051: How to Confront Your Partner (In a Healthy Way) About His Unacceptable Behavior | Dr. Zoe Shaw

Grab a cup of tea or listen as you go, ladies. This is your hour with Dr. Zoe, your life and relationship coach. With encouragement, on-point insight, inspiring guests, health tips, and advice, Dr. Zoe helps busy women keep their mind in the game by redefining your superwoman. You're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show.

Welcome to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. I'm a life and relationship coach and a motivational speaker. And I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. My passion is helping women find their superpower, learn to embrace it and share it with the world. So connect with me by texting the word join to 38470. Or go to my website at drzoeshaw.com. The topic today is how to confront your partner in a healthy way about his unacceptable behavior. That's a tough one. Before we get started though, I'm gonna tell you my Superwoman win. So I started a new project. I'm sure that my friends and family get tired of me saying I'm starting another project. It's funny though, because Whenever I think of starting something else, I hear my dad's voice in my head. Zoe needs to do another thing like she needs a hole in her head. I'm not even sure I ever heard my dad say that, although I'm saying it like his voice. My mom would tell me that he would say that, and it's always kind of stuck with me. I guess not enough to keep me from doing new projects, but it's definitely stuck with me. So my new project is Letters to My Senior, and I am so excited about it. If you have a high school senior, I strongly encourage you to join our Facebook group. It's a group for parents of high school seniors, and the sole purpose of the group is to deepen our relationship with our high school seniors, connect with them, document their very last year of childhood, which rarely happens. We— a lot of moms go and document that first year. We have the, you know, the baby book and that whole deal, but this last year is so very important, and it's not the time to disengage. It's the time to Deepen and really get in there. And it's a little harder because our kids are, you know, they look like adults and they are trying to act like adults. So the whole purpose of this group is to write a letter to our senior every week, this entire year of their school year, pouring ourselves into them, kind of our last, you know, chance while they're still in our house to pour ourselves into them. I will give you the prompts to make it super easy. Your letter can be a couple sentences or you can write pages, whatever works for you. It's not meant to be a hard thing. It's just meant to be a gift. For yourself and for your senior. So if you have a high school senior, join, join, join in. It is a private group and it is only for parents of high school seniors. I will also share the link in the show notes for you to join the Facebook group. And honestly, I have felt so convicted and driven to do this for myself and for my son and to help others as well. But I was vacillating whether I really had the time and energy to add one more thing. And I'm just getting started and I'm really excited about how this is going to bless families. We have people joining already and I know I made the right decision. So because of that, it's a Superwoman win for me. If my priority, as I say it is, is my family and helping other people, and this is in line with my priorities and it will help me stay accountable to my relationship with my son as well, I have to do it. I feel like it's a no-brainer. So that's my measuring stick and I'm excited I made the choice. So there's my win. Okay. So my superwoman fail. I'm going to tell you a really embarrassing fail. So here it goes. Most of you listening should know that I'm a virtual life coach and psychotherapist, which means that I do sessions via video conferencing. So I feel my body flushing as I think about sharing this, especially because I know some of you clients listen to my, some of my clients listen to the show. So occasionally, not always, and I certainly never heard, never will again, I will dress myself. only waist up and neglect to put on bottoms because I know that my clients aren't going to see me. And they are seeing me on video only from the waist up. So for my clients listening right now, I totally apologize if this is going to be mentally distracting when we have sessions in the future. But like I said, I will never do this again. So you don't have to worry about that. You can probably already figure out what happened. I was on a session with a client nicely dressed from waist up. With no pants on, just boxer underwear. Like, you know, I mean, I wear 'em around the house, they're boxer underwear, but I had a jacket on, so it was, it looked like I had no bottoms on at all. So I was adjusting my tablet as we were doing the session and it tipped and voilà, she saw the whole deal. It was hugely, horribly embarrassing, but God was looking down on me cuz at least it was a female client and not a man. Contrary to beliefs, maybe I actually do have male clients. So that took an awkward recovery second. And honestly, it's hard to continue as a professional when my client knows I'm sitting there with no pants on. So like I said, lesson learned, Superwoman fail, and virtual therapy will always include full clothing. Maybe I'll even put on shoes. So there you go. My embarrassing fail. We all fail sometimes. It happens. Okay, so on to the main topic, how to confront your partner about his unacceptable behavior. So I chose this topic today. And I just have to say, I'm fully clothed right now. I don't know why I'm just kind of feeling embarrassed. So I chose this topic today because I am working with a few women who are really struggling with confronting their spouses about some really big issues in their marriage. And whenever I start to see patterns in my sessions, I feel like, okay, this is one of those things where I need to talk about it globally, I need to talk about it with more than just the people in my sessions. Because if this number of women are dealing with it in my practice, my guess is there are other women as well. These women are struggling with big things like unwillingness to hold down a job, alcoholism, sexual addiction, really painful, heart-wrenching topics and issues in their marriage. And with my 25 years of marriage and 18 years of treating individuals and couples, I've had a lot of experience with talking about difficult stuff. I mean, that's pretty much what I do. So if you're struggling with this today in a big or small way, you are so not alone. And now is not the time to give up. And I'm giving you some virtual hugs. And so let's dig in. Let's dig in about how you can tackle this with your husband. So when you're struggling with confronting your spouse, there's usually, like I said, there's a lot of emotional weight attached to the subject. And so if you try to wing it, it's probably not going to go well. You got to plan it out. And planning it out means that you need to figure out what your exact points are. If you have to write the whole thing down, that's okay. I personally, I'm always prescribing my clients to write, but I personally have written multiple page letters to my husband on at least a couple of occasions when I really wanted to get my point across about something that was really emotionally laden for me. And so if possible, specifically list destructive behaviors. And the purpose isn't to shame your husband, but to wake him up. So you need to make sure that you're giving real-life examples. Once you get that together, it's time to have your talk. So we all know that men would probably rather have an ice pick stuck in their eyeball than Hear the we need to talk statement from their wife or girlfriend. But the reality is you do need to talk. Instead, this isn't going to cure it all, but just say, I need to tell you something. Will you listen? This is actually not inviting him to necessarily participate, but letting him know he needs to listen. Of course, I think all of you guys are smart enough to know that this talk should not be happening in the middle of a Super Bowl or any other major interests that your husband might have. But that said, there really isn't a good time. I have had women in my practice procrastinate for months because they can't quite find that perfect time. And I will say to them, okay, you live with this man. It's been like 6 weeks. And in these 6 weeks, there hasn't been a moment where you can speak to him. Now, we all know that's fear-based because fear is going to cause us to procrastinate. But what I'm telling you is there will never be a perfect time. Stop suffering, just dive in and do it. So when you are formulating your plan, when you are speaking to your husband, you need to make sure that you are asking for a specific action. Think about what is the outcome that you want to happen from this. Stick to the topic, don't go off on tangents, and ask him for specific behaviors you want from him. Do not— Under any circumstance. And this is a mistake that we often make when we're talking to people we're in a relationship with, is we'll say things like, I want you to make me feel loved, or I feel like you don't care about me anymore. Or you talk about your feelings, right? And you're expecting them to create certain feelings or to alleviate or remove certain feelings that you have. Nobody can do that. No one, only you can. And when you tell that to somebody, even if they try their hardest, the best they can do is imagine what they would need to create that feeling. And I can almost guarantee you 100%, you did not marry a man who is similar to you in that respect. And so he's going to be trying to provide you with things that he might need to make himself feel loved, but it's not what you need regarding whatever the situation is. So what you can do is say, okay, I want to feel this way, or I don't want to feel this way. What are the behaviors that he can do to make me feel and/or not feel that way? So you have to ask yourself, what are the specific behaviors that he can do to make you feel or not feel that way? And that's what you need to address with him. You need to make sure that you're making it very clear that his current behavior is destroying your marriage or having a a huge detrimental effect on your marriage. You want to be clear with those kinds of words. Now, often, and you may do this yourself, especially when someone feels attacked, they're going to defend by turning it back on you. He might say something like, well, you're not perfect either, and you need to fix this, this, and this. Or he might start with, well, I'm just never good enough for you. Don't bite. This is going off on a tangent. It's deflecting from whatever the issue is. So what you need to do is just clearly and politely say, we're not talking about that right now. We can table that for another discussion at another time, but we need to stay on topic if we're going to be productive. Now, you might not talk like that, so you got to say it in your own words, but you get the point. You need to make sure that you don't go down that tangent. Remember, the goal is to be heard so that change can occur. So you have to be concise and you have to be To the point and stick to that. Now, you've probably also heard about using I statements, but just in case you haven't, I will go over that pretty quickly. So here's a brief example, or maybe just an explanation. When you use the word you, when you're speaking to somebody about their behavior, you automatically put them on defensive. Whenever someone says you do or you don't, it makes you feel defensive. And when you're defensive, you can't hear, you can't listen. All you're doing is preparing your counterattack. So what you wanna do is not put your spouse on defensive. The point is to be heard. So you need to use the word I. When someone comes to you and they're talking about themselves, you don't feel attacked. You're taking responsibility for your own feelings and actions, and it doesn't create that same defensiveness in your partner, which means they're gonna be more likely to hear what it is you want them to hear. And also don't make global statements. So when you say I, you can say, I feel, or I experienced. Or something regarding how you are feeling in the moment or experiencing. Not asking him to change your feelings, remember, but letting him know, this is what I experience when you do this. And don't make global statements. So global statements like always and never are always wrong, almost always wrong. So you don't make global statements because That immediately gives a little opening for someone to say, that's not true. That's not true. And when they feel that or think that, even if they don't say it, they're shutting themselves off from the rest of what you have to say. So you want to use words like sometimes. You want to use words like often. You want to make sure that you don't use always and never because it's not going to get you anywhere. And don't make global allegations about his character either. It's not, you're an idiot. You're selfish, you're whatever, because once again, he can always find times that he wasn't any of those things. So he's not going to hear or listen to it. So this last one, ladies, is probably one of the hardest things. I know it's one of the hardest things. You must have a clear set of consequences if he's not willing to change. Now listen to me. If you aren't willing to have healthy boundaries around this issue, it's probably a waste of time. to even have this conversation because he won't take you seriously. And I know what I just said was hard to hear, and so I'm going to say it again. If you aren't willing to have healthy boundaries around this issue, then it's probably a waste of time because he won't take you seriously. So what do I mean by healthy boundaries? What do I mean by you have to be willing to have a consequence if he's not willing to follow through on the things you're asking? For example, If he has a habit of purposefully embarrassing you in public, you need to make it clear you're not going to go to public events with him anymore if his behavior doesn't change. And then you have to do the hard follow-up, which means, yeah, maybe you're punishing yourself as well, or it feels like you're punishing yourself as well. What you're really doing is making healthy choices for yourself. Maybe he's not willing to get a job. You need to be firm that you will no longer support him if he's not willing to contribute. If he has a drinking problem, you need to make it clear he's not allowed to drive your children anywhere until he's demonstrated to you that he's been sober for a period of time. I want to make it clear that I know these are hard lines to draw, and that's part of what makes these conversations so hard because there's a part of you that knows that that's probably the only way that change is going to happen, and that's scary. It's not easy, and I'm sorry, and I wish it were easy, but it's necessary. It's necessary for your health, and it's necessary for the health of your family, and you can do it. I have a number of examples, I can't even list them all, where women— and sometimes it takes you a while to get up the courage to do it. Sometimes it takes you a while to process what the consequences mean. But I've never had anybody that regretted tough love and healthy boundaries. All that said, I don't know what your issues may be, but I'm talking about the tough ones that life throws at you sometimes. If you just can't get your husband to unload the dishwasher, these are not the tactics you need to take, because that— you're just going to damage your relationship. These are really, really important ones. You know, for most issues like the dishwasher, we can be understanding, and we can recognize that all behavior makes sense in its context. It's always important to hear and understand your spouse's point of view. But for the big ones, you've got to take big action or nothing will change. You've got this. If you take the leap and you have the conversation, please reach out. Let me know if you're struggling in this area, reach out. I can help. So next up, Real Talk. I'm excited to be able to continue Real Talk because I love answering questions from my listeners. I love sharing my own musings. And this Real Talk is cool because it kind of just lines up right with some of the things that I'm talking about today. Not 100%, but a little bit. So if you need encouragement, if you have a question, please reach out. All questions that I answer are anonymous. I take your confidentiality seriously as if you were my own client. You can email questions to zoe@drzoeshaw.com or connect with me on any of my social medias. This question coming up was curated from my column at thegritandgraceproject.org. You can always submit your questions directly to me by emailing me at zoe@drzoeshaw.com, or you can submit them to the Grit and Grace Project. So we're talking about a disconnected husband. Here's the question. How do you approach your husband when he seems completely disconnected and like he has checked out? I've tried bringing it up in casual conversation with him so it doesn't seem as though I'm accusing or nagging, but he literally just ignores talking about it and says he just doesn't want to be around people or talk about it. I need help on how to address this without pushing him away further. From a loving and worried midwife, Dexter, Missouri. Okay, we're talking about some tough stuff today. When your spouse is disconnected from you, it can really seriously feel like you're just lost in a desert without water. So you say that he doesn't want to talk to people, which leads me to believe that maybe none of this has to do with you at all. The truth, men— or the truth bomb, I should say— about men is that They have a need to sort out their stuff in their little cave of their brain before they talk. Now, the irony is that women, we process and sort by talking. I don't know why. Why do we have to be so different? But the reality is, I mean, we, we multitask in that way. So it's not so good when you wanna connect with him if he hasn't gotten it worked out yet. So please know that if you chase a distancer, he distances even more. So stop chasing him. And for any of you listeners out there going through a situation like this, stop chasing. Men will often feel like you're accusing and nagging when you're just trying to get them to bend to your timeline of when, you know, they should talk. The best thing you can do for your husband is to speak your truth without requesting him to do anything. So it kind of goes along with what I talked about here. Just listen. If he doesn't want to talk, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not open to listening to what you might have to say. So tell him, tell him you're concerned. Tell him you see a shift in his mood and behavior. Tell him you miss him and you understand that he needs to get it figured out first. If he allows, hug him and let him know that you're there, but don't ask him to share. Yes, zip it up. I know it's going to be like, I want to— don't, don't, don't. Now remember, just because he's not talking as much doesn't mean that you guys can't still do things together. Make plans, go out, do what you can do, but just don't require him to talk. Just focus on enjoying each other. Do special things for him that, you know, he'll appreciate. And here's the thing. He's distancing. You're hurt. You're lonely. You're scared. What you need to do for yourself is self-care. And now it's your time to distance. You're going to distance in a healthy way, but it's your time to do that as well. This is a psychological reality. Like I said, if you chase a distancer, he will run. If you distance from a distancer, He will come back over time. So I know you're hurting right now, but try not to take it personally. Instead, recognize that your husband processes things differently than you do, and whatever he's got going on right now, he needs to do it in his own head, and it's not necessarily a reflection of you and your relationship. So it's time for you to take the time and space to focus on yourself. As he moves away, he'll feel drawn— I should say, as you move away, He'll feel drawn to come back to you. So what have you been putting off? What have you been putting off that you've, you know, always maybe wanted to do? What are your passions? What are your interests? Have you been slacking on self-care? It's time to focus on yourself. And this is the best way to keep yourself healthy, to keep yourself distracted while he's working his stuff out. Call friends, do your own thing, focus on yourself. Relationships aren't easy, and they often go through these patterns of kind of closeness and distance, but you guys can make it through by doing these changes, understanding how your husband works. And when he's in a better place, you can talk to him a little bit about what he needs from you specifically when he is in that place and not ready to talk and listen to him. Ask him for those specific behaviors, just like I talked about before. So thanks for tuning in to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up on Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss a show. If you're interested in coaching or therapy, or you just want to get a little more help, go to my website at drzoeshaw.com or any of my social medias at the handle Dr. Zoe Shaw. Join my free newsletter by texting the word join to 38470. I look forward to speaking with you wonderful ladies on social media throughout the week. Have a super week.

You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, redefining your superwoman with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends. And subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of the Dr. Zoe Show.