The Selfish, Irresponsible Spouse
" The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish." John Paul II
Selfishness is one of the major enemies of married love. This personality weakness creates significant pain and suffering in marriages and families. It is a major cause of marital anger, conflict and divorce. Unless it is brought under control, selfishness will lead spouses to treat one another as objects and not as gifted persons.
A study reported in the spring of 2007 revealed the extent of the problem with narcissism in our culture. Dr. Jeane Twenge of San Diego State University reported in a study of almost 17,000 college students that two thirds of them scored high on a measure of narcissism which was an increase of 30% over the past twenty years. Dr. Twenge commented that narcissistic people are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short lived, are at greater risk for infidelity, lack consistent emotional warmth, exhibit game-playing and dishonesty and manifest overly controlling and violent behaviors. These behaviors in young adults are often fostered by a highly prevalent permissive parenting style.
The recognition of the character weakness of selfishness is a struggle for most people. Fortunately, selfishness can be resolved through hard work, growth in a number of virtues or character strengths and the role of faith when appropriate.
Selfishness Checklist
Please answer by identifying the appropriate number which applies to your spouse and to you using this scale on the following selfishness checklist:
0 - Never | 1 - Very Little | 2 - Moderately Often | 3 - Very Often
A score below 30 indicates a low level selfishness; a score of 30 to 60, a moderate level of selfishness and above 60 a high level of selfishness.
Origins of Selfishness
Now please identify possible causes of selfishness from childhood and adult life in your spouse and in yourself.
Childhood
- Failure of parents to correct this weakness
- Overly indulgent parents
- Modeling after a selfish parent or relative
- Modeling after selfish peers
- Failure of parents to set reasonable expectations for a child
- Allowing the child to have his/her way
- Parental overindulgence of children’s athletic activities
- Failure of parents to encourage development of virtues in children
- Enabled by teachers or mental health professionals
Adolescence
- Pride
- Sense of entitlement
- Use of artificial contraceptives
- Immodesty in dress
- Treating others as objects, not as persons
- Disordered priorities
Adult Life
- Compulsive comfort seeking
- Repetition of the narcissistic behavior of a parent
- Modeling after narcissistic friends/peers
- Giving into the culture of narcissism/materialism
- Use of artificial contraceptives
- Acceptance of sexual utilitarian philosophy
- Spouse enables selfishness
- Failure to ask spouse to grow in virtue
- Fear of correcting spouse
- Unwilling to have more than one or two children
Increasing Selfishness in the Culture
A number of book have described the growing selfishness in the present culture. In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch describes how the past provides a framework for judging contemporary behavior as good or bad. The loss of connection to the past & disregard for the future facilitates narcissistic self-indulgence. Robert Bellah in his book, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, (1985) describes how people have come to forget their ancestors and also their descendants, as well as isolating themselves from their contemporaries. Finally, Dr. Paul Vitz in Psychology as Religion: the Cult of Self-Worship,1977 & 1994, identifies the basic anti-Christian significance of cultural narcissism. He comments that the self has become the absolute center of values.
Narcissism results in a sense of psychological entitlement and a preoccupation with one's own rights. This turning inward and self-obsession then leads individuals to overestimate the amount that is owed to them
Also, the recent books Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before, Twenge,J., 2006, and The Price of Privilege:How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, Levine, M., 2006, relate the serious problems associated with selfishness, particularly unhappiness.
Enablers of Selfishness
These include:
- permissive parents
- selfish friends and peers
- parents and coaches pushing excessive time in sports
- self-esteem education
- media/the culture
- materialism and moral relativism
- educators
- university faculties and presidents who enable the hookup culture
- those who fail to form consciences
- loss of the sense of the sacred
- the contraceptive mentality.
Now we will move onto an example of the healing of the conflicts and anger in the selfish spouse from Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope.
The Selfish Spouse
One of the major causes of excessive anger in marriages is the result of narcissistic conflicts in a spouse. These individuals regularly overreact in anger when they cannot have their way or when their partner does not give in to their extreme selfishness.
Charles, a 32-year-old married father of three children and a successful professional, manifested periodic explosive anger in his marital relationship particularly when his needs were not met immediately. Charles was overly demanding, insensitive, self-preoccupied and he had difficulty in giving himself to his wife, Kimberly. As the oldest of two children, he was always his mother's favorite, and according to his wife, he had always been spoiled. In addition, Kimberly believed that her mother-in-law had never accepted her and she found her to be intrusive in the marriage.
In marital therapy it was pointed out to Charles that he manifested a number of narcissistic personality traits that predisposed him to excessive anger. He was highly resistant to therapy and attempted to blame all the marital problems on his wife. It was suggested to him that when he felt extremely angry he should try to act in a more mature and giving manner and to think about forgiving his wife.
Kimberly was an intelligent, giving wife and mother. She was highly committed to making her marriage work. She came to realize that her major emotional conflict was that of being an enabler to her husband’s narcissistic behavior and by doing that, she was damaging their marriage. She embarked on a course of healthy assertiveness with her husband. For a number of months the tensions intensified in their relationship to the point that Charles threatened to divorce her. She viewed this threat as highly manipulative and challenged him to proceed. At the same time Kimberly tried to forgive Charles regularly for all the hurts of the past caused by his narcissistic behavior even before he made a commitment to try to change. She also tried to work at forgiving her mother-in-law in order to protect herself from the damaging effects of her own resentment toward her.
The possibility of divorce created enormous stress and anxiety for Charles and motivated him to work on his narcissistic anger. When angry, he began to employ forgiveness exercises. He came to understand that he had developed strong narcissistic tendencies because of his childhood and adolescent relationship with his mother. He worked at trying to forgive his mother for spoiling him and for depending too much upon him as a source of happiness in her life. He apologized to Kimberly and asked for her forgiveness and trust. Charles' impulsive and explosive behavior diminished slowly through the use of past forgiveness exercises with his mother.
Unfortunately, many narcissistic spouses are reluctant to change and their marriages end. Some individuals would rather give up their spouse and children than give up their self-indulgent behaviors.
How selfishness harms marital/family love:
It can lead to an
- inability to maintain a healthy loving relationship
- a poor marital friendship
- failure to seek the happiness and good for one's spouse
- poor marital communication
- emotional harm to children
- substance abuse or pornography
- unhappiness at holidays, birthdays or special family events
- unwillingness to work on resolving marital difficulties
- lack of faith
- unstable self-esteem
- permissive parenting
- lack of respect for one's spouse
- strong feelings of loneliness and sadness in spouse and children
- mistrust in the family members and leads to anxiety
- weakness in self-giving to a spouse and children
- regular overreactions in anger
- resentment in regard to self-giving to a spouse and children
- excessive love of self to the disdain of spouse and children
- immature behaviors and weak leadership in the family
- a permissive parenting style
- personal comfort as a major goal in life
- infidelity, separation and divorce
- a materialist mentality
- the contraceptive mentality
- withhold children from grandparents.
Internet pornography addiction and selfishness
We have found that in our clinical work the most common cause of internet pornography use in married men is selfishness. Most of these men were overly indulged by one or both parents and have have a long history of comfort seeking behaviors. Many are surprised when their narcissism is identified as their major character conflict which drives their compulsive pornography use.
However, a number of spouses are drawn to internet pornography, not because they were spoiled, but as a result of not receiving enough love and affection in parental relationships when young. While their spouses' love does provide comfort, it cannot make up for a lack of affection in their childhood and in adolescence. This emotional pain can then lead to anger and to selfishness, often arising from a sense of entitlement because they felt cheated when young.
Marital infidelity and selfishness
Narcissism is a leading cause of marital infidelity. Selfishness turns in a spouse so much upon himself or herself that this spouse fails to see and to appreciate the goodness, gifts and beauty in one's spouse. The narcissistic spouse then solely blames the husband and wife for difficulties in the marriage. This thinking often is used to portray oneself as a victim and, then, later to rationalize adultery and divorce. Other common emotional causes of marital infidelity are loneliness, weakness in confidence, excessive career stress with a lack of balance, a controlling spouse, and excessive anger with a desire to punish the spouse.
Selfishness in the early years of marriage
A growing number of young couples are experiencing intense, divisive pressure in their relationship after the birth of their child. One of the most common reasons for this reaction, in addition to the loss of sleep, is that children push a person to the limit in regard to the ability to give. The unlimited self-giving babies require from parents can result in the emergence of selfish personality traits in a parent. Then this person may resent giving, become very irritable and misdirect this anger at a spouse or even the child. Selfishness markedly impairs the ability to accept the sacrificial loving required in raising children and in sustaining a loving marital relationship.
How to help one’s spouse overcome selfishness
The first step is to identify that one’s spouse has been engaging in narcissistic behaviors which is not always readily apparent. Many people state that they knew there were serious conflicts in their marriages but were unable to pinpoint narcissism as the basic conflict until they completed the selfishness checklist on their spouse.
After the conflict is uncovered, the next step is to ask one spouse to make a decision to address this weakness in their personality and to work to overcome it. Some Catholic spouses work at forgiving for the hurts cause by selfishness. They also may spend a great deal of time in prayer for the healing of this weakness before they discuss it The offended spouse should be careful not to enable any selfish behaviors in their partner.
Also a discussion of the long term negative consequences of selfishness can be beneficial in motivating a spouse to work on this personality conflict. These serious difficulties were described earlier in this chaper.
When the selfish spouse is unwilling to change, the other spouse may benefit from taking some of the following steps:
- daily try to understand and to forgive this spouse
- recommend marital therapy with a mental health professional who can identify and develop a treatment program for selfishness rather than enable this character weakness
- correct selfish behaviors
- discourage contact with narcissistic friends
- consult with a lawyer to apply pressure for change
- suggest marital separation if the selfishness is severe and abusive and the spouse is unwilling to change.
Many narcissistic spouses only reluctantly agree to face this major character weakness under the pressure of the threat of divorce. Fortunately, in our clinical experience, the recommendations above often lead to intensive work on the marriage and not to separation.
Recovery from Selfishness
Although many people believe that it is not possible to overcome serious personality weaknesses, research and clinical experience demonstrate excessive selfishness can be overcome.
In 1995 a very encouraging study from the Harvard Medical School was published which demonstrated significant decrease in the overall level of pathological narcissism in the area of interpersonal relations and reactiveness at follow-up with 60% of the subjects no longer reaching the cutoff score for the diagnosis. However, a high level of narcissism in interpersonal relationships was associated with absence of change at follow up. (Ronningstam, E., et al., 1995, Changes in pathological narcissism. Amer. J. Psychiatry 152:253-7.)
In our experience it is possible to overcome this serious character weakness particularly if the person is committed to grow in virtues and can employ faith in the healing process. Pope Benedict has written about the challenge of overcoming selfishness in Jesus of Nazareth. He wrote, "In this world, marked by sin, the gravitational pull of our lives is weighed by the claims of the I and the self. These chains must be broken to free us for a new love that places us in another gravitational field where we can enter new life," Jesus of Nazareth, 2007, pp.193-94, New York: Doubleday.
The Role of Virtues
A daily commitment to try to make one’s spouse and children happy and to be more giving is of great value in breaking the selfish behavioral and thinking patterns in married life.
The selfish spouse can experience significant healing and more fulfillment if a commitment is made daily to engage in the hard work of growing in the following virtues:
- generosity
- responsibility
- temperance
- courtesy
- kindness
- orderliness
- love
- self-denial
- humility
- service to others
- patience
- solidarity
- forgiveness
- meekness
- self-control
- faith.
Recently, I read that many people consider generosity, solidarity, fraternity and other virtues as vices of losers, when instead history shows that in the long run they are virtues of winners.
The Role of Faith
In Character Strength and Virtues (2005) Peterson and Seligman have demonstrated in their factor analytic work that spiritual faith is a major dimension of a healthy character. Also, C. Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist at the Washington University in St. Louis in his research and book, Feeling Good: The Science of Well Being, (2004), has shown that spirituality is an important dimension of character that contributes to well-being. His empirical findings show that character traits that measure faith, hope and charity are all interdependent and synergistic in making a person feel good.
In the early years of marriage a major difficulty today is the difficulty in accepting the daily contradictions and crosses. Many young adults have been overly indulged by their parents which damages their ability to deal with suffering in marital life.
The following aspects of the Catholic faith are beneficial in the serious struggle to overcome the serious personality conflict of selfishness:
- a daily examination of conscience on self-giving and other virtues
- the use of the sacrament of reconciliation
- meditation on becoming more loving and giving like Christ
- reception of the Eucharist for growth in all virtues, especially love
- reading and studying Pope John Paul II’s books, Love and Responsibility and Theology of the Body
- spiritual direction
- prayer for the graces in the sacrament of marriage.
As spouses grow in understanding the sacrament of marriage and make progress in virtues and in their faith, they come to sincerely enjoy giving themselves to their partners and children and find much more fulfillment in their lives. The weakness of selfishness can be resolved, but much patience and fortitude are needed on the healing journey.