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Yesterday I mentioned the need to be acknowledged, respected, and valued. But I may have misspoken. Being respected and valued are nice, but the real need is to be seen and acknowledged. And for most people, being seen in a negative light is better than not being seen.
When I was a youth camp counsellor decades ago, I had a 13-year-old girl tell me she broke things at home because it got her mother’s attention. She found being punished better than being ignored. I was surprised she was so aware of what she was doing and why. I was also saddened her mother had no time for her unless she caused trouble. The next year, she told a female counsellor she thought she might be pregnant.
Most folks who do annoying, harmful, or destructive things to get attention are not as self-aware as that 13-year-old girl. Negative behaviour to get attention is all too common in marriages. I’ve seen it many times, and if I’m brutally honest, I’ve fought doing it myself. And I have not always won that battle.
I encourage you to examine yourself carefully to see if you ever use negative actions or words to get attention. It could be as simple as tone of voice, word choice, or sarcasm. It might be excessive complaining about little things, or taking forever to do what you promised to do. It could be making noise, not putting things away, not doing things you used to do, or ignoring your spouse’s clearly evident desires.
If you see any hint of this in yourself, please fight it. Negative actions may get your spouse’s attention, but it will do so at the cost of the health of your marriage. It’s a destructive habit that has no place in a mature marriage.
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well requires being honest with ourselves.
We have convinced Widget that the cat is out of bounds when she is on her bed. So Tilly has reclaimed her rightful place between our computers.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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