Your Spouse is Your Mirror

A therapist that I greatly respect uses this phrase. Your spouse is a mirror of you. In other words, they are a reflection of your personality, your behaviors, all of these things, because they know you the best of any individual on this earth, especially if you've been married for a long time. And they are going to reflect back your personality, your behaviors, your habits, your quirks, because they are going to be the most directly affected by anything or anybody in your life by who you are at the core.

I'm doctor Carrie Manke, and I am a creator at Cadre. I'm also a trauma and relationship life coach. And I've just found this concept very inspiring because now that I'm married, I'm getting to see what this really means. And I'll give you a story, an example of this. We were unpacking the garage. We just moved, and it was a disaster. I am a very strategist minded person, so I've gotten my head of, like, we're going to create a pile for giveaway, a pile for sell, a pile for keep, a pile for your junk that we don't know what to do with.

Like, I've just kind of got this whole plan that I want to take into the garage about how we're going to go at it. And my husband, it looks at it and goes, I'm overwhelmed. I'm going to take one box, go in the house, and start looking through it. And so we had a day of miscommunication where this happened, and all of a sudden, he was just missing for, like, an hour while I'm out there sweating in this heat, trying to reorganize and lift things that are super heavy. So we were like, okay, so that didn't go so well.

So the next day, we'll tackle this again, because we didn't really make any, like, accomplishments with the garage. It was still a disaster, in my opinion. And so the next day, all of a sudden, he takes a box and he heads into the house, and I'm like, I can't lift of these things. I need your help. Like, this is a two person job right now. And he comes out and he gets kind of, like, grumpy and defeated and doesn't really talk and kind of, like, withdraws and shuts down. And after about an hour, I'm starting to really realize, like, the effects of how demanding I was sounding.

And I, we got the whole thing done, and he's like, wow, this looks really good. I wouldn't even know where to begin. But afterwards, I was so riddled with shame about how I treated him, that I was now shut down. And this wasn't helping any of us because I'm like, oh, my gosh, I was so nasty. I was so demanding. I immediately told him, like, you're not allowed to do this. You're supposed to be doing this. Like I'm parenting him or something. And he obviously shut down. So he was the mirror in that moment of like, Carrie, you're being really harsh and you're being demanding, and I'm coming from a place of, I actually want to prevent what happened yesterday.

So we don't have the same argument. So anyway, we had a different disagreement the next day. Nothing earth shattering. But once he finally kind of came out of his shell and said, like, are you okay? Like, you. You're really quiet and shut down, I realized I not only was looking at him as the mirror of how I treated him, but I went to a place that was really unhealthy, too, because I didn't allow the conversation to happen of like, you know what? I'm sorry. That was really demanding the way I said that, can we start over?

And so I just want to encourage you that if you are in any relationship, especially a marriage, especially one that's gone on a long time, nip these things in the bud quickly. Know what your go to is? My go to is to go to shame when I know that I've done something wrong instead of apologizing right up front. And my husband's go to is to apologize right up front, but also kind of withdraw and shut down. And so then we end up both trying, trying and shutting down. But I just want to encourage you that this is normal.

This is normal marriage stuff, especially when you're navigating a move and you've got all these things and all this task to do, but talk about it. Recognize those things in yourself and look at your spouse as the mirror. Know what their behaviors are that indicate that maybe you went too far or that maybe you've done something that's hurt their feelings and then take that ownership of it. That's my best piece of wisdom, advice from that experience we had. And I know we're going to have many more like this, but just use that opportunity of your spouse being your mirror as a good thing to reflect on how you can show up even better, because that's really, at the end of the day, what we both decided is, like, he got overwhelmed and kind of shut down and went away and didn't help.

And I got kind of abrasive and blunt and demanding. And so both of us basically didn't handle it very well and went to like, our unhealthiness. But when we were able to talk about it, we realized that when you start acting like this, then I do this. When you start acting like this, I do this. And to use that mere opportunity of looking at how your spouse is acting as your opportunity to say, you know what? I probably should take a step back and reflect and ask them, what did I do if I'm not sure or apologize in that moment?

So I hope this is helpful for you guys. God bless.