Watching the Couples Go By

Amour, Amour! Watching the Couples Go By! If you haven't seen the movie Amour, I highly recommend it.  It's a great movie about the depths and challenges of love as experienced by an octogenarian couple...And whether you have seen the movie or not, I also recommend this article: Watching the Couples Go by...which beautifully defines the real meaning of love in committed relationships.  It's a great reading to follow after the movie.....But read it anyway.

Why is this basic woman so valuable to the man whose hand or arm she is holding...(or vice versa)? Read the article Watching the Couples Go By and find out:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/it_seems_to_me/1997/06/watching_the_couples_go_by.html

Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry. 

Consumer Marriage

We live in a consumer culture.  Consumer culture has always been based on individuals pursuing their personal desires.  But in the late twentieth century, advertisers began to emphasize desire for desire's sake.  An example is a Toyota ad campaign which has a voice-over saying to a father, "your kids always get what they want; now it's your turn!"

I am not against markets and consumption.  Consumer spending is the primary fuel of a free-market democratic system.  Mass advertising is the only way that new businesses and new products an get the attentions of consumers.

My concern is less with consumer culture in the marketplace than with what it is teaching us about our family relationships.  Consumer culture tells us that we never have enough of anything we want.  It teaches us not to be loyal to anything or anyone that does not continue to meet our needs at the right price.  It is not surprising that in this new consumer world, we are less loyal to our mates, to our marriages. 

Reasons people give for getting a divorce reveal how they think about marital commitment.  Sometimes a spouse is forced into pulling the plug on the marriage because the other partner has reneged on his or her marital commitment through infidelity, chronic irresponsibility or physical abuse.  Other times the overt problems are not this serious, but the other spouse, sometimes coming from a sense of consumer entitlement, wages a steady emotional war until what had been an unnecessary and preventable divorce now becomes necessary and unavoidable.

Nowadays many people explain their reasons for divorce in the form of disappointment in what they are getting from their marriage, rather than in the form of an unconscionable breakdown of marital responsibilities.  Here are the phrases I hear from some couples:

The relationship wasn't working for me anymore.........Our needs were just too different...........
I wasn't happy............ We just grew apart.............I grew and he didn't............ I deserve more.........
The relationship became stale...........My spouse was nice, but boring.........We had no real intimacy.
What kind of role model is that for the kids?

Here's the point: There may be some legitimacy to some of the above complaints, which can be worked on in a positive way.  But you can work your way out of a reasonably good marriage by focusing on what you are not getting out of it and turning negative toward your mate, who will in turn give you even less and thereby help justify your leaving.

Has consumer thinking slipped into your marriage?  William Doherty, founder of Marriage Friendly Therapists, has come up with a Consumer Marriage Quiz:

   1. I (often, sometimes, rarely) compare my spouse unfavorably to others.
   2. In relation to our problems, I (often, sometimes, rarely) dwell on my spouse's deficiencies; not my own.
   3. I (often, sometimes, rarely) concentrate on how my spouse is not meeting my needs rather than how I am not meeting my spouse's needs.
   4. I (often, sometimes, rarely) keep score:  I add up when I do good things or when I think my spouse does something bad.
   5. I (often, sometimes, rarely) think that my spouse is getting a better deal in this marriage than I am.
   6. I (often, sometimes, rarely) focus on my spouse's defects rather than on his or her strengths.
   7. I (often, sometimes, rarely) wonder if I should have held out for someone better when I chose a mate.
   8.  When we have hard times, I (often, sometimes, rarely ) ask myself whether the effort I am putting in this marriage is worth it.

If most of your answers are "rarely," congratulations.  If most of your answers are "sometimes," ask yourself if things that you want are disguising themselves as things that you absolutely need.  If three or more of your answers are "often", consumerism has severely infected your view of marriage.  Do you want to be a "citizen" of your marriage, or take a "tourist visa" to travel the way of fantasy? **
                         ** From Take Back Your Marriage, William Doherty, PhD

Why Marriages Drift

(The following is mostly excerpted from Take Back Your Marriage, (Sticking Together in a World that Pulls Us Apart) by William Doherty, which I highly recommend for your reading):  The natural drift of contemporary married life, in our busy, distracted, individualistic, consumer-driven, media saturated and work-oriented world, is toward less spark, less connection, less intimacy and less focus on the couple relationship.  Add in the demands of child-sensitive parenting, and you have a pretty good picture of why our marriages can decline over time, if we are not more mindful.

Marriage is a well-researched topic in the social sciences.  We know that there is a steady decline in couple's reports of their marital satisfaction as the years go by, and that this decline is especially steep after the birth of their first child.

There are everyday factors and cultural factors that can drive even good marriages south.  Below, I will highlight a few everyday forces, followed by a larger cultural one in my next entry.  Here are the everyday forces:

• We are too busy for our marriages.  Between work, raising children, and managing daily life, many of us don't think we have enough time to make our marriage relationship a high priority in daily life.  Antidote: prioritize your marriage. Mindfully set boundaries for your marriage from the other responsibilities and distractions.
• We get too used to our mate.  In marriage, familiarity breeds, not contempt, but taking each other for granted. All relationships lose some degree of newness and freshness over time if we don't work to put these ingredients back.  Antidote:  Become more active and involved in social activities, celebrations and rituals.
• Television, laptops, i-phone and other media come between us.  We watch TV rather than speak to one another, or answer text-messages at any time of day and night which diminishes the privacy relationships need.  Antidote:  Turn everything off at dinner time, when you want a meaningful conversation, and when you go to bed.
• We stop dating, especially after we have children.  Special alone times brought us together, but many of us stop arranging them after we become parents.  Antidote: more dates.
• Differences between spouses in their "work orientation" toward marriage get resolved in the direction of less work.  Our gender training as men and women prepares us differently for maintaining our marriages.  At the risk of overgeneralizing, men tend to see close relationships as needing lower maintenance and work than women do. I think that most wives, after a period of trying unilaterally to make the marriage a "high work" relationship, settle for their husband's standard.  Antidote: maintain an "intentional" mindful discipline to maintain and nurture your commitment to one another.

The State of Our Unions

An alarming recent report from The Institute for American Values discloses that American marriage itself is fracturing, splitting us into two Americas, separate and unequal.  Reports entitled "State of Our Unions" and "When Marriage Disappears," reveals the retreat from marriage is mostly among middle class Americans. According to these findings, "shifts in marriage attitudes, increases in unemployment, and declines in religious attendance are among the trends driving the retreat from marriage in Middle America. Sixty percent of Americans who've graduated from high school but don't have a college degree is more and more resembling the state of marriage among our poorest and most vulnerable citizens.  And in a striking reversal of historic trends, highly educated upscale Americans are moving to embrace a pro-marriage mindset, even as Middle Americans are losing faith in marriage."

What does this new marriage divide promise? It says that marriage, far from bringing us together, will become another form of class privilege and another division among us.  Consequently, if this trend continues, we are likely to see greater inequality, diminished social mobility, and poorer life chances for many American children in the future. (from State of Our Unions).

In addition, according to numerous studies, children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of emotional and social problems--including drug use, depression, attempted suicide and dropping out of high school--compared to children in intact, married families.  For more information, I suggest you read a synopsis of Why Marriage Matters at
http://www.americanvalues.org/pdfs/dl.php?name=wmm3-30-conclusions .

One of the reasons I am a licensed marriage counselor is to help couples in the face of cultural change and attitudes to strengthen their relationship by teaching them how to resolve or accept their differences, improve communication and deepen their emotional connection.  But I also work as a marriage counselor because I believe in the institution of marriage. I believe it is a cornerstone of caring, connected communities and stability for children.

The divorce rate remains high in our country but I believe half of those divorces are unnecessary.  Research indicates that most children suffer greatly from divorce, even good divorces.  We also have learned that most people who were unhappy in their marriage and blamed their marraige for their unhappiness, remained unhappy after the divorce.  And interestingly, most couples who were unhappy but remained in their marriage  and sought help---sooner rather than later--were eventually able to restore their happiness,

So I believe we can do better.  We must do better.  And I applaud The Institute for American Values for sponsoring a program entitled The New Marriage Conversation--a conversation that aims to bring together all Americans--both those who seek the right to marry and those who seek to strengthen marriage as a social institution.  May the conversation continue.

The Gift of Presence

The best love stories awaken the deepest and most natural pulses of the human heart.  That's part of the meaning of reminding ourselves during this Hanukkah/Christmas season that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Because when we give, we are becoming the incarnation of those forces in the universe, that are only happy when they are giving unto others: giving life, love, hope, a healing touch, a caring presence.  Presence. Spelled with a "c" rather than a "t"--a healing presence, a loving presence.  Those are the greatest presents we can give one another, especially our spouse and our children and those around us who suffer tragic loss from both natural disaster and human madness.

The pure gift of just being here--what's that worth? Giving birth--what's that worth? And being with people we love and who love us--what's that selling for on the Dow or the Nasdaq?   And our health--whatever degree of health we have, it's better than having a lot less health.  It makes a big difference.  What's that worth?

 

So many gifts and so many of us who have not learned how to see them.  Let us become aware of those simple gifts of being here, loving and being loved, touching and being touched, protecting and being protected.  Those gifts are the real treasures of this holiday season, and we don't have to wait until a particular day to open them.  In fact, it's best that we don't wait.  Let us open our gifts of life, love and spirit, and spread them all around our lives, sitting there right in the middle of them. 

So, during this season, let us remember that love is not so much an idea whose time has come, as it is a commitment of presence to one another: our spouse, our children and our neighbors and those in need--near and far.  In many ways it is an irrational commitment because love can get us into trouble. Those who love will ultimately lose the beloved or they will lose us.  Love can prompt us to give of ourselves in ways that may seem foolish - perhaps are foolish. But ultimately love is the path to the soul--the soul of the other and the soul within--not a romantic love --but a mature love that can accept differences and reach for understanding, for depth and forgiveness. Good marriages and good parents nurture the soul.

And so, faith, hope, love, these three

I offer you this season.

Faith that living affirms,

Hope that caring illumines,
Love that matters more than anything.
Faith, hope, love-- these three,
Not as gifts I offer them,

For they are not mine to give.

They are yours and mine to share,

Humbly, with one another.
Fumbling, we hold their promise in our hands,
Faintly, we speak the trembling words:
Faith in our promises to one another;

Hope for the better nature of our humanity,
Love.....

These three we offer to one another this season--

Our Hanukkah, our Christmas, our Kwanzaa,

Our Human Presence. 

 

"Marriage Isn't Supposed to Make You HAPPY!"

Frank Pittman died last week.  You may not be familiar with his work in the marriage counseling field but those of us in the profession have lost a true champion of marriage and family--Dr Frank Pittman.  He left a great legacy through his books and essays including Grow UP!, Man Enough, Private Lies, and Turning Point. One of my favorite keynote addresses he gave at a marraige conference was entitled What Are Men For, Anyway? where he "brazenly" asserts:  ....in the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father.

Pittman had a way of inspiring us to take responsibility for our lives, actions, our marriages, families.  He was smart, funny, said it like it is.  He was a "man's man" that men could relate to.  He will be missed and his quotes will live on.  Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside.

Here is a clip from a Psychology Today interview:   There is this great belief that if you are not getting everything your heart desires, you will be miserable.  This is a dangerous belief.  The failure to be blessed with a life that is a constant state of ecstatic wonder becomes a psychiatric emergency.  All the mental health people jump in and say, 'Oh, my God!  They are not happy.  Call the fire department! Maybe these people should not have gotten married.  Sorry about the kids and all.  Maybe they should not have gotten married.  Maybe we will have to get them divorced so maybe they can be happy with the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th or the 5th husband or wife.'  I look at these people who are miserable in their marriages and their lives, and I think, 'I have the responsibility to them, to make them aware that they have the capacity to bring about their adult selves and that they have a responsibility to their children that is going to affect the second half of their life enormously if they do not fulfill it.  Maybe I have got a responsibility to the two other people that these folks would marry next if they do not learn how to be marriaed the first time around.'

Here's another quote:   Common courtesy plays a big role in happy marriages.  People who are permanently married are polite to one another.  They don't want to hurt one another's feelings, and they don't try to make the other one feel humiliated.  People who are married for life are extremely kind to one another.   I really love that one.........so why is it so difficult to be kind to one another?  Humans are emotionally wired for reaction...often in a very destructive way, especially when we feel the "other" is wrong.  Can we change the wiring so that we are less reactive and more engaging, especially when we are feeling hurt and alone?  Can I teach couples how to do that?  Well, I'm trying!

In the same vein, another quote: Arguments are a natural part of any relationship, but cruelty is not.  Above all, happiliy married partners see each other as allies, not as adversaries.   --And what is cruelty?  The hard reasons for divorce: unrelenting judgmentalism, ongoing abuse, addictions and infidelities.  All the other reasons are soft: frequent arguing, feeling misunderstood, unsupported, not feeling in love, lack of sex....  Yes, I know, there are what if's, yes-buts, and exceptions to most of what I have written, but that does not discount the core truths of what "being married" means.

And this one.  Read this one slowly, at least twice:  You can't be right and married at the same time.  If you're trying to be right and prove your partner wrong, you've stepped outside the marriage.   So what can you do? According to Pittman:

You are not going to be in love all the time, but if you want to recapture that magic from when you were in love, be loving. Being loving to your partner makes you feel so good about yourself, it doesn't matter if you're in love or not.  The marriage is making you feel good if you are loving in it. 

And just how can you be more loving?  Hmmm.  Think about it.  Or give me a call.

I often use Pittman's "politically incorrect" quote with couples (and with myself!): 

Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy--it's supposed to make you married.

Then after clients look at me aghast I say: "Wouldn't it be nice to be both?  Want to work on it?"

Standing Up For Yourself Without Putting Your Partner Down

One of the most important things we know about people who are destined to succeed in their relationships is that they deliver complaints differently from those who are destined to fail.  I have referred to this ability as a "soft startup"(John Gottman, 1999) in previous blog entries.  A soft startup is generally devoid of a judgmental attitude which I wrote about in my September blog entry. A soft startup also includes being able to stand up for yourself without putting your partner down.

Dropping the judgemental idea that one's partner is wrong doesn't mean that one has to give in.  People who are destined to succeed believe that their own opinions and expectations are just as importnat as those of their partners.  Rather than criticizing or trying to prove their partners wrong, people who are destined to succeed in their relationships simply ask their partners to "move over and make room for me." They ask their partners to meet them half way.  Successful partners both require that their feelings be respected, and make it easy for their partners to be respectful at the same time. They make it easy for their partners to be respectful by refraining from assuming that their partners are wrong.

When couples are distressed, it is most always the case that neither partner has the ability to stand up for him- or herself without putting the other person down. Instead, partners criticize and never state exactly what they want, try to present their own point of view as the only reasonable option, or give in to their partners while secretly thinking bad things about them.

People who are destined for success refrain from making a big deal of it when their partners don't seem willing to meet them half way.  They simply hold their ground and continue to insist that their opinions or priorities be given equal consideration.

Of course this is not always easy to do.  Sometimes we have to almost literally rewire our emotional brains to act differently.  Couples often have to be educated in couples counseling about the soft startup approach before they can consider changing their usual automatic blaming responses to each other.  Anger is a natural occurance in relationships but it is often an internal state that we need to learn how to shift to a more productive way of expression.  What's important is learning how to use that anger to stand up for our feelings without putting our partner down or blaming our partner.  Otherwise, using one's anger will only backfire.