Complaining

Sometimes we can get so focused on the problem that we neglect to glean any positives that may exist in a situation.  It is easy to complain about your spouse and bring up all the problems that you have with him or her.  That list may even be exhaustive and even valid, i.e., you may really have some valid issues in your marriage.  You may even be in a bad marriage, which gives you so much material to use in your complaining sessions.

Now, of course, you shouldn’t just complain about your situation because that will not help in resolving it.  Yes, it is helpful to identify the issues within the marriage relationship, but you don’t want to camp on them.  Use that information to develop a strategy to resolve them.  Besides, rehearsing all the bad things about your marriage only fuels resentment and stress, which in turn hurts you more than your spouse, especially if your spouse is not aware of the issues.  So, spend less time complaining and more time resolving the issue.

 The Goal

Something that may help in the resolution process is bringing up the positives instead of the negatives in your marriage.  Maybe your wife neglects you and won’t have sex with you much, but she may be a hard worker.  She may be good at cooking meals for the family.  She may be very efficient at finding deals for vacations and the like.  At least this may give you something to smile about.

Now, I’m not suggesting that these positives may outweigh the negative, though you may find that they do.  You may find that you have a lot more to be thankful for than to complain about regarding your spouse and/or marriage.  At the very least, you will find that you have less to complain about once the positives cancel out at least some of the negatives overall.

We like to complain about stuff and it sometimes feels good to judge others relative to your perfect behavior.  However, merely complaining will only make things worse in the sense that it makes you more aware of the issues and does nothing to resolve them.  It’s like continuing to refresh the logs in a fire to keep it burning.  The fire may not get worse, but it sure won’t go out.

 The Positives

What are some positive things you can say about your spouse?  Write them down. Really think about them.  Remember the times when you saw those positive attributes in action and feel it.  Smile about them.  Now, perhaps the negatives don’t seem so negative.  Perhaps some of the negatives are just your spouse’s responses to what you’ve been doing and not necessarily a pure personality trait or behavior.  Think about how you may be contributing to the negative things you complain about.

 Resolution

Ultimately the goal is a resolution so that the marriage can get on track to a happy one.  Complaining about the negative things about your spouse will not move you towards resolution, but rather make things appear worse.  There is always going to be something that you consider negative about your spouse and vice versa.  There is something negative that you can probably identify with everyone you know.  So what?  That’s life.  Your marriage is worth the effort to resolve issues that arise, and they will.  So don’t focus on the negatives, but rather focus on resolving any real issues in the marriage.

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