A Single Compliment

Late in our marriage, during a circular conversation that had gone round and round about all the bad things I’ve ever done in my life, I was defending myself and desperately trying to take this conversation in a productive direction. For several weeks, I had been honest with my husband about how I was feeling, trying so hard to get him to understand how much he was hurting our kids and me. Here I was again, trying to communicate effectively with him, trying to find the right words, trying to connect with my husband.

In the middle of this scenario, while I was pouring everything I had into genuine attempts at improving our relationship, my covert narcissistic husband asked me, “Can you even give me one compliment? One thing you like about me?” “Wait! What?” A compliment? You want a compliment? Like “your hair looks good today?” Or “I like that shirt.” I knew this wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted me to tell him something I liked about him. This, after 18 years of an emotionally abusive relationship, and our marriage was truly struggling.

This question really created a problem in me. All these different adjectives went through my head.

  • Helpful? No

  • Compassionate? No

  • Patient? No

  • Fun-loving? No

  • Kind? No

  • Easy to be around? No

  • Fun to be around? No

  • Easy to talk to? No

  • A good father? No

  • Happy? No

This list went on and on in my mind. What could I say??

I finally said to him that I was grateful for 2 things. I am extremely happy with the 2 boys that this marriage has given me. They are amazing boys, and I am very proud of them. The other thing is that I am grateful to him for providing for the family so that I could stay home and raise our boys. He responded, “So I am a paycheck to you? And you can’t even come up with one nice thing to say about me?”

I did feel a little bad about not being able to come up with something nice to say about him. So I gave it some more thought later. And even with some time to ponder, I still could not come up with positive and truthful compliments.

Instead the list was:

  • Selfish

  • Lazy and unmotivated

  • Mean and rude

  • Quick to anger

  • Hard to be around

  • Hard to talk to

  • Angry

  • Harsh and abrupt

It wasn’t my fault that this was who he was. This was our daily life with him, and it was truly hurting all three of us badly!

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