Couple Support

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.”

Couples Counseling Is Like Dancing School

I sometimes tell new couples who come for counseling that what I am running is something like a dancing school. You come here because you can’t dance together well and would like to do better. I‘m using an analogy, in many ways a good one.

Couples often come to counseling blaming each other for the poor condition of the relationship. The problem is not us; it’s one of us alone, and almost always that one person is — you.

The dancing school analogy gets the couple to consider that the real problem is our failure to work well together in the way we communicate and, usually, in just about every aspect of the relationship, too — rather than what one of us is doing to the other.

The way “we” dance is too clumsy, too harsh; we’re too out of touch with each other and possibly with the music, too. We have too little sense of our individual selves, of each other — and the two of us as the couple dancing.

If the “couples relationship/dancing couple” analogy makes sense to the couple, they will begin to understand and make room for the particular talents of each of them so that they work together more easily and more smoothly. They will talk about the “dance” of their communication and what each asks of the other to make communication “the two us moving easily through the dance of talking together.” Best of all, they will stop blaming each other and begin to focus on the third “person” present — the “we” that they make together.

Advice for Couples: Don’t Mix Complaints and Requests

Your time and energy are valuable. If you are going to spend both trying to get through to your partner, aim for success: Be clear about your intentions when you speak. Know what you want to accomplish. In particular, don’t mix complaints and requests.

        When one angry or upset partner tells the other what is bothering him/her, the statement typically is a mix of lecture and implied or stated request. E.g., “I detest coming down in the morning and seeing yesterday’s dishes piled up in the sink. Haven’t you got eyes? Don’t you care?” (Mixed in with the criticism and stated or implied, “Please cooperate with me about cleanup.”)

        Invariably, the person on the receiving end misses the request and pays sole attention to the diatribe. That is a shame because hearing and responding to the request might lead to a solution to the dishes problem. On the other hand, the lecture will only generate an argument, and nothing useful will result.

        Solution: Split the complaint and the request. If you really need to complain, do so in one conversation. Then later on, in another conversation, state your request.

        Better still, skip the complaint altogether, if what you really want is a solution to the dishes problem, and you are willing to skip dumping on your partner, if doing so will help finding the solution.

        Refer to what you don’t want any more in a quiet and measured way; then go directly to your request. E.g., “The dishes were still in the sink when I came down this morning. I’d like them washed the night before. Can we cooperate about getting that done?”    

How to Succeed in Marriage - Cooperatively

In marriage, for one of us to succeed, the other has to succeed, too. That's something that couples who have mastered living together cooperatively fully understand. It's also a relationship lesson that some people never grasp.

Many years ago, when I was a sixth-grade public-school teacher, I used an exercise with my students that beautifully points up the difference between those who get it and those who don't .

In case you ever want to try the exercise with kids (or adults?), it goes this way: Assuming you're working with a group of 10 kids, you make 10 identical simple puzzles out of cardboard - maybe 12 pieces/puzzle. When you are finished, you take those 10 identical puzzles and mix them all up. You put an identical number of randomly-chosen puzzle pieces in 10 envelopes and give each kid an envelope.

None of the kids can assemble the puzzle with the pieces that s/he has received, since the puzzles were all mixed up. To complete the puzzle, each kid needs some different pieces. There are rules: You can't speak. You can't take, and you can't ask for what you need. In fact, you can't get anything for yourself. Instead, you have to give other people the pieces that they need. And when the others that you are giving to notice your need and respond, you get your puzzle completed.

When everybody works together, everybody gets the pieces s/he needs, and all the puzzles get assembled - because each person focuses not on "what I need" but on "what you need."

In my experience, most kids relatively easily learned to focus on others' needs rather than their own. Some kids couldn't do it, however: Prohibited from asking, demanding, or taking, they simply sat there. Completing the loop - meeting my needs by attending to yours - was beyond them.

Sometimes I think I met some of those kids later on in my couples counseling practice.

Marriages That Are Blessed

Some married couples are blessed with a connection that doesn't fail. They are openly affectionate with each other. They sleep nestled together. They make love and feel close. And they didn't get married a year ago. They may have been together for a decade - or longer. Some were sweethearts back in high school.

They are the blessed ones. Those of us on the outside of such deeply affectionate, connected relationships wonder how did these two ever get to be that way. We ask and hear, "We were best friends from the beginning," or "We have always loved each other." The answers don't satisfy. They don't tell us how we ourselves could ever have a relationship like that.

We may be tempted to dismiss such couples with an offhand "Well, some people have all the luck." That would be our misfortune: Something more than luck is at work here. Yes, such couples often started out with a deeply fundamental connection that both trusted. In that they were blessed. Life gave them a big gift.

They could have squandered it, though - but didn't. That wasn't luck. It was their achievement. They had the good sense - and the restraint and discipline - never to violate their commitment to each other, never to wrong each other so deeply that the connection between them got severed. They knew all along what they had in each other and protected it.

We could do that even now, late in the game. Maybe we don't have an easy, deep connection. Still we can value what we've got in each other and protect it. We can work not to hurt each other again. We can start from where we are and consider it a good beginning. What do you say?