Couple Support

Your Opportunity to Help Other Couples—and Yourself

Imagine a highly challenging trek, like a trek through the mountains, that remains largely unfamiliar to most people who undertake it, despite the fact that millions of others have made and are making the same journey.

Imagine that more than a few ostensibly practical manuals have been written about the route to be followed and the challenges to be expected along the way. Despite the existence of these manuals written by professionals, many people have found the going difficult, and the failure rate has been high.

Imagine that what these trekkers could really use is the “feet on the ground” experience, wisdom, and encouragement of others who have made the same journey or are currently on that journey themselves.

Imagine that this particular trek is for couples. In some sense, each couple makes the trek by themselves. However, the journey could be made much easier to travel and many more couples would accomplish it, if there was a community of trekkers providing one another with the support along the way that no manual can really provide.

The journey I am talking about is marriage and any deeply committed couple relationship. The way things are now, each couple makes this journey alone—discovers the route alone, encounters difficulties for which they are unprepared alone, experiences discouragement alone, celebrates their victories alone, cherishes their visions alone.

Alone, when so much could be gained were these couples connected to a supportive community of those making the same journey of commitment as themselves.

The community could be email-based, it could have a blog as a center, it could be a community of people who meet in each other’s homes—any of these forms could work fine.

For now I suggest using this blog, couplesupport.com, as at least a modest vehicle where you and others like you can share your experience and wisdom as well as your questions, so that our journey of marriage and committed relationship can better succeed.

I invite you to participate. Read the blog. At the bottom of any blog post that engages you, click the “comments” link. Then add your thoughts—your experience, suggestions and questions. Add your name and email address—or don’t; you can post anonymously if you need to.

You can also share your comments by writing me at Dr.Sanford@marriagesupport.com. I will use your comments on the blog as much as possible.

I wish in particular to acknowledge those readers of my newspaper column who have emailed me with kind words about what the column has meant to them over the years. I assure you that I will keep on writing, with this blog, for now, as my regular vehicle. I also hope that, in addition to reading the blog regularly, you will contribute your own thoughts to it. If you miss the column, I hope that you will also check out marriagesupport.com

As someone who has supported the column in the past, I ask you to support this blog now, as well as the main site, marriagesupport.com.

It’s true—together we can make a difference.

Tip for Couples: A Better Use of Your Feelings

When I am upset with you, I either hide my emotions or assault you with them. What I don’t do is share what I am feeling. You are the same way. Unfortunately, when we are upset with each other sharing our feelings is exactly what we should be doing, if we are to resolve our differences.

Neither hiding our feelings nor letting them take over and blasting away at each other helps when we are upset.

Hiding your feelings leaves your partner knowing that something is going on but not being able to work anything out with you, because you won’t acknowledge your condition. Blasting away at your partner usually sends your partner into flight or fight mode; she hides or counterattacks.

Sharing your feelings and assaulting your partner with them are very different. They also affect your partner very differently.

Two positive things happen when you share your feelings, neither of which happens when emotions run wild. You provide your partner with useful information about what is going on with you and why, in a manner that your partner can absorb.

Plus when you share your feelings, you also experience them yourself, not in an out-of-control way—as when, for example, you are thrown into a rage—but in a way that helps you feel stronger and more in command of yourself.

As a relationship counselor and coach, I see a relationship going nowhere when two people blast away at each other in my office. On the other hand, when they manage to stay centered and talk about what they feel with each other, the impact is exactly the opposite. Here are two people genuinely working on the relationship with each other and clearly getting somewhere positive.

Every Good Marriage Is a Threesome

Most unhappy marriages are two-somes; there’s me, there’s you, and that’s it. We probably argue a lot, because there’s my wants and needs and your wants and needs and nothing else—nothing to keep us from competing all the time. I need to make sure that I get what I need, and you don’t take it all.

On the other hand, most happy marriages are three-somes—the same me, the same you, plus of course the same wants and needs we each have. What distinguishes happy marriages from unhappy ones, however, is the presence of the additional element that creates the three-some—we. I, you, and we.

“We” is our sharing what we have together. “We” is what each of us points to as worthwhile, when the relationship is working. “We” is also what we have nothing of except resentment and pain, when each of us is tempted to leave.

Keep the “we” in mind—and in your heart—and feed it regularly with shared times that please you both and give you both meaning.

One way that both of you can keep “we” in the foreground of your attention is to approach decisions, differences and potential conflicts with the formula “I want, you want, we need.”

Keep each element of the three-some in mind when you are dealing with differences. For example, “I want to drive straight home. You want to stop along the way.

We need a speedy drive home and an out-of-the-car experience, too. How about if we stop at that road side farm stand, buy some vegetables for home and eat a snack at one of their picnic benches? Then we can both feel good about the trip.”

Advice for Couples: Don’t Tolerate “Whatever”

There has been a near-epidemic of “whatever” going around. If “whatever” should reach your relationship, stop it at all cost. Don’t let “whatever” take root. In case you have no idea what I am talking about, “whatever” is what some people have gotten in the habit of saying to end discussion. Example: One partner says, “I can’t stand those sarcastic, cutting remarks you make toward me all the time. The other partner responds, “Whatever.”

What’s the problem? Well for one thing “whatever” is usually said in a (yes) sarcastic, cutting (and snide, too!) sort of way. “Whatever” is not a positive or even neutral way of stopping a bad exchange. “Whatever” is not said like “Please, let’s stop.” “Whatever” drips with all sorts of not expressed but clearly implied meanings like “Sure, you jerk” or “You win, for the moment” or “Who cares about what you think.”

“Whatever” is nasty. Like any sarcastic, sidewise remark, it is hard to deal with because the person using “whatever” is not talking straight. Challenge a “whatever” remark, and you are likely to hear back, “You’re too sensitive” or “Just kidding.”

Another problem with “whatever” is that it is often defeatist, when defeat could probably be avoided. When “whatever” is an expression of defeat or hopelessness, the message behind it is apt to be some version of “I can’t get anywhere with you” or “We can’t solve anything—this included.”

Such beliefs should be challenged. When people settle for the belief that change is impossible or that getting through to each other can’t happen, the relationship is stuck and probably won’t get unstuck as long as “whatever” is allowed to stand.

Marriage Question: Could I Get Along with Me?

Imagine how useful it would be if you could experience yourself as your partner experiences you. You would then know what it was like to be on the receiving end of your own behavior, both the positive and the definitely not positive.

Assuming you loved your partner and cared about your partner’s well being, you could then modify some of your behavior—cutting back on the negative and adding to the positive—so that your partner enjoyed living with you more and, incidentally, was more inclined to act similarly toward you. Imagine how much possessing that skill could benefit your relationship!

Unfortunately, you will never experience yourself from the outside and, therefore, never really know what it is like to share a life with you.

However, you can come close. How? One way is to observe your partner closely. If your partner’s manner softens in response to something you have just done, if your partner seems, figuratively speaking, to move closer to you, then you know that the impact of your behavior has been positive. On the other hand, if you do something and your partner draws away from you, say, or speaks harshly toward you, you know that your impact has been negative.

You then may or may not choose to change—that’s up to you—but at least increasing your awareness of your partner’s reaction has given you new information.

You can also go the “would I like that done to me?” route. To use this strategy, you need to sharpen your ability to step outside yourself. This approach may help: Imagine that there is a second you. (You could call this second you “Me2.”) Imagine that Me2 exists outside of you and experiences everything you do to your partner.

Whenever you want to check what it might be like to be on the receiving end of you, jump in your imagination to Me2. From that perspective, ask yourself, ‘What if that were done to me; would I like it?” Chances are that if you wouldn’t like it, your partner probably won’t either.