In reality, what that situation requires is compassion, not contempt. . . and your audible sigh of disgust and bad mood isn’t going to launch them off the couch. In fact, those sighs of contempt are going to keep your spouse lying on the couch until they’ve lost the remote in the cushions. No matter how loving your intentions are behind the audible sighs, your spouse is feeling like you’re trying to fix him—which feels more like pain, which means he’s now going to move away from you. It makes him feel defensive, and that’s just going to close him off from feeling like changing even more.
