What To Do When Your Husband Belittles You(5 tips)

This article will talk about how to deal with your husband when he belittles you and what factors or reasons you need to consider before responding to him. It will also highlight the possible reasons as to why your husband adopts such an attitude towards you.

What To Do When Your Husband Belittles You?

Here are somethings you can do when your husband belittles you:

• Listening To What He Says
• Not Responding Immediately
• Don’t Let The Words Get To You
• Find The Root Cause
• Confront Them 
• Seek Help

Before we look at these reasons, we will look at why your husband could be adopting such an attitude towards you. There could be other reasons part from putting you down or making you feel insignificant.

Why Does Your Husband Belittle You?

There could be a number of reasons why your husband belittles you such as:

• Upset with you
• Perfectionist
• Unhappy
• Seeing someone else

Let us take a look at these reasons in detail!

Upset With You

If your husband is always passing belittling remarks, it is possible you are the reason for his passive aggressive attitude. Don’t be surprised! Men have their own way of communicating their feelings and they are not always direct or straightforward – perhaps because they don’t want to be seen as overly emotional creatures – hence you need to keep an eye out for the clues.

Even though it’s the men who forget the anniversary date, birthday, valentine day’s gift or the dinner he had promised to take you out to – men will become extremely sensitive, some if not all, at the slightest mistake you make. By mistake, we don’t mean a small mistake but something that your husband considers important or dear to himself.

It is possible you talked back to him in front of his friends or family and he saw it as a sign of disrespect. It happens although one needs to make up later on. Furthermore, you might have laughed at some mistake he made that hurt his feelings or you chose to spend a day special to him with someone else.

Whatever the reason, your husband may be upset with you and passing sarcastic comments or putting you down may be the only way he knows how to communicate. 

Perfectionist

Yes your husband may be a perfectionist who is extremely organized and looks at the details when it comes to getting things done. However, you on the other hand may be the total opposite! Hence, this may explain why your husband passes those mean remarks at you; he wants even the small details or things – which may seem small to you – to appear or be perfect!

People who are perfectionists will look at the small things. If they don’t have time to do it themselves they will expect others to get all the other details right. Here it is possible your husband expects that you will look after things he does not have time for. He might want you to take care when you move his things around respecting their order or arrangement. He might want you to focus on the garnishing he just loves on his favorite apple pie dish. Or he might even have expectations when you get him his birthday gift but it isn’t wrapped in the most perfect way ever.

It isn’t to say these people are spoilt or have too many demands – they just appreciate the beauty in the small things we may or may not see or realize. Hence, try and be careful when it comes to creating the experiences your husband wants from you. It might be that these experiences matter most to him.

If you don’t make him feel as if his interests matter – he may resort to a belittling attitude to make you feel the same way.

Unhappy

Sometimes, when people are unhappy they become bitter, irritable and even angry – hence they make others feel the same way too. They may have been going through many ups and downs that not only drain them but make them angry at the misfortune they have experienced.

It is possible your husband is unhappy and hence only sees the negative things in life. He will thus become impatient, unthankful and possibly irritable that all lead to more passive aggressive remarks. It is not the person’s fault that they have gone through so many bad situations but it is in their hands to see the positive side of life! After all, he does have you and probably many other things he has forgotten to cherish.

Seeing Someone Else

Have you ever realized how people become arrogant, ill mannered or extremely self confident when they don’t have to depend on you any more? Yes that is what can happen with your husband. It is possible he may have found a new love life and now he doesn’t need you for mental, physical or emotional support. Now that he has someone else, the small problems you both had seem to be a hundred times bigger! 

It depends on the case. In some situations, spouses who are having extra marital affairs become more nice to the person they have always loved, possibly because of the happiness they are experiencing after years of being in a dead or undesired marriage. It is also possible that the spouse who is cheating starts misbehaving with you because they realize they have someone else and don’t need you anymore. They will hence adopt a belittling attitude towards you.

What To Do When Your Husband Belittles You – 6 Ways To Deal With Him

In this section we will help you figure out how you can deal with your husband’s belittling attitude!

Listening To What He Says

It is important to ensure you actually listen to what the other person says. Sometimes our biases, beliefs, wants and feelings towards others prevents us from hearing what they are trying to say. It is indeed an interesting phenomena. Hence, if your husband is having a go at you then try to see what it is he is actually saying – you may realize he is hurt or unhappy and hence he doesn’t really mean what he says but is actually crying out for help.

Not Responding Immediately

Sometimes staying quiet in a bad situation can save one from much worse. Your husband may be wrong when it comes to behavior but when he belittles you about it, confronting him at that time may be a bad idea. It will not only create a fight but prevent you from actually diagnosing the root problem.

Don’t Let The Words Get To You

It is important to protect your self esteem and feelings when you face situations where someone – especially your husband- belittles you. This is the first line of defense that you have because winning over the other person is not going to be so easy and in the process they will try to hurt you with their words.

Hence, one needs to remain mentally and emotionally strong to counter such remarks. They need to remind themselves that whatever the person says is not necessarily a reflection of the recipient but the sender themself. All in all, don’t let the words get you.

Confront Them 

Confront your husband about what he says. Sit down with him and have a heart to heart talk about what he says and how he makes you feel and why you may think he is wrong about what he says or believes in. you can also give him examples to understand why. 

Seek Help

In case nothing works, seek help! You may need to go to a marriage counselor to help open up the communication gap between you or figure out if the relationship has become too toxic to live in. nonetheless, getting a third party opinion can be helpful in most cases.

Conclusion

This article provided a comprehensive overview of how to deal with your husband when he belittles you. The article helped create a detailed understanding of the topic by shedding light on other areas too. It talked about why your husband may belittle you and cited reasons other than those of making you feel bad or miserable. He may actually be upset or hurt because of you. Furthermore, the article highlighted the steps to deal with and respond back to your husband in such a situation.

References

https://www.joinonelove.org/learn/unhealthy-relationship-behaviors-series-belittling/