4 Signs That Your Spouse Is Slowly Ruining Your Life
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”
~John Donne
No matter how much you’ve worked on your self-control you cannot deny that people in your life influence you. We happen to be the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.
Spend one half of your time with your 4 friends and the other half with your spouse? It follows that you’ll be even more susceptible to influence from your spouse. This assimilation can lead to a blossoming healthy relationship, or take us into a downward spiral.
I’m personally not married, but I know how much time I spend with my girlfriend alone, and I observe how my parents and the parents of all my friends functions together. No where do I see couples where one person is super happy and successful while the other is depressed and miserable. Such couples do not last.
Let’s take a look at some ways your spouse may be killing you softly:
- Taking Away Your Health. It is pertinent to your health that your health goals are aligned with those of your spouse. Since you’re going to find yourself assimilating into each other to some degree you don’t want to be the healthy person that gets brought down by a food slob.
- Digging Into Your Wallet. Is it possible for one person to be a frugal saver while their spouse is a frivolous hyper consumer? Sure, if the saver is saving merely for the spending pleasure of the spouse.
- Taking Away Your Dreams. Everyone in life has dreams, aspirations, and goals to do something, become someone, or go somewhere. Unfortunately for some these dreams haven’t been alive since they were a kid- we’ll have to address that in a different post. For the rest of us dreamers, it’s very important to discuss them as part of your non-negotiables before we even get into a serious relationship.
- Taking Away Your Character. Do you consider yourself a nice person? What happens when day in and day out your spouse gossips, name-calls, and insults other people. Whether this is done in front of them, or behind their back, you are still being exposed to this type of mentality.
It’s important that you are agreeable as to what type of food you will have in the house, what type of places you will go out to eat, and what your nutritional and fitness values are.
If there are more serious saving goals, such as mortgage, investments, children’s education, than the hyper consumer lifestyle will be a burden on the overall financial health of this family unit. That is why it is important to be agreeable on financial goals, and the type of lifestyle that each spouse could expect to maintain, together.
If you’re already in a relationship keep an eye on that spouse that bashes every vision that you dare to dream. The absolute pessimist that doesn’t let you breath. I’m not talking about the critical pessimist that won’t let you take the whole family saving and blow them on a hot stock. I’m talking about the one that won’t let you paint because they think you’ll never make something of yourself.
Whatever you resist persists, and if you let this behavior enter your mind, sooner or later you will also find yourself speaking like this.
What other areas of your life would you say your spouse is capable for ruining your life? Happiness, goals, values? I leave this article open for debate in the comments section below.
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Posted by Alex Shalman in Relationships | April 25, 2008 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 8 comments
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With wimmenfolk as addle-minded, self-centered, emotion-laden and demanding as most are today it is the wise man that shuns females. Do not marry. Do not impregnate. DDo not even cohabitate since females can destroy a man’s life and seize his wealth with one mere false accusation.
Enormous powerful bureaucracies, both governmental and private, have been created to assist females in destroying males. Males have NO external assistance to defend themselves from rampaging females.
The only security is to avoid females.
Let them have their cats. The wise man avoids much misery and attains peace-of-mind by keeping the females at arms-length, or farther.
i dont have a spouse, but i feel like this can relate to everyone in our lives- friends, family, etc..i find that I do tend to become more like the people I hang around with a lot- whether consciously or unconsciouslly.. that’s why i’m careful about who i become close friends with, since those people can either bring you up or down and sometimes its hard but you have to let certain friends go when they are not a positive influence in our lives- sometimes even people we love, we have to keep them at a distance if they are bringing us down.. but on the upside there are those freinds/family/etc members that are a wonderful positive influence in our lives and we are fortunate to have them in our lives… or course no one is perfect, so its always about the overall picture or balance… on the whole, is a friendship/relationship with this person a good/bad thing? everyone has occasional fights etc… anyways i am goin on a tangent lol… post is a nice reminder to choose wisely and also become the kind of people that affect others positively (since we o ften get what we put out)… o and i like the little picture (altho it is makin me a bit hungry) and that comment about females being the root of destruction from the gentleman above .. that’s hilarious…
Alex, great John Donne quote at the beginning. That quote is the basis for Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls.
And good post. I think a spouse has to have certain interests and viewpoints aligned with you. If not, it’s a recipe for disaster.
While I believe everything you say is accurate and highly relevant, I prefer to focus on what a spouse can do to make our lives better.
I prefer to focus on the positive, as I will spend my energy in creating positive things in my life.
As for marriage, it’s real simple. In any marriage, there are grounds for divorce after one week. The trick is to constantly find grounds for marriage. I wrote a blog post about marriage and such on my blog a few weeks ago.
Marriage takes work.
However, I do agree that if you have a spouse who is bringing you down, that is not a good thing.
MrAchievement
Stanley Bronstein
Attorney, CPA, Author & Professional Motivational Speaker
Alex,
Nice post. I’d like to add one more. That is - spiritual harmony. What if one spouse has set of values that are not acceptable to other who has no regard for the values. This can create undue stress and possible divorce.
Thanks
Shilpan
I have to say that while the article was worth reading and relvant,i will like to add that you miss out the fact that some of these people around you can influence one in a positive way.I am married and my partner has been a positive influence in my life.I believe that i am responsible for my own destiny.
not allowing family or friends to influence me in any negative way.Why should they? why can’t i be the one changing their life.You should hold tight to your dreams nobody can take it away from you unless you allow it.
What really make us victims? Is it that we have no juevos to stand up for ourselves or is it that we’re trying to make the right choices to do the right thing or maybe we just don’t know how to deal with the world we live in?……
My husband & I have been married 15yrs, we were HS sweethearts. Sure we were in love when there was no stress until the 2 babies, bills, debts and came short finishing college came into the picture. His parents didn’t approve starting our own family and our world of LOVE came tumbling down and realized it’s us against negativity.
As we grew together as husband & wife, stress took a beating on us. We tend to blame each other for all the wrong reasons, we know each other inside out, the interest is gone….now what? We seem to be lost but we know deep inside we need each other. Is it because we’re afraid to go our seperate ways and move on?….don’t know
Sure you can bash on females ruining your life just because you refuse to grow up. Tell you what growing up is part of wising up and it takes both sides to work together and encourage each other to make it. If you give up and loose hope well guess what it’s your lost.