Why You Might Enjoy your Partner's Suffering

In this episode, Kate & Eric reveal powerful insights on handling marital frustrations before they turn toxic.

Topics:
➡️ Accepting minor annoyances as part of married life
➡️ Addressing irritations openly to prevent hidden resentment
➡️ Choosing empathy and collaboration to strengthen connection

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TRANSCRIPT:

Eric MacDougall
Marriage, especially long term marriages, we're going to do things that really piss off, right? If you had to put a number on it, how often per week would you say, I piss you off this or do something that like,

Kate MacDougall
so how much time this week? Like, 1000 times, okay, 1000 times an hour? Yeah, no, no, no, but I do get angry at you. I would say, I would say, on average, maybe once a week, maybe twice, yeah, like, like, actually get angry about something, pissed

Eric MacDougall
off, but yeah, something I'm doing. You've been telling me for 20 years and not do and yeah,

Kate MacDougall
stop. Stop cleaning your nails with your teeth Exactly. Stop chewing so fast.

Eric MacDougall
From my end, I have these things too, right? And so this is part of being in a relationship. I'm not gonna tell you exactly the fact that I but what I really want to do is normalize this idea. Because I think that some people think that, like marriage is like, there's

Kate MacDougall
never any problems. I have to accept them for everything. My partner

Eric MacDougall
doesn't annoy me. I've accept, you know, I love everything about them. And sure, yeah, you And sure, yeah, you love everything about

Kate MacDougall
them, and sometimes things are cute, yeah? And

Eric MacDougall
you know, it's totally okay that sometimes your partner does something that bothers you a lot, and then you get to decide how you want to deal with that, right? Some couples, you know, some individuals criticize their partner constantly. They shame or guilt them, and they're changing. They get angry at them and yell in their face. Try to get them to change. We all have crazy ways to try to change our partner in order to make our experience of the marriage better. Is that fair to say? Cool listener. I'm sure everybody's following very, very simple. So what I want to say here is that you have options here when you're pissed off about something. So first of all, because we're getting to the point here, but, like, I need to walk people through this, because we're talking about normal relationships here, and then getting to a point where it's actually very unhealthy. Yeah, we get to this place no longer, yeah. And so it's normal that your partner does something, or you do something that pisses each other off, and then you can talk about it. And there are things that I'm sure Kate will do forever, which she's done for 20 years. It pissed me off, and I've accepted that she'll probably never change that, right? One of the things that Kate does, if I can say it, you constantly complain that your nails are too short and you hate your nails, yet you are like a machine at biting your nails. Like, that's just the thing. So when you have, like, your fingers in your mouth, and I'm seeing like, wow, she's gonna complain about her nails tomorrow, to my face, I've just accepted that that's thing you do, right? You complain that your nails are too short stopped. So anyways, so that's just something I and remember I used to try to get into it. I like, I'll put some gloves and I'll do some tape, and what did this, and blah, blah, blah, now I'm just like this. Just think she does accept it. Move on, right? Just like you. And the chocolate, when I buy candy, I have to tell Eric not to eat it, because if I don't, that stuff's going to disappear, right? Yeah. So that is normal and okay, if that starts to build up too much. So if you're in a relationship where there's too much of that stuff, you have to open up and talk about it, right? So if I was doing, you know, if it was happening, like, 10 times a week or 20 times a week where I was doing something and it pissed Kate off, and she was, like, holding all this in and didn't talk to me about it, or she was constantly guilting and shaming me to try to change these are unhealthy relational dynamics. Okay, so first of all, if there's a couple things, you get to decide, do I want to bring this up or don't want to accept them as they are, you know, etc, that if there's like, one thing or two things, that's fine. If it's 10 times a week, you should probably be talking about it, opening up, and working together to say, hey, this isn't this is impacting my experience of our relationship and of life, right? Times

Kate MacDougall
a week or 10 different things, 10 different things. Yeah, okay, 10 different things, right? Yeah. So

Eric MacDougall
if it's like, your partner is criticizing I bite my nails every day, yeah? But that's what I mean, but, but it's actually not the biting the nails, it's a problem. It's the then complaining, complaining about it, about biting your nail, and then, like, I don't really know how to engage with that, so I just kind of accept it. That's the thing you do. You know, you do. Now. You can plan to buy your nails. I'm like, Yeah, that's cool. That sucks. Yeah, that's too bad. That's it. You just keep going. So if it's 10 different things, you should probably be talking about it. Okay, now we're getting into the meat of the episode, right? Because if you do not talk to your partner about all the things that are bothering you in a long term relationship, when you get emotionally enmeshed, you're going to start resenting your partner, and that resentment is going to build right and over time, it's going to build so much that you're going to experience something which call and this is Dr schnarch. It's not my work, but he calls it normal marital sadism. And what that means is you will find ways to cause suffering to your partner in order to relieve some of the anger that you have in some way, because you watching them suffer will give you pleasure. And listen, I know everybody's like, I don't do that. You'd be surprised how much we do that, right? If you think about ways you withhold love, if you think about ways that you piss your partner off on purpose, if you think about ways that you probably sabotage ways to connect like there's plenty of ways that we do it, some of them you might not even be aware. Yeah, okay, it's really important in that moment when there's normal marital sadism, that you open up and talk about it because experiencing pleasure from your partner's suffering is very dangerous for a relational dynamic, okay? And we see this a lot. So think about a partner who is withholding love and affection and enjoys that their partner is suffering, continuously trying to get it right. And it's not even like a, like, a, oh, this is so great. And look at you late, like you're not outwardly doing it, but inside you're like, yeah, that hits the net. That hits in her. I like this. It's like hitting the itch that you want to hit. Yeah, right? Because you have all this stored up anger and resentment towards this person, and therefore, like, you want to see them suffer in order to create this sense of fairness, it's like I've been suffering for so long. You have done all these things which I'm not refused to talk about or bring up because I'm conflict avoidant or whatever reason. And therefore I'm going to actively create suffering in your life, right? And I'm not going to tell you about it. It's going to be really covert, right? And so when you get to this place. It's really important that you ask yourself, right? Is this how I want to be showing up as a partner? Right? Do you want to hold on to this resentment? Do you want to continue to create suffering in your relationship? Is this something you want to do forever you as a person? Maybe who is receiving, right, all these things, maybe your partner is being critical or withholding love are constantly berating you, right? You need to ask yourself as well, like, Hey, do I want to continue being in this cycle where this my partner is actively creating pain and unwilling to own up to it?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, I would, would you say it's like, I know this is like, such a coin phrase now in every. Everybody's using it, but, like, gaslighting, right? Like, would that be a form of it? Like,

Eric MacDougall
yeah, so people who gaslight, some of them, aren't even aware of it. So that's really important to understand, is that sometimes people, like, you know, like I said, gaslight, and they're not aware of it there, and people who are gaslighting are doing it to as a form of self protection, right? So they're essentially gaslighting you in order to try to manipulate you to for either you to stay or to do what they want you to do, etc. So it's actually gaslighting has a lot to do with control and controlling a narrative in conversation and in a relationship. What I'm talking about here is like, so this is like, a great example, and I know we always compare it to this, but it's like, but it's like, kids do it, right? So you see kids do it sometimes, and as adults, you can see it because you're adults, and you can mind map your kids because you were a kid, and you kind of know how their mind works, because it's not really that complex. But like, when you see one kid do the other kid and, like, actively do something that's pissing them off, and then you're like, you're and then you're like, hey, you're actively pissing your sister off. You know, I think my son is like a black belt and pissing off his sister. So when I tell him, I'm like, hey, I can see that you're actively pissing your sister off. And then he's like, No, I'm not. I'm just like, being myself. That's an example of, like, sadism in a family of like, you know, I'm unwilling to admit what I'm doing, but I'm doing it. I actually get a bit of joy in her suffering, right? So if it wasn't pissing her, like his sister off, in this case, he would probably stop doing it, right? But because it's pissing his sister off, he's enjoying it. Because it's like reciprocity, right? It's like eye for an eye. He's creating this system of relating where, like, maybe he's a jealous sister doesn't like what's going on, etc, and so therefore causing her pain is like, oh yeah. Now the you like that, you like that. Playing field's kind of even, and so it's very easy to see as kids. But like, when we get into adult relationships, adults do this, like friends do this to each other. Like people are constantly doing this to each other, and when you're doing it in a marriage, it's something that has to be faced, because it's going to eat away at the marriage.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, I can imagine being the receiving on the receiving end of it, and and, you know, like suffering, not feeling good about something, and instead of my partner kind of being empathetic about it, or whatever, like, not that they would outwardly show like, moo, ha, ha ha, Like, but it's very like, they seem to not care, because, like, you could be hurt. Like, Oh shoot. You know, I, you know I missed, I'm I missed my hockey game again because you were late again. Like, and deep down inside, you're like, Yeah, damn right, I was late and you miss your hockey game. Like, do I care? Nope. They're like, Good, yeah, I'm

Eric MacDougall
glad you missed your hockey game. But

Kate MacDougall
then, like, your and your spouse is kind of like, well, like this sucks. Like this keeps happening. And like, you know, and it seems like you don't care about me going to my hockey game, like you don't care about me being part of this league or whatever, you know, like that would be like, a very obvious to me, like, as receiving partner would be like, ouch, like that you you're not showing me. You're not outwardly showing me, or being like, I don't care, but it's like the fact that you're not showing up when I'm asking you to show up, that hurts.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And then what often happens in these situations is when a partner expresses themselves and says that hurt, the other partner will kind of play coy and, like, justify why they were late and that it wasn't, oh, like, it's just, you know, the kids were at home. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, I had to, like, make sure to feed them and blah, blah, blah. And so they constantly create this narrative where the gas light comes in, yeah, or exactly, well,

Kate MacDougall
if you didn't, if you didn't, if you were home helping me more often, maybe you'd be at the league earlier, or whatever, like, yeah, like, maybe

Eric MacDougall
if you would have cleaned up the dishes, I wouldn't have to do it, because that's what made me late. Yeah, right, yeah. And so you create this system where, like, nothing really ever gets solved, and people are constantly giving each other these, like, jabs, yeah, right, yeah.

Kate MacDougall
It creates, I would imagine, it creates this very uncomfortable. Like, you know, because you get married, right? You get married with a person thinking, like, we're gonna be a team. We're gonna go through life together, hand in hand, like, I got your back, you got mine. Like, if there's anybody in this world that I can count on to have my back, it's you, and all of a sudden you're in this relationship with somebody who's, like, almost abusing of that power, like abusing of the fact that, like, you got their back and like, using you as this, like invisible safety net, and it's like you're just, I don't know, yeah, I can imagine that That must be like, a very hurtful thing for Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
and I think that, you know, there's two parts to this which is really, really important to accept, because both partners have responsibility of the dynamic. And so one of the things that I you know from both sides here, one of the things that I noticed is, first of all, if the partner who's doing this, who you know, feels so. Much like anger, like to the not rage, because that's often outwardly but like so much resentment, like anger and bitterness and hatred and contempt, right? Sure, yeah, like hatred to their other partner that they're actively trying to cause them harm and and, like, not in in like, very covert ways, right? So like you said, they're doing these things like that. Are just going to hurt them, and then they pretend like they're not doing it. So oftentimes it's very hard to get that partner to acknowledge the pain they're causing. And so I have found that that doesn't really work. Oftentimes, what happens is, you know, approaching the partner who's experiencing the pain and differentiating themselves. Because what can happen as well as they get into the dynamic where they think, if they do everything right, eventually they'll get what they want from their partner. So it's like, oh, like, you know? It's like, Well, you were late. And it's like, well, if you just did the dishes after dinner, I wouldn't be late tonight. So then that partner who wants to the partner to be on time, now they're going to do the dishes every night, and that doesn't work, right? So then that, then that, then it's like, still late. And next time, they're like, Yeah, well, I was just, you know, the kids weren't ready, and they, yeah, they had to brush your teeth, and you didn't help me with that. So now, like, the partner, who's anxious, who, like, wants the love, wants the cookie, wants the like, to be accepted, they're gonna, like, make sure their kids have all their teeth brushed at night and everything. And this is a dynamic that keeps playing out. It's like, well, if only you blah, blah, blah. And now the partner goes and does it, and does it, and it's just like, another thing and another thing, and another thing, another thing. So oftentimes, you know, the work is to tell the partner, who's maybe feeling some of this pain and the suffering from their partner, to say, like, hey, like, you need to, like, create these parameters for yourself, to take care of yourself and have very healthy boundaries, and say, Hey, like, based on the agreement, you said you would be here at this time, and you're not. And so if I can't count on you, I'm going to find alternate ways to get rides, right? But they have to be able to stand on their own two feet to do that. The problem is, in a lot of situations, is like they're so enmeshed with each other that the partner is actually part of what makes it work. It's like what we talked about earlier with the kids, if, if our daughter, Elodie, just didn't care when Francis was like, they're like, Yeah, I could keep fucking trying to, you know, hurt me, and say mean things, or dance or breathe that way. I'm cool. Just go take care of myself. Well, then now the partner loses their power. So in this case, our son, Francis, would lose his

Kate MacDougall
power. Yeah. And that's often something you say, like, that's something we'll often say to our kids, is, like, if you just ignore him. He will stop. If you don't give attention to this behavior that he's purposefully doing to try to piss you off, it will stop. So if you're not feeding into your spouse's, you know, hatred for you and the the mean actions they might be doing, it will it will stop. They'll get bored, like,

Eric MacDougall
yeah, and this is where, like, Yeah, I know we're kind of getting a deep end here, but this is where, like, in these scenarios, oftentimes you want the partner be able to stand up for themselves, to have boundaries, to be dependent on themselves, so then they can actually question whether or not they want to continue to be in this abusive relationship. Because it does get to a point where one partner is like, I've kind of had enough of, like, just being hurt. And you telling me it's all my fault all the time. Are you not taking ownership for the pain you're causing me and not apologizing? Right? Because even if you don't have intent, like, you are causing me pain, and when I tell you you're causing me pain, you don't acknowledge you know that you're that you have a responsibility here based on your action that you took. Oftentimes, like, Oh, I didn't mean to do that. And it's like, okay, that doesn't matter, yeah, what your intention was? The reality is, you hurt me. You know, do you take responsibility for the pain you caused? And if the partner is only going to do that, then the partner can say, Well, okay, it's not working for me anymore. And then the partner who's been abusive has a decision to make, which is, do I want to change, or do I remain the same and potentially lose, you know, my marriage, my family, like all that kind of

Kate MacDougall
stuff, yeah, and I think it's so important to obviously not get to this point. But if you do find yourself that you are at the point where, Hey, maybe I am doing this to my spouse, and maybe i i am so angry at my spouse that I would rather hurt him than actually talk to him. It might be important to, you know, sit back and think about, like, what is it that I'm so angry about, and how can I communicate this with my spouse? You know, like, because oftentimes what happens is, this is repressed behavior. This is something that you have been holding back for so long, not talking about, and it's accumulated, and other things have added on, and that accumulated and accumulated to the point where now you're like, at your wits end, that if I was to tell you right now, like, Why do you hate your spouse so much, you couldn't even tell me, yeah, they don't even know, because it's just, it's been too long, like a normal state now it's my normal state. I don't like him. They're they're not there. There's nothing I like about them anymore, because you're so stuck on all of these things you've built up to get to this point and then collecting evidence of it. Yeah, exactly. So you know, if you find. Find yourself in that spot where you you do feel this, like, deep hatred for your spouse. It's very important for you to, like, take a step back and what is it that I'm angry about? You know, where did this start? You know, what are things and not surface things? You know, the fact that he bites his nails or chews too loud at the dinner table or eats too much chocolate, whatever like it's there's something deeper than that. There's something deeper than the biting the nails. And it's exactly like Eric said, It's not the fact that I bite my nails that bugs him, it's the fact that I complain about it and do absolutely nothing about it and then keep complaining about it, that can go even deeper with being like, Well, can I trust, you know, the things that Kate says when she says she's going to do something and she doesn't follow through on it, and she's, you know, having trouble keeping up with that. Can I trust that the things she's saying to me are true? And if this is like, you know, this is one behavior I have, but if this is like an accumulated kind of stuff, then it's like, oh, the problem is I can't trust him. The problem is I can't trust my spouse, and all of these things have led to that. And now I I'm so deep into this anger of like me not being able to trust him that it like I'm willing to hurt him.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And I think what we want all the listeners to be thinking about, you know, as you're going into your week, is be really proactive about this, right? Because, because we did near the end of the episode talk about, like, what happens when you're like, deep in the trenches here, but in the beginning, we talked about these simple ways, first of all, like, accept that sometimes your partner's gonna piss you off and you're gonna piss them off. That's kind of a reality, right? You gotta accept that. That's what happens when you do life together. We live in the same home, our lives are enmeshed. We count on each other all that stuff, and

Kate MacDougall
it's okay for you to mention here, I don't like it when you eat all the chocolate. I don't like that, yeah, and it's fine for me to mention it the way you mention it is important for you know, there's no need to shame or guilt or whatever. Just like you ate the chocolate bars that made me mad. I bought those for the neighborhood. Please don't eat those. And like,

Eric MacDougall
from my end, right? Acknowledging that you're angry about that you're like, yeah, it makes perfect sense that you're mad. You You know, if you wanted to keep those for the kids and I went in there and ate them, I could easily said, well, there was no earth. It was blah, blah, blah, and this and that I'm like, No, I acknowledge your anger, and that's okay that you're angry, right? So that's kind of the one thing is to accept that sometimes it's pretty normal to have these little, you know, things, and you can clear them right now, if they starting to build up, you really want to start working the skill of, you know, clearing some of this resentment and bringing some of these things to completion, right? Which is, like, if it's this ongoing thing that's bothering you, talk about it and see if you can collaborate together to kind of help, right? It's like, what you're saying, like, it's like, if you know, be as simple as saying, hey, like, if you would have told me, like, not to eat any of those, and I totally would have been cool with that. And I guess now that I know that you know, when you're buying these things, maybe next time I'll ask and say, Hey, can I dive into some of those? Right? That would be very simple in terms of us collaborating together, where Kate could say, Please don't eat these. And I could say, Hey, before I dive into this, Is it cool if I have a few, right? And as you can see now, we're creating a collaboration where we both feel seen and understood, and we prevent this problem from having in the future. So that is kind of the step for you guys to take and be proactive with it. You know, after this in this episode, be like, hey, is there anything that I need to clear there's anything that I have on my heart, right, that I need to maybe open up and share with my partner in terms of something that I have been experiencing, or is there something maybe that's been bothering me that I can just let go of and say, Hey, I'm actually just gonna release this like I'm tired of being angry at my partner, so instead today of just being angry and critical, I'm going to go and I'm going to choose love, and I'm going to be open and loving and kind and share some gratitude. And so think about what you can do proactively to prevent yourself from getting to a place where you have, you know, showed and flattened from your for your partner, which is like experiencing joy in their suffering, right? Which, you know happens sometimes, but you don't want to be getting at the place with your partner in your marriage.