Hate Your Partner? Try this...

In a post called I Hate My Partner, Dr. Deb Hirschhorn has some interesting things to say about marriages that are on their last gasp:

Forget about love being gone. You’re way past that. You hate your partner and you want out. You hate your partner because he/she:

• Stifles your identity; you feel crushed; you no longer know who you are
• Is cheating
• Says things that really cut, often insisting he/she didn’t mean to hurt you
• Neglects you; you feel invisible
• Controls everything until you have no energy left to stand up for yourself

According to Dr. Hirschhorn, when a marriage is in its final stage, having these feelings is normal. Even so, she correctly states that underneath it all you still love your partner and recommends the following path forward:

5 STEPS TO TRANSFORM A “HATEFUL” RELATIONSHIP

1. Recognize you are being mistreated.

2. Understand that the hate you feel comes from the justified disappointment you have over expecting love and not getting it.

There is another truth here: Your partner doesn’t treat you right because he or she was not treated right; it’s not because he wants to be mean, even if he says so.

Why do I say this? When people don’t feel their needs are being met, they react. If they have good coping skills and know how to be assertive, they react constructively. If they don’t, they react destructively. Your partner hurts you because he doesn’t know how to get his needs met.

3. Recognize that what you really hate is the way you’ve been treated — not your spouse.

As soon as you start to feel angry at him or her, remind yourself that your partner doesn’t know better.

4. Speak up

You’ve got to be assertive which means firm, clear, brief, and civil. Assertive does not mean slinging it back no matter how tempting that is. In doing this, it’s important not to throw the kitchen sink at your partner. Select the most pressing requirement first.

In step four, Dr. Hischhorn seems to be speaking to both men and women but in my opinion, speaking up should be exclusively reserved for women. Why?

As I explain in The Sigma Male, almost all marital strife can be traced back to Gender Role Reversal — a man’s failure to fill one or more of the three Sigma Roles: Protector, Provider and Presider. This means that a man must accept that he is to blame for his wife’s behavior, which the first step in eliminating Gender Role Reversal.

So instead of telling his wife what he needs, a man must tell her how he will fulfill his responsibilities, and then get to work!

Only then will Dr. Hirschhorn’s final step be possible:

5 Look for improvements

This step transforms both of you together. Don’t be afraid that positive feedback for small changes will cause your partner to rest on his laurels. Having behaved toxically for so long, your partner probably hates himself. He needs to form a better view of himself as much as you need to form a better view of him.

Three things result when you start looking for the good: You’ll get more of it; you’ll see it more, and you’ll feel a whole lot better. As your needs get met, the hate evaporates. There’s room for love.

Note that in the final paragraph of her post Dr. Hirschhorn stops using gender-neutral words and applies 'his,' 'himself,' and 'him.'

Apparently, she recognizes what I have been saying all along: Since men have the power to transform a relationship, they must bear the responsibility for a relationship’s success or failure.

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Dr. John Alexander is an expert on marriage relationships and the author of The Sigma Male: What Women Really Want. To learn more about the Sigma Roles in marriage, visit his website, subscribe to his blog, “like” his page on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.