Are You Being Blamed For Your Wife’s Relationship Insecurity?
Are You Being Blamed For Your Wife’s Relationship Insecurity?
Part 1: Examining the Myths Behind Female Relationship Insecurity
In this blog series we are going to lift up the rock and look at what’s really underneath the anger and blame associated with female relationship insecurity. You are also going to be shown a way to easily put a stop to the negative behaviors that often go hand in hand with this problem.
You may be asking if it’s so easy to stop this behavior why you haven’t been offered a solution before now. The answer to that question is as much a mystery as the subject itself. Surely a problem this widespread would have led to many different techniques to overcome this challenge. The truth is that the misplaced blame that men endure due to female relationship insecurity falls under a protective umbrella often referred to as the mystery of female emotionality.
Instead of getting answers for this problem, men are still being told to go along with whatever a woman wants. Further attempts to find solutions for this problem are often met with the refrain of “Happy wife, happy life.” If a man persists in trying to find real answers he will frequently be told that he shouldn’t ask because female emotionality cannot be understood.
In this series we are going to track the process women use to shift the responsibility for their problems onto you. You will find that it only takes one lift of the rock to see that there is no mystery involved. This pattern of behavior is a common form of defense mechanism. If you read along, you will learn that these behaviors follow a very specific formula. Once you understand the formula, you can take apart the mechanism.
To make it even easier for you to stop from being blamed for a woman’s insecurity you are going to be given a simple sentence that you can learn which will take it apart for you. It has been developed just for this purpose. It allows you, just by saying it, to disable the defense mechanism of an insecure woman. You can use it to stop blame and anger on the spot, even in the middle of an emotional episode.
Before you are introduced to this phrase, let’s take a closer look at what’s really going on behind the scenes when your wife blames you for relationship crimes you know you never committed.
Why Is She So Angry
Your wife has a problem. Relationship insecurity can affect anyone, but most women have a harder time with it than men. The reason for this is they tend to be extremely preoccupied with the strength of their relationships. This is simply one of the normal female personality characteristics that many women are born with.
The impulse for women be on heightened alert for any threat to the security of their relationship may have been very useful in days of old. In modern times it causes quite a few problems. Women should be getting education on how to handle this common instinctual drive. Because female anger is still a hands-off subject, women can easily get away with pretending that these problems do not exist. Their problem with relationship insecurity then becomes yours.
Relationship Insecurity In Women
What does this natural relationship insecurity feel like to a woman? When she enters a committed relationship she may feel a drop in her usual confidence. She will start to have thoughts about you not caring about her as much as she cares about you. These doubts about your commitment creep in and start to wear her down until she doesn’t feel like her old self. Where she used to feel invincible, she now starts to feel needy and dependent. Somehow she can’t quite put her finger on what has happened to make her feel this way.
If you have ever been in a relationship with someone who you liked way more than they liked you, you may have experienced this same feeling. When you care more than the other person you can begin to feel helpless and like you might get hurt. Even a women with no negative past experiences can find herself struggling with this insecurity. It can cause her to act very differently in her relationship than other areas of her life. You may have at first been attracted to the strong confident personality of your spouse. It can be a real shock when you see her shift from strong and independent to clingy and dependent soon after your commitment to the relationship.
Many women don’t have this personality characteristic. Many more take the high road and face and overcome this common female challenge. But there will always be some that take the easy way out to avoid the feelings of vulnerability and the fear of being hurt. When people get in the habit of blaming others to avoid unpleasant feelings, they often find themselves unable to stop the cycle even when they know how much it hurts those around them.
So what exactly is this maneuver that so many women use to avoid facing relationship insecurity? She simply makes the decision that she couldn’t possibly have a problem in this area. This leaves her with what is an obvious explanation. The problem must be with you. You must be causing her to feel bad by withholding assurance from her. Let’s step inside her shoes for a moment and zoom in on the exact moment that she makes the decision to put the blame on you.
What Relationship Insecurity Feels Like To Her
She may have never had a problem with insecurity before and may pride herself on her independence. But one morning she wakes up not feeling like her usual self. She notices she is feeling afraid instead of confident. She has a passing thought that this has only happened since she has been in a relationship with you. She may tell herself she doesn’t think she is supposed to feel this way. She is supposed to feel secure and loved and cared about. She will begin to wonder why she is not feeling the way she is entitled to feel.
The first doubt creeps in about whether she is being treated the way she deserves in her relationship. This doubt grows until she arrives at the belief that if she was being treated right she certainly wouldn’t be feeling this insecure. She starts to tell herself that she deserves to feel good. Feeling secure is something she is entitled to. Clearly the problem is you. You are obviously not doing your job because she would be feeling good in this relationship if you were.
This convenient change in perspective of who is to blame for her insecurity instantaneously erases her negative feelings. When she adds in the element of righteous anger at you for not treating her the way she feels she is entitled to be treated, she doesn’t just feel better, she feels empowered and back in control.
The Entitlement Defense
In this post we will be calling this particular defense mechanism the entitlement defense. Many women mistakenly believe that they are entitled to feel secure in a relationship at all times. They believe it is their husband’s full responsibility to make it happen. When people look at life through a perspective of entitlement, anger often follows. Let’s now take a look at how anger plus entitlement can affect your marriage.
An insecure woman may start off using this form of blame-shifting as an easy way out of uncomfortable feelings. Pretty soon she will begin to believe this story that she has created for herself. It is at this point that she may start to let you know in subtle and then not so subtle ways that you are not treating her right. If you are told you are not being a loving partner, you may at first take it to heart and try to please her. However, when her anger increases and you find yourself being told that you are the bad guy when you know you are not, you will be forced to put a protective wedge between you. Although many men do not wish to shut this door, it is often the only way they can preserve their sense of self worth as a husband.
The Subconscious Mind And Negative Campaigns
The question of whether a woman is entirely to blame for excessive anger over relationship insecurity is very difficult to answer. There is an involuntary element that plays a part in this dynamic. The entitlement defense mechanism is driven by the subconscious as are all defense mechanisms.
Human defense mechanisms seem to be carried out by a ruthless subconscious. This very protective part of our psyche is always hoping that one day it will get its chance to run the show. When we let our subconscious take over the role of protecting us, all relationships become suspect. The subconscious has no qualms about cutting us off even from those we love to protect us from hurt.
An insecure women may start to take the little voice of suspicion that we all seem to carry with us seriously. When she hands the reins over, her subconscious will often try to launch a negative campaign to smear your reputation as a good husband. By feeding the insecure woman thoughts that exploit her fears about what you think of her, the subconscious is usually able to persuade her that you should not be trusted.
Most people are capable of shrugging off these suspicious thoughts and choose instead to trust the ones they love. But when the temptation to let someone else take the blame so they can feel more powerful is presented, some women cannot resist.
Please join me in Part 2 as we explore the solution to this problem.
RELATED POSTS:
Marriage Entitlement-When Your Spouse Takes Too Much or Gives Too Little
Four Questions You Need To Be Asking To Help Save Your Marriage
A Stress-Free Approach To Resolving Marriage Conflict
If you want to learn more about the high conflict situations you may be experiencing, click on this link to the welcome page of this website where you will find the resources you need.
If you want to try out some of the basic techniques of this method for free to see if this method is right for your situation, you can learn them from an intro guide flip-book here or a PDF version of the intro guide here.
Hi,
Found it to be very helpful.
Leonel
I’m glad to hear it was useful for you.
Hi, I’m sorry what is the point of your article? How does this resolve a conflict? And how does this explain to a man whether he’s right or wrong? So basically any man that is a cheater will read this And it will give him a free card to cheat and just say his wife has insecurity issues? What if a woman has real reasons to feel insecure because her husband is giving her the reason?! What if her insecurities are justified? I just feel that any man can take this article to his advantage even though he could be “the one to blame” No?! Thank you!
Respectfully,
Dana
Dana, as a teacher, the goal of writing about relationship insecurity is to simply offer a resource on a type of behavioral pattern that is not often addressed. Although any education publicly provided might be used for nefarious purposes, my hope is that it will help many more people than it hurts.
Why do women need to suppress their primal instinct’s but not men, its men’s inability to control their sexual desires towards other women that cause relationship insecurities and there is no if ands and buts about it, why are we meant to endure this emotional abuse and be happy about it
Mimes, you raise a great point. When I work with partners of women who are insecure about fidelity I have them acknowledge to their partner that they have every right to be insecure. It is my belief that the only way to safeguard a relationship against infidelity is for both partners to have a plan in place for how they will handle a tempting situation and the willingness to communicate about it. Partners should be able to approach each other with this insecurity any time and not face criticism for doing so.
You also raise a interesting theory, that perhaps if we follow female relationship insecurity back far enough we may find its root cause to be the tendency for males to give in to their sexual urges. I wouldn’t consider this woman’s plight to be emotional abuse, but you are absolutely right to not feel happy about it! Thanks for such interesting food for thought.
Seems like you’re one of the women she is talking in this article…
@mimes. As a man who has been in a sexless marriage (wife’s choice) for 4 years I feel physically assaulted by comments like yours. I believe you are being referenced in this article. I could just as easily flip this script and say that you are just like every woman out there that is always accusing men of cheating. Been cheated on in 4 relationships throughout my life. I have never once cheated. So where does that out a man like me?
Hi …I just came across this read and its very interesting . What I have discovered are two (2) things about female insecurity. It starts of by the explanation provided by Joanna which leads to mistrust and change of behavior by the female, as times goes by Male start thinking of doing what he is falsely accused of . Rightly so its wrong for a man to cheat by at these point he is on the stage where he has been pushed to another women who does not give him that type of behavior displayed by the wife and obviously once he starts cheating the wife will then have those instincts and upon investigation she will indeed find something …
Now this will reaffirm the feelings of insecurity experience by the women and more anger .. pain …fights will start but the main or primary reason why the male was pushed to other women will be overlooked and not discussed . ( This is in reference on a normal man , not a womeniser) .
Vee, I haven’t seen evidence of female insecurity causing men to cheat when they would not otherwise, so I’m not sure I would agree with your theory. The reason I wrote this blog is because there are so many men who are simply baffled by their wife’s insecurity. Most of my readers seem to be very trustworthy people who are honestly confused as to why their spouse is so fearful. But I very much appreciate you sharing your thoughts and contributing to this discussion.
excuse me, first I want to apologize that I had just now read this. I come across from googling my angry feeling and searching the answer or confirmation to understand that I am not in the wrong of feeling insecure, disrespect and betray. However upon reading just the first paragraph I was honestly upset that the whole article is about making the guy understand that it is not their fault, and at the same time explaining that women are just downright nuts. You basically telling any woman that read this article that we must be the one to blame on feeling insecure and betray, for no logical reason at all. So my feeling of betrayal and this insecure are all garbage cause it’s all in my head????? !!!!!!! and you are a woman ??? do you turn around each time you feel betrayed , tell yourself that you are overacting and to go on everytime it happened?????
Your feelings of insecurity are not all in your head. They are the result of a personality trait that all human beings have but that few people are aware of. We all have irrational insecurity, particularly in our romantic relationships, but women tend to have more of this insecurity since they often care more about romantic connection.
Unfortunately, it is very hard for human beings to decipher whether they are being insecure or if their partner is not giving them the love and attention they need. Another problem is that when people feel that their partner is not giving them the love they want, instead of feeling sad they tend to feel angry because that feeling is more powerful and less vulnerable. And because this anger is destructive for men, women need to be educated on their tendency to be insecure in relationships and to get angry at their partner unfairly.
I understand that women are often shocked to learn that they must do personal development work on themselves in order to make life comfortable for the opposite sex, but please be aware that men have spent the last few decades having to become educated on their weak points. They have had to go through a major overhaul in order to make it comfortable for the women they are in relationships with.
When both sexes understand and work on their negative tendencies that don’t hurt them but cause the opposite sex pain, everyone can live together in a healthy and productive way.
Joanna, I found your article to be very helpful and informative. The dynamic between husband and wife in your article describes my marriage to a tee. My wife is insecure and has regular bouts of anger that until reading your article I would have called jealousy. I fell into the “happy wife, happy life” routine and after 20 years of marriage I am unable to keep her happy. I’m not perfect, I can admit that but I also am not a cheater and have remained faithful to our marriage. She however has not. We agreed to move forward and stay together. My primary reason being the toll a divorce would take on our kids. I have found that forgiving her has been very difficult especially when as a result of her insecurity she will lash out in anger and allude that I am cheating even though I have not. Confounded I have found that returning her anger with my anger is enough to quell the fight but as the sun is sure to rise she will undoubtedly find another opportunity to blame me for her feelings. I know this can’t be healthy yet I find myself exhausted and just plain tired of fighting. I would rather lash back in anger just to get through the day than try to talk it out with what would essentially become an irrational conversation.
I would like to respond with my viewpoint to the points made by other commenters regarding your article:
– This article gives the man in the relationship a free card to cheat.
– Why should women suppress their primal instincts(?)
There are generalizations at play here. One, that all men have an inability to control their sexual desires and two, all women suffer from insecurity. I find neither to be true. While we all suffer from insecurities that drive us to act in different ways I have met many faithful men and many strong/confident women. I for one am faithful despite having a cheating wife. I have been presented with opportunities to cheat but have not cheated because I made a choice. It’s a simple decision. I was raised by a strong and confidant woman who instilled values in my life. There are men who do not cheat and women who are not overly insecure. I think this article was written specifically for the woman who is insecure and blames her spouse for cheating/not caring for her. Just my two cents from someone who has lived this scenario.
James, thank you for your wise words.
This is not in regards to men that live their life trying to score but rather from a guy that would prefer a good marrage.
All I know, is that I am tired of my wife acting like I’m a monster for no real reason. She treats me like I am a womanizer, however I have been completely faithful to her,. She checks my phone records like I’m a criminal and asks a thousand questions to find the part of my story that doesn’t add up to her and then threatens divorce. I am not saying all women are at this level but it really does take it’s toll emotionally and makes me feel unsafe to invest my feeling into the relationship. I truly feel that I am paying for the behaviors of her past husband and even her father. Eventually, a man gets tired of the assult on his character and has two options. The first one is to leaves the relationship and the second one is getting invoked with a woman that shows him some long needed love and respect.
I am not a cheater.
John, thanks for shedding light on this aspect of relationship insecurity. What so many insecure people fail to realize is that there are very important though unspoken rules to all romantic partnerships. One of these rules is that we promise to remain on each other’s side, not in every instance but in the big picture. Insecure partners often feel no obligation to resolve whether their partner is adhering to this universal relationship agreement. They instead spend years and sometimes decades treating their partners like adversaries. The damage to innocent partners is very real.