Unsurprisingly, one of the main issues that most couples seem to struggle with is a lack of communication. This could be a hesitance to bring up difficult topics for the sake of maintaining peace in the relationship, or it could be a situation where one spouse is trying to communicate to improve the marriage, and the other is checking out and ignoring them.
If your spouse hasn’t been able to voice their frustrations (or you haven’t been hearing them), they may express their resentment about how you treat them via the following behaviors instead:
1. They don’t defend you if someone trash-talks you.
Picture this: you’re at a family dinner over the holidays, and one of your relatives insults you. Horrified and upset, you defend yourself as best you can and turn to your spouse for additional support, but they’re eating contentedly and admiring the wall art as though they didn’t hear a thing. Or, even worse, they nod and smile sardonically in your direction as though agreeing with the insult, before turning their attention back to their entree.
If they don’t defend you when someone else speaks badly of you, particularly if they used to, it’s possible that you have aggravated, disrespected, and alienated them so much that they now have no energy or inclination to take a stand for you. Furthermore, they may feel some giddy satisfaction that someone else is taking you to task, since you don’t acknowledge them when they say anything that you don’t want to hear.
2. They’ll treat themselves to things but will only give you the bare necessities.
Perhaps your spouse has always stocked your favorite snacks in the pantry and ensured that foods you loved were prepared on special occasions, but now they aren’t putting any effort in. Or they’re making dishes that you aren’t fond of instead of the ones you prefer, and offer you frozen or canned options if you don’t like what’s on the table.
If this is happening, it might be that your spouse has gone out of their way to do amazing things for you over the years, while you’ve consistently forgotten their birthday or picked up cheap tat for holiday gifts. Or you’ve consistently made plans on dates they’ve reserved for themselves, so they’re stuck with household responsibilities instead of having much-needed time away. Since you’ve made it clear that their needs, passions, and plans don’t matter to you, they’re now reciprocating in kind.
3. They’re suddenly incapable of helping you.
If you’ve relied upon them for years — even (especially) for things that you could sort out for yourself — there’s a good chance they’ve become resentful about your lack of self-sufficiency. As a result, they’ve withdrawn their helpfulness in an attempt to force you to be more self-reliant. My partner and I have both experienced this with exes of ours who weaponized incompetence, so we’d do their various tasks for them.
You can’t find something in the fridge or the cupboard and ask for their help? Sorry, they’re busy, or they can’t remember what mayonnaise looks like. You’ll have to find it yourself. Or you forgot to make Timmy’s school play costume like you promised, and now you need to pull an all-nighter? That sounds like a “you” problem, etc. They’ve come to your rescue so many times that they refuse to do so anymore.
4. They slam down or shove your plate or cup towards you.
When they make food, instead of making a nice plate or bowl for you and setting it down gently and lovingly, they may slop food onto it and drop it down grudgingly, like they’re forced to feed a pet pig they don’t like anymore. Similarly, if they fix you a drink when they make their own, they’ll practically throw it at you.
This often happens when a marriage has unbalanced labor as far as food preparation is concerned. Consider how many meals or beverages this person has prepared for you over the course of your relationship. Have you made just as many for them? Could you name their favorite meals, let alone know how to cook them? How do they take their coffee or tea? If you’ve been consistently on the receiving end of things and haven’t given much in turn, it’s unsurprising that they resent the way you treat them.
5. They prioritize everyone else in their life ahead of you.
This, again, is a reflection of how you’ve likely treated them. If you have constantly put them at the bottom of the stack, then this is a case of them now shifting their priorities accordingly. It causes a great deal of damage to a person when they realize that they’re the lowest priority in your life, yet are expected to be there when you want them on demand.
You may feel shocked and saddened when you want to spend time with them and discover that they’ve booked a holiday away with friends. Or you need their help with a project, but they’re helping someone from the church clean out their gutters.
People naturally return the time and energy that’s invested in them, so if your spouse is prioritizing everyone else ahead of you, it’s likely because they’ve learned by your example.
6. They make less-than-subtle comments when you mess up.
They may have gotten so used to you dropping the ball as far as their needs and requests are concerned that they now call it out in a sarcastic, passive-aggressive way instead of being patient, loving, and supportive.
For example, if it’s been your job to do a particular chore for the past decade and you’ve forgotten to do it yet again, they may suggest that you’d have an easier time remembering it if it was in front of the fridge or the TV. Or, if you’ve forgotten their birthday or your anniversary again, they may give you a “thank you” card for the lovely present you got them. When you say that you didn’t get them anything, they’ll just respond with “I know” and leave the room.
7. They show contempt towards your joy.
If you share something with them that makes you happy or proud, especially if it’s something you’ve achieved, they’ll make it abundantly clear that they don’t give a damn. They don’t even need to say a word: they may simply stare at you blankly and then go back to whatever they were doing.
This often happens if they’ve been burdened with the majority of household responsibilities while you’ve been free to be creative, travel, or pursue your own interests. They feel so much resentment at the unfair imbalance that they can’t even pretend to be happy for you. Every speck of joy you express is a slap in the face and a reminder of how little they’ve been allowed to have.
8. They take care of things by themselves.
In the past, they might have asked for your help to get certain things done, whether it was getting things off a high shelf, filling out paperwork, and so on, but they don’t do that anymore. In fact, they don’t ask for your opinion or assistance with anything. They take care of what needs to be done and barely involve you in anything at all.
This usually happens when someone has disappointed their spouse so many times that they can’t be bothered to ask them for help with anything. They know nothing will come of it, and the only way anything is going to get done is if they take care of it themselves. If they ask you, you’ll either let them down, screw it up, or procrastinate about it for so long that they’ll need to take care of it eventually anyway.
Final thoughts…
If your spouse is exhibiting these behaviors, consider them a wake-up call that you either need to step up or prepare for a life without them. You’ve burnt through their goodwill and patience over the years to the point at which they may not even love you anymore: you may simply be another burden and obstacle that they have to deal with until they’re free of you. They just do their best to get through every day as it comes and not spend one jot more of their time or energy on you than they absolutely have to.
