A Marriage Therapist's Blog

 

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Posts Tagged ‘self-esteem’


Jun 22

Please Like Me, Because I Don’t

By Jay Slupesky
No Comments
Marriage Dynamics

Water Ripple I often see low self-esteem in one person having a negative impact on a relationship. More often than not, it’s the woman who has the self-esteem issue. She may think that she’s not attractive, not valuable, not loveable, not as good or as smart as others, etc. Therefore, she fears that her husband/boyfriend doesn’t find her attractive, valuable, or loveable, and this causes her anxiety.

The relationship problem results because the woman has a tendency to intrepret things that her husband/boyfriend says or does in a negative way, even when the man doesn’t mean to be saying something negative. For example, the man makes a comment on his wife’s appearance which may not be 100% positive (maybe it’s only 80% positive). Unfortunately, the wife, due to a systematic bias in her thinking, interprets the man’s comment as something like “I’m fat” or “I’m ugly.”

This upsets the wife greatly because her husband’s good opinion is very important to her due to the fact that she doesn’t have an especially good opinion of herself. At this point she may reply to her husband in anger or in some way “picking a fight” and an argument ensues.

So the woman’s self-esteem issue is causing a problem in the relationship. If follows that a person can improve his or her relationship by working on his or her own self-esteem!



Jun 04

A Bad Way to Feel Better

By Jay Slupesky
No Comments
Domestic Violence, Marriage Dynamics

Depressed ManOne more post about domestic violence. It’s a good one, though.

When we think about men who are violent towards women, we naturally think of the man as of being in a position of power over the woman. Typically, he is physically stronger, and he is using his strength to hurt her and to intimidate her.

Yet ironically, even though we think of the abusive male as being powerful, he is being abusive because he feels inadequate. He feels bad about himself for some reason, and he defends and compensates against this feeling by exerting his physical strength against a weaker victim.

What are some things that the violent man might feel inadequate about? Here are a few:

  • he has just lost his job, or had some other major setback in his life.
  • he doesn’t like his job or is doing poorly at his job.
  • his wife/girlfriend is more successful than he is; perhaps she makes more money or just received a promotion.
  • his wife/girlfriend has a better education than he does.
  • his wife/girlfriend has left him (possibly due to previous violence).

All men feel inadequate at times. The issue is how well the feelings are dealt with. Obviously, a man with a strong ego and decent self-esteem is able to handle situations like these in healthier ways.



May 11

Lying, Marriage, and Counseling

By Jay Slupesky
1 Comment
Marriage Dynamics

Liar, Liar

Recently I’ve been counseling a larger-than-usual number of couples who have issues with lying in their relationship. Yes, that’s right: husbands and wives who lie to one another!  I think most people would agree that lying is a sign of dysfunction in the relationship. If you can’t be honest with your life partner, something is very wrong,

Psychologists who study dishonesty say that a person who is lying is undergoing strain just by being dishonest. This stress can usually be measured by skin and heart sensors, as in a lie detector. Besides the stress of telling the lie, it can be mentally tough to continue the deception, as sometimes more lies must be told to cover up the fact of the original lie.

So why do spouses lie to one another?  I’ve noticed three reasons:

  1. To avoid an argument. The dishonest individual is afraid to tell the truth because it is not what the other person wants to hear, and therefore, being honest could result in conflict. What is the solution to this?  Learn how to communicate so that you can talk about things you disagree about without arguing.  This includes being respectful of your partner’s position even if you disagree with it.
  2. To defend against low self-esteem. In this case, the dishonest person doesn’t like himself/herself too well, and believes the partner feels the same way (Freud called this defense mechanism projection.) This is hard to accept, of course, so the lying person inflates accomplishments and denies things that would make him/her look bad.  The liar wants to convince others that he/she is not so bad after all.  What is the solution to this type of lying?  Individual work to increase self-esteem.
  3. To cover up cheating.This is the big one, of course. All kinds of cheating, including physical affairs, emotional affairs, and porn addictions, must be covered up.  Solution?  Stop cheating on your spouse.

One final thought. When a spouse gets caught lying, he/she sometimes will only confess to as little of the truth as possible, and continue lying about the rest. I see this happen over and over again in marriage counseling, and I have found that it is not a good idea. When the rest of the truth comes out at some point in the future, the damage is just as great as when the original disclosure occurred.  It’s best to come clean and admit everything.