Couple Support

The Story You Tell Yourself About Your Marriage

How you describe the problems of your marriage will probably determine whether or not you can find the will to work on solving them. A woman came to me recently wanting help in deciding whether or not to leave her marriage. I could tell from the way she described the relationship that she had already decided to leave. The story she told herself said it all. 

Here is the gist of what she told me: “We should never have gotten married. We were completely incompatible from the beginning. My husband is a thoroughly negative person. He is always complaining about something. I am tired of putting up with him.”

What is it about her story that tells me that she has readied herself to leave the relationship and almost certainly is going to do so? 

* Her whole story is about her husband. Her view of the marriage is devoid of any awareness of her own contribution to the relationship and especially to its problems.

* All her statements are absolutes. Absolutes leave no room for change; “never,” “completely,” “always” and similar words indicate a point of view that is fixed. 

* For this person to consider working to change her relationship, she would need first to change her story so that it also included herself and her behavior. She would need to drop the absolute language and use relative terms instead. She would need to speak of their relationship, especially how they do it — in terms of skills and their absence. E.g., “We don’t know how to get along.” “We can’t make decisions together.” “We can’t handle conflict.” 

Seeing her marriage in terms of skills, she might still leave the relationship, but at least she would have to consider the possibility that she and her husband could learn what they don’t know and make a better relationship.

I Don't Feel Close to My Partner Any More. Remedies Part 1

“I don’t feel close to my wife any more,” a client said to me. “I hate feeling this way. What can I do about it?” Feeling distant from your partner is a problem in many relationships. Are you looking for a solution? Go looking first for what may have caused the distance. Then consider possible remedies.

I am going to devote a few posts to this topic. It’s an important one.

You don’t feel close to your partner. Here are some questions you can ask yourself, in pursuit of understanding the distance that you feel:

• Do you feel close to anyone? If you don’t, then of course you don’t feel close to your partner either. Are you so self-involved that in a real sense there is no one else in your life but you? No? Then what isolates you? Do you work all the time – mostly alone? Do you live in your head, keeping company only with yourself? Are you isolated by fatigue or illness?

• If there are other people in your life whom you feel close to, try accounting for the closeness. Are you close, for example, through humor? A shared hobby? Spiritual interests? Does the closeness that you have with others shed light on the distance you feel with your partner?

• What did you used to do that made you feel close to your partner? (Maybe you used to take long walks together in the woods or bike together – but you don’t any more.) If it was activity of a certain sort that used to bring you closeness, then consider reviving that activity. Or if doing so is impossible, as it may well be, then – with your partner – look for new activities that hold the promise of a similar closeness.

More questions and ideas next time.

Marital Unhappiness – When the Way He Sees His Wife Has Little in Common with the Way She Sees Herself

When I’m working with a couple, I sometimes find it helpful to meet with each partner alone for a session. I often find that the way they see themselves does not match with the way they are seen by the other person – so much so sometimes that I want to get them together and say, “Let me introduce you to each other.”

An example: I remember a session with a woman who complained bitterly about her husband’s coldness to her. She told of missing simple affection and cuddling together in the evening. She cried while confessing that sometimes she wanted to be held and comforted and felt so lonely and abandoned when this never happened.

Clearly this was a woman who was in touch with her need for basic physical connection with her spouse and saw herself as soft and vulnerable. On the other hand, her husband, during his individual session, described his wife as “sharp” and “accusatory.” He claimed that she regularly interrogated him. Never once did he even hint at softness or vulnerability.

What was going on? Quite possibly the wife was all that both she and her husband said about her. She did want affection and at times comforting, and she was sometimes sharp and accusatory (especially, perhaps, after she didn’t get the affection she needed but did a poor job of asking for).

And undoubtedly, because of their individual past experiences, she more noticed her vulnerability and need and he more noticed her sharpness and aggressiveness.

These two needed to have a problem-solving conversation, free from mutual accusation and defensiveness. The discussion might have begun with the wife saying to her husband,  “The way I want to be seen is not the way that you see me. What can we do about it?”   

Why You May Not Experience Your Partner's Love

“What do you want most of all?” the relationship coach asks the wife. “I want to experience that my husband really loves me,” she answers. The coach turns to the husband. “Do you?” he asks. “Of course, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” the husband replies, frustration in his voice. “He says he loves you,” the coach says to the wife. “I know,” she responds, “but…” Her voice trails off.

Why doesn’t the wife experience her husband’s love? Here are some possibilities.

• The husband really doesn’t love her. However, he is unwilling to jeopardize what the marriage gives him by being honest and saying, “It’s true; I don’t love you.” The wife suspects that he doesn’t love her, but she is unwilling to jeopardize what the marriage gives her by pressing him for an honest answer. Both prefer unhappiness with each other to putting the marriage at risk.
• The husband loves her, but the ways that he shows it are not important enough for her to feel loved.
• He does love her, but the life they are living together is so tepid, so fundamentally devoid of emotion, that of course she doesn’t feel loved. Basically, she doesn’t feel anything with him, nor he with her – except boredom.
• He does love her, but she doesn’t feel loved because she is so wedded to feeling unloved that what he gives never reaches her. She doesn’t know how to receive and feel loved.
• He does love her, but he keeps his love for her to himself. Because of her persistent dissatisfaction with him, he feels like a failure whenever the subject of their loving comes up. In the relationship, he makes himself as invisible as possible.
• He is quite willing to be more demonstrative about his love, but waits for her to ask, fearing that she will turn him down if he goes first. In turn, she refuses to ask for what she wants, believing what whatever she asks for has little value because “I had to ask for it.”

Assuming that these unhappy people do in fact love each other, how do you suggest they get unstuck and find some pleasure in their loving? Please share your thoughts. Click on Comments below.