My husband has destroyed me emotionally

Sometimes, it is the seemingly “insignificant” little things that make people lose confidence in the relationship between husband and wife. A reader told us before that his love ended with a piece of furniture being dragged away: He always felt that there was no big problem of principle, until one day he ignored my repeated objections and took a piece of furniture from me without my approval. Beloved furniture was hauled away from the home.

This reminds me of an interview I saw with psychotherapist Esther Perel. She made a point that impressed me deeply: in an intimate relationship, not only “cheating” is betrayal: ignoring the needs of the other party, Broken promises, emotional and physical violence…it could all be betrayal. Cheating is just one form of hurting your partner.

Something happened in the relationship that completely changed your trust in this person and destroyed your past understanding of the relationship. Although it did not cause physical harm, it destroyed you emotionally and made you feel “my husband has destroyed me emotionally”. The emotional damage is more heart-wrenching than yelling. If this has happened to you, you may have experienced an attachment injury.

What is attachment injury?

Attachment injury refers to the feeling of abandonment and betrayal felt by an individual in an intimate relationship at a critical moment when they need support, making you feel like “my husband has destroyed me emotionally.” For example, cheating is the most obvious form of betrayal. In addition to infidelity, attachment damage can manifest in many ways:

When one party is seriously ill or the family encounters a major change, he does not receive support and care from his partner; for example, during special periods such as pregnancy and miscarriage, he does not feel his partner’s care and attention. The most classic example is cold violence.
It can even be something trivial in the eyes of others: for example, you didn’t get a hug when you needed it, or the other person worked overtime on your wedding anniversary and didn’t make a single call.

How to define attachment injury?

Aase analysis

Some people may ask: cheating is also an attachment injury, and not hugging is also an attachment injury. How is this injury defined? So if you are busy at work and forget to call your girlfriend good night, is that cheating on her? Or does it mean that as long as a girl says “my husband has destroyed me emotionally”, her attachment has been hurt? This feels a bit difficult to understand. Let’s first look at a few “attachment injury” scenarios that occur in family therapy cases:

Case 1: The wife who was not photographed in the family photo

When the wife was taking a family photo with her husband’s family, she was accidentally left out. This greatly changed her perception of the relationship between husband and wife, and she felt that she was unimportant in the eyes of the other party. Because she had just immigrated to this new country and knew no one except her husband.

Case 2: The hug you didn’t get

A couple came for counseling. The husband complained that his wife did not accompany him to participate in activities. When he asked for a hug from his wife with the encouragement of the counselor, the wife exploded and told an incident 16 years ago: It was a winter afternoon. He came back from work and saw that she was sick, depressed and had three children to take care of. She asked him to hold her for a while, but the husband went out and made long phone calls, which undoubtedly caused serious emotional harm to his wife. It was at that moment that the wife swore in her heart that she would never seek comfort from him again.

Case 3: Abortion incident

When Lisa had the miscarriage, she was alone in the bathroom, surrounded by blood. At this time, her husband Bob came in. She really wished that he could squat down, hold her, comfort her and take care of her. Don’t call anyone else, just the two of them together. But Bob looked cold and he walked out to make a phone call and asked his sister to take them to the hospital. When she cried, he would walk out of the room. Even though her sister and husband were by her side, she felt like she could only get through this loss of her son on her own. It was an intense fear of abandonment.

Summarize

You will find that in these cases of attachment injury, “what happened” is not important, but “what the person feels” is important. Except for the person involved, no one can judge whether a specific behavior is “attachment injury.” Besides the person involved, no one can tell how much damage “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” means.

Feelings are the greatest reality. There is no need to compare pain, and there is no right or wrong in relationships. When you feel that your needs are ignored in an intimate relationship where you expected to be highly supportive, when you experience abandonment and isolation in a relationship where you were expected to have a high level of security. It feels like “attachment damage” has already occurred, that is, “my husband has destroyed me emotionally”.

What does attachment injury do to a relationship?

Yes, attachment injury is likely to be an unintentional mistake by the other party, but it will bring real harm to the parties and the relationship. Here are the possible impacts:

Impact on individuals

A subversive change in the relationship between husband and wife

A deep attachment relationship is a relationship of high trust. When we decide to enter and maintain a relationship, we all have the belief that that person will be there when I need him or her. When an attachment injury occurs, this belief is broken, which means that the core belief that sustains your bond is destroyed.

You will begin to refuse to trust and show vulnerability to the other person; you will feel miserable when you need to trust or rely on your partner. As the saying goes: The saddest thing is not that you lied to me, but that I can no longer trust you. And when others realize your change and ask you why, you will say “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” without hesitation.

Doubt self-worth

Because the shattering of past beliefs is too painful, a person often looks inward for the reason, and therefore doubts his or her self-worth: Am I not worthy of being loved?

Mental illness

Between 30% and 60% of people who experience attachment trauma develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. Injured partners may experience symptoms characteristic of PTSD such as flashbacks of images and feelings, intrusive memories, avoidance and numbing, overthinking, and excessive defensiveness.

Opportunities for self-growth

A study conducted in-depth interviews with four women who had suffered attachment injuries and found that attachment injury incidents may also be an opportunity for self-awareness: for example, realizing one’s unequal contributions in relationships, and building outwards can more nourish oneself. Relationship. This should be the best outcome in the “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” type of incident. They were strong and did not fall into the whirlpool of pain.

Impact on relationships

Both parties in the relationship will be unwilling to have too much emotional investment, communication will not be carried out, conflicts will intensify, and it will be even more difficult to return to a state of trust and intimacy. Emotionally focused therapy points out that after encountering attachment injury, the relationship can easily enter a negative interaction mode of “one party chasing and the other fleeing”: the injured party will often mention this incident to express accusations, and the other party will enter a defensive posture and not respond positively.

The way two people deal with attachment injuries directly affects the direction in which the relationship will develop. If the negative cycle continues to develop, the trust and attachment relationship will become increasingly impossible to repair.

How to repair attachment injury?

Emotionally focused therapy is a method proven to be effective in resolving attachment trauma issues, and studies have found that couples who come through EFT mostly gain a deeper experience of intimacy.

If you’re feeling “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” but haven’t yet received couples therapy, these tips may be able to help you in your life. According to Emotionally Focused Therapy, couples in counseling go through 8 steps:

The injured party recounts the attachment injury event in a highly emotional way, and attacks and accusations are likely to occur. For example, in the case above, the wife suddenly exploded when her husband wanted to hug her.
The accused party will go into defensive mode: denying the incident, denying the severity of the incident, or simply refusing to discuss it.
The injured party began to move from simply venting emotions to a more calm stage, and began to get along with or talk to emotions, telling that he felt “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” and seeing the unmet needs behind the emotions.
The accused party begins to listen and understand what the incident means to the other party.
The injured party began to try: instead of blaming, he said that the incident had brought him “my husband has destroyed me emotionally” and exposed his vulnerability to the other party.
The injured party will feel sympathy, regret, regret, admit the harm he has caused to the other party, and affirm the other party’s feelings.
The injured partner again tries to trust and rely on the other person: for example, expressing his or her desire to be comforted and cared for.
The injured party immediately gives the other party the response it needs to repair the injury incident.

In this process, 3 and 5 are regarded as key stages to promote repair. In consultation, the changes that occur in this process are called “softening”: you can understand it as the injured partner begins to step out of the hard emotional shell and touch Hit the vulnerable part of yourself underneath the shell. And willing to expose the vulnerability of “my husband has destroyed me emotionally”.

Last share

Share a quote from psychotherapist Esther Perel:

Can trust be rebuilt after hurt? Yes.

Restored trust is not the same as the original trust. That may be a more mature form of trust rather than unconditional trust. It is rooted in reality. It means that we once again have the ability to tolerate the unknown, to live with what we will never know, based on understanding each other.

Gemstone Glory