Question:
My partner loves to live in a facade. I hate how my partner always wants to put up a perfect picture of our relationship in front of everyone, even when deep down inside we want to almost kill each other. I hate this fake façade, and I feel like telling everyone we are a normal couple who fight day in and day out. Should I disrupt my marriage by taking any extreme step? Should I tell everyone that the perfect couple image my partner portrays is fake?
Hi there,
Before you go ahead and disrupt the status quo, ask yourself what do you have to gain from it. The purpose of your union is companionship, support, and the upbringing of a family.
TESTAMENT
Regardless of the type of relationship you are in, whether it is romantic, friendship or professional, friction is inevitable. It is not the existence of disagreement that makes a relationship a facade. Conflict is to be expected. Just cause you and your partner bikker it doesn’t mean you are not good companions. If anything, a couple or friendship’s strength is measured on the participants’ ability to go through these ebbs and flows, and overcome them.
OUTLOOK
Your husband may measure your union’s strength based on how well you support each other, and not on the fights you have. Why not shift the focus on the things that are working, and look for healthy solutions towards those that are not? With you screaming in the middle of a dinner with friends “we just finished fighting for the 5th time this week!!!” serves what, exactly? I am certain your friends have relationships of their own they have ups and downs in.
COMMUNICATION
Why not tell him, when you are being intimate, what are the things you would like to work on? The problem is not him creating a facade. The issue is that problems are not being addressed in a healthy way. You both are pretending they don’t exist. Find the right time, and ask him to be willing to find one hour a week where you both dedicate a room in the house for discussion. There will be no yelling, no cursing and you will both come respectfully to only listen to each other. You can take turns.
Maybe the first week you start, then he follows, and you slowly create a safe space where you both can be heard and understood. I know from interactions with others there is nothing more powerful than being heard. That is the one thing that has the power to defuse hostility and bring back intimacy. Please try it, and let me know how it goes.
Take care.
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