Can An Ultimatum Save Your Marriage?
At one point in time or another, we have all used ultimatums. If you have children, you have probably used them more often then you care to admit. Essentially an ultimatum is a threat with consequences, and for a marriage in trouble, it may be the best thing that you can do for your relationship. Some may say an ultimatum is destructive to the relationship because it will make your partner feel trapped, and force them to take action. While this may be true for some situations, ultimatums do become necessary when your partner tramples your beliefs and values and refuses to do what is necessary to make things right again.
It’s easy to confuse ultimatums with being assertive or looking out for our own needs. However, using ultimatums to have your needs met will quickly destroy trust in your relationship and ultimately bring it to an end. They need to be reserved for when your partner crosses a known boundary, and you no longer feel respected, safe and secure in the relationship. Its when, as long as certain behaviors remain unchanged, you feel you can’t continue in the relationship. Its at times like these that ultimatums tend to be the only way we can protect ourselves and the relationship.
A great example would be if your spouse is addicted to porn and refuses to seek help. How can you protect yourself? You can try and control the computer and how much access they have to it, but you know they will just find other avenues to access porn. It’s up to you to decide how much misery you are willing to ultimately tolerate as you wait for them to realize how their behavior is destroying the marriage.
When we married our partners, we committed to the relationship for life, and because of this, even when our partners are hurting us, we love them and want the relationship to work. Giving our partner an ultimatum can be downright scary because instead of saving the relationship, it may force the relationship to an end. However, if boundaries have been crossed and we don’t feel safe, then the relationship will eventually fail unless things change. If we can’t control our spouse’s behavior, then to feel safe again, it is up to us to follow through with the ultimatum.
When our partners make us feel unsafe, we often explode into fits of rage. We tell them we aren’t going to take this anymore, and we threaten to leave if things don’t improve. The real problem is that we never act on our threats, thereby teaching our partners that our bark is worse than our bite, and ultimately, we lose even more power.
Sure, our partner may act differently for a while and try and appease us, but eventually, they resort to the same old behavior, and the destruction of the relationship continues. Worse yet, armed with the knowledge that our threats are meaningless, they may choose to ignore us completely and the cycle continues. If you are going to get angry and make threats, but never hold them accountable for their behavior, you are essentially condoning their actions. In the end, it will be your anger, not their behavior, that destroys the relationship.
If you are done living in a miserable marriage, either you will have to set an ultimatum, or you will continue to live in a miserable marriage until the relationship eventually destroys itself. As resentment builds in a relationship the four horsemen begin to put a stranglehold on it. The longer they live in the relationship, the greater the chances that we will shut down. Eventually, if your partner does change, it no longer matters as you’ve already given up. Had you given a proper ultimatum earlier on in the conflict, chances are it would have changed the outcome dramatically. Ultimatums show your partner that you do mean business, and it allows them to make things right.
Properly laid out, an ultimatum shows your spouse that you mean business. It forces them to come to terms with the fact that they may lose you, and it allows them to reflect on their poor behavior and hopefully make the necessary changes to put the relationship on the fast track to healing.
If, after delivering the ultimatum, your spouse still refuses to acknowledge how their actions contributed to the destruction of the relationship and make an honest repair attempt, you will still find this to be a win. I say this because instead of realizing now that the relationship is over, you would have spent many more years in misery and eventually lost yourself in the process.
Before you jump up and run to your partner ready to force a change, it’s important to remember that you only should use ultimatums for relationship-threatening behavior. Think in terms of addictions, abuse or infidelity. Ultimatums are used when boundaries are crossed and not to create boundaries. If you choose to use them to set boundaries then you become the controlling, abusive partner that you are trying to protect yourself from.
If your marriage truly has hit rock bottom and a boundary has been crossed, as scary as it sounds, its time to get your relationship back on track and moving in the right direction. The direction only an ultimatum can bring.
