A reader posed a thought provoking question. He asked, “What’s the way to manage an arrogant illiterate partner?”
His question is one of them that I’ve had to read, consider and think about for a while prior to answering. His question is filled with presumptions along with genuine inquiry.
When there are vastly different backgrounds and education levels, the potential for conflict and misunderstandings in your marriage are high. One of the dangers that come with vast differences is for one spouse to consider themselves superior or better than their spouse.
Anytime one of you views yourself as superior to your spouse, communication suffers. Genuine communication happens between equals.
Big differences lead to big communication issues.
Although the phenomena of one spouse being superior to another seems to be more of a marital issue than a concern about affairs, they have much in common. Many cheaters feel superior to their betrayed spouse.
They may view themselves as more enlightened than their betrayed spouse. In such cases, they are hiding their cheating behind their perceived intellectual superiority.
I’ve also encountered spouses who cheated based on them not feeling ‘good enough’ for their spouse. These dynamics set up a series of relationship games developing.
Once game playing gets established as a way of dealing with each other, communication suffers. Games are poor substitutes for communication.
Games leave one person feeling better at the othere’s expense. They give you respectability for being disrespectful.
The bottom line is that vast differences create big communication challenges. Those challenges are solvable problems.
Bridging those differences is possible. One way of doing it is valuing their opinion rather than discrediting it. Using terms like ‘arrogant’ and ‘illiterate’ only make them feel worse about themselves.
Even when vast differences exist, spouses find ways of balancing out communication. What one spouse views as arrogance, may actually be their spouse’s way of balancing out being made to feel inferior.
There are more helps and resources to help your marriage and improve communication after an affair at the support community of Restored Lifestyle.
Best Regards,
Jeff
