Who's Being Selfish?

[Melissa569]

I'm trying to figure out how you determine who the "selfish" one is in a marital situation. I’ve seen this quote in the forum many times:

Elder Burton--

Personal selfishness is the main reason for the present high divorce rate throughout the world.

Ok, well here’s where I feel a little confused. The above statement may very well be true, and I do agree with it.

Unfortunately, my knowing and acknowledging that won't save my marriage. I can only work on myself, I can't force my husband to be more giving and caring. That's entirely up to him. But I do know that it can't just be one person doing all the giving in a marriage, that's not going to work.

Furthermore, how do you figure out who the “selfish” person is, when a marriage is not happy? Is it the person with an unmet need? Or the person refusing to meet that need?

For example (I don‘t really care this much about foot rubs, I‘m just using this as an example because it’s a cleaner than intimate “bedroom talk” lol) -- say the wife is upset because at the end of a long, stressful and tiring day, she really enjoys both partners laying down and rubbing each other’s feet. It takes all her stress away, and makes her feel romantic and bonded to her partner.

But the husband doesn’t like to touch people’s feet, because he thinks its gross. So he refuses to do this activity with her.

So the wife picks out something HE likes, but that she doesn’t really care for, and offers to do that for him in exchange every time. But the husband still says, “If getting that means I have to rub someone’s feet, then I don’t want it!”

Well… Who is the selfish one in this case? Is the wife selfish for wanting her husband to do something that grosses him out? Or is the husband selfish for refusing to entertain the idea that “a body part is just a body part”, particularly with someone you love, and taking part in the activity?

Edited September 27, 2010 by Melissa569

[Tarnished]

I think there really has to be some give and take in marriage. The foot massage example really works for me, because I don't like touching other people's feet, but I love having my own massaged. The great thing though is that the foot massage can be used as an analogy for other things in marriage, bedroom exclusive things.

I think there should be some give and take, maybe the husband should try giving his wife a foot massage every so often. But if he just can't stand the idea of touching her feet then maybe they can find something else that would work to relax both people. The problem with the selfish quote is that selfishness can be used as a goad, "Well you are being selfish because I really need such and such and you just aren't doing it". I think in your example the selfishness goes both ways. The husband is selfish for not being willing to help his wife find something that will relax her at the end of the day, but the wife is being selfish for using foot rubs as a need that she is hanging over the husband's head.

The best way to deal with selfishness in a marriage is to do the best you can to remove selfishness from your own actions. Do things with your spouse in mind, do the best you can to be the best you can. Do your part and don't worry if your spouse is not doing their part. Things often, but not always, work themselves out if one person is doing their best for the marriage.

Sometimes selfishness is a one person show, where one partner is the culprit, but more often it is a two person show, with both people being just as selfish as their spouse.

[Melissa569]

Hmmmm, very well said :)

I've noticed that I do tend to give up easily... That much I can admit. For example, I will do 1 or 2 nice things for my husband, and if that doesn't cause him to burst into the "giving" frame of mind, I just give up and figure "why even try?". Sometimes I wonder if its turned into a "I

mnto changing my ways until YOU do first" type of battle.

Kind of makes me wonder what would happen if I did a one-week experiment, just to see if I can break the selfish cycle in the marriage. As in keep a journal of what I decide to do, and what my husband's reactions are, if any. Then promise myself that for one entire week, no matter how frustrating it is-- I do EVERYTHING my husband likes and appreciates, without complaining, or asking for anything in return. And just see if his behavior changes in response... See if a week of that makes him think, "Wow, she's been keeping me really happy lately, it makes me wanna now do something for her."

If I don't see any positive changes, I guess I'll know what the problem really is, lol.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Melissa569

[LDSVALLEY]

My wife and I have found at times we get wrapped up in dealing with life and neglect our relationship, it leads to fighting, arguing, defensive attitude etc.

In a seven habits book a person complained that they no longer loved thier wife so what could he do about it.

The author replied love her.

But I said I used to love her but do not any more, what can I do?

Love her, love is a verb and a noun. The noun of being in love is the result of one or both parties working at loving the other.

When my wife or I find us down that not loving road one of us or the other so far will "fake it" we will pretend that what the other is saying or doing is not bothering us, that we are still in the act of loving them and bend over backwards for the other. Most often the other is not aware of this being done at first.

It has never failed us yet in 15 years of marriage, when one of us "fakes it" after a week or at most two we are both in love the noun and the verb. When one of us goes through the motions of being closer the other naturally jumps on as well.

That is not to say it solves every problem, but too often we end up focusing on the things irritating us in the moment and not the reason we fell in love in the first place. I figure if I ever have to do it for a month or two then it will likely be too far gone at that point.

Yes it can be very hard to not react to the other person, but if you focus on the little things they do positive and thank them for it then that slowly builds upon itself and the person can come back to the way they were when you fell in love the verb.

[Bini]

Marriage is definitely give and take. I think the less selfish partner is the one who wants something purely for enriching their marriage because it benefits both people.

[jayanna]

the least selfish thing to do would be to give without expecting anything in return. There are things my hubby hates to do...like yardwork. While I enjoy the outdoors, there are just some things that I can't do by myself...so I worked around some of those things and made my flower garden and yard to be more 'natural-like' so it is considerably less maintenance.

I want him to be happy, and in the long run does it really matter about grass? There is nothing that I love more than him. What wouldn't I give up for him? It is a really short list.

I have found over time, that if I make him the most important thing to me I slowly become more important to him. Will we ever be equal to in this? I don't know, but I do know that I want to look back and know that I was the best wife I could be.

[Tarnished]

There was a point in my marriage where I was sure that my actions would result in a divorce. Not that I wanted a divorce, but I had a feeling that it would happen. I had talked myself into telling my husband about my actions but I didn't want to ruin the holidays for him, so I put off talking to him about my actions until after the holidays. This meant I had about three months to wait, I made a decision in my mind that I wanted those three months to have good memories for him, I didn't want our marriage to end on an absolutely terrible note. So I began working to make those three months good ones. I went out of my way to work on things that I knew were bothering him. I tried harder and did more for our marriage than I had in years. I really put forth an effort. And our marriage changed, it got better, and when I told him of my actions he chose to stay with me and work through the problems with me. Lately when we have talked about it he admits that my actions during those three months really changed the way he looked at the marriage, and because of how I acted during those months he was more open to the idea of staying with me.

What I learned during not only the time leading up to me confessing to him, but also the repentance period afterward is that what we see as needs in our marriage, aren't always as needed as we thought they were. Often we really want something in our marriage, more attention, more sex, more talking, more whatever, and we get to a point where not having those things gets to a point where we feel that we are missing something we need. Truth is though that we don't actually NEED them, we could do just fine without them but we feel that to be happy we must have those things. What I found was that we can often get the things that we "needed" by finding a way to give our spouse what they think they need. Often the things that we needed are being withheld, maybe not intentionally, because our spouse is also feeling bad about the relationship and part of their feeling bad is not doing their best at the marriage themselves.

It will probably take more than a week to see things change. I would suggest trying to do your best for the marriage for half a year and see if there are changes. It will take a lot of patience, but then again that is part of marriage, making marriage work takes a lot of work and a lot of patience. A healthy marriage is much like a healthy body, if your body gets overweight the best thing you can do for it is to exercise, but the effects of exercise take awhile to show, if you exercise for only a week you probably won't see the results you were hoping for, but if you are patient and keep at it eventually over time you will see the results.

[Guest mormonmusic]

You are being selfish when you know that your spouse has emotional needs you could easily meet, and you choose not to meet them for self-serving reasons.

Usually it's both couples who are contributing to the selfishness problem though, says experienced marriage counselors.

For me, the other person is being selfish when I've expressed my needs, their importance to the health in our marriage, and am doing the best to meet the other person's needs, and I therefore go into withdrawal -- meaning, I no longer feel I want to be in the relationship.

The same is true for myself. My wife came to me the other day and said we need to spend more time together for the health of our relationship. If I then refused every suggestion she made for things to do together so I could pursue self-serving interests, and found no other activities we can do together, that would be selfish.

[Melissa569]

Interesting points of view... When I first got into a relationship I thought (I'm sure a lot of us did) that all we had to do was care about each other, be affectionate, and everything woudl be fine, lol. Now I look back on that frame of mind and I just laugh. Who knew it would all turn out to be so complicated :)

[TheActualLiz]

Interesting question Melissa!

As I was reading this thread there was this quote from "Live In A Better Way" (by the Dali Lama).

"If we must be selfish, then let us at least be WISELY selfish."

I assume that both you and your husband love each other and that is in your mutual best interest to work together in building a family. If you think about it on a long term scale then the most wisely selfish thing to do is help each other achieve happiness, better communication, and more productivity.

You mentioned foot rubs. I have had some foot rub related problems in my own marriage. Part of me wonders how many foot rub related divorces happen each year.

Reflexology (especially feet) and Trigger Point Therapy are very beneficial to my husband's health, happiness, and ability to work. The more work he does (which can be beneficial to each of our selfish internists) the more massage he needs. This is especially true of foot rubs. Him working while I give him foot rubs serves both our wisely selfish desires. There are two problems with this: I hate rubbing feet, and he needs more foot rubs than I am physically able to give. Needless to say this caused problems that absolutely had to be fixed!

Finally we talked about it, really listened to each other, and worked out a solution. We each told the other about the problem from our own perspective while the other jotted down notes (yes, we are that nerdy). We went back and forth in this way over many lunches at affordable restaurants. Eventually we understood each other and work out solutions.

1. It turns out that some portion of the time he was asking for foot rubs he was just saying that as his default way of indicating he was in pain and needed help. So the first agreed on was for him to clarify when he specifically needed a foot rub and when he was just hurting all over and any form of massage would help.

2. Until we discussed it neither of us knew how much pain and anger the frequent requests for foot rubs had built up in me. It was not just the physical pain that had caused me to say no so frequently and to only say yes in a very grudging way. He honestly did not know how degraded I felt kneeling by his desk rubbing his feet while he worked. I honestly did not realize how much resentment had built up over feeling degraded and nagged and how much suffering I had caused him by allowing all that hidden emotion to spill over into other things. We solved this by making a few behavioral changes (such as him washing his feet or us moving to the couch or bedroom when possible) as well as a few communication changes (him offering encouraging words and expressing gratitude so I could feel good about myself while doing it, and me learning how and when to say no when I had reached my limit).

3. I had no idea how unappreciated and lonely he felt when he was working 12 (or more) hours a day to cover our living expenses and save for the future. His job is really hard, he had been doing it out of love for me and our future family, and I had been hurting his feelings very badly when I expressed my feelings in a harsh and critical way. By learning to recognize, validate, and express appreciation for all his hard work without being asked at random times during the day I was able to stop causing him a lot of suffering. As an amazing side effect of him feeling nurtured I noticed that his need for foot rubs went down for reasons I only understood much later.

4. We had not been taking into account the problems caused by his level of dependence on me to be healthy and productive. We worked on creative ways to empower him to take care of himself (such as stretching, talking to friends more often, and taking walks).

These solutions, as well as figuring out the method of finding solutions to problems (restaurants and taking notes are essential) has greatly improved our marriage and helped us get closer to both our wisely selfish and our shared goals.

It turns out that in my situation neither of us were really being selfish (acting in our own self interest) at all! We were both being greedy (sacrificing long term benefit for short term gain) and failing to practice empathy (understanding of the other person's perspective). By realizing that we had both been hurting ourselves and each other without gain and identifying and accepting our own wisely selfish goals, making changes became an enjoyable pursuit rather than a difficult exercise is sacrifice and compromise.

I do not know you well enough to offer advice on your relationship, but I do have some questions that might help:

1. Have you identified what you really want and what is in your own best interest?

2. Has your husband identified what he really wants and what is in his own best interest?

3. How often do you and your husband discuss each partner's goals, needs, interests, and successes?

4. How productive is the method you and your husband currently use for these discussions?

[Guest]

Okay, I'm going to put in my controversial 2 cents.

I've had several instances when my husband and I meet some people who have marital issues. Some of these people are on the verge of divorce. We look at each other in confusion... we always wonder what the big deal is that is so bad they can't get over it.

You know the thing about the Letter of the Law versus the Spirit of the Law?

Well, the OP is the Letter of the Law. You have to find a way to get yourself to the level of the Spirit of the Law and I will guarantee you, your marriage will be forever.

But, the trick to this is - both husband and wife need to be at that level. And what's more - this should have happened BEFORE the wedding.

Okay, so you're gonna say, duh, we're already married... what now???

Well, I'm going to explain what I mean by the Spirit of the Law and you'll just have to figure out how both of you can get there. I say, if you really love each other, you'll get there.

The love between husband and wife has to be Christlike Charity. This is when you completely forget yourself and become one entity - a couple. There's no you and me anymore - there is we. If your husband is grossed out, you are grossed out. If your husband is happy, you are happy. If your husband is hurt, you are hurt. If your husband is worried, you are worried. And vice versa on everything. This needs to be on a level where you don't even have to think about it.

If my husband cannot bring himself to rub my feet, I would NEVER ask him to rub my feet. NEVER. It would be hurtful to me to see him have to force himself to do it.

I do not like football. I used to use the word HATE when it came to football. Football is the "other woman". It occupies my husband's time and attention and it takes it away from the family. But, before we got married, I already know my husband is a crazy football fanatic. I married him anyway. 13 years later, I can now say I love football. No, I don't like football still. But, I love to share my husband's football passion with him. It gives me complete satisfaction that my husband would hear some news on the radio about some football stuff - like this past week, he got so excited because a freshman QB with the Gators made 6 touchdowns in one game beating Tim Tebow's record - and the first person he calls to share his excitement with is ME! He doesn't go calling his best friend who also loves football - he calls ME. He gave me diamond earings because he made a Guesstures pose and I immediately yelled out, "Heisman Trophy!". He was so happy that I knew what a heisman trophy looks like!

His passion becomes my passion. It's what a marriage is all about. My husband can tell you all about wainscotting (I love home decorating). He can tell you which painters tape is the best to use on striped walls, etc. He doesn't even consciously chooses to know these things. We are just so in tune in our lives now after 13 years that he just goes and does things because I do it, and not necessarily because he likes it.

Okay, last week was our 13th anniversary. I sent him a giant Edible Arrangements boquette to his work and he gives me the new iPhone. No surprise. We've done this every year. We looked at each other and asked, uhm, would you have preferred something else, because, uhm, it seems we've become too predictable... and we both laugh and say, Nah - we're still the same and it's still awesome.

That's how it should be... everything is all in the SPIRIT - all in the heart. Okay, so my marriage is not perfect - because my husband and I are very different people - most of the things he likes I don't like and most of the things I like he doesn't like (product of a multi-racial marriage). But, we've become one entity - we don't have "I like", "he likes" anymore... we have "WE like".

Hope this helps.

[Guest mormonmusic]

Interesting points of view... When I first got into a relationship I thought (I'm sure a lot of us did) that all we had to do was care about each other, be affectionate, and everything woudl be fine, lol. Now I look back on that frame of mind and I just laugh. Who knew it would all turn out to be so complicated :)

This is one of life's great mysteries to me -- I'm an academic at heart, and I usually research the starch out of everything when I do it for the first time. Talk to people, read etcetera. I asked a lot of apparently happily married couples what makes marriage work so I could have a good marriage myself.

Then I got married and found I'd married someone who was nothing like I thought she was when we were dating. The experience was nothing like what the happily married folks shared with me, and many of the variables of a happy marriage they shared didn't seem to apply -- they were too autobiographical to be universal.

There were things my wife agreed to before marriage that as soon as we got married she wouldn't follow through on, for example. And then, new behaviors and character features surfaced that were a complete surprise to me. And new surprises pop up as we experience new things in our life and marriage that are sometimes hard to deal with.

And then the Mormon commitment to sexual purity before marriage leaves sex and intimacy as a wild card you really only understand after you're married. No testing allowed beforehand, which introduces more uncertainty.

You do have spiritual guidance, but frankly, that can be fuzzy at best sometimes. It guides me at times very strongly, but on really important life experiences, I rarely ever get a clear answer.

It's amazing that life is structured that way -- that life's most important decisions are required for you to make without sufficient information, and often, no spiritual guidance, with most of the important information only available after you make your decision and can't back out easily. Being a parent, getting married, and for me, buying real estate -- all fall into that category.

Edited September 27, 2010 by mormonmusic

[Guest mormonmusic]

Okay, I'm going to put in my controversial 2 cents.

His passion becomes my passion. It's what a marriage is all about. My husband can tell you all about wainscotting (I love home decorating). He can tell you which painters tape is the best to use on striped walls, etc. He doesn't even consciously chooses to know these things. We are just so in tune in our lives now after 13 years that he just goes and does things because I do it, and not necessarily because he likes it.

Anatess -- this is the way is should be, and it works WHEN BOTH SPOUSES ARE MEETING EACH OTHERS NEEDS. If you kept involving yourself in his interests and wholeheartedly participating in knowing about his life, and serving him in ways that he really appreciates, but he completely ignores you or refuses to meet your needs for years upon years on end, there's a strong chance you wouldn't be able to sustain the passion yourself.

I was in that position on a whole variety of need-fronts for a long time, spiritual, family and domestic at the top of the list. not just physical needs. After a while you can just feel used, and unloved because you're not getting much out of the relationship. You've verbalized what you need for happiness (for example, my spouse helping me when the house needs deep and light cleaning) and your spouse just chooses not to meet the need because they are uninterested in the task, or would rather do other things like sleep and watch television. After a decade of that, the amount of effort it takes to be the self-sacrificing dutiful spouse loses its allure.

I think you're fortunate that you have that in your marriage. Many people do not. I have ever lengthening flashes of it as my wife and myself have matured, but many couples don't have it, and the spouses aren't always willing to put the necessary effort into making it work.

For example, my wife grew up HATING housework. For her, its like drinking poison to have to clean the house. I realize now it was the way her mother enforced cleaning when she was a child/teenager. Me on the other hand, I need a clean enviroment to respect myself and also think straight. Without it I see red, particularly when I have to do it all alone. For her, it's really hard to make that sacrifice as an act of love for me because she just detests that activity.....problems like that can really hurt a marriage.

I think some couples married people who naturally meet their needs, so marriage seems "seamless" and effortless. I have a friend like that. Others marry people who don't naturally meet their needs, and find it really hard to change their orientation toward life to do so. In the case of my wife, it's maddening to have to help me clean the house just to make her husband happy.

As one happily married couple told me "Marriage is partly a matter of luck, really".

[Guest]

Anatess -- this is the way is should be, and it works WHEN BOTH SPOUSES ARE MEETING EACH OTHERS NEEDS. If you kept involving yourself in his interests and wholeheartedly participating in knowing about his life, and serving him in ways that he really appreciates, but he completely ignores you or refuses to meet your needs for years upon years on end, there's a strong chance you wouldn't be able to sustain the passion yourself.

I was in that position on a whole variety of need-fronts for a long time, spiritual, family and domestic at the top of the list. not just physical needs. After a while you can just feel used, and unloved because you're not getting much out of the relationship. You've verbalized what you need for happiness (for example, my spouse helping me when the house needs deep and light cleaning) and your spouse just chooses not to meet the need because they are uninterested in the task, or would rather do other things like sleep and watch television. After a decade of that, the amount of effort it takes to be the self-sacrificing dutiful spouse loses its allure.

I think you're fortunate that you have that in your marriage. Many people do not. I have ever lengthening flashes of it as my wife and myself have matured, but many couples don't have it, and the spouses aren't always willing to put the necessary effort into making it work.

For example, my wife grew up HATING housework. For her, its like drinking poison to have to clean the house. I realize now it was the way her mother enforced cleaning when she was a child/teenager. Me on the other hand, I need a clean enviroment to respect myself and also think straight. Without it I see red, particularly when I have to do it all alone. For her, it's really hard to make that sacrifice as an act of love for me because she just detests that activity.....problems like that can really hurt a marriage.

I think some couples married people who naturally meet their needs, so marriage seems "seamless" and effortless. I have a friend like that. Others marry people who don't naturally meet their needs, and find it really hard to change their orientation toward life to do so. In the case of my wife, it's maddening to have to help me clean the house just to make her husband happy.

As one happily married couple told me "Marriage is partly a matter of luck, really".

This is what I mean when I said, this works if you get this BEFORE the wedding.

My husband and I were friends for 2 years before we started dating (then we only dated for a week then we got married).

I knew who he is - what he wants, what makes him upset, how he treats people, what he thinks of me, how he reacts to his parents, what he plans to do about college, how he reacts to children, what he does when he sees a stray cat, what he looks like when he is sick with the flu and his nose is red and runny and he hasn't showered for 3 days... whatever... before we even started to date! When he told me he loves me - I knew he meant it because I KNEW him well enough to see through bullcrap! I KNEW I did not marry a complete jerk. Yes, he has his jerk moments, but I knew he does not want to be one.

After 13 years, we are completely different than we started out with. He went to college, got a degree, changed careers, got laid off - twice, became EQ counsilor, became inactive, became active again... I started out Catholic, became a member, went through post-partrum depression - twice... etc. etc.

But all these things that happened - happened to US, not just one of us - because what happens to me happens to the both of us and what happens to him happens to both of us. We grew up together.

Our marriage is not easy AT ALL. We are multi-racial - we have completely different likes and dislikes. It is not LUCK that made our marriage a success so far. It is BOTH our COMMITMENT to make it work. Our PACT on our wedding day to love each other through thich and thin, sickness and health, richer and poorer, FOREVER. Divorce is not an option.

So, when we have seemingly irreconcilable differences, we duke it out - sometimes with me throwing a glass at him, sometimes with me ending up getting out of the car and walking home - until we get it resolved. We are not scared to fight and fight hard. Because we KNOW through it all, we love each other. What happens usually, is we find a solution that will work for the both of us. Then that becomes part of who we are.

Edited September 27, 2010 by anatess

[Guest]

Check out this post I made a while back

Before we got married we laid out our negotiables and non-negotiables and exercise is a non-negotiable.

[rameumptom]

You're right, you can't directly work on your spouse. However, selfish people WILL try to forcibly change a spouse by nagging, withholding something of value, threats, violence, etc.

A selfless person will influence his/her spouse by doing acts of kindness and generosity. You would be amazed at how a person can be led to water AND drink, if it is done in a sincere and kindly manner. You have a circle of influence (see Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), where you can touch others' lives in such a way that they will often willingly change. But it takes patience and lots of service and giving. It requires you to love your spouse for who he/she is right now, having the hope that they will change on their own when they are ready to change. Secondly, you serve your spouse.

Edited September 27, 2010 by rameumptom

[mrmarklin]

I'm not a marraige counselor or anything of the sort, but I've seen a lot of divorce from my side of the desk.

Usually, when all the facts are found out, it's a 50/50 deal in "fault" with neither side willing to give in at all.