When you start seeing behavior you don’t understand, your mind looks for an explanation. This is part of human nature.
When you start seeing strange behaviors from your spouse, you want a way of understanding what’s going on. This is one of the reasons you start searching for answers.
One of the ways some of you are looking for answers is through diagnosis. By finding a diagnosis or label you can put on your spouse, it gives your mind a temporary sigh of relief.
You assume that now you’ve got a diagnosis, that you have an explanation. In some situations it helps, yet if the diagnosis was driven by other issues, it makes the situation worse.
Remember that you are their husband, NOT their doctor. Confusing the two leads to problems.
Take for instance when husbands attempt diagnosing their wives, especially when an affair is involved. This happens pretty often.
It’s not accidental that one of the most searched out posts on my blog concerns mental health issues and diagnosis.
The researcher Louis Cozolino, Ph. D. summed up the problem when he said “When men can’t win an intellectual argument they often resort to diagnosing their wife.”
If you’re a husband who’s using diagnosing to compensate for not winning an argument or relationship problems, you’re fixing the wrong problem. The affair is definitely a signal that your relationship needs attention.
Putting a label on your wife’s behavior is not changing your relationship with them or improving things. You may need help in knowing what to do, what to bring up and how to do it. This is where membership in the Restored Lifestyle site can help.
There you have access to programs and forums where you can share with others going through situations like yours. Getting helpful feedback will help you more than diagnosing your way through the problem.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
