Marriage Matters

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.

Pet's Getting Married

Check out how important pet marriage has become - http://www.eventective.com/blog/weddings/2008/07/07/getting-married-doggy-style/

Does this signal a return to the importance of people marriage?

Possibility

Image via Wikipedia New Year's Day is one of my favorite holidays. Why? Well I guess it reflects both my personality and my profession. A new year brings the possiblity of change. Just as the beginning of a sports season brings optimism for success, even for the Pittsburg Pirates, beginning a new year gives me optimism that I can make changes in my life.

I use the begining of the year as a time to create personal, relationship and professional goals. I even try to get started making changes before the year begins! The possiblity of improving my services to my clients, my health through improving my diet and my family relationships suggests a more satisfying life ahead.

As a therapist, clients bring pain to my office. It is important to acknowledge the pain, but to focus on the possiblity for change. Pain can feel forever, but is typically a signal for the need for change. It is hard to see how much pain folks experience. My job would be very difficult if it were not for having seen how often change arises from the pain.

Health crises, marital crises, identity crises...all share the opportunity for change and an improved life. As the year progresses, the reality of the difficult battle to maintain change settles in, but the begining of the year provides the possiblity of change.

I hope that you are able to look forward to a year of self-improvement and the possibility of a better life.

Happy New Year!

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.

Using Sex and God to Save Your Marriage

What one thing can you do to save your marriage when you fear losing your partner? This question reflects on your fear and the desperate desire to turn your distancing partner around. After you have recovered from the shock of hearing, “I’m not sure I love you anymore” you are likely to start to grasp for anything that will end the crisis.

Just as a family member may turn to God to bargain for sparing a dying loved one, you may turn to God to bargain for your marriage to survive. Or you may take matters into your own hand to bargain more directly for the survival of your marriage.

Vanessa describes her reaction to her husband’s distancing from the marriage, “I became so focused on saving my marriage that I could think of little else. Even my children took a back seat to the marriage. I sought out every avenue to let my husband know that I wanted to be married to him. I ignored my hurt and worked to be kind, I tried to start conversations and show interest in him, and I pursued sex like never before!”

Unfortunately, Vanessa’s efforts did not and will not work. This is because she is not protecting her self-worth in the relationship. She is saying, “I’ll give everything and I expect nothing in return.” This communicates that you want the relationship at all cost—not a message you want to deliver. You don’t want a relationship in which you are diminished and do not receive in proportion to what you give. You deserve a partner that values you and wants to give to you just as you want to give to him.

You can preserve your marriage and offer a message of self-worth. Turn to God for strength not for magic, you will need strength to weather this storm. You want to preserve yourself as well as your marriage.