Not long ago I read a study that suggested that contempt was the number one cause of break ups and divorce. It seemed like a pretty sound study.
Contempt is defined as “the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.” Kind of interesting, contempt is not so much about your actions, but rather, your feelings. Most spouses can read your feelings, your motivation, your intent. You may go through all the right motions, but if your heart is feeling contemptuous, often that can be felt in a relationship, no matter how well you disguise it.
Over time it starts to build up until you finally reach the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Contempt kills relationships.
I think a lot of people don’t recognize contempt for what it is. I’ve watched men withdraw or walk away because they are the one who is “right,” who is being “rational.” That’s actually a form of contempt. A lot of women complain about that to me. Many men will shut down for a variety of reasons, but to women that usually just reads as contempt. It’s like saying “you are simply not worthy of my time or my emotional investment.” Sometimes it’s good to walk away and pick things up later, but when that’s all someone ever does, it feels like contempt.
Women can be real pros at contempt, too. It’s a more passive/aggressive way of fighting back, so we’ve refined it. Our culture also tends to support contempt towards men. It’s almost expected that women in casual conversation will roll their eyes and express some sort of disdain for men in general. TV sitcoms, commercials, advertising, all really support this subtle kind of contempt towards men. It’s an insidious thing, because men tend to want to accommodate women, so as to avoid our contempt. That’s just biology at play. When women are tossing around contempt as a matter of routine, men have no idea what we want anymore.
I have to laugh here and offer another rather disgusting animal allegory, but henpecked is a real things in the world. That is a cliche that generally refers to men who are constantly being nagged and subjected to women’s contempt. In the chicken world however, it’s really graphic and appalling.
I love roosters, they’re pretty, they crow in the morning. I went through three of them before I finally gave up. Hens that are not happy with a rooster will peck him and usually there’s a few dozen of them and only one of him. Everyday each hen will give him a peck until he finally just loses so much blood, he keels over. Death by a thousand pecks. If you don’t rescue him quickly, he’ll be reduced to chicken nuggets in no time.
Needless to say, the rooster is not entirely innocent. He is going about the business of being a rooster, which I’m sure is rather annoying to the hens, but I’m still not convinced it warrants the death penalty.
Relationships are hard. Love can be really challenging because it asks you to remain open and vulnerable to somebody who has the ability to hurt you. Most of us want to pull away in that situation and protect ourselves with bits of contempt.
I see contempt in couples everywhere I go, in the grocery store, at the park, in social situations, and I always think of those chickens. Death by a thousand pecks.
weight2lose2013 said:
I think it’s about predetermined roles within the family. Who is the hen and who is the rooster. We’re expected to crow in the morning then lay our eggs. βIt reminds me of that old joke- you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, hey doc, my brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a chicken. Then the doc says, why don’t you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. I guess that’s how I feel about relationships. They’re totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs.β – Woody Allen
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! Good one! Everything we ever need to know about love and romance we can just learn from chickens π
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weight2lose2013 said:
Who could’ve known! Like the last scene in 2001 – A space Odyssey. Instead of the human embryo, It’s really a chicken.
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Wally Fry said:
My Father in Law keeps chickens…loves the fresh eggs. Weird, chickens are. Part of what they eat is vegetables and stuff, scraps from supper. Even if the scraps are…chicken. Not really related to the subject I think…but y’all started it.
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Eric said:
Cato, the Roman Senator once said: ‘We Roman men rule the world and Roman women rule us.’
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Purpleanais said:
This is so true: contempt is the number one killer of many a relationship. The problem is that it’s insidious, and very often you don’t realise until months or even years later that contempt has found its way into your relationship….
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insanitybytes22 said:
That is so true, Contempt can be a really sneaky thing. I have to check the condition of my own heart frequently because it can be so subtle I don’t even notice it.
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entropy said:
There is a lot to be said about this post. First of all, it still remains a mystery to me why most women don’t seem to see when men are being unreasonable to them. Then, about the contempt part from the woman’s side, I never really thought of it that way, but it may be the total explanation why I don’t come near women in real life. Women seem to take pride also, in being totally irrational and contradictory toward men. Finally, the rooster and chicken part, I don’t know what to say. But I generally don’t approve of stoning a living being to death π
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insanitybytes22 said:
Love is a mystery and men and women are a mystery, but often a delightful one. π
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fantasticbetty2014 said:
Thank you for shining the light on this very subtle and destructive tendency we all have…the rooster and hen analogy really made a good visual!
Grateful that God can transform my thinking and actions by changing my heart!
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insanitybytes22 said:
Oh, amen to that! God is good π
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amommasview said:
Now I am not sure if I should laugh or feel sorry for the poor rooster… Great post. Thanks for sharing this information and your thoughts. Definitely though provoking.
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Malcolm Greenhill said:
Contempt is not always volitional. People grow apart, develop different ways of thinking and behaving. Ageing brings on hormonal mood swings. There are cognitive changes. Tolerances are affected. However, once contempt becomes habitual the relationship is over.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Hmm, volitional, you mean as in being under our control? I think it’s quite possible to be unaware of your own contempt brewing, but I still believe we are the only ones who can control it. Contempt is believing somebody else is worthy of our scorn, that’s not something that comes about accidentally, we chose to feel that way.
There are mood swings and cognitive changes, that is true. There are all sorts of physical issues that people can suffer and feeling miserable can lead one to feel contemptuous of other people.
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Malcolm Greenhill said:
Your partner is suffering from early stage Alzheimer’s but you are not aware of it. You misunderstand her inattention to what you are saying and her memory lapses, as revealing her disrespect or contempt for you. You react accordingly, paying even closer attention to her failings and calling her out on them every time. She becomes angry and defensive and wonders what has happened to make you act so harshly all the time. Eventually, she too becomes contemptuous of you.
This is what I meant by saying contempt is not always under our control.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I work with a lot of people dealing with Alzheimer’s. It’s actually in observing those relationships that I really started believing in the whole notion of romantic love and sacrificial love and how that translates spiritually.
Colorstorm mentioned how God meets our contempt with mercy and when somebody is ill, is really requires us to take our own selves out of the picture and respond in the same way, with a lot of forgiveness and understanding that it’s not about us.
Even in relationships without health challenges, like Vernon points out below, sometimes people have to learn how to be content even in the face of somebody’s contempt. We’re never going to find anybody perfect who gets it right every time, so there has to be forgiveness and some willingness to set aside our own offense and meet that contempt with some compassion. Those are temporary and fleeting things that will pass. I’m speaking of the kind of contempt that just becomes a state of being.
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ColorStorm said:
Have to take a quick side trip, well, just because.
Paul (the apostle) proved all men have created treason against heaven, and have ALL been found in contempt against the highest court of all, (yep, I’m ok with that) then lays out The anecdote which only a fool would refuse…….
resulting in not only justification, but an invitation into the secret chamber of the Most High. Only a God worthy of the utmost honor would offer such goodness.
Brought to you ib22, courtesy of your thoughts on the rooster and the death penalty π
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insanitybytes22 said:
Perfect, colorstorm. What an awesome God to meet contempt with an offer of mercy π
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Kentucky Angel said:
I can definitely relate to this one. My hubs always heard one reading in church, and one line of it only–“wives, be subject to your husbands…”. The first time that one came up in the rotation, I stayed there with him, and endured his contempt on the way home. The second time, he poked me in the ribs with a knowing smile on his face, and I got up and went to the back of the church. The 3rd time I left the church ans sate in the car until he came out. The next time I had a schedule of the readings, and stayed home the week that one was going to be read. Any one who has read their bible knows that is a small part of that reading, but that was the only part he heard, and yes, I found that totally contemptible. If he hadn’t shown such contempt for me that first year we could have talked it over, and he could have understood the rest of the passage, but he closed his mind at that idea. My mind then closed at the idea of his ignorance which seemed to build stronger every year after that.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Well said. Contempt makes us wall ourselves off and often rightfully so.
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Kentucky Angel said:
That one thing made me shut down completely, and even stop going to church with him. Not good.
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insanitybytes22 said:
That’s not good. Men have the power to lead women towards or away from Christ, which is something I’ve written about quite a bit. LOL, we shouldn’t hand them that power, we should go directly to the source, but we tend to do it anyway, we look towards men to be representatives, and if they provide a lousy representation, many women will walk away from faith.
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Kentucky Angel said:
I stopped going WITH HIM, but went alone at a different time. My health finally prevented my going, but I can still pray at home, and that is something I will never stop doing.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Good for you! π
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Denise said:
Reblogged this on This Counts As Writing, Doesn't It? and commented:
Great thoughts on one of the causes of relationship failure. Brava!
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for the reblog, much appreciated. π
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Denise said:
Thank YOU for writing it!
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AC said:
I like your picture of the Adams family. When I took my wife out on our first date, that’s the movie we saw.
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Vernon said:
I think people look to deep into relationships. They aren’t that complicated. They are only if you’re selfish and childish. I know because on any given day I can be childish. When I withdraw my wife let me be knowing I’m going to come out of it eventually.
When you have two people working towards a common goal, in this case making the relationship work, they allow the other person to be who they are without trying to manipulate them. People have to learn how to be content when their mate is being contempt.
My wife don’t peck me because she’s too busy trying to help me get back into the solution.
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assortmentbox said:
Poor roosters! Loved the hen pecked story π
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Paul said:
Neat post and very true IB -I too love the rooster/henpecked story. I was reading a humourous article the other day wherein a woman was entering her second marriage and wanted to consult with a psychiatrist beforehand. She and her fiance asked the doc what he thought was the most important characteristic required to make a marriage successful: if it was communication, acceptance, love, commonness, or what. The doc sat back in his chair and pondered a bit, the he leaned forward and said: “No, I don’t think it is any of those. In fact I do believe that the key to maintaining a solid relationship is for each partner to be able to accept and tolerate the neuroses of the other.”
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL, that’s it precisely Paul. You not only have to tolerate somebody elses neurosis, but actually find that neurosis to be charming.
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silenceofmind said:
In my life, it was a choice of being married and hen pecked or being a single pecker wood.
This is why my central article of faith is that women embody the will of God.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Interesting Silence, because the will of God seems to be that we constantly seek out the higher selves of men, which does explain why He also gave us the capacity to pursue the irrational. π
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Karen Van Benschoten said:
lol, chicken nuggets and the death penalty. I do think the latter is rather extreme, but then again, what do I know? I have not been in a relationship for almost 20 (omg!) years.
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A Walk on the Wild Side Blog said:
You really hit the mark here. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I see that type of contempt displayed all the time in various situations. It would be hard to see how a relationship could survive that, and why so many don’t.
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Jane A. Weiss, LCSW said:
Reblogged this on Change YOUR LIFE!.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for the reblog, much appreciated π
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Jane A. Weiss, LCSW said:
My pleasure!
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