marriage crisis Archives

Divorce prevention alert: Know now what you’re going to wish you knew later.

When your partner makes a request about something that is important to them, it is crucial that you take it to heart.

When a spouse pleads with their mate to go to marriage counseling, you can bet they’re frustrated – trust me, people don’t just ask their partner to go to counseling if they’re only a little annoyed. Instead, when your partner says, ‘Hey, can we go to marriage counseling?’ it’s pretty indicative that they’ve already made repeated unsuccessful attempts to improve the relationship on their own, and failed.

Yes, your spouse needs change and has cajoled, nagged, bribed and suggested, only to find their requests either ignored or met with delays and excuses. At the point they seek counseling they’re not looking for divorce – yet, but that will probably be on the table later if nothing is done.

Spouses seek the services of a therapist to help persuade their partner that the situation at-hand is serious, and once in my office, here’s what I’m likely to hear:

“I asked him to look into why he has a very low sex drive and he hasn’t done anything.”

“Her obsession with cleaning leaves me and the family with no quality time. I ask her to give us some time but she won’t sit still, so what am I to do?”

“He promised me he would look for a better job after we got married. It’s been four years and he hasn’t done one thing.”

The common dominator in all of these situations is that the unhappy spouse has made an important request regarding something they need or want, and their partner hasn’t been responsive. Get this if you get nothing else from this blog post: It is impossible to exaggerate how much damage being unresponsive to requests does to relationships.

Once your spouse has made a request, and then reminds, and asks, and asks again, and still nothing happens, they will enter the Frustration Zone, and at that point your marriage has entered into a negative spiral that could very well end in, well, The End.

So what about you? You’re the recipient of the complaints. Do you get a say? Of course you do! As we ponder what’s going on between you and your spouse, I will want to know two things:

1. Is the request your spouse making reasonable? Sometimes our spouses ask us to do the impossible or even things that make no sense, other times what they ask of us is entirely doable, and within the realm of reasonable expectations, such as regular sexual activity or spending time together, so which is it?
2. What is the obstacle that makes you unable or unwilling to meet the request? Be honest with yourself.

If your spouse is making an unreasonable request of you a Marriage and Family Therapist will be your new best friend. They will tell your partner this and kindly ask them to back off. If the therapist sees that the requests are reasonable, however, you’ll soon find out that your lack of response will eventually move your spouse from frustration to the much more serious level known as being fed up.

A person who has fallen into in the Fed Up Zone got there by passing through four phases that unfolded over months or years. They are:

1. A request was made.
2. If the request was not responded to, an angry plea was made.
3. If the request was still not responded to, an anguished plea for change will be made such as, “I don’t how long I can do this, I’m barely hanging on here,” or “This is very serious!”
4. If the request is still not responded to, the disgruntled partner will stop asking, and quietly watch and wait for a response. They give up and enter the “fed up” phase characterized by a dismantling of their emotional connection to the other and allowing the relationship to die.

The fed up phase has several characteristics that will end when the disgruntled partner completes their disconnection process and an emotional divorce takes place. When that happens, the mate will be mostly apathetic about their partner and the relationship.

The metamorphosis of disconnection will be apparent by the following signs.

1. Ambivalence sets in and the partner both wants to and doesn’t want to be in the relationship. “I can take it or leave it,” is the idea.
2. A new life blossoms away from the partner. The disgruntled one finds joy and meaning in life somewhere else, and sometimes with someone else.
3. Language changes … references to the future together will be few and far between.
4. Brutal honesty. No longer exhibiting political correctness, you will now hear for the first time how he always hated your sister and mother.
5. New boundaries. Before he was willing to do things he really didn’t want to do with you, now you can forget it.
6. Warnings. If you haven’t been contributing to the family finances, your partner may suggest you take up activities that will lead to you being able to support yourself – “I think you ought to be thinking about getting a job or going back to school,” or “You may not want to be counting on me to support you forever.”

People show signs when they begin to disconnect from a partner. It happens because needs weren’t met, respect wasn’t given, the relationship and time together wasn’t cherished. Unhappy people almost always speak up and tell their partners when they’re feeling disillusioned in whatever way. They turn on their flashers, set off flares, dance around and wave their arms, and then they give up. All because the other person wouldn’t, or couldn’t, respond to the need.

Power struggles: What to do if one spouse is more successful than the other.

Oprah and Stedman

Put two people in a room and they’re going to compare themselves to one another other – that’s what humans do. The same is true of two people who are married, each looks at the other and decides who’s the best, the strongest, smartest, nicest, who does the most – ugh – power struggles are inevitable. That’s why marriage therapists know that the more evenly balanced a couple is in beginning, the more likely their marriage is to succeed.

We therapists think of these areas where couples compete or compare as areas of power. For example, beauty is power. So is money. And who has the most of any of these things is likely to be perceived as having more power. Here are a few more areas where power struggles show up:

• Age
• Education
* Family of origin
• Health
• Success
• Intelligence
• Energy level
• Confidence
• Bowling score (Just kidding, but if you are way better at one skill than your spouse, it conceivably could be an issue).

Being as evenly balanced as possible is important because then we won’t have to deal with things like fear, envy, jealously and resentment because of what your spouse has that you don’t. Example: If Suzette is prettier than I am and has more money and success, I might feel envious of her and worry that she’ll leave me for what I consider to be a higher quality mate. I also might resent her for the positive strokes she gets in her life while I get little or no acknowledgement at all. This is how power trouble starts in relationships.

Success is a common area where couples experience an imbalance of power. Here’s a few common combos that put relationships at risk:

• One-sided. He has it and she doesn’t.
• Flip-flop. They both had it but one person loses it. The other person gets it.
• One-sided shifts to balance. He has it, she eventually gets it, and he can’t cope with her new-found success.

What the real destructive issue is, is lack of self-confidence and self-esteem in one or both of the partners. If you have a woman who knows who she is, feels good about herself, and feels empowered to do or not do whatever she wants, she will be able to deal with a more successful husband and vice versa.

For those that don’t have self-confidence and self-esteem, what are you waiting for? I implore you to dig in and do what it takes to feel good about you and your life. Passionately pursue something that intrigues you – go to school, start a business, become a writer or photographer, mechanic, cosmetician or whatever you find interesting and satisfying. Feeling good about yourself is the anecdote to comparing yourself negatively to your successful partner. B for yourself in case the marriage doesn’t work out.

Now, a word to the successful spouse …

The biggest issue I see with successful spouses versus the spouse who either stays at home or makes less income, is that they get territorial about the fruits of their success … some tend to refer to the money in the bank account as “my money,” or make comments such as, “Who do you think bought this nice house we’re living in?” Another destructive doozy is, “If we get divorced you’ll have to go back to living in a cheap apartment” or “Without me you’d still be living with your parents.” These sorts of remarks do show up often in my marriage therapy practice and I assure you will have no positive outcome and should never be said.

Anytime you say something to your partner that is even a smidge demeaning, threatening or dominating, it will not help them feel good about themselves and it will make you look like an overlord and bully, so don’t do it. Once said, these sorts of ugly words are never forgotten and will sow major seeds of resentment.

If you are the more successful partner in your relationship, take the Stedman and Oprah approach: Stedman has his own successful career and must know he will never make as much money as Oprah, but he has enough self-confidence to be OK with himself and what he does to not to be threatened by her success. As for O, you can bet she doesn’t rub his nose in it and never thinks of herself as better than or more worthy of a person than he is. I think it takes a special person to be in Stedman’s position, but it takes a classy, not-defined-by-her success, humble person to still see a guy like Stedman as her equal and to treat him as such. Those two types of comfortable-in-their-own-skin, OK-as-is personalities are hard to find.

The bottom line of dealing with the I-am-more-successful-than-you situation in marriage is to never use your power against your partner; always treat them as your equal; understand that your worth is inherent, comes from the inside and not from what you do, have or who you know; and to always support and cheer your partner on in whatever they choose to make of their life. Love who you love, as is.