Save Your Marriage From Being Sabotaged

Signs of Relationship Sabotage in Your Marriage

Sabotaged, Distanced, Sulking, Fighting Couple
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For a variety of reasons, your spouse may try to sabotage your marriage in areas such as your career, your family finances, time issues, and diet concerns. If you think your spouse is sabotaging you, don't become uncommunicative about the situation.

Reasons Your Spouse May Try to Sabotage You

  • Your spouse may feel threatened, jealous, or intimidated by such things as your accomplishments, ability, popularity, talent, and/or self-confidence.
  • The sabotage from your spouse may be caused by a lack of trust in you.
  • Even though your spouse may have initially agreed to take a backseat to your career or personal goals, a sense of resentment may have taken over.
  • Your mate could want control or power in your marriage.
  • Your spouse may be competitive.
  • Your spouse's insecurity or lack of self-esteem could be the cause of the relationship sabotage.
  • Your spouse wants to be the center of attention both at home and in your social circle.
  • Your spouse may dislike the roles you each have in your marriage.
  • Your spouse may be competing with you.

Ways Your Spouse Can Sabotage You

"Sometimes what happens is what Heffernan calls "selective incompetence." The busier she is, the less he helps. The more she succeeds at work, the less capable he becomes at home. "It's a form of sulking," Heffernan says. "But if the woman tries to attack this, it's as if she has no sympathy." - Source: Emily Bazelon. "The Sabotaging Husband." Forbes Magazine. 9/29/08.
The Naked Truth: A Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters by Margaret Heffernan
  • Lack of follow through.
  • Say one thing but do another. Broken promises.
  • Interrupt you with unimportant phone calls at work.
  • Convenient forgetfulness such as forgetting to give you important phone messages.
  • Lack of support for your dreams and goals.
  • Selective incompetence.
  • Sabotage your diet or fitness goals by giving you candy or manipulating issues that keep you from going for your walk or spending time at the fitness center.

How to Stop the Sabotage

  • Recognize the sabotage.
  • Don't make excuses for your spouse's negative behavior.
  • Be honest. Tell your spouse that the sabotage needs to stop.
  • Ask for the support you want. Be specific.
  • Brainstorm together ways the two of you can work as a team to support one another's dreams and goals.
  • If the sabotage continues, seek professional marriage counseling.