I often hear from wives who are very disappointed in the way their husband is acting during a trial or marital separation. Wives often hoped that time apart would actually improve the behavior of both spouses. But, to his dismay, the opposite has happened.

I heard from a wife who said, “Things weren’t going so well between us when my husband moved out. So it’s not like I expect him to love me while we’re apart. But he’s acting like a complete idiot.” On the rare occasions I do speak to him, he is sarcastic and obnoxious. He makes rude jokes at my expense. He goes to great lengths to make it clear that he’d rather be anywhere than with me. This infuriates me because before he moved out, he told me that he felt there might be a chance that we would eventually reconcile. Now, it is obvious that this was a lie. And maybe I’m having such a strong reaction because deep down, I was hoping that we could save our marriage. The petty part of me wants to be mean to him right away. But the rational part of me thinks this will only make things worse. However, I don’t want to be a pushover. What should I do?

It’s not uncommon for people to display negative behavior during a breakup, especially early on. It’s stressful to suddenly uproot your life with so much uncertainty on the horizon, especially when you’re estranged or far from those you love. This can make even the kindest people angry. And sometimes people can project those frustrations onto the easy target or the person they feel contributed to the situation in the first place. But often times things settle down and behaviors change accordingly, so I think it’s a really bad idea to react in a negative way, as tempting as it may be.

I felt that the wife was right when she suspected that being mean to her husband would only make things worse. I felt there were more positive ways to handle this, which I will describe below.

If you can, try to diffuse their nastiness with humor: To be honest, sometimes your husband is just waiting for you to say something unpleasant back. That way, he can justify continuing to act in the inappropriate way that he is already doing. Don’t allow him this luxury. Instead, try to use humor to stop him in his tracks. When she says something mean again, make a light-hearted comment asking her if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or some other inside joke you can share. He may still give you a covert response, but if you keep using the humor, he’ll eventually learn that his meanness no longer has the desired response, so there’s no need for him to continue.

Or try the candid, calm and honest approach: If you don’t like the humor method I described above (or don’t think you can pull it off convincingly), there’s another option. You could try to be direct but calm. A suggested script might go something like: “I know we’re both frustrated and uncomfortable, but those comments really hurt me. And I get the feeling you don’t mean them. So I’m not going to react in a negative way. I’m going to ask.” that we start over. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to take a break. Because this relationship is still important to me, even if it’s struggling right now. I don’t want to throw it away because we’re both being careless with our words. If it’s still nasty or he resists, make good on your promise to give him some space.Once he has had time to calm down and realizes that you did nothing more than try to defuse the situation, he will probably see what a jerk he has been and, hopefully, he’ll back down, or better yet, apologize.

Always remember your goal: I know it’s hard to stay calm when the person who is supposed to love you says such nasty things to you. But, always remember the long-term goal. And that is to make things better between you so that you can eventually save your marriage. This becomes less likely if the two of you hurl verbal criticism at each other. So take a deep breath, put a smile on your face and pause. Don’t get caught up in the negativity and try to create a break instead.

To answer the question posed, I don’t think the wife should be mean to her husband in retaliation. This would only further escalate the situation and her whole goal was to bring him closer to her, not push him away from her.