Does the following scenario sound familiar? Your spouse asks you if you’d mind staying with the kids while he plays golf with a friend on Saturday. You had been looking forward to having several hours to go shopping by yourself that day, but without even hesitating, you reply “Sure, that’s fine. I can go shopping another day. Go ahead and make your plans.”

“After all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get.”

Then, on Saturday while your spouse is gone, you find yourself fuming and upset that you didn’t try to work out a compromise so that you could have some time for your needs, too. Once again, you kick yourself for always putting your needs last and then resenting it. You feel unappreciated, unimportant, and taken for granted. When your husband comes home, your bad mood lasts for hours.

If that scenario doesn’t ring a bell, how about this one? Some friends are coming over for dinner on Friday night. You know your spouse has a hectic schedule that day, so you offer to come home early from work and take over the food preparation. She turns down your offer, stating that everything’s under control and she’ll handle the cooking.

When you get home at your regular time, you find your wife stressed out and stewing silently. You offer to help, but she mutters between clenched teeth, “No, I’ve done this much by myself, so I might as well finish. If I want something done right, I have to do it myself. It always works out this way—everybody else just breezes in when it’s time to eat and I do all the work.”

The two examples given above illustrate a group of behaviors known collectively as the Martyr Syndrome. Individuals with Martyr Syndrome routinely sacrifice their needs and wants for those of others. But then they complain, feel taken advantage of, and remind everyone of how much they have sacrificed.

They have a strong desire to be praised and needed, and what others offer in those two areas is seldom enough. Their need for sympathy and recognition of their sacrifice is unhealthy and alienates others.

A typical Martyr Syndrome remark is, “After all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get.” Or “I’ve never asked for anything for myself. I’ve always put your needs first.”

Another one is, “You take the best piece of toast. It doesn’t matter to me if I have the burnt piece.” The implication is, of course, that the other person’s needs are important, and the martyr’s needs are not.

On the surface, the self-sacrificing martyr sounds sincere when he or she encourages you to go ahead with your plans and not to worry about anything. But if you fall for this, you’ll regret it later when the martyr’s real feelings emerge with the resulting anger, resentment, bitterness, and negativity. It’s what I call “crazy-making behavior” because it’s so convoluted and aggravating for those dealing with the martyr.

If you are the martyr, work to become more self-aware. Pay close attention to when you engage in this destructive behavior. Beginning to recognize and see your own behavior in a new light is the first step toward change. You won’t always be able to head off the martyr role completely, but you can begin to nip it in the bud faster with practice and determination.

When you catch yourself starting to give a response that puts you in the role of a martyr, stop yourself and say, “That’s not what I want to say. Let me start over again. Can we try to find a way that allows you to still see your friend and play golf and also lets me have some time to check out the sales at the mall? Let’s be creative and come up with a win-win solution.”

If you don’t realize what you’ve done until some hours or days later, then let your spouse know that you need to talk. You could say something like, “I really thought I’d be okay with you going to play golf all day Saturday, but the more I think about it, the more resentful that I’m feeling. So I wanted to give you an update of where I am with things. Can we brainstorm about possible solutions?”

If your spouse is the self-sacrificing martyr in your household, things get trickier because you can’t make someone else change. You can gently point out the behavior and how confusing it is to be told that everything’s okay, only to find out later that your spouse is really angry and resentful.

One technique that works for some spouses is to bring up the subject again later, asking if the partner has had any second thoughts about anything since the original discussion. This, accompanied by a statement of how important it is to be sure the needs of both spouses are met, can sometimes help the partner to be more direct and open in stating needs and wants.

Of course, the assistance of a marriage counselor can be invaluable in helping spouses change their unhelpful patterns of communication and behavior. The goal is for the marriage to be as satisfying as possible to both partners and for communication and expression of feelings to be direct and clear. There’s no place for repeated Martyr Syndrome behavior in a healthy marriage.