The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Page 6
Sometimes a couple at this end stage of marriage will come for counseling. On the surface it may seem like nothing much is wrong. They don’t argue or act contemptuous or stonewall. They don’t do much of anything. They talk calmly and distantly about their relationship and their conflicts. An inexperienced therapist could easily assume that their problems don’t run very deep. But actually one or both of them has already disengaged emotionally from the marriage.
Some people leave a marriage literally, by divorcing. Others do so by leading parallel lives together. Whichever the route, there are four final stages that signal the death knell of a relationship.
1. You see your marital problems as severe.
2. Talking things over seems useless. You try to solve problems on your own.
3. You start leading parallel lives.
4. Loneliness sets in.
When a couple gets to the last stage, one or both partners may have an affair. But an affair is usually a symptom of a dying marriage, not the cause. The end of that marriage could have been predicted long before either spouse strayed. Too often, couples begin to seek help for their marriage after they’ve already hit troubled waters. The warning signs were almost always there early on if they had known what to look for. You can see the seeds of trouble in (1) what couples actually say to each other (the prevalence of harsh startup, the four horsemen, and the unwillingness to accept influence), (2) the failure of their repair attempts, (3) physiological reactions (flooding), or (4) pervasive negative thoughts about their marriage. Any of these signs suggests that emotional separation, and in most cases divorce, may only be a matter of time.
BUT IT’S NOT OVER TILL IT’S OVER
As bleak as this sounds, I am convinced that far more marriages could be saved than currently are. Even a marriage that is about to hit bottom can be revived with the right kind of help. Sadly, most marriages at this stage get the wrong kind. Well-meaning therapists will deluge the couple with advice about negotiating their differences and improving their communication. At one time I would have done the same. At first, when I figured out how to predict divorce, I thought I had found the key to saving marriages. All that was necessary, I presumed, was to teach people how to argue without being overridden by the four horsemen and without getting flooded. Then their repair attempts would succeed, and they could work out their differences.
But like so many experts before me, I was wrong. I was not able to crack the code to saving marriages until I started to analyze what went right in happy marriages. After intensely studying happily married couples for as long as sixteen years, I now know that the key to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not in how you handle disagreements but in how you are with each other when you’re not fighting. So although my Seven Principles will also guide you in coping with conflict, the foundation of my approach is to strengthen the friendship that is at the heart of any marriage.
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Principle 1:
Enhance Your Love Maps
Rory was a pediatrician who ran an intensive care unit for babies. He was beloved at the hospital, where everybody called him Dr. Rory. He was a reserved man but capable of great warmth, humor, and charm. He was also a workaholic who slept in the hospital an average of twenty nights a month. He didn’t know the names of his children’s friends, or even the name of the family dog. When he was asked where the back door to the house was, he turned to ask his wife, Lisa.
His wife was upset with how little she saw of Rory and how emotionally unconnected to her he seemed to be. She frequently tried to make little gestures to show him she cared, but her attempts just annoyed him. She was left with the sense that he simply didn’t value her or their marriage.
To this day I’m struck by the story of this couple. Here was an intellectually gifted man who didn’t even know the name of the family dog or how to find the back door! Of the many problems their relationship faced, perhaps the most fundamental was Rory’s shocking lack of knowledge about his home life. He had become so caught up in his work that little space was left over in his brain for the basics of his wife’s world.
As bizarre as Rory’s rampant ignorance may sound, I have found that many married couples fall into a similar (if less dramatic) habit of inattention to the details of their spouse’s life. One or both partners may have only the sketchiest sense of the other’s joys, likes, dislikes, fears, stresses. The husband may love modern art, but his wife couldn’t tell you why or who his favorite artist is. He doesn’t remember the names of her friends or the coworker she fears is constantly trying to undermine her.
In contrast, emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s world. I call this having a richly detailed love map—my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life. Another way of saying this is that these couples have made plenty of cognitive room for their marriage. They remember the major events in each other’s history, and they keep updating their information as the facts and feelings of their spouse’s world change. When she orders him a salad, she knows to ask for his dressing on the side. If she works late, he’ll tape her favorite TV show because he knows which one it is and when it’s on. He could tell you how she’s feeling about her boss, and exactly how to get to her office from the elevator. He knows that religion is important to her but that deep down she has doubts. She knows that he fears being too much like his father and considers himself a “free spirit.” They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, each other’s hopes.
Without such a love map, you can’t really know your spouse. And if you don’t really know someone, how can you truly love them? No wonder the biblical term for sexual love is to “know.”
IN KNOWLEDGE THERE IS STRENGTH
From knowledge springs not only love but the fortitude to weather marital storms. Couples who have detailed love maps of each other’s world are far better prepared to cope with stressful events and conflict. Take, for example, one of the major causes of marital dissatisfaction and divorce: the birth of the first baby. Sixty-seven percent of couples in our newlywed study underwent a precipitous drop in marital satisfaction the first time they became parents. But the remaining 33 percent did not experience this drop—in fact, about half of them saw their marriages improve.
What separated these two groups? You guessed it: The couples whose marriages thrived after the birth had detailed love maps from the get-go, according to a study of fifty couples by my student Alyson Shapiro. These love maps protected their marriages in the wake of this dramatic upheaval. Because husband and wife were already in the habit of keeping up to date and were intently aware of what each other was feeling and thinking, they weren’t thrown off course. But if you don’t start off with a deep knowledge of each other, it’s easy for your marriage to lose its way when your lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.
Maggie and Ken knew each other only a short time when they married and decided to have a family. But what their relationship lacked in longevity, they made up for in intimacy. They were in touch not just with the outlines of each other’s lives—their favorite hobbies, sports, and so on—but with each other’s deepest longings, beliefs, and fears. No matter how busy they were, they made each other their priority—always making sure they had time to catch up on each other’s day. And at least once a week they’d go out for dinner and just talk—sometimes about politics, sometimes about the weather, sometimes about their own marriage.
When their daughter Alice was born, Maggie decided to give up her job as a computer scientist to stay home with the baby. She herself was surprised by the decision since she had always been very driven in her career. But when she became a mother, her fundamental sense of meaning in life changed. She found she was willing to undergo great sacrifices for Alice’s sake. Now she wanted the savings they had earmarked for a motorboat to go into a college fund. What happened to Maggie happens to many new mothers—the experience of parenthood is so profo
und that your whole notion of who you are and what you value gets reshuffled.
At first, Ken was confused by the changes in his wife. The woman he thought he knew was transforming before his eyes. But because they were in the habit of staying deeply connected, Ken was able to keep up to date on what Maggie was thinking and feeling. Too often when a new baby comes, the husband gets left behind. (More on this and ways of dealing with it in Chapter 9.) He can’t keep up with his wife’s metamorphosis, which he may not understand or be happy about. Knowing Maggie had always been a priority to Ken, so he didn’t do what too many new fathers do—he didn’t back away from this new charmed circle of mother and child. As a result they went through the transformation to parenthood together, without losing sight of each other or their marriage.
Having a baby is just one life event that can cause couples to lose their way without a detailed love map. Any major change—from a job shift to a move to illness or retirement—can have the same effect. Just the passage of time can do it as well. The more you know and understand about each other, the easier it is to keep connected as life swirls around you.
Love Maps Questionnaire
By giving honest answers to the following questions, you will get a sense of the quality of your current love maps. For the most accurate reading of how your marriage is doing on this first principle, both of you should complete the following.
Read each statement and circle T for “true” or F for “false.”
1. I can name my partner’s best friends. T F
2. I can tell you what stresses my partner is currently facing. T F
3. I know the names of some of the people who have been irritating my partner lately. T F
4. I can tell you some of my partner’s life dreams. T F
5. I am very familiar with my partner’s religious beliefs and ideas. T F
6. I can tell you about my partner’s basic philosophy of life. T F
7. I can list the relatives my partner likes the least. T F
8. I know my partner’s favorite music. T F
9. I can list my partner’s three favorite movies. T F
10. My spouse is familiar with my current stresses. T F
11. I know the three most special times in my partner’s life. T F
12. I can tell you the most stressful thing that happened to my partner as a child. T F
13. I can list my partner’s major aspirations and hopes in life. T F
14. I know my partner’s major current worries. T F
15. My spouse knows who my friends are. T F
16. I know what my partner would want to do if he or she suddenly won the lottery. T F
17. I can tell you in detail my first impressions of my partner. T F
18. Periodically I ask my partner about his or her world right now. T F
19. I feel that my partner knows me pretty well. T F
20. My spouse is familiar with my hopes and aspirations. T F
Scoring: Give yourself one point for each “true” answer.
10 or above: This is an area of strength for your marriage. You have a fairly detailed map of your spouse’s everyday life, hopes, fears, and dreams. You know what makes your spouse “tick.” Based on your score you’ll probably find the love map exercises that follow easy and gratifying. They will serve as a reminder of how connected you and your partner are. Try not to take for granted this knowledge and understanding of each other. Keeping in touch in this way ensures you’ll be well equipped to handle any problem areas that crop up in your relationship.
Below 10: Your marriage could stand some improvement in this area. Perhaps you never had the time or the tools to really get to know each other. Or perhaps your love maps have become outdated as your lives have changed over the years. In either case, by taking the time to learn more about your spouse now, you’ll find your relationship becomes stronger.
There are few gifts a couple can give each other greater than the joy that comes from feeling known and understood. Getting to know each other shouldn’t be a chore. That’s why the first love map exercise below is actually a game! While you’re having fun playing, you’ll also be expanding and deepening your knowledge of each other. By the time you complete all of the exercises in this chapter, you’ll know there’s truth in that old song “To Know You Is to Love You.”
Exercise 1: The Love Map
20 Questions Game
Play this game together in the spirit of laughter and gentle fun. The more you play, the more you’ll learn about the love maps concept and how to apply it to your own relationship.
STEP 1. Each of you should take a piece of paper and pen or pencil. Together, randomly decide on twenty numbers between 1 and 60. Write the numbers down in a column on the left-hand side of your paper.
STEP 2. Below is a list of numbered questions. Beginning with the top of your column, match the numbers you chose with the corresponding question. Each of you should ask your partner this question. If your spouse answers correctly (you be the judge), he or she receives the number of points indicated for that question, and you receive one point. If your spouse answers incorrectly, neither of you receives any points. The same rules apply when you answer. The winner is the person with the higher score after you’ve both answered all twenty questions.
1. Name my two closest friends. (2)
2. What is my favorite musical group, composer, or instrument? (2)
3. What was I wearing when we first met? (2)
4. Name one of my hobbies. (3)
5. Where was I born? (1)
6. What stresses am I facing right now? (4)
7. Describe in detail what I did today, or yesterday. (4)
8. When is my birthday? (1)
9. What is the date of our anniversary? (1)
10. Who is my favorite relative? (2)
11. What is my fondest unrealized dream? (5)
12. What is my favorite flower? (2)
13. What is one of my greatest fears or disaster scenarios? (3)
14. What is my favorite time of day for lovemaking? (3)
15. What makes me feel most competent? (4)
16. What turns me on sexually? (3)
17. What is my favorite meal? (2)
18. What is my favorite way to spend an evening? (2)
19. What is my favorite color? (1)
20. What personal improvements do I want to make in my life? (4)
21. What kind of present would I like best? (2)
22. What was one of my best childhood experiences? (2)
23. What was my favorite vacation? (2)
24. What is one of my favorite ways to be soothed? (4)
25. Who is my greatest source of support (other than you)? (3)
26. What is my favorite sport? (2)
27. What do I most like to do with time off? (2)
28. What is one of my favorite weekend activities? (2)
29. What is my favorite getaway place? (3)
30. What is my favorite movie? (2)
31. What are some of the important events coming up in my life? How do I feel about them? (4)
32. What are some of my favorite ways to work out? (2)
33. Who was my best friend in childhood? (3)
34. What is one of my favorite magazines? (2)
35. Name one of my major rivals or “enemies.” (3)
36. What would I consider my ideal job? (4)
37. What do I fear the most? (4)
38. Who is my least favorite relative? (3)
39. What is my favorite holiday? (2)
40. What kinds of books do I most like to read? (3)
41. What is my favorite TV show? (2)
42. Which side of the bed do I prefer? (2)
43. What am I most sad about? (4)
44. Name one of my concerns or worries. (4)
45. What medical problems do I worry about? (2)
46. What was my most embarrassing moment? (3)
47. What was my worst childhood experience? (3)
48. Name two of the people I most admire. (4)
49. Name my major rival or enemy. (3)
50. Of all the people we both know, who do I like the least? (3)
51. What is one of my favorite desserts? (2)
52. What is my social security number? (2)
53. Name one of my favorite novels. (2)
54. What is my favorite restaurant? (2)
55. What are two of my aspirations, hopes, wishes? (4)
56. Do I have a secret ambition? What is it? (4)
57. What foods do I hate? (2)
58. What is my favorite animal? (2)
59. What is my favorite song? (2)
60. Which sports team is my favorite? (2)
Play this game as frequently as you’d like. The more you play, the more you’ll come to understand the concept of a love map and the kind of information yours should include about your spouse.
Exercise 2: Make Your Own Love Maps
Now that you have a clearer understanding of the love maps concept, it’s time to focus more seriously on your love maps for each other’s everyday lives. Even though these maps are “all in your head,” it helps to write down some of the basics. Spend extra time on this exercise if you (or your spouse) believes that your current love map is inadequate or, as is often the case, has fallen out of date. Use the following form to interview each other as if you were reporters. (If your spouse is unavailable, you can fill out this form without his or her input, but obviously the major benefits of this exercise come from sharing information.) Take turns as listener and speaker, and write out the answers to these forms. (It’s best to use a separate piece of paper, or better yet a notebook or journal that you can use for all of the exercises in this book.) Don’t pass judgment on what your spouse tells you or try to give each other advice. Remember that you are simply on a fact-finding mission. Your goal is to listen and learn about your mate.