Stop Making Critical & Negative Comments To Your Spouse. DO THIS Instead!
Nothing hurts like a negative comment from the mouth of our spouse.
These comments go to the core of our inner self, where out self-esteem and self-concept reside.
Yet when our spouse makes positive comments, as much as we appreciate them, they just don’t seem to carry as much power and influence as the negative ones.
Such is life — just like the best tasting foods tend to be the unhealthiest, the most powerful comments tend to be our negative criticisms of others — especially our mates.
There is a lesson here:
When you make negative comments to your spouse they hurt deeply. Therefore, work hard on greatly limiting your criticisms.
Some people are very critical by nature. As one husband told me,
“I really don’t want to be a critical person but it seems like I have a laser vision that picks up on the smallest negative thing my wife does. Once I pick up on it my brain blows it up and makes it seem 10 times worse than it really is. Instead of ignoring the behavior I make a critical comment to my wife about it. This has been going on our entire marriage and I know her self-esteem has been beat down by my constant criticisms. This is not the way I want to be”.
Being negative by nature does not change the fact:
Your Negative Comments Hurt Your Spouse Much More Than Your Positive Comments Help.
The unfortunate truth is that our memory holds on to and stores the negative words said to us with far greater efficiency than it does with the positive words spoken to us.
This reality has been verified by research at the University of Chicago. Dr. John Cacioppo and his research team discovered that our brain has a ‘negativity bias’. This bias causes our brains to respond to, and be more sensitive to, negative content — and be not as responsive to positive comments. The result is personal insults and criticisms hurt more deeply and tend to stay with us much longer than positive words said to us.
Applied to marriage, this means we remember, and are more deeply affected, by the negative words and comments our spouse says to us.
Beware the Giant Iceberg in Your Marriage!
Because we tend to hold on to our partner’s negative comments, over time, these comments can accumulate in our memory. Like an iceberg that appears small above the surface but is large and menacing below, our stored unconscious memories of all our partner’s negative comments can come to overshadow any positive traits we might see in them.
The end result is one partner may come to believe that the marriage is all negative, and therefore there is no reason to continue the relationship. This often leads to a divorce — the ultimate failure of a marriage.
Preventive Action Steps
Changing your behavior of making frequent critical comments to your partner is crucial to the overall well-being of your marriage!
You MUST make a sincere effort to break your habit of regular negative comments.
You Can DO This! And your spouse will be happier and your marriage stronger for it.
Consider these action steps:
❤Make a commitment to STOP being so critical.
Understand that negative comments tear down the self-worth of your spouse. Is this really what you want for the person you love? Come up with more positive ways to talk about conflicts in your marriage.
❤When you catch yourself making a critical comment to your spouse — STOP — and apologize immediately.
Follow that up with a comment like,
“I’m sorry. That sounded very critical and I don’t want to always sound so critical. I asked you to pay the power bill and it was not paid. Now we owe the $50.00 late fee. What can we do to avoid this happening again?”
❤Ask Your Spouse To Help You.
“Honey, I need your help. Every time I make a comment to you that sounds/feels really negative, please tell me. I know this is asking a lot but I really do want to stop being so negative when I talk to you.”
❤Know the Formula
One nice comment or act will NOT make up for a week of constant negative comments. Because of our brain’s negativity bias you must work harder at overcoming the negative words said to your spouse.
How much harder?
Many marriage researchers recommend a 2–1 ratio. IOWs: It takes 2 positive comments to neutralize 1 negative comment. Other marriage experts recommend an even higher ration: 5–1.
Regardless of the number our positive comments should be double what our negative comments are. Better still — STOP making negative comments at all. Express your complaints in non-threatening and non-attacking words and statement.
Before You Go
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Thank you.
dr. bill
