Embarrasses Me In Front of Others

 “Look at all that food you’re eating.  You’re going to put on more weight!”

Such statements made in front of friends are quite upsetting. However, the purposes for which such statements are made are twofold. Firstly, this indicates that the spouse lacks respect for the partner or wants to exhibit control. Second, such statements are the result of something that is bothering your spouse about you. 

In case this sort of behavior happens once in a while one need not bother too much. Mistakes are made by everybody; neither of you is perfect. However, the real problem arises only when this becomes routine. If you are embarrassed continuously by your spouse in front of anybody you feel bad. You feel hurt since your spouse cares very little for your feelings that hurt you deeply.  Such statements look harmless at the surface and were made in a lighter vein; however deep inside you find that there is a problem in the marriage.

Nobody is happy to get insulted in front of their friends or for that matter in front of any one. A public spat such as this by your spouse signals a lack of respect for you as a spouse or a person. You will find spouses who have no consideration for their partner will behave in a totally opposite manner with their friends. They are considerate and respectful of their friends’ feelings and make sure not to offend. However you will find the same person insulting you in front of family, friends and strangers.

Express Yourself

Failure of many marriages can be attributed to any one of the spouses showing disrespect to the partner. You can tolerate insults and criticisms for sometime but major arguments break out after continuous bullying.  Initially such arguments start with words such as “Why do you do that to me?” or “You are so rude.”  Since you are talking in anger your spouse immediately start defending himself/ herself and both of you will get nowhere in solving the problem.

It is quite natural for you to get upset when you are insulted publicly; however if you want the problem lying deep within to be solved it is essential that you keep the lines of communication open. In case you start the conversation with angry words you will find that you are shutting down the communication straightaway and you may not get anywhere beyond that. Both of you may be using angry words and yelling at each other without any progress on solving the issue.

It is necessary to talk to your spouse in a rational manner and convince him/ her about your feelings as regards to the public insults thrown at you. It is possible that in some cases the spouse may not be aware that such comments could be misconstrued by others; also he/ she may not realize the implications of such hurtful words. In other cases such insults are deliberate and made to hurt the person.

Sometimes such statements are made in public since your spouse is aware that you will not be able to retaliate in public. This is a control issue. Your spouse uses this opportunity to show his/ her superiority over you.

Forgiving From the Start

If you desire to have a productive conversation with your spouse on the issue of public criticism, the first thing you have to do is to forget the past.  There is no point in trying to open the old wounds. You should start off the conversation afresh. Perhaps you could start off your conversation saying “I was very embarrassed when….” In this way you are not pointing your finger at your spouse. Whatever be the response of your spouse you should not loose your cool but explain your feelings.

You may not get immediate results by having a few conversations. Such changes are bound to happen over a period of time. If you continue your efforts in pointing out such instances wherein you were embarrassed in public your spouse might start thinking about such instances. Over a period of time you may hope to stop such public comments.

You should realize that this is not the end of the story. As described earlier such comments are made in public because of certain unhappiness about the partner. Until unless this root cause is found and acted upon, this problem might persist. If your spouse is unhappy because you are overweight, you can opt for a plan wherein you begin a fitness program together. With this you are showing your seriousness in solving the problems in the marriage from both sides.