Podcast: https://bit.ly/4fPsE4H
I really liked the image I made for last Wednesday’s post. It showed a man walking out of the room because his wife was saying ugly things to or about him.
The man is making a good choice. He is choosing not to subject himself to behaviour that is unloving at best, and possibly abusive. He doesn’t challenge what his wife is doing or start a fight; he just leaves. Doing this regularly would teach his wife that he will not tolerate such behaviour.
I imagine, because of the wife’s reaction by saying “Hey, I’m not done telling you why you’re stupid”, that the man is doing something different than usual. He has typically taken her verbal assault; now he is doing something new. He had a broken behaviour, which he is replacing with a healthier choice.
So this week, let’s talk about broken behaviours and how we stop doing them. A broken behaviour is more than something that doesn’t work; it’s accepting something we should not accept. It’s putting up with something you don’t deserve. It’s allowing your spouse to treat you badly and just taking it.
Some of these broken behaviours are things we learned in childhood. Either we had to accept being treated badly because we had no choice, or we watched one of our parents do it to the other and learned that is how it’s done. Other broken behaviours develop as a marriage progresses. Usually they are minor at first, slowly getting worse and worse.
Please notice I am saying that the “victim” in these circumstances is the one with the broken behaviour. Obviously their spouse is acting badly. But the issue we are examining is their acceptance of that. Allowing wrong treatment without a word is on you. It’s your broken behaviour. And that means you have full power to choose to end it, to stop putting up with what your spouse does. One way to do that, as shown in the image, is to walk away. Decide you will not be treated that way and will leave when it starts.
~ This is Paul, and ignoring bad behaviour is not Doing Marriage Well!
Presents for Lori’s birthday have started to arrive.
You can never have too many flowering plants!
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with Nano Banana 2
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