Fighting My Husband as a Martyr

Woe is me and why it’s not always him.

I tend to show up that way when I’ve hit the end of my emotional bandwidth, tired from battling life and people. I’m angry, frustrated, and feeling bad for myself. Unfortunately, it usually shows up when my husband and I are in a disagreement. When he expresses frustration with me, there is a part of me that acts as if he doesn’t have the right to. Sometimes he expresses his frustration from triggered space; however, other times, he is completely grounded and sharing in a loving way.

I hoped that I would be able to say that I only showed up with my martyr mentality when he’s triggered, implying that he was the cause of my victim reaction. I wanted an excuse. I wanted a scapegoat for my bad behavior, but I am responsible for how I feel, behave, and react within all situations. I show up that way when I feel like I’m not good enough. I am interpreting his frustration, clarification, or whatever it is, as him telling me that I am failing. He isn’t saying that, though, he has never said anything close to that, but I have felt it more times than it would be possible to count. I’m bringing my victim mentality to the table.

“No one is responsible for your emotional reactions except you. Others can say and do anything they like but what happens inside you is only the result of what you are thinking and feeling.” ― Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

My martyr side doesn’t hide well. When it’s making its appearance in an argument, I am shut down, unwilling to communicate, and my demeanor is like a middle finger to my husband. I can be a smiling mom and give my husband the cold shoulder at the same time. When I am finally able to remove myself from the situation and get away, I give validity to the attitude that I’m projecting. It’s not a good look for me.

When that part of me shows up, I start rattling off a list in my head. I’m silently saying all of the things I do that make me soooo great, any perceived shortcomings of my husband, and anything else that might allow me to justify my feelings. I’ve come a long way, though, and I don’t want to forget about that growth. Progress is progress after all!

Before therapy, I would have let my martyr side create the fight. The “victim” feeling was real, and I truly thought I was the only victim in every disagreement we had. I would have spewed frustrations without a thought of my husband’s feelings or the repercussions of my words. I disregarded both because I knew I was right, and I had a long list of evidence to prove it.

Writing that just gave me a new realization. A hard one for me to admit and face because when my inner “woe is me” was making an appearance, I can see clearly now how horribly I was behaving. I was chastising him during arguments. I would tell him everything I viewed as his faults, all of the grievances I had been keeping to myself. I was trying to make him feel bad, so I could prove that he was the root of our problem, not me. Even though I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, it seems very obvious now.

I feel awful. The martyr part of me was hurtful and mean. I especially feel bad because one of the issues I have expressed to my husband over the years is how harmful it is to our relationship when he says mean things during a disagreement. I’ve told him how a mean dig harms me and the trust between us. I’ve pointed out that the negative comments far outweigh the positive. Meaning, it takes a long time to repair the damage. I’ve judged him for all of that, but I had no idea I was doing the same thing. I never understood that I was making him feel all of the same things. I can dress up my “low blows” better, and my tone doesn’t sound as aggressive; nevertheless, what I can and have said hurtful things that harmed our relationship, things that have broken his trust. I just put lipstick on my pig. That is a gut-wrenching realization.

I should be giving him more grace in those moments, and I need to remember that in the future. He wasn’t and isn’t “trying” to hurt me anymore than I was intentionally hurting him. He’s tried to express what I was doing toward him before, but I wasn’t able to understand. He has attempted to let me know how I’ve shown up in our disagreements in the past, without excusing his own behavior. I understand the truth he was sharing with me, now, but in those moments my inner feelings of failure were triggered. So, the martyr part of me started fighting to protect my ego.

Now, I battle to never let those things come out. If my “woe is me” victim side has a complaint, I just shove it down. It’s emotionally exhausting. It takes a lot of energy to rewrite my old habit. It became instinctual for me to release all of my pent-up frustrations in a disagreement. Unfortunately, I’ve gone too far in the other direction because I’m at the point that I am feeling like a volcano ready to explode. When my husband sees me as being “shut down and unwilling to communicate,” in reality, I am fighting to keep from saying something while I’m triggered. I know I need time to get back into my body.

If I start feeling like a victim, I know I’m hijacked. Meaning, there is more to my feelings than the present moment. Talking to myself, listing my greatness and my husband’s shortcomings is always a clear indicator. I don’t communicate well when I’m in that space, for obvious reasons. The problem is that I haven’t been communicating with my husband at all. My focus has been to keep that part of me from bursting out, and I have done that successfully. Sadly, I have also been ignoring any valid feelings that brought me to the frustration. Waiting until I’m not feeling hijacked is a good idea, but never addressing the underlying feelings that are the reason I got hijacked is not working.

I’ve been perceiving keeping the martyr quiet as “winning” the battle against that part of me. Except, my mental health and marriage are suffering because of my silence. I need to find a new approach, somewhere in the middle, where I learn to communicate before the martyr has a chance to show up. I need to communicate while I have the mental capacity, not at the end of my emotional bandwidth.

My old system is no longer working. It’s time to Get Curious.

Getting Curious

Why do I detest the martyr part of me? I don’t like admitting that there is a part of me that acts that way. I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that relationship. Being on the receiving end of that relationship feels like dealing with a child.

I’ve experienced it when trying to set healthy boundaries and getting a guilt trip or justification for actions as the response. When I’m trying to set healthy boundaries, I’m trying to be seen. I’m trying to let someone know what I value and who I am. When the response is one of justification, I feel like what I said was ignored and doesn’t matter to them.

If I have experienced this and don’t like it, why did I do it? My martyr behavior is a learned behavior. I was repeating what was modeled for me.

Why did I go to the extreme and silence myself as a response to realizing that I can have a victim mentality with my husband? That is another learned behavior that was repeatedly modeled for me. It was modeled that shutting down and ignoring was easier than having a hard conversation.

Do I feel that it is easier? There must be a part of me that feels that way. If I didn’t, I would be having that hard conversation.

What part of me feels that it’s easier to just shut down? I think it’s the little girl inside of me that feels that way. My actions reflect that, too. When I was younger, my household was not an emotionally safe environment. When I had strong emotions or there were strong emotions in my house that were scary, I went to my room. I ran away from the fighting to sit in a ball in my closet, keeping the lights off, and waiting for it all to end.

What was I afraid of as a little girl? I was afraid of the conflict. The fights were actual fights in my house. People just hurled insults, resentments, frustrations, and attacks at each other. No one was listening. There was only venting. Everyone was trying to be heard over the other person’s complaints.

Why did that scare me? It was aggressive. I was young, I felt trapped, and it felt unsafe.

If I communicated my frustrations with my husband, would we have fights? Not like that. Our fights are usually disagreements. Even when they do get overly heated, they aren’t scary.

They can be uncomfortable, as disagreements can be. However, they aren’t earth-shattering fights.

We have overcome a lot as a couple, we’re resilient, and we have a lot of perseverance through some almost unimaginably hard times.

So, what’s behind the shutting down? Why do I let my feelings or frustrations get to the point where I’m fighting an inner toddler? I think one of my limiting beliefs must be around love and relationships.

I still feel like I need to be perfect and not ruffle feathers. My behavior demonstrates that a part of me believes that if I’m not “perfect” or if I upset my husband, our relationship could crumble.

I say that it is a limiting belief because my logical brain knows that isn’t our situation, but my behavior proves that my emotional brain is struggling to own that as a truth.

That is a big realization for me, and I’m going to need to meditate on that.

I’m not sure of the action steps that I will take, yet, to beat the martyr to the show. I know that I’m a step closer, though. I believe I got to the true root cause, and per usual it wasn’t anything close to my preconceived idea.

Growth is hard, but we can do hard things! Wishing you love, strength, and the courage to get support when you need it!

Amy