Using Guilt As A Weapon?
Using guilt as a weapon may get you what you want in the short term, but it is a dangerous tactic that will undermine your relationship and rob you of intimacy with your partner. Have you ever found yourself turning to your special someone and saying “If you loved me you would” or ending an argument with “don’t worry about me” and sighing deeply? If so, you may be using guilt as a weapon.
Using guilt against your partner destroys intimacy by making love conditional. If you manipulate your partner with guilt you are telling them that unless things are done the way you demand you will stop loving them. You set yourself up in a position of power that can only be sustained by keeping the other person down. Guilt attacks both your partner and your relationship.
- Guilt sets-up tests. Guilt-tripping your partner often takes the form of “if you loved me you would” or “I don’t see why you can’t just” statements. Both of these set up tasks that your partner must perform to your satisfaction in order to be accepted and worthy of love. Setting up tests like this says to your loved one “I don’t believe that you love me. Prove it.” It attacks your partner and requires that they start from the beginning and prove their love all over again.
- Guilt destroys trust. Guilt attacks a person with the intent to harm them. It is a disciplinary behavior designed to cause pain so that the other person will change their point of view or behavior. How can you expect your partner to trust someone who is intentionally wounding them? Without trust, a healthy relationship is impossible because trust creates the environment where intimacy can grow. It is the basis for honesty, openness and vulnerability. You cannot develop emotional intimacy with someone you have to protect yourself from.
- Guilt refuses to forgive. One of the most painful ways to wound your partner with guilt is to bring up past hurts and wrongs. No matter what your partner has done in the past or how sorry they are for doing it, there is absolutely nothing they can do today to take it back. Bringing up past behavior is a cruel way to punish someone. If you choose, you can torture them with it forever and it will never go away. Loving someone requires forgiving the past and letting it go. If you honestly can’t let go of something that has happened then you cannot be in a relationship with that person. It simply does not work.
Why do we use guilt?
Using guilt is never an act of love, it is always an act of violence. It may masquerade as ‘brutal honesty’ but the true intention of guilt is always to wound, to hurt and to break down. Whatever it is we’re after, guilt aims to make the other person suffer. So why do we do it?
We often resort to using guilt when we feel threatened, unloved or unworthy. Something in the relationship — or in our past — makes us feel vulnerable and we resort to guilt to in an attempt to regain control of the situation. Unfortunately, using guilt never gives us what we’re really looking for. Instead of building the intimacy we crave, attacking our partner with guilt pulls us apart.
In healthy relationships there is no position of power. Both partners are genuinely interested in the other’s well being and so there is no reason to feel threatened, no fear of attack. Both partners can be open and honest in a safe environment where they are valued and card for.
Getting past guilt
If you find yourself using guilt as a weapon in your relationship, the answer to why you’re doing it is in you, not your partner. Ask yourself why you feel threatened in this relationship. Is there something in the past that you cannot forgive? Is there a good reason for you to be afraid? Do you have trouble trusting people? Do you suffer from low self-esteem? Do you feel that the relationship is moving too quickly? Take some time to get to the root of your fear and ask yourself :
- is this relationship worth it?
- do I really love him/her?
- do I want to be in this relationship?
- what is holding me back?
If your partner is using guilt as a weapon against you, find out why you are allowing yourself to be treated this way. Love isn’t suppose to hurt. It’s not suppose to make you feel small. If you have made a mistake in the past, that doesn’t give your partner the right to punish you for it forever. It may mean that you cannot be together, but better to be alone than to be in an abusive relationship. If you feel that you deserve to be treated this way, I encourage you to seek out a counselor to find out why.
A relationship is only worth being in if both partners are free to be who they are. You cannot love or be loved properly in an environment where guilt is used as a weapon. It cannot last for the long haul. Emotional intimacy doesn’t just happen because you are in a relationship with someone. Intimacy, like trust, has to be built. It takes conscious choices and effort from both partners, but the result is definitely worth it.
Living with hope
If you are looking for peace, there is a way to balance your life. No one can be perfect, or have a perfect life. But every one of us has the opportunity to experience perfect grace through a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:
Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.
Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.
Is this the life for you?
If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.
[...] Colvin in a post entitled Using Guilt as a Weapon describes the list this way, “Using guilt is never an act of love, it is always an act of [...]
Guilt! When one is guilty about something or someone. It can dig eep down into your soul for along time and can fester into something that dose not need to happen. I have felt quitly for someone or something andit take along time to get rid of. I have learned not to feel guilty and live peaceful instead.
There is a great book to get “Love and Respect” it assists one in undersatnding the both sides have to give in order for a love relationship to work..
Rusty,
One of the suggestions I do have for you is to contact a mentor with Truth Media that you can communicate with on a regular basis. One of the problems with life is that we learn what are parents teach us so as in your case she has been taught very well by her family how to use guilt to manipulate you. This occurred with me in a relationship that I broke off a year ago. The strange thing is that I knew that it was occurring however I did not have the strength to fight it as I did not wish to cause conflict. Christ freed me from this and now I have a fulfilled life and can help others from my life experiences.
I am not certain where Christ fits in your relationship with your wife however if you allow him to enter your relationship and through the power of the Holy Spirit you will gain insight that you never knew you had. The pattern has been established for the last 20 years and it won’t quit now because you are aware of it. If you pray and ask Christ to reveal to you how to deal with the issues that you face in your marriage he will show you. If you do nothing things will stay the same as guilt is a tool used to get something that a person wants.
Rusty you are a married man, good on you for lasting this long, every strenght has its weakness, wvery blessing has its sorrow, every marriage has its need for paryer, beer and a sense of humour, carry on in his love…
For 20 years my wife has used guilt as a very effective weapon against me – indeed that is why I married her – I had so much and she had nothing she made me feel so guilty and I fell into her trap. Her father is a master of this tactic and has used it for 60 years to control his wife (my wife’s mother), so my wife has been taught by a hardened professional. Interesting thing is, she doesn’t even know she is doing it. Take our 5 hour trip home from Sydney last night. Just out of Sydney I filled the car with fuel, got back in and headed off, 2 minutes later when we are comfortably on the expressway there was this comment “The trip would have been much better if you had thought to buy me some chocolate” That was the first shot across the bow. The second one came after we got home and she found a small square of old, aged chocolate in the drivers side door pocket – “Oh so you were hiding this chocolate from me, keeping it all for yourself” If I challenge these comments she laughs it off and says she is only teasing me but usually she does make me feel a bit guilty so I try to find something witty and funny to say to defuse the situation – up until now I haven’t been “on the ball” to realise she is testing the water so to speak and leading me into a trap. So back to the trip – an hour after getting home she lets rip and really goes for me because of a comment I made in Sydney about her sleeping in until 11am and then complaining at 2pm just after she had had breakfast “I don’t where the day has gone”.
This secenario has happened so so many times in the last 20 years and it has taken me 20 years to work out what is going on. I have been to 3 counsellors (she would not come) and they have all been useless. I could make a much better consellor – I would simply say to my client “Have a look at your partners family relationships and you will get a good idea of how to get control of the situation”.
From now on I have to keep this though right at the front of my brain “Rusty, she is using guilt to control you, remember that, don’t be sucked in”.
I don’t think my wife consciously does this too me – it is just her way of controlling me for her benefit and Clair Colvin is quite right when she says my wife says she is just being brutally honest, that is exactly what she says – but in fact she is trying to intimidate me and up until last night it has worked. Last night I challenged her when she ripped into me at home and today she is like a stunned fish – I will not let her treat me like this anymore. I am a good husband, I look after her and the children, don’t drink, womanise, abuse her and she needs to appreciate my efforts.