CCC 27-1_LR

TRENDING NOW 3. I desire accountability and want to know when my behavior hurts you. While I may not always receive criticism well, I am trying to grow and improve my ability to hear it when it is intended for my/ our good. 4. While I want to know when I hurt you, it is not helpful or suit able to assign motives to my actions or tell me that you know what I am thinking when I do something abusive or hurtful. While you may be right in your assumptions, you do not know what I think or feel, and I wish you would not say so. 5. My emotional abuse, as horrible as it is, does not totally define me. I also possess good qualities and would like to be en couraged for having them, just as you desire acknowledgment and encouragement from me. I ask for the opportunity to be redefined, noting that my character is changing, not fixed. Also, do not lose sight of “doing life together” and growing together, separate from a necessary focus on abuse and healing. 6. While I desire and need accountability, I also need to be af firmed occasionally. Acknowledging when I do something right and being aware of my failures would be helpful in my recovery. Noticing me moving in the right direction will further motivate me to change. 7. Remember that I have feelings, too. When you are accusatory, derogatory, and use shame-based language when communicating with me, it makes it very difficult to hear and empathize with you, and it hurts. When you shame me, the defenses I have used to pro tect myself go into full force. 8. A hurtful action is not necessarily an abusive action. We all do things that are hurtful to others that have no connection to an abusive orientation or belief system. 9. When I do something hurtful, it doesn’t necessarily mean that real change is not taking place in me or I am not on a path to recovery (see #1). Please guard against seeing every misstep as a sign of relapse. 10. It takes two people to make a marriage relationship work, be restored, and be what God intended. If you want our marriage renewed (and you may not), join me in that endeavor. Participate in your own healing as I participate in mine. If you hold me to a standard of perfection before you open up, soften toward me, and participate with me, our marriage is as doomed as if I never owned my abuse or started on the path to recovery. This, then, is what these men want others to know. It is information that can be utilized to build a bridge for the man who is attempting to recover from narcissism and emotional abuse. ;

David Hawkins, M.B.A., M.S.W., M.A., Ph.D., is a Christian clinical psychologist and Director of the Marriage Recovery Center (marriagerecov erycenter.com) in Mill Creek, Washington. He has helped bring healing to thousands of marriages and individuals and is passionate about working with couples in crisis. David is also a speaker and trainer for the AACC and a best-selling author of more than 30 books, including Never Fight Again… Guaranteed! and When Loving Him is Hurting You.

24 Christian Counseling Connection