing them so they will think that they can’t do any better & stay with them.  I believe this is a common behavior & that men haven’t cornered the market on it – women do this too.  Today, we will talk about how to avoid such behaviors & how to value your spouse.

Tearing someone down is never a solution to any problem.  Criticizing your spouse only hurts their self-esteem & damages your relationship.  The root of such behavior is often insecurity.  When you are insecure, you tend to feel threatened by your spouse’s success or growth, which can lead to controlling, manipulative, & abusive behavior.  Therefore, it is essential to recognize the signs of such behavior & acknowledge that your spouse’s success or growth does not diminish your worth or value in any way.  Instead, it is an opportunity to support & encourage them to become the best version of themselves.

The first step towards having a healthy, happy relationship is to take a step back & reflect on your behavior.  Ask yourself why you feel the need to tear your spouse down.  Once you identify the root cause, it’s time to work on yourself.

Prayer is powerful.  God will help you overcome the problem.  He will provide you with the strength & wisdom to recognize your weaknesses & improve them.  He also will help you communicate with your spouse in a healthy & respectful manner & build a healthier relationship.

Reflecting on your behavior also can help you identify areas where you need to improve.  It can help you become more aware of your actions & how they affect your spouse, which can help you become more empathetic & compassionate towards your spouse’s feelings & needs.

If you find yourself being judgmental or critical of your spouse out of fear of losing them, try wooing them instead.  Wooing your spouse means making them feel cherished, loved, & desired.  It also means prioritizing them over anyone else in your life.  You can do this by expressing your love & appreciation for them, listening to them, supporting their goals & dreams, & being there for them when they need you.  You can also surprise them with small gestures of kindness, like preparing their favorite meal or buying them a thoughtful gift to show them that you are thinking about them.  These things help build trust, intimacy, & a stronger emotional connection, while making your spouse feel valued & appreciated.

Accept your spouse.  In other words, don’t try to change them or mold them into the person you want them to be.  Instead, embrace their uniqueness & support them in their growth & development.  Acceptance helps build trust, respect, & a stronger emotional connection.  

Offer grace to your spouse.  Offering grace means being patient, kind, & understanding towards your spouse.  It means recognizing that they are human & that they need your support & encouragement to become the best version of themselves.

Valuing your spouse is essential for building a healthy, respectful, & fulfilling partnership.  

Why Do Children Abused By Narcissistic Parents Fall For Abusers?

So many children of narcissistic parents end up in many abusive relationships over the course of their lives.  It starts out with abusive parents, then moves on to friends, later adding in co-workers & often eventually marrying a narcissist often from an equally narcissistic family.

As if the additional abuse isn’t bad enough, we also tend to verbally abuse ourselves about the situation.  We beat ourselves up for getting involved with people who are so much like our abusive parents.  We think we’re stupid, hopeless & much more.  We can’t imagine why we would do such a thing.  The aim of this post is to explain some possible reasons why we end up with these abusive people.

One reason is abuse is normal to us.  We’re so accustomed to it, if a person isn’t abusive, we simply don’t know what to think of that sort of behavior.  We choose an abuser over a safe, not abusive person simply because it’s familiar.  There is a degree of comfort in familiarity, even when it is abusive.  Thankfully, the more we heal from childhood, the more abnormal abuse becomes, & we stop attracting & being attracted to abusive people.

Children of narcissists grow up trying to find love, the love we never received as children.  In a romantic relationship, this can give an abusive person a great deal of power & control.  Until you recognize the signs of abuse, their power & control comes across as confidence, which can make you feel safe & loved, even there isn’t anything safe or loving about someone being controlling.

We also don’t really recognize what healthy love looks like.  It’s not like a narcissistic mom & dad could provide good example of that.  We think being loved means being abused, even though nothing could be further from the truth.  When someone comes along & claims to love you, even if that person treats you like dirt, you think that person actually loves you.

Children of narcissists also settle.  My mother told me no man would ever want me, so when my ex husband pursued me when we were in the eleventh grade, I felt like I shouldn’t pass up this opportunity even though he really wasn’t the type of guy I found attractive at all.  After all, no one else would ever want me, I thought.  Even dating other men after high school didn’t change that false belief I had.  Many other adult children of narcissists I’ve spoken with have had similar experiences, & like me, settled for someone they didn’t love & who was abusive.

Gaslighting is your norm.  You are so accustomed to being manipulated that you don’t recognize it as a problem.  Since you don’t recognize this problem, the abuser can manipulate you in any way he or she sees fit.  One common way narcissists keep their victim/spouse down is to make that person think that they are the problem in the relationship.  When a person has low (or no) self-esteem, believing they are the problem will make that person feel as if they have to work hard to please their partner to make up for all of the misery they put that partner through.

If you too have experienced abusive relationships, then please stop beating yourself up!  As you can see, it’s understandable!  What matters is you escaped the abuse & learned from the awful experience.  You’ll also find that the healthier you get & the more you learn, the more narcissists & other abusers will leave you alone.