A Normal Marital Crisis???

When your partner's commitment to the marriage becomes uncertain, it seems as though your world is in uproar. You can accept problems in the marriage because they can be addressed, but your partner's statement, "I'm not sure I want to be married" or "I'm not in love with you" is not as easily addressed.

In my first post (6/8/08!), I outlined the elements of a commitment in marriage. Feelings can change. Passion ebbs and flows. Anger explodes. Disappointment arises. But commitment is supposed to remain throughout. The loss of commitment seems to be a sign of a marriage in its death throes.

In fact, an uncertain commitment to marriage is not a symptom of the death of the relationship. However, it is a condition that can be likened to a body that is seriously injured in an accident. The body must be handled very carefully in order that it is not harmed in the process of getting it to the hospital. Similarly, a marital crisis is a situation that calls for delicate treatment.

In my ebook, Understanding Your Distancing Spouse (http://tinyurl.com/y4ugjva) I help you to understand that the partner who is uncertain about his or her commitment is going through a decision-making process - a process that can lead to a new, improved marriage as well as divorce. However, it is easy to respond to the crisis as though it is a personal rejection and a prelude to divorce.

If you see the crisis as rejection and a prelude to divorce, then you will naturally respond to protect yourself. If you see the crisis as a decision-making process, then you can choose to respond in a manner that facilitates good decision-making. You can also work to influence the decision by showing your partner that the relationship can be improved.

I regularly wonder how many marital crises become destructive divorces simply because the partners' misinterpreted the crisis as something that cannot be overcome and survived. I hope that other therapists that read this blog will educate the public to understand that a marriage crisis can be survived. I hope that when you or your friends' commitment becomes uncertain that you, family, and friends will respond in a manner that normalizes the situation and helps the partner use good decision-making skills.

Regaining Respect Following a Marital Crisis

In my marriage counseling practice, I see many couples whose marriage is in crisis following a variety of hurtful behaviors such as having an affair, gambling away savings, or striking out in an abusive manner. In my e-book, Deciding What You Want, I give some guidelines for deciding whether or not to reconcile the relationship following a marital crisis.

This is a very personal and difficult decision; some couples find a pathway to forgiveness while others at best forge a cordial distance never to be truly reconnected, even if they remain married. I find that the path to forgiveness and a loving connection is likeliest when the offending behavior can be isolated as not reflecting the person’s character. It is most difficult when the offending behavior leads to a reevaluation of the person’s character, often expressed as, “He’s not the person I married,” “She’s not the person I thought she was,” or “I feel as though I have been married to someone I barely know.”

Can you love someone you don’t respect? We can certainly be attracted to and even marry someone with undesirable traits, but you would say his or her good qualities outweigh the bad. During a marital crisis, that balance can change and the very behaviors that once attracted you now lead you to reevaluate your partner’s character. Now you are not distancing from your partner’s hurtful behavior; you are distancing from a person you no longer value as a partner.

Can respect be regained after it has been lost? After you have decided that your partner is not someone you would choose again, can you regain respect for his or her character? Often I have observed that the offending partner sets out to “prove” they can offer their partner an improved relationship simply by reassuring their mate that the offending behavior will not happen again. This is ineffective because the issue is much larger than whether the offending behavior will be repeated.

Can you respect yourself? Respect from others begins with self-respect. Are you able to forgive yourself and feel that you are basically a good person deserving of other’s respect? Or do you feel you have to “sell” yourself by manipulating other’s impression of you. Respect is not something that changes quickly or easily. Are you patient as you wait for your partner’s assessment of you to gradually change or do you press for reassurance of your partner’s love?

The way you handle a marital crisis can become a more important measure of your character than the promises you offer to your mate. Your partner’s negative beliefs about your character lead to unfavorable predictions for how you will handle the crisis. It is important to be unpredictable. By this I mean that you must behave in a manner that does not support those negative beliefs.

If you have struggled with a loss of respect for your partner or have struggled to regain your partner’s respect, I hope you will share your experiences with me – either in comments or by email at horton@officememphis.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Five Myths About a Marital Crisis

A marital crisis occurs when one or both partner's commitment to the marriage becomes uncertain. Here are five myths about a marriage crisis that may help you manage the crisis in your marriage.

Myth 1: A marital crisis is a sign that our marriage is over.

Questioning your commitment to your marriage is not a sign that a divorce is on the horizon. Rather, it is a time to determine whether there is hope for an improved relationship. The decision to divorce comes from hopelessness, the belief that the marriage will never be satisfying.

Myth 2: It is best to hold your feelings inside until you have made a clear decision whether or not to divorce.

Responding passively to a marital crisis is like not having a fire alarm go off when your home is on fire. By sharing your feelings, your partner has the opportunity to respond. His or her response can be the beginning of creating hope for a more satisfying relationship.

Myth 3: If your partner's commitment is uncertain, then you must let your partner know how much you love him or her.

It's natural to try to show your distancing partner how much you love him or her. However, this can backfire as your partner needs your patience, time and distance in the early stage of a marital crisis. The best way to show your love and commitment to the marriage is by appreciating your partner's position. Your partner needs an environment that facilitates good decision-making. Pressuring or manipulating your partner will not create an environment for making a good decision.

Myth 4: Talking about divorce will make the divorce more likely.

Discussing divorce as an option will not make the divorce more likely to happen. It is important to recognize that a good decision includes all options. By denying divorce as an option, you are saying, "You are trapped in this marriage". You want to choose to be married, not trapped in marriage.

Myth 5: Once I have thought about divorce, I'll never regain love for my partner.

There is a path back from a marital crisis to an improved marriage and love. But this path is not a "fake it till you make it" path. Rather, it requires both partner's commitment to change. For the rejected spouse, this path begins by appreciating that your partner is not currently committed to the change process, but can get there in time.

To learn more about managing a marital crisis read my free ebook, Managing a Marital Crisis at http://www.relationshipcrisis.com/Ebook_CC.pdf

Political Affairs: The Wife's Response

Image by an0nym0n0us via Flickr

Once again, this time right here in Tennessee, a state representative admits to having an affair. While it is difficult enough to know your partner has been unfaithful, it’s made more difficult when the general public knows your struggle. It must seem as though everyone is peering over your shoulder in judgment as they wait to see what decision you will make.

Women often say they feel foolish upon discovering their husband’s affair. They become self-conscious and imagine that the infidelity was known to everyone but them. It is not uncommon for the betrayed wife to feel others are laughing at her or holding her responsible for the infidelity. As a wife of a politician, the glare of media must make the self-examination even more painfully insecure.

It is important for the betrayed partner to find a position of self-worth that says, “I am a woman of value. My value is not based on my husband’s (mis) behavior, or others’ opinions of me. I am faced with a decision, whether to remain committed to the marriage or divorce. I cannot allow anything to interfere with my ability to make a good decision. I must avoid making a decision too quickly or too emotionally.

Reconciliation requires three elements. First, the betrayed partner must feel that your partner understands the depth of your pain. At the same time, she must accept responsibility for her expression of her pain. The betrayed partner must move from aggressive expression of pain to vulnerable sharing of pain.

Second, she needs her partner to examine the underlying reasons for his affair. It is not good enough to say that the behavior is wrong and won’t be repeated; the gravity of the poor choice calls for self-examination to explore the underlying influences that led to the hurtful behavior. The betrayed partner must be able to move from endless questions about the details of the affair to a more penetrating discussion of what the affair meant to their partner.

Finally, there needs to be a plan for a new, improved relationship. Without such change, a cloud of pain can hang over the marriage for years to come. Instead, the couple needs to be able to say that the crisis was painful but brought about an even stronger, healthier marriage than existed prior to the affair. This path of reconciliation takes months, even years to follow. Outsiders rarely show sensitivity to how difficult this path is (for instance, look at what is said about the Clinton’s marriage) yet as a society we encourage commitment to marriage.

Of course some hurts lead to an emotional detachment that becomes a divorce. One or both partners come to see the marriage as perpetually dissatisfying. The painful process of divorce also becomes a source of public scrutiny.

Can Marriage Counseling Be Harmful?

A couple struggling for years in their marriage finally agree to enter marriage counseling. They go for a couple of sessions. The counseling helps them to express their displeasure with the relationship, but also brings them together to work on their relationship as they had not done in several years.

Because they were working together and the tension was reduced, they decided to quit counseling - after all, it was expensive and inconvenient. They really believed they had turned a corner on their relationship problems and would be able to continue improving on their own effort.

A year later, they find they have failed to improve their relationship. They discuss seeking marriage counseling, but agree that marriage counseling didn't work in the past. Perhaps their problems are hopeless. Perhaps divorce is the only answer.

Marriage counseling requires a commitment to working over a period of time on improving your relationship. The process does not just alter your feelings toward each other. If the process is successful you will have negotiated a more intimate relationship , but this takes time.

Remember when you were given a bottle of antibiotics and the instructions included the warning to take the whole bottle even if you are feeling better. I suspect that marriage counseling should come with a similar warning: Do not begin this process lightly; be prepared to see it through to the end.

Love or Commitment - Which is More Important?

As a marriage counselor, you would think that I would use the word love frequently in my work. “Do you love him? Is there still love in your heart? Can your love return?” I tend to avoid using this word. A recent blog post (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200803/loving-two-people-the-same-time) highlights why this is so. This blogger asked the question, can you love two people at the same time. Examples were given where the individuals having an affair found themselves feeling love for their lover and their spouse.

Love is a word that is associated with feelings. While you can have positive feelings toward more than one individual, it is difficult to be fully committed to more than one partner. The deception that is part and parcel of an affair undermines a commitment to a relationship. One cannot be fully committed to their partner while lying to their partner. Openness and honesty are important elements of a committed relationship. Betrayed spouses often express more hurt over the dishonesty than the sexual infidelity.

While love is an important feeling, there are many other factors that attract you to be close to your partner. Respect and admiration for your partner’s role in parenting, business, and the community contribute to your attraction to your mate. In fact, one’s commitment to the marriage continues when feelings of anger temporarily push aside loving feelings.

While it's interesting to speculate whether one can love two or more individuals at once, it is more important to focus on identifying the elements of commitment in marriage. That is why buy my initial blog posting focused on the core elements of commitment in marriage. Go back, read that posting (http://marriagemattersblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/mission-of-this-blog.html) and determine whether you could have such a commitment to more than one person at a time. I think that you will find that you cannot.

Why Men Stop Cheating

Some estimate that over 60% of marriages include sexual infidelity. While this is certainly bad news, the good news is that most men and women only cheat once. An important question is why do men and women cheat, but another important question is why do they cheat just once?

I find that affairs often help both the offending partner and their spouse to gain greater appreciation for their marriage and lead both to value the relationship more. As the relationship gains value, regret for the affair increases which makes a repeated affair less likely.

If your partner has an affair, you want to know that it will not happen again. Unfortunately, there is no way your partner can do more than verbally assure you that it will not happen again. Instead of asking this question, answer these questions:

1. Does my partner demonstrate appreciation for the pain caused by the affair?
2. Does my partner try to understand the reason for the affair and make an effort to strengthen his or her future decision making?
3. Have we been able to emotionally connect in a way that suggests we can have a better connection than in the past?
4. Have we each identified ways to show our partner that he or she is valued?
5. Do I feel valued?

If you see these changes, then it is reasonable to believe that your marriage can become a stable, loving relationship that lasts a lifetime.

The Five Love Languages: A Review

Cover via Amazon

I have recently read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I realize this book has been around for some years. I was motivated to read this book because it seems that more couples seek help through reading this book than any other.

It is a simple truth that it important to give your partner love if you wish to receive love. This book helps couples to realize that what you value as an expression of love may not be valued equally by your partner. Many women would appreciate flowers as an expression of love but my mother saw flowers as a waste of money. If my father brought home flowers, she would feel aggravated, not loved.

This book's value is that it sensitizes you to how you would like to be loved and makes you more sensitive to what your partner would like from you. However, I think this book implies too strongly that most folks have one primary language. Chapman implies that it is rare to be "multilingual" whereas I suspect that most of us can feel love that is expressed in many forms. Men are often seen as wanting love in the form of sexual intercourse. However, men actually want sex packaged in a warm, enthusiastic relationship. Men often complain about cold, "mercy sex."

A woman's ability to empathize allows her to detect love in many expressions. Wives often say that they "know" they are loved by observing indirect statements of caring that come in many forms. This said, I think it is important for partners to carefully consider what expressions of love are most valued by their mate and The Five Love Languages will help you to identify this.

Giving Yourself Permission to Divorce in Order to Choose to be Married

I'm sure you have heard someone say, "Divorce is not an option for me; divorce is not in my vocabulary." This expression can mean different things to different people. To someone in a satisfying marriage, this expression can mean that he/she is committed to their marriage and willing to tackle whatever roadblocks to intimacy that may arise.

But to someone in a marriage crisis the expression can represent entrapment, suggesting, "I made my bed and I must lie in it." The difficulty with this outlook during a marriage crisis is that one cannot choose to remain married unless one has a choice. Removing yours or your partner's choice can result in a marriage without intimacy or closeness. Such a choice can have lasting consequences.

It is far better to give yourself permission to divorce in order to give yourself permission to be married. A healthy marriage requires much effort, work that cannot be given reluctantly. Your partner's distancing may tempt you to manipulate the situation in order to avoid divorce. Friends and family may be willing accomplices in the manipulation because they do not want the marriage to dissolve.

Resist such desperate behavior. Trust that your partner must make a decision to commit to the relationship. Only a choice freely given will include motivation to draw close to you and willingness to trust giving one's heart away (once again).

Acknowledging Needs in Marriage

Men are said to have difficulty expressing needs because it appears weak, while women expect men to be able to telepathically read their needs. These stereotypes exist because they have some basis in fact. Couples frequently fail to communicate needs, then become emotionally distanced.

However, these stereotypes are also exaggerated. I always remind myself that every couple went through a dating phase in which they communicate their needs, their desires for the future and show a willingness to meet their needs. Certainly, the connection that results in marriage includes sharing needs.

What makes the couple better able to share needs during dating than after marriage?

I believe the difference lies in the couple's goals during the dating phase of the relationship. When dating, the couple are sending a message that they want their partner in their future. This desire for a future together motivates both partners to share their needs and to reassure one another that their needs will be attended to.

After marriage, the couple loses motivation to preserve their future, assuming a future after the marriage vows have been given. This is an assumption that makes little sense given the odds of divorce. Remind yourself and your partner that you want a future together.

Communicate your needs while showing interest in your partner's needs. Initiate conversations that provide an opportunity to share fantasies about your future together. Share what makes needs will need to be met for you to remain satisfied for years to come.

How do you Compromise in your Marriage?

Image by Robert in Toronto via Flickr

Everyone agrees that compromise is essential to a successful marriage. The essence of marriage is the ability to achieve closeness through blending two lives. Compromising your desires is essential if you are to be close.

Cold compromise is a form of compromise that many couples use which does not promote intimacy, but actually leads to emotional distance. Cold compromise is compromise that is given reluctantly or begrudgingly.

Here are five questions to ask about how you compromise with your partner:

1. Is compromise reached in your relationship through caring or is it a byproduct of a power struggle?
2. Do you find your arguments include concern for your feelings or are they simply a debate from two different viewpoints?
3. Is it easier for you to give in than to press for a compromise?
4. Are you able to get your partner to agree to your desires because he or she cares about you? Do you know that you have power because your partner cares?
5. Are you able to share your desires in a vulnerable manner or do you have to be angry to get your way?

If your relationship has compromise based on passive giving in or aggressive winning, then this compromise is a cold compromise (although the arguments can be heated). A warm compromise takes into account you and your spouse's feelings. Acknowleging the importance of feelings is the path to caring.

Recall when you were dating and you rarely argued because differences seemed so small. They were not actually small; they were just softened by the desire to express caring.

Assertive & Vulnerable Communication

You have certain rights in a relationship:

1. The right to your viewpoint, although others may not share your viewpoint
2. The right to your feelings being expressed, although you don't have the right to hold others responsible for your feelings.
3. The right to your desires for the relationship, although you can't expect to have all of your desires met.

An assertive individual exercises these rights in a relationship. If you are in a caring relationship, you can expect your partner to care about your view, your feelings and your desires.

All to often, one partner will fail to express as assertive message in a vulnerable tone. The vulnerable tone is much more likely to hook your partner's caring. An aggressive or abrasive tone tends to repel caring.

Can This Marriage Be Saved: Assessing Hope

This question often centers on questions like:

• Can I forgive this hurt?
• Can we learn to communicate?
• Does he/she really love me?
• Will my partner quit abusing alcohol/porn/me?

While such questions are important, they can rarely be answered with certainty. Verbal promises sure don't ensure that change will occur. Neither personal counseling, marital counseling, rehab, or religious conversion ensures that change will occur. Finally, even if change occurs, you can't be sure that this will lead to a satisfying marriage.

Since there is no certain answer to this question, you can only ask:

• Do I have reasonable hope that my marriage can become satisfying?

Hope for a satisfying marriage keeps us from divorce. Belief that the marriage can improve will maintain motivation. Hopelessness is the enemy of the marriage. In the next post, I will discuss how to realistically communicate hope for the future of the marriage and what it means to make a reasonable decision.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Even Santa Can Have A Marriage Crisis

When you or your partner question you commitment to your marriage, you feel as though your situation is abnormal. You feel ashamed or guilty for you or your partner's uncertain commitment to the marriage. Yet a crisis in a marriage is actually more common than you may think.

Often my clients find that when they open up to others about their marriage crisis, that other family members and friends share stories of uncertain times in their marriage.

A crisis reflects both dissatisfaction with the marriage and the opportunity for a new, improved relationship. I liken a marriage crisis to the stock market. When stocks are overpriced, then stock prices are prone to sharp drops. These sharp changes are described as market corrections.

Similarly, a crisis in your marriage can signal the need for a correction in the relationship. With the crisis comes greater willingness to examine how the relationship has been negotiated. Has one partner been too passive and allowed their spouse to largely define the relationship. Has one been too aggressive negotiating for what he or she wants. Either way, the marriage becomes an unequal partnership defined by one partner rather than each.

A crisis can trigger a renegotiation of the relationship that offers the opportunity to compromise what each partner wants in order to create a mutually satisfying relationship.

Perhaps Santa must make up for devoting so much time to work prior to Christmas. Mrs. Claus needs the opportunity to redefine their relationship so that they can spend more time together and reassess their priorities. Santa may need to devote more time to letting Mrs. Claus know how important she is in his life.

Killing Your Spouse (or How to Save Your Partner’s Life)

Image via Wikipedia · If your partner is obese, you are more likely to be obese.

· If your partner does not quit smoking, then you are less likely to be successful in quitting.

· If your partner has heart disease, then you are more at risk for heart disease.

So if you want to kill your spouse, the best route short of prison, appears to be to take on an unhealthy lifestyle. Your unhealthy lifestyle is likely to encourage the same lifestyle for your spouse, increasing his or her chance for a premature death.

On the other hand, your lifestyle choices can not only benefit you but also your mate. By making changes in your health habits, you can extend your life and that of your spouse. What is the best way to make sure that your partner joins you in healthy change?

Discuss the Health Benefits You are Striving For

Research has shown that focusing on positive outcomes with clear health benefits can motivate change. Tell your partner what you wish to accomplish. Avoid pushing you partner to adopt the same goals. If he or she is not prepared to adopt these goals, then such a push is unlikely to be successful.

Discuss Potential Stumbling Blocks and Enlist Your Partner’s Help

It is beneficial to anticipate obstacles to change. This is not negative thinking, because you are also considering ways to avoid or overcome such obstacles. By enlisting your partner’s cooperation in this effort, you will motivate your partner to consider the effort necessary for change. Indirect suggestion that change is possible is more powerful that full frontal assault on your partner’s resistance to change.

Encourage Your Partner to Verbalize Objections to Change

When your partner suggests that attempts to change are likely to be fruitless, it is tempting to argue that change is possible. Instead, listen to your partner and show acceptance for his or her viewpoint. Clarify your mate’s views and the reasoning underlying these views. Accepting his or her views as legitimate will not encourage your partner’s negative thinking, it will actually soften such thinking. Arguing for your view will create polarization, a hardening of one’s position.

Ultimately, the most powerful force for change will be your success in change. If you stop smoking, then your behavior will demonstrate that stopping smoking is possible. Regular exercise will yield results that will demonstrate the benefits rather than simply talking about them.

Your effort to improve your behavior will not necessarily result in your partner’s change, but you can rest assured that you have done your best to be a positive influence on your partner’s health.

Blaming Yourself for Your Partner’s Distance

“If I was sexier, slimmer, smarter, wealthier, etc., etc. my partner would remain devoted to me forever.” This sounds unreasonable, yet this is the reasoning many adopt when their partner’s commitment to the marriage becomes uncertain. Why do folks tend to examine their faults and assume unnecessary blame when their partner distances?

At times the distance you experience in your marriage is a signal. It signals that the relationship has become dissatisfying for your spouse and the distance is really a way of communicating a desire for change. If you are willing to examine your contribution to the relationship problems, then you can inject hope that the relationship can improve. A typical example is a husband who becomes too devoted to his job or a wife who becomes consumed with mothering, each neglecting to care for the marriage while they nurture their career and children.

But even when their spouse is involved in an affair, a rejected partner can question what he or she has done (or failed to do) to cause the distance in the marriage. Even when the distancing partner says, “It’s not you, it’s me” the rejected partner will continue to search for something they have done that caused their partner’s distance.

Our instincts make us sensitive to pain, so we can preserve our lives by avoiding the causes of pain in our lives. If we become sick, we consider what we ate that caused our illness. This desire to control our environment in order to avoid pain can lead to self-blame for things outside our control. It feels better to focus on something that is in your control than to accept that your pain cannot be avoided.

Your partner’s commitment to the marriage is not something you earn or can manipulate. Commitment is a choice. Committed spouses choose to work on their marriage.

Avoid holding yourself irrationally responsible for your partner’s lack of commitment to the marriage. Remember that you can contribute to improving your relationship with your partner only if there is a mutual commitment to working on the relationship. It is fine to consider ways that to show that the relationship can be improved, but blaming yourself for your partner’s distance will only lead to diminished self-worth and make you less attractive as a partner.

Magical Thinking During a Marital Crisis: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Remember "Step on a crack and break your mother's back."? This childhood game represented the magical thinking of a child. A child exaggerates their impact on the world, in this case his or her mother's health.

During a marital crisis, you can also be susceptible to magical thinking. In this case, the magical thinking is driven by a desperate desire to end the pain of the crisis in your relationship. You say if I do ______ , then I will restore my relationship with my spouse. Examples are:

• If I am unconditionally loving, he will draw close to me once again.


• If she sees what it is like to have to pay her own way, then she will end this separation.


• If I take every opportunity to show my love, then he will know that nobody will love him the way that I love him.


• If she realizes that I will fight her for custody of the children, then she will end her affair once and for all.

If your partner is ambivalent about his or her commitment to the marriage, it is highly unlikely that any effort on your part will end the ambivalence. Threats can actually create more motivation to survive apart from you. Efforts to show love without expecting to receive love in return can diminish you in your partner's eyes. You appear to be throwing yourself at your partner without regard to your self-worth.

Ann Landers, the popular advice columnist used the expression, "Wake up and smell the coffee." to suggest that the reader needed to come to grips with the reality of the situation. Magical thinking results from your struggle to accept how serious the crisis in your relationship is.

Be gentle with yourself, but accept that there is no easy, quick solution to a marriage crisis. Understand that the crisis is not an emergency and that time is necessary to encourage good decision making. Give yourself the gift of time so that you can more completely absorb the reality of the distance between you and your partner.

What is a Marriage Crisis?

A marriage crisis occurs when one or both partner's commitment to the marriage becomes uncertain. A marriage crisis is different from marital problems, which confront two committed partners. With With one partner's commitment uncertain, the path to restoring the relationship is quite different than anything you'll find in most "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" type books. Responding as though your partner is still committed to the relationship can actually deepen the crisis, rather than alleviating it.

A crisis in a marriage is different from a marriage headed to divorce. A crisis in the relationship can be a point at which the marriage improves, depending on how the crisis is managed. Intense, overwhelming emotions are normal in a marriage crisis, but acting on these emotions can spell danger, often leading to decisions you'll later regret. Trying desperately to hold onto the marriage - or completely torching it in an impulsive "take that!" approach--via emotional outbursts, spending sprees or sexually destructive behavior, can lead to self-harm and harm to the marriage.

A marriage headed to divorce is motivated by hopelessness, the belief that the marriage cannot be satisfying. A marriage crisis is characterized by ambivalence, strongly competing emotions and desires. Ambivalence is different from confusion. Confusion can be resolved with additional information, but ambivalence is a tougher nut to crack. That's why the ambivalent spouse appears to be stuck on a fence, trying to decide on which side lies happiness and satisfaction. As one side starts to feel more attractive, there's a counterbalancing tug in the other direction as doubts dim what once was attractive. The fear of coming to regret whatever decision is made can be paralyzing. Stress builds as the fence becomes a more and more uncomfortable place to be, while a clear choice remains out of reach.

Anger or Intimacy in Marriage

Sally had gone through the same scenario many times. Bill would say he was going to play golf or go hunting on Saturday, and Sally would feel hurt that he did not want to spend time with her. But her response would be to simply say, "Fine," then go off in a huff of anger.

Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. recently wrote a piece that I enjoyed on anger (http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/200807/if-anger-helps-you-feel-in-control-no-wonder-you-cant-control-your-an#new). Here is my reaction to this blog in which he describes why we get angry instead of being vulnerable with our feelings.

Dr. Seltzer writes, "Yet feeling too detached from our partner can also revivify old attachment wounds and fears, so at times the dance changes and the distancer becomes the pursuer. The main point here is that anger, however unconsciously, can be employed in a variety of ways to regulate vulnerability in committed relationships." This is accurate, but I would say that the partner may be controlling tension in both situations - being angry or pursuing afterwards.

If you are angry you don't have to be vulnerable. You also don't necessarily have to be vulnerable when pursuing your partner. You can pursue through flowers, sex, a night on the town, etc. In working with couples, I teach partners to communicate their vulnerable feelings instead of "covering" them up with anger.

Intimacy requires the ability to be vulnerable in the context of your pain. You must be able to tell your partner that you are hurting. Many find it much easier to express anger or frustration than to admit pain. Simply expressing vulnerable feelings is extremely uncomfortable for many folks. They feel more powerful expressing anger. I teach that they are better able to get what they want if they can learn to express their feelings in a vulnerable tone.

The problem with anger is that it inhibits intimacy in relationships and makes negotiating the relationship colder. Intimacy builds when you can let your partner know what you need and your partner recognizes your feelings and needs. If you have a caring partner, he or she will warm to your needs and become less selfish in negotiating the relationship.

Sally decided to take a different approach, she said, "I understand that you enjoy golf and hunting, but I need to know that you also enjoy spending time with me. I don't want to keep you from those things you enjoy, but I need to know that you want to spend time with me." Bill responded, "You always bitch about my taking time for myself. I deserve some time with my friends; I'm not doing anything wrong." Instead of taking the "bait", Sally simply repeated her message in a soft tone of voice. Bill walked away.

The next weekend, Bill made it a point to spend time with Sally and she made it a point to show delight in their time spent together. She also noticed that on subsequent weekends Bill would talk to her about his plans and let her know that he was trying to balance his desires for sports and her.

Why Your Spouse Won't Cooperate

Jane wants Paul to shampoo the carpets. She knows it is a tough job and that he has procrastinated. She decides to do several nice things for him to motivate him to clean the carpeting. She makes him his favorite pie, she suggests he relax and watch Thursday night football and she is more affectionate and loving in general. Paul recognizes that he is receiving more that his usual share of “goodies” from his wife. Then he realizes why. On Friday she reminds him of the carpet-cleaning chore he has been putting off. Paul is now faced with a decision.

How should he respond? He is unlikely to be motivated by his wife if he believes he does not owe her anything in return for the goodies she has offered him. For instance he may feel he is finally receiving his due amount of appreciation for what he has already contributed to the relationship. Or he may feel that he contributes plenty through his effort on the job and through other chores.

On the other hand, Paul is more likely to be motivated by his Jane’s efforts if she appears to be acting out a gesture of goodwill. If he sees his wife as being kind, then he is more likely to be motivated to reciprocate. The husband will see this as a gesture of goodwill if he experiences the positive things his wife has done as part of a bigger pattern of giving. He will be motivated if he believes that she will continue to give to him in the future. In other words, the husband is likely to be motivated to clean the carpet if he believes that his effort will result in further rewards in the future and not as an effort to manipulate him to do an unpleasant task.

When you were dating, you had confidence in receiving rewards from your partner. These rewards took many forms. It was a pleasure to receive a compliment, a certain touch, a look of admiration, or a willingness to go the extra mile just to spend time together. When you gave to your partner, you had faith that you would receive as much as you gave.

Do you have faith that there are numerous rewards to be had from nurturing a relationship with your spouse?