How to Correct and Inform Your Husband

How you correct and/or inform your spouse can enhance your relationships rather than be disruptive or cause conflict. To do this effectively, it is important to be aware that you are an individual as well as a spouse. As a spouse, you are working on the relationship; as an individual, you are establishing yourself as a separate person. Correcting and informing each other as spouses is about enhancing the marital relationship while simultaneously supporting each of you as individuals.

Common examples of times to correct or inform

• When your husband is wrong about something
• When your husband “characterizes” your action
• When you have a different opinion about something important, and your husband does not honor the difference
• When he does not follow through with a commitment

These are examples of situations in which you will want to inform your husband of your views of what he is saying or doing because it has an effect on your relationship. You have the right in your relationship to do this.

People, in general, may react poorly to being corrected or informed. Because of old stereotypes about a wife “informing” or “correcting” her husband, he may react negatively, even hostilely to you. This may happen even if you approach the situation in a straightforward, unchallenging manner. More about how to manage this if it happens later.

The situations

1. Your husband may insist he is right about something that, in fact, he is wrong about. For example, you are talking about a movie you saw together. You are both enjoying the conversation… you both like movies and have a good time reviewing them together. You remember a particularly important scene differently than he does. He insists he is remembering it correctly. Once he insists on his view, the conversation is dead.

2. Your husband “characterizes” something you are doing. To “characterize” an action is different than describing the action, and it is almost always negative. Here's an example. You are at home together having coffee after dinner. You are preoccupied with a difficult situation at work and are not paying attention to him. Suddenly, he says something like, “I can’t believe you are ignoring me! We are supposed to be spending time with each other, and you just don’t care enough to pay attention.”

Your husband is correct in that you were not “paying attention” to what he was saying—this is the description of what you were doing. However, when he said what you did was “ignoring” him, he is “characterizing” what you are doing, not describing. It is likely that he may be thinking, subconsciously, that he is not important enough for you to pay attention to him. The “ignoring” is his feeling that you are not paying attention, not a description.

3. You are both active in a valued organization (e.g., religious, political), and you have a different opinion than your husband about some belief that the organization holds (e.g., who is the best candidate in a local race). He ignores your view and won’t discuss it with you. This is important because both of you value your individual and joint commitment to the organization.

4. Your husband agreed to do the grocery shopping (including creating the list of what needs to be bought) every other week. He forgets to do the shopping, leaving it up to you to realize it hasn’t been done.

How to be straightforward and non-challenging in your approach

These situations are ordinary, everyday activities that make up the “we are in this together” feeling in a marriage. How you address these kinds of situations is important.

Manage your reaction.

In all three situations, you are unhappy, dissatisfied with how your husband is interacting with you. Whether he is insisting he is right when he is wrong, (mis)characterizing your actions, not acknowledging your position, or not living up to his agreed-upon obligations, your first job is not to “react” based on the anger, hurt, or anxiety you may feel.

In intimate relationships, we are prone to get “defensive” or move to protect ourselves emotionally from a perceived injustice. To react will increase the likelihood a conflict between the two of you will happen. It’s a good idea to take the time to reflect on your reactions and calm yourself. No need to “take these situations personally,” i.e., think that he is saying something about you. His actions reflect on him, not on you.

Focus on what happened.

1. In the first situation, he insists that his view is “correct” when there is a disagreement between the two of you.

2. In the second situation, bypass his saying you are “ignoring” him. That’s about his feelings, not your actions. Recognize and acknowledge that, in this instance, you were not listening to what he was saying. You were preoccupied with your own concern.

3. In the third situation, acknowledge that he has a right to disagree with you. What is a problem is that he is unilaterally opting out of a discussion with you about things that are important to you both. The concern you have is that he did this without discussing it with you. He may well not want to talk about an issue on which you strongly disagree, but he should negotiate this with you, not act unilaterally.

4. In the fourth situation, your husband is not doing what he agreed to do, with no explanation. The concern is how and why this is happening. He may wish to renegotiate the arrangement. His job is to engage with you, rather than not do the task.

How to talk to your husband about the event

After you are calm and have identified the issue and can describe, not “characterize,” it, you can approach your husband. You will want to let him know you want to talk about how you both see it. Ask when he can do this. Suggest a time in the not-too-distant future that is usually a time you both are free.

When you begin talking, use the description of the situation. The issue, event, or action that is described is the one that can be negotiated. You can then talk about what’s important to the relationship about the situation. You end with some way to resolve the situation, restoring the break in the relationship.

Here is how this would work in the four situations we are talking about.

1. Describe the impact on the relationship and negotiate. Note that your husband “insisted” upon his position, even though you have offered an opposite one. Then you can talk about the negative impact on the relationship—not talking is harmful to the relationship. Having a disagreement is not. Suggest that you agree on how to manage strongly held differences.

2. Describe, explain, apologize. Start by acknowledging that you were not paying attention when your husband was talking to you. Apologize for the inattentiveness, noting that you are interested in what he has to say. Only after you have described, acknowledged the event, and apologized can you explain (not justify) your distraction, which tells your husband that it was not about him.

3. Describe, honor his position, and continue talking. Begin by acknowledging his right to hold it. Then you suggest negotiating how to continue talking to each other when you have strongly held, different beliefs about situations. You can end by saying that not talking is more harmful to the relationship than having different beliefs.

4. Describe, ask for an explanation, and re-negotiate. After defusing your own reactiveness, describe the situation (he has not followed through on a task he agreed to). Ask him if he is aware of the situation and if there is something about the task that is not working for him. After his explanation, you can suggest a reinstatement of the agreement or a re-negotiation of the task assignment.

Dealing with a resistant husband

While people, in general, may react to being corrected or informed about something, husbands and wives have the responsibility to talk to each other in these kinds of situations. You can neither go on the offense nor withdraw.

You have a difficult situation in your marriage if your husband regularly goes on the offense or withdraws in these kinds of situations. Here is a post on how to talk to a resistant husband, which can help you figure out what to do.

Creating an egalitarian relationship

Remember that you are both individual people as well as being in a marriage as husband and wife. Valuing each other as individuals while also being partners allows both of you to “correct” and “inform” each other of situations and events that risk disrupting the quality of your relationship.