Why Do Spouses Pick on Each Other?

While there may be several reasons why partners relentlessly pick on one another, in my clinical experience, I have found one reason appears most often: partners project their own personal dissatisfaction or disappointment with themselves onto their spouses. But before I go any further, let me distinguish complaining from picking.

Every partner in a relationship will, now and then, register a complaint about the other’s behavior--it is the stuff comedians make a living out of. For example, a female client complained that her husband failed to close a bag of cereal after he opened it—a threat to its freshness. A husband complained that his wife put his shirts in the dryer and shrunk them. But these are unavoidable complaints born out of a history of habits and rituals developed over time. The behavior may be annoyingly chronic, but it is usually not of malicious intent, and is expressed with appropriate affect—not as if the sky is falling, or a grave transgression has occurred. These issues can usually be negotiated and managed with compromise.

When I use the term "picking," however, I am referring to a chronic complaining that has more of a general quality to it. That is, when a spouse attacks many aspects of a partner’s personality and in most cases with a nonsensical and inappropriate vigor. And while you may think this is a somewhat trivial topic, consider the following examples: “My mother picked on my father, and I really think it gave him a fatal heart attack. I have no doubt that she killed him, and I have hated her ever since. It has also caused me to distrust women as an adult. As soon as a woman complains about anything on a date, even if it has nothing to do with me, I tend to run from her.”

As mentioned, partners who are unhappy with themselves may rid themselves of this dissatisfaction by finding something they can use as a battering ram against their significant others. In this way, these critical accusers do not have to face their own inadequacies. Facing one’s own failures may cause unbearable shame and it is easier to disown this shame and find it in one’s partner.

I have seen numerous partners over the years who have chosen to focus on or create phantom inadequacies in their relatively successful mates when in fact there was no evidence to support these accusations. But as I challenged the projector’s personal failures something miraculous happened…the critical picking subsided. That is, by forcing the projectors to confront their own failures they began to own their own projections and deal in a more direct way with their shame and inadequacies. Unfortunately, this process is made more difficult because the victims in these cases are unconsciously compliant in the dynamic by accepting the projections or introjecting them; they see them as a genuine part of themselves as the object relations theorists would say.

One example that sticks in my mind was that of a husband who insisted that his wife was asexual as well as an inadequate wife and mother when in fact she had sex with him on average twice per week and maintained a beautiful home. She was also the breadwinner in the family with a hugely demanding career. The husband chose to ignore the stress and pressure his wife was under and without her the family would not survive economically. Rather, he focused on any flaws he could manufacture. The husband was a sculptor who could not even support himself. Although the wife never criticized him or demanded that he achieve or contribute more to the family, he was on the constant attack about her sex drive, her dress, her work hours, and her attributes as a mother.

I decided not to challenge the husband’s chosen profession because I have a respect for the arts, but I did not consider his lack of a work ethic and his fantasies about his wife’s inadequacies off limits because he refused to function on any level. He rejected the idea of teaching, and he sculpted very little even though he had plenty of time to do so; his wife even built him his own studio.

While it was a long and difficult process, once I began to insist the husband look at himself (his strengths and weaknesses) his critiques dissipated, and he acknowledged an appreciation of his wife. In this sense he was encouraged to own his own projections of his wife’s inadequacies. It was also helpful that his wife began to set better limits rather than continue to introject all her husband’s accusations. But before she could, she needed to believe that she was of value and that her husband’s projections were just that; unjust accusations and criticisms that described how he felt about himself but was afraid to admit it. I have never seen anyone who could withstand being treated unfairly unless on some level they felt they deserved it.