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There’s a level of control that occurs in relatively few marriages that we would see as part of an abusive power and control dynamic. But then there’s a lower level of control that doesn’t come from an abusive spouse that can still be frustrating and lead to conflict in the marriage.

We’ve talked about the abusive kind of control before, so if you want to learn more about that kind of control feel free to go back to our previous episodes of the podcast to learn more about what that looks like. 

Today, we’re talking about the annoying kind of controlling. This is not so much about the spouse’s power and dominance as the controlling spouse’s worry, fear, anxiety, and maybe even mental health issues that are driving this behavior. And sometimes the non-controlling spouse may also be acting in ways that prompt this behavior. If you’re listening to this to try to figure out your spouse, you may ask yourself what your role might be and how might you help your spouse feel less of a need to be in control.

Where Control Issues Come From

1. Fear

Control issues are often rooted in fear. This is the first place to look. If you’re afraid and you want to make it safer, you’re going to want to control the variables. This is quite a common response to fear.

Fear can come from a number of different places. One place fear can come from is trauma. When something very frightening or overwhelming happens, it may cause a person to install certain requirements or demands in order to preserve safety. For example, you’ve been in a late night car accident, and you now want to control all of the family travel so that there’s no late-night travel going on and no one is allowed to go out after dark. So now you’ve become “controlling.” You’ve installed requirements or demands on others in order to preserve your sense of safety and well-being, to stop the horror from repeating itself.

Another source of control is abandonment (fear of being left alone). If you were left alone at some point as a child or at a point in your marriage, that may result in the kind of controlling behavior where you don’t let your spouse do things on their own or do certain things on their own. You always have to be there, or you always have to do things together.

2. Betrayal

Betrayal may also lead to controlling relationships with certain kinds of people in order to prevent re-betrayal. For example, if in your first marriage you were sexually betrayed by your spouse, in your second marriage you may marry a faithful person, but you exert control on them to make sure that that previous betrayal doesn’t re-occur, much to the frustration of your current spouse. That can get difficult because it can cause such distress in your marriage that there’s an emotional separation, or drifting apart that occurs between you. Thus, controlling behavior can lead to further dysfunction. 

3. Mental Health Issues

Now that we’ve talked about a few fear-related causes of control, we’re going to move on to look at mental health. Some mental health issues can cause controlling behavior. Take personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Someone with BPD may say if you leave, I’ll hurt myself, or I might not be ok somehow (there’s a clinging aspect of BPD that does relate to fear of abandonment, but it is also a mental health condition and the fear piece is a part of that). 

BPD is something some individuals suffer with, but it is not a common disorder. A more common mental health issue would be anxiety of various forms: generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia (we can’t go out, or we go there and I make you turn around and take me back home), etc. which may manifest as need to control/limit behaviors or activities with others in attempt to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. The other spouse may find themselves saying “why are you always controlling the time that we have to leave. Why can’t we just stay and have a good time. Or, even symptoms of OCD or relational OCD where there is an obsession over the quality of the bond between you.[1] This is not a formally recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5, but it is fairly well documented anecdotally. With relational OCD, there’s an obsession over the quality of the bond between the two of you. One person is always checking up on how things are going, controlling all the things we’re doing together to make sure we’re ok, things are going well, we’re having conversations, etc. The other spouse may feel like “can we not just be together.” Those are experiences in the marriage that are born out of one person’s mental health struggles.

4. Perfectionism 

Perfectionism is another possible source of control issues. Perfectionistic people may feel the need to do things right or be seen as doing things right, as having that ideal marriage or that ideal family. This is related to a deep, often unacknowledged sense of personal shame, so they need to appear really well before others, and this may extend to their spouse as well. So, there’s a lot of control about how you both appear when you’re in public, what you both behave like when you’re in public, etc.[2]

5. Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem is another cause for control issues. One study reported that 35% of controlling people believe they are “nobody’ and have no value unless they are in a relationship.[3] This means that you are drawing a lot of value from being in a marriage to build up your self-esteem that you are a wanted, loveable person.

Underneath the low self-esteem, there could be a fear of being useless without their spouse or a fear their spouse will reject them if they express their true feelings. Or there may be a belief that nobody else would love them so will do anything to keep their spouse.

6. Insecurity in your relationship

Insecurity in your relationship can also lead to control issues. You may feel insecure in the relationship so that you need to control what your spouse is doing, how they’re doing it, and who they are with. You may push away any alternatives to yourself. This may also be due to spousal bad behavior. If your husband flirts with certain kinds of women, and you don’t want to be around those kinds of women as a result and he thinks you’re controlling, he actually needs to face up to what’s going on for him. This is a situation where a spouse may be controlling things because you (as the husband) can’t reliably demonstrate the security of your marriage bond to her.

Research shows that 53% of controlling people indicated they “cling to their relationship as though their life depended on it.”[4] They have a deep concern about not being loved enough, and may feel that they love you more than you love them.

Research shows that 54% of controlling people worry about being dumped to the point where their fear keeps them up at night. That fear/insecurity might result in controlling a lot of the things you do together, or making sure that it’s just you guys together all the time because they’re trying to still this uncertainty they are carrying around.

If you’re listening to this and your spouse is saying “you’re kind of controlling” and you say “you know I do stay up at night worried about our marriage,” that might be something to explore with a therapist. It may be an attachment issue; maybe you had a parent that was unreliably available and you had to work hard to feel some sense of connection. Now your spouse might be a reliably available person, but you can’t rest on that because of that template that was formed in you early on in your life. 

You may be wondering how to tell the difference between this kind of worry about your marriage and the idea that you should go with your gut if you suspect your husband of cheating on you (as an example). This is an important distinction to make. To really understand the fear, you have to look at the evidence surrounding the source of your fear. If you’re thinking about the fear when you are in a calm moment and you think, my husband has actually never done anything that would cause me to doubt him. When I really stop and look at the evidence, I realize it’s ok, but I still have this gnawing fear. Then you want to look for evidence in your family of origin. If there’s a ton of evidence in your family of origin and none in your husband’s life then our gut is sending a warning signal, but it’s sending a warning signal based on a past template. If you grew up in a family that was always there for you and there’s clear, ongoing evidence in your husband’s behavior, then the fear is likely telling you that there may be cause for concern. In short, go for your gut, but make sure the source of the data is based on evidence.

7. Unhealthy ideas of love

Another reason a spouse might be controlling is having unhealthy ideas of love or what an ideal spouse/marriage looks like. Research shows that 47% of controlling people find themselves drawn to romantic partners who have serious personal, relationship, or psychological issues. So, if you find yourself trying to control your spouse, you might ask yourself if you came to the relationship with the person you are married to with a mentality of trying to fix their problem, or out of some belief that they would be lost without you. 

Sometimes the word codependency comes up (though this has come into some disfavor in the counselling community). It may be more helpful to consider whether you draw worth from supporting, improving, or caretaking your spouse. That means that you really have to control them because they’re a very broken person and they need a lot of help, and when you help them you feel really good about who you are and your ability to make this world a better place. You’re needed and valuable. So, control really gets wrapped up into this mentality. And it’s hard for a person to make a shift from that to the idea that they have to let their spouse take ownership for their life. 

Sometimes, when you take a step back, your spouse’s problems make life harder for you. This raises the question “what is legitimately in your control that you should be taking care of and what is something that your spouse needs to take care of and left to face consequences for. That can be a hard line to walk, but it can bring a great deal of freedom for you both when you walk through it carefully and thoughtfully. (Controlling behavior is tiring for the person doing the controlling as well as the person being controlled).

How to Support a Controlling Spouse

If there is a mental health issue, it’s important to seek a proper diagnosis and treatment. It can often take some time to face that challenge of figuring out what the issue is and pursuing psychiatric treatment. That requires a lot of support, compassion, care, and thoughtfulness from you as their spouse. 

If you notice that your spouse is exerting controlling behavior in the moment, try to look for the fear. Speak to that fear and reassure it. Stay present and help your spouse to stay present. Voice their fears by saying things like “are you afraid of losing me here? Are you afraid that I might give more attention to these other people than you? I want you to know that I’m aware of this, and I’m going to work really hard tonight to make sure that you know that our marriage is secure, I’m here for you, and you’re my main point of interest. We’re going to go through this together. In doing this, you’re making the commitment more explicit than you may otherwise have thought you need to by verbalizing your commitment to your spouse and allowing your spouse to feel held emotionally and highly valued by you. That reassurance will likely help your spouse feel less of a need for control. If you can communicate and provide some of the safety so that they won’t feel that they have to establish that for themselves. In doing this, you can help your spouse to stay present. You are essentially saying you may fear losing me, but right now I am here, I am present with you, you are loved, you are held. 

Managing Power Struggles

A crucial thing to do during a power struggle is to be firm but kind. Articulate your understanding of what is appropriate in a given situation, and what you have decided to do. Remember, you cannot control (or reverse-control) your spouse’s behavior or thoughts. It’s important to focus on your own actions, but in the interest of the marriage bond, not just self-interest.[5]

Sometimes, this can also come back to power struggles. There may be a point where you need to be firm but kind as well. We would encourage spouses to try the more compassionate approach that we’ve just suggested first, and work with that for a while, but there may be other times where you need to articulate your understanding of what’s appropriate in a given situation and what you have decided to do. For example, if your wife doesn’t want you to go to a business meeting with other women, you may say “I have to have this business meeting even though there will be women in the room. I need to have the meeting or I will lose my job” (this is assuming there has been no betrayal, but your spouse has a fear or insecurity). You may need to set a boundary and go to the meeting, but you can ask your wife what she needs in order to feel reassured (e.g. I can check in with you before and after the meeting). Focus on your own actions rather than your spouse’s. You want to act in the interest of the marriage bond as well, not just self-interest. So, rather than saying “I’m going to do this whether you like it or not,” you could say “I’m going to take care of our marriage and I need to do what’s required for my work.” So, it’s marriage interest, not just self-interest that’s motivating this discussion.

Sometimes, you will need to exercise your own power to choose what you will do. Then you can step out of the power struggle and leave your spouse free to decide what they will do.[6] For example, if you’re supposed to go out to dinner at a friend’s house, your spouse’s anxiety sets in, and 30 minutes before going your spouse says “our family isn’t going. We’re staying home.” You may say “I want you to know that I love you, I’m here for you, but these people have put a lot of effort into this, I’m going to go out for dinner. What do you want me to tell them about why you’re not coming? I don’t want to throw you under the bus, but I do need to go.” In this way, you’re setting a boundary by keeping your commitment, but also giving your spouse the freedom to decide whether or not they will go.

In some situations, you can concede and work through the issue later, but other times you need to do what you’ve committed to do, so you’re striving to preserve the integrity of your marriage without allowing it to become the defining feature of your relationship. This can be tough to navigate, and you want to choose carefully where you’re going to exercise your own power to choose, but sometimes you do need to compassionately step out of the power struggle and encourage your spouse to face their fears.

• References
• [1] Kristina Randle, “Anxiety & Control Issues,” PsychCentral (blog), 2018, https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2011/12/06/anxiety-control-issues/.
• [2] “GoodTherapy,” GoodTherapy (blog), n.d., https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/control-issues.
• [3] Ilona Jerabek, “Fragile Ego-Trip – New Study Reveals Factors Behind Control Issues in Relationships,” Cision (blog),2018, https://www.prweb.com/releases/fragile_ego_trip_new_study_reveals_factors_behind_control_issues_in_relationships/prweb15906327.htm.
• [4] Jerabek.
• [5] Richard Kop, “It Just Takes One: Resolving Power Struggles in Love and Marriage” 63, no. 3 (2007), https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=8631e5dc-ffae-474a-a42e-e7c7c77bba9f%40sdc-v-sessmgr01.
• [6] Kop.

 

This is a subject we’ve wanted to address for some time. We see some irony in the work we do with couples or individuals when it comes to abuse. Often, though not always, people who are in a relationship with a truly abusive person do not realize it. On the other hand, couples who are in high conflict often label the other person as abusive when they are not really an abusive person, although they may relate to abusive tactics from time to time. So, the ‘abuse’ word gets abused sometimes. And other times, when it should be used, it’s not. So, we hope we can provide some clarity today by going through some of these emotionally abusive behaviors.

One distinction we want to make right off the bat is that probably all of us at some point in time have resorted to using one or more of the abusive tactics we are going to discuss in this episode. There’s a difference between bad behavior and a more fundamental problem of being an abusive person. The latter is a more characterological issue: it’s a way of seeing one’s intimate partner all the time as someone to be controlled, dominated, manipulated to serve you, as less than you. On the other hand, many of us in conflict may use some abusive tactics — that’s not acceptable either, but it’s nowhere near the scale of severity compared to a spouse who faces a characterologically abusive person every day. It may just be that your marriage is normal, there’s no cycle in that sense, but when you get into conflict, you might use unpredictability or blame. That’s bad too, but not problematic in the same way as abuse.

The key distinction between resorting to abusive behavior when in conflict and being in an abusive marriage is that the cycle of abuse is always happening in an abusive marriage. We talk extensively about being in an abusive marriage in episodes 123, 124, and 125.

Generally, abusive behavior can be verbal, emotional, and/or physical. Right now, we’re focusing on emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can include verbal assault, dominance, control, isolation, ridicule, or the use of intimate knowledge for degradation. This is the kind of abuse that targets the emotional and psychological well-being of the victim in order to gain power over them. It is often (though not always) a precursor to physical abuse.[1]

Some types of physical behavior can be considered emotional abuse in that they involve acts of physical violence although the victim is never physically impacted. Examples include: throwing objects, kicking a wall, shaking a finger or fist at the victim (threateningly), driving recklessly while the victim is in the car, or threatening to destroy objects the victim values.[2]

Emotionally Abusive Behavior 1. Gaslighting

According to Paige Sweet, gaslighting is “a type of psychological abuse aimed at making victims seem or feel ‘crazy,’ creating a ‘surreal’ interpersonal environment (so bad it didn’t seem real) (p. 851).[3] It’s more of a gendered phenomenon that occurs in power-laden intimate relationships where the wife is dependent, not the husband. The husband brings the social and economic capital to the relationship, and so has a degree of power that he can abuse. It promotes the idea that women are overly emotional, irrational and not in control of their emotions.

Signs of Gaslighting:

• Spouses who gaslight will often “flip the script.” That’s the basic tactic: whatever actually happened, they’ll say something else happened. You heard them say XYZ, they’ll deny saying it at all or tell you it was actually ZYX and you must be losing it for not remembering. When there’s not another witness and your spouse is doing this constantly, it erodes your sense of self-trust. There’s lots of lies: about what was said, what actually happened, and who did what. This is usually more subtle, rather than a blatant thing.

• Another tactic is to use your insecurities against you: you’re worried because he didn’t come home last night? He says that that’s your own foolish paranoia. Rather than being willing to be accountable, the emphasis is placed on what’s wrong with you and why you’re upset over this in order to remove the spotlight from themselves.

• Another example of gaslighting is a constant challenge of past events. Again, couples in conflict often disagree on details, but this is an extreme, constant rewriting of past history that leaves you bewildered and disorientated.

• Another example is if your belief that his behavior is wrong is turned around on you and you are being blamed for being too emotional, for having inappropriate thoughts yourself, for being hormonal, or just labeled crazy. One startling thing that studies have shown is that some women preferred physical to psychological abuse, and would sometimes provoke physical violence to avoid being called crazy.[4]

In our experience, women coming out of this kind of contact are often very disoriented, it’s like their magnetic compass doesn’t work and just spins on the dial. They don’t know where true north is anymore, or what the facts are, or what’s real, or is it just me? They’re extremely bewildered because this has been such a steady thing.

2. Unpredictability

Abusive people may seem to make situations chaotic for no other reason than to keep the other in check and hanging on to them to control what’s happening. The abuser feels like everything is stable for them, but they still cause chaos for their spouse so that they can remain in control of the situation. Other types of unpredictable behavior include:

• Putting on a drastic mood swing, such as going from being very affectionate to full of rage and breaking things. There may be emotional outbursts that they create that keep you dancing on edge and taking care of them.
• Starting arguments for seemingly no reason.
• Self-contradiction, such as making a statement that contradicts the one they just said and acting like there’s something wrong with you for not following.
• Acting two-faced, such as being charming in public but completely changing the minute they get home.[5] This is an emotional tactic to keep you on edge and ungrounded so that the power and control remain with the person who is acting this way.

So, you can see that things that are this severe are not what most people are doing when they’re in conflict. This is a different level and a consistent cycle.

3. Isolation Tactics

Isolation tactics are forms of emotional abuse and include such behaviors as restricting a person’s contact with family and friends, or physically confining a person (such as blocking a doorway so that they can’t leave). Isolation aims to undermine the victim’s life and identity outside the relationship and foster a sense of dependency on them.[6] Sometimes, this can happen geographically. But be very cautious about being whisked away in a long-distance relationship and taken to the other side of the country, or somehow compelled to abandon your education or a successful career, or taken away from family and friends.  Geographic relocation is one tactic for isolating someone. 

Sometimes these kinds of things happen in normal marriages, but if that’s happening and these other signs are going on, that’s when you want to be cautious. It doesn’t mean that every time a couple moves it’s because the husband is abusive, but this is a way that an emotionally abusive spouse can isolate their partner from their support network so that they can be controlled. In our organization, we’ve seen this happen to very professional, intelligent women.

4. Criticism and blaming

Isolation can also happen as an abusive tactic through turning a person against their support network.  Watch for a romantic partner who villainizes your family and friends so that you end up feeling very alone.

If you’re trying to see if a relationship is abusive from the outside, remember that you’re looking for a number of signs of abuse. If, for example, you’re trying to determine if your daughter is in an abusive relationship and her spouse is using isolation tactics, or if she’s just cut contact with you, remember that you’re watching for a constellation of behavior, not just one particular sign of abuse. Furthermore, if you are a parent of someone in an abusive relationship, you also don’t want to take over control from the controller. You want to empower your daughter to make wise decisions that are in support of her own personhood. 

5. Avoiding Responsibility for Unacceptable Behaviour

Extreme manipulators may recruit friends, law officers and court officials, even the victim’s own family to their side, while shifting blame to the victim. They deny the violence or abuse or rationalize it and tend to use such types of defenses:

• Total outright denial (It never happened. You are just imagining it. You want to hurt me),
• Alloplastic defense (It was your fault, your behavior provoked me into such reactions, if you didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be so mad). In other episodes, we talked about the fundamental attribution error where if I do something wrong, I’m just a victim of my circumstances, but if you do something wrong there’s something wrong with your character. That to an extreme is the alloplastic defense, which is a tactic for avoiding taking responsibility for your own unacceptable behavior.
• Altruistic defense (I did it for you, in your best interests! It was your fault).
• Transformative defense (What I did to you, it was common and accepted behavior).[7] I did this for you in your best interest. I’m taking you away from your family and friends so that you’re going to be a better person, so I can help you. Or, what I did to you, that’s a common and accepted behavior. (E.g. in this part of Canada/America, everyone slaps their wife when they don’t do something, so why are you freaking out? What’s your problem?).

Perpetrators are often concerned with their reputation and image in the community – among neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, bosses, friends, extended family. They use specific forms of denial when they are in public which can include:

• Family honor stricture (We don’t air dirty laundry publicly, the family’s honor and repute must be preserved, what will the neighbors say?), and
• Family function stricture (If you snitch and inform the authorities, they will take me away, and the whole family will disintegrate).[8]

5. Deliberate Accidents

A spouse can abuse their power over you in some fashion, such as “forgetting” to mail your light bill so that your lights are turned off.[9] (Of course, if you simply forget, that’s different, you’re not doing it to establish power and control.) Another example would be not catching something on the stove from burning so that you are made to feel inferior for burning supper.    

6. Control

There are a number of signs of control including:

1. Making demands or orders and expecting them to be fulfilled.
2. Making all the decisions, even canceling another’s plans without asking.
3. Continually monitoring a spouse’s whereabouts.
4. Insisting on regular calls, texts, or pictures detailing where the person is and even showing up to these places to make sure they are not lying.
5. Requiring immediate responses from calls or texts.
6. Exerting financial control over the other, such as by keeping accounts in their name or only giving them a limited allowance.
7. Spying by going through the person’s phone, checking their internet history, or looking through their communications with others. Now, a lot of these do occur when there’s been a betrayal. But that’s a need to re-establish safety after a break in trust. And you want to take this along with the whole list of everything we’ve talked about today.
8. Demanding a spouse’s passwords for their phone, social media accounts, and email at any time and really taking away their privacy and independence.
9. Belittling a spouse by treating them as though they are a child, including telling them what to eat, what to wear, or where they can go.
10. Yelling, which is frequently a scare tactic and can be a way for an abusive person to let the other know who is in control (like they’re intimidating you into a submissive position).
11. Using the other person’s fears; abusive people will often manipulate a person’s fears to control them.
12. Withholding affection; abusers may punish a person for “bad” behavior by withholding affection or making them feel they are undeserving of love.
13. Giving excessive gifts with the implication that these gifts may disappear at any time, or as a reminder of what they would lose if they left the relationship.[10]

7. Blame

Playing the victim: The abusive person may try to turn the tables on the other person by blaming them for the issues they have not dealt with. They may even accuse the other person (the actual victim) of being the abusive one in the relationship. So, they push you to the point that you are angry enough to have an outburst at them, and then say that you’re verbally and emotionally abusive towards them, therefore you need to modify your behavior. Now they’re back in control because they’ve pushed you out of control, and they blame you for doing that.[11] We’ve worked with cases where the husband provoked the wife to screaming and raging, and then calmly pointed out her irrational and crazy behavior as proof she was the problem. This also goes along with the gaslighting point we started with. 

8. Shame

There are a number of ways that an abusive partner can shame their spouse:

• Lectures: The abusive person may give lectures about the other person’s behavior in a way to make it clear that the other person is inferior.
• Outbursts: This involves aspects of control, as well. Not doing what an abusive person wants may result in an outburst of angry behavior from them. It is both a way to control the person and make them feel shame for “not listening,” paying attention, or attending to them properly.
• Lies: Abusive spouses may blatantly lie, telling the person false opinions from their friends about their “bad” behavior. For example, “even your mom can see that you’re not a good housewife and has made comments to me about that.” This is often done in a way that you can’t verify whether the accusation is true or not.
• Walkouts: Abusive spouses may leave a situation rather than resolve it. In a disagreement at home, for example, they may remark about how the other person is “crazy.” This can put all the blame on the other person and make them feel ashamed while also not solving the issue and then the other person just walks away. So, they’ll leave you, and then they just detach from everything.
• Trivializing: If the other person wishes to talk about their issues or problems, the abusive person may criticize them for even having the issue or tell them that they are making a big deal out of nothing.[12]

An example of trivializing is if you had a concern about an abusive spouse’s behavior and you want to talk about that and they turn around and tell you how ridiculous it is that you would even bring this up and act like you are you always nitpicking on them, and now there’s something wrong with you because you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Thus, they are trivializing you into feeling shame for even having brought up concern about me. 

So, if there’s no chance ever to discuss what your spouse is doing wrong as the abuser in the relationship, that’s a good sign that the behavior is abusive. If you can’t get anything to stick to your spouse, again along with some of the other behaviors, that’s a sign of genuine emotional abuse. It’s not necessarily the defensiveness, but more the fact that your spouse is dumping it all back on you and indicating that the fact that you even brought it up means that the problem is you. Even though we’re almost always defensive at times as couples, even in healthy marriages, this is referring to when a spouse is never taking responsibility. 

9. Humiliation

This can take a number of forms including:

• Blatant name-calling: abusive partners may blatantly call the other stupid, “an idiot,” or other harmful names. If confronted, they may try to pass it off as sarcasm or emphasize the times you may have called them a name back.
• Joking or sarcasm: Although sarcasm can be a tool for comedic release if both people enjoy the joke, abusive people can also disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. Sarcasm can be a tool for comedic relief if you both enjoy the joke, but often abusive people disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. If the other person feels offended, the abusive spouse may make fun of them further for “lacking a sense of humor.”
• Harmful nicknames: nicknames or pet names may be normal in relationships. However, a name that hurts is unacceptable if it harms one’s spouse.
• Public displays: abusive people may openly pick fights in public, only to blame the other person if they become angry. They may also pick on the other person or openly make fun of them in a social setting.
• Patronizing: this may include talking down to another person for trying to learn something new, or making it obvious that the person is “not on their level.” Again, in a healthy relationship, you should be able to talk about things that the other person doesn’t know, but there should be give and take. There shouldn’t be a sense of “you’re stupid” because I’m having to tell you this and I know so much more, which can go along with lecturing, or there’s no point in even telling you because you won’t get it (in a demeaning way), which is withholding information, another power tactic.
• Insults on appearance: an abusive person may insult the other’s appearance around others. Comments may include remarks about weight, body shape, or postpartum changes in your body.
• Cheating: abusive people may cheat on their partners to hurt or humiliate them, or to imply that they are highly desirable and you’re not, therefore you’re stuck with them, you’re lucky to have them, and you should be trying to please them.[13]

If you’re listening and thinking that a lot of this is happening (it doesn’t have to be all of it), you went through the assessment and it indicated that your spouse is abusive, what now? It’s important to realize that you can’t fix the abuser, but there is a point where knowledge is power. You want to study, understand, expand your awareness. Two books that we recommend are The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans and Why Does He do That by Lundy Bankcroft. If it’s not safe to have those physical books around, you can get the Kindle app on your phone and download it there or go read it at a local library and leave the book there. They’re commonly available books. 

Sometimes hope comes from leaving an abusive relationship because you can’t change the other person. And research shows that abusive men are most motivated to change when their spouse has left and they want them back. As long as you’re there and you can be controlled, there’s no reason for him to face his own demons.

Regardless of what action you decide to take, you certainly want to educate yourself about abuse and what it looks like. In some cases, you can start to call these things out and set boundaries and insist that they stop. In this way, you can renormalize the power in your relationship. But if doing that puts you in more danger or makes it worse, then your right to safety, emotionally and physically, is a greater moral importance than staying in the marriage. We’re pretty strong in upholding marriages, but there are certain cases where the right to respect, health, etc. takes priority over that and so you might consider making an action plan in that case. A person’s right to life, respect, and dignity is of higher value than upholding a marriage. Again, listen to our content on abusive relationships. This episode and the following two episodes are about abusive relationships. We talk about when you need to leave, how to leave, and how to make a safety plan.

References

[1] Gunnur Karakurt and Kristin Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 5 (2013): 804–21.
[2] Karakurt and Silver.
[3] Paige Sweet, “The Sociology of Gaslighting,” American Sociological Review 84, no. 5 (2019): 851–75, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419874843.
[4] Sweet.
[5] Susan M. Johnson, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, 2 edition (New York: Routledge, 2004).
[6] Karakurt and Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age.”
[7] Zlatka Rakovec-Felser, “Domestic Violence and Abuse in Intimate Relationship from Public Health Perspective,” Health Pyschol Res. 2, no. 3 (2014): 1821, https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2014.1821.
[8] Rakovec-Felser.
[9] Tamara Hill, “10 Common Behaviors of the Abuser,” 2019,
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/caregivers/2017/04/10-common-behaviors-of-the-abuser/.
[10] Johnson, Jon, “What Are the Signs of Emotional Abuse?,” Medical News Daily (blog), accessed May 22, 2020, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325792.
[11] Johnson, Jon.
[12] Johnson, Jon.
[13] Johnson, Jon.

If you have betrayed your spouse and disclosed that betrayal to them, one thing you will have become very aware of is the rage that betrayal can cause. In our experience in working with couples, many people who are working through their own infidelity and trying to recover their marriage find that they aren’t sure how to respond to this rage or what to do with it.

Today we are going to look at why anger is a normal part of responding to betrayal, where it comes from, and how to best support your spouse in the face of it.

Anger Is A Common Reaction to Betrayal

When a person is betrayed, there are a lot of potential responses that often come in waves and in varying degrees of intensity. According to researcher MeowLan Chan (2009) “Typical responses to betrayal include: retaliation, reduction in trust, distrust or suspicion, increase in monitoring, negative emotions (e.g., anger, disappointment, frustration), deterioration in the quality or even termination of the relationship, withdrawal of effort and cooperation within the relationship, and demand for more legalistic forms of trust as substitutes for interpersonal trust.”[1] These reactions affect both your spouse and your relationship.

One of the most prominent negative emotions is anger, or even rage. In all fairness, when anyone is faced with an extreme threat they will often respond with anger. Anger helps a person survive by shifting their focus toward doing the things necessary for survival.

Since a marriage is usually grounded on what was seen to be a reliable foundation of trust, when that foundation is shattered by betrayal, this significant breakdown in one’s foundation is often experienced as a threat to survival. Furthermore, anger is a common response to events that seem unfair or to circumstances that set you up to be a victim of the choices of others, especially a situation like a betrayal event.[2]

Understanding Trauma and PTSD from Betrayal

The severity of a spouse’s response to betrayal can come as a surprise to the betraying spouse. Often, a betraying spouse wants to justify their actions and the way they may have gone against their values with those actions. They do this by denying and minimizing their actions in their mind. As a result, they tend to mentally turn the dial down on what the anticipated consequences will be.

Regardless of how much denial is occurring, it does not affect the severity of the impact on the betrayed spouse. Quite often, a betrayal becomes a traumatic event, even causing many of the symptoms of PTSD. Your spouse may experience other negative effects of trauma such as forgetting important parts of the traumatic event, exaggerating negative thoughts about oneself, others, or the world, distorted blame of self or others, detachment or estrangement from others, inability to experience positive emotions, lack of interest in activities, or globally negative experiences of fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame.[3] This is all due to the trauma that frequently comes with betrayal. It’s such a blow to a person that it becomes a shattering event.

Looking at the rage response more specifically, some of the criteria for rage include:    

1. Having an experience that exceeds healthy anger.
2. Losing the rational component of brain functioning that enables a person to think clearly and logically.     
3. Losing the ability to consider consequences for actions.
4. Even seeking to hurt your spouse in a physical way.

It should be noted that these particular features of rage were observed in a study of violent women who experienced rage towards their partner, but not in a betrayal context.[4] However, we hear about betrayed spouses experiencing the same symptoms when they have experienced spousal betrayal. It’s important to note that even when you have been betrayed, it is still not acceptable to resort to physical violence. Yes, it’s also unacceptable to be betrayed, but two wrongs won’t make a right and physical violence won’t help you feel safer.

Why Your Spouse Ends up Raging

Basically, the reason your spouse experiences rage is because the part of their nervous system that is responsible for calming and stabilizing him or her under stress breaks down under situations of extreme stress. It just cannot keep up with something as severe as betrayal. And in that scenario the part of their brain that helps with social engagement goes offline and they resort to more primitive fight or flight behaviors such as withdrawing or lashing out angrily.[5] In any case, the important thing to remember is that this is a protective function that is active now.

In plain English: your betrayed wife is raging at you because she is trying to restore a sense of safety within herself. That safety was torn away by the betrayal. We all need to have a basic sense of safety that the people closest to us are trustworthy and reliable. And when they prove they are not through something like infidelity, our survival systems kick in to try to restore or bring us back to that place of safety. This happens at a very core level within our nervous system.

How to Respond and Support Your Spouse 1. During the rage

It is helpful if you can keep in mind that your betrayed spouse’s rage is an effort to restore safety that feels as if it has been torn from her (or him), then you will be in a better position to adequately respond to these very intense emotions.

If you can, try to hear what your spouse is saying and carefully note the underlying fear. The fear is often not overtly expressed, but it will definitely be there behind the rage. Responding in a reassuring and empathic way to that fear (and avoiding becoming defensive) will often calm the rage because it is showing your spouse that you get it: that you see what is happening for him/her and you are willing to acknowledge that reality.

When your spouse understands that you see, acknowledge, and are appropriately responding to their pain, then they can begin to feel safe again. Because all of us carry some faith in humanity that says, “If this person really sees and acknowledges how hurt I am they will do everything in their power to make sure I don’t get hurt more.” That’s what empathy does.

Of course, it’s difficult to respond with empathy in the face of rage. You likely won’t get it the first few times. But if you’ve researched this topic and found this episode/article, then you are likely starting to realize that it is much more effective to respond gently to your spouse, rather than meeting their rage with your own anger or defensiveness.

On a broader scale, there are a number of other useful strategies to help with your spouse’s betrayal trauma. These efforts will help reduce the amount of anger and rage your spouse feels as well.

2. Recognize That You Are on Different Timelines

A betrayal is traumatic. It takes time to heal. It comes with a flood of thoughts and feelings and confusion. Just like you would expect someone to need time to work through grief after the loss of a loved one, so your spouse needs time to work through the loss of the marriage they thought they had.

You may be feeling better almost immediately because your confession or disclosure has relieved you of this great burden of shame and secrecy that you’ve been carrying. But your spouse is going to be on a different timeline, so you should not have the expectation that they will feel relief from this as rapidly as you will.[6]

Everyone is different, but in some cases, it would not be unreasonable to expect it to take a year or more to fully process through grief and forgiveness after a betrayal.

3. Offer Compassion, Comfort and Care

Your spouse’s rage or anger may activate those feelings of shame and guilt that you first experienced with the betrayal. But it’s important to work hard at staying non-defensive and refraining from responding with anger.

One common recommendation is to think about responding with compassion, comfort and care.[7] Compassion is just extending the empathy and concern we talked about previously. Comfort is about providing reassurance and care attending to your spouse’s extra needs as they go through this difficult process. As you consistently provide these, it helps your spouse see you again as a source of comfort and safety. 

4. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

It can be tempting to try to take your spouse back to the past and to resurrect that in the present. But that won’t work. Recovering from betrayal, especially a significant betrayal, means rebuilding your marriage. You will have to work together to build something new and beautiful, rather than trying to regain what was past.

The past is what brought you to a place where betrayal was possible and then it became a reality. A new trust, a new bond, and a new authentic vulnerability will need to be built between you.[8]

5. Encourage Your Spouse to Get Support

Quite often, betrayed spouses feel very isolated. If they do reach out to a friend and disclose what has happened, then they bear the shame and stigma of being that poor wife/husband that got cheated on. On the other hand, being alone in your pain is a greater misery than just having the pain. This can leave them caught between a rock and a hard place.

Encourage your spouse to reach out to a trustworthy, confidential friend or two, or to family members. Ideally, if you want to save your marriage, these people should be friends of the marriage, and not just someone who is going to give your spouse pity or vilify you. Yes, they will need to provide support for your spouse, but they need to be able to do so with the aim of helping you rebuild your marriage.

As well, it is good to help your spouse understand what we have already discussed: that betrayal often causes symptoms of trauma. And while you have caused that trauma, you cannot heal it for him/her and so, regrettably, you have also tasked them with the need to get some counseling help as well. There are therapists who specialize in betrayal trauma: we offer this in our online counseling agency, and we can help people via secure video calls. In many parts of the country, these specialists are also available.

References

[1] MeowLan Evelyn Chan, “‘Why Did You Hurt Me?’ Victim’s Interpersonal Betrayal Attribution and Trust Implications” 13, no. 3 (2009): 262–74, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017138.
[2] “PTSD: National Centre for PTSD,” n.d., https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/anger.asp.
[3] J.S. Fraser, “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Unifying Effective Pyschotherapies: Tracing the Process of Change, 2018, 20, https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1037/0000078-009.
[4] Kimberly Flemke, “Triggering Rage: Unresolved Trauma in Women’s Lives” 31, no. 2 (2009), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-009-9084-8.
[5] Stephen Porges, Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation
(London, 2011), https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0-nxBGHj36oC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=polyvagal+theory+rage&ots=tfyDgln2gk&sig=4rFi-k45sMVkXSYsq1BMaD–C1s&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=polyvagal%20theory%20rage&f=false.
[6] John Mark Haney and Leslie Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 35 (2014): 401–13, https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1073.
[7] Carl Stewart, “3 Essential Responses to Your Spouse’s Betrayal Trauma Triggers,” CovenantEyes (blog), 2019, https://www.covenanteyes.com/2019/02/25/3-essential-responses-to-your-spouses-betrayal-trauma-triggers/.
[8] Haney and Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model.”

Today we are going to unpack the virtue of admiration. By the way, did you know that admiration has a dark side?  I had no idea until we tackled this subject too, but it does make a lot of sense!

If you’ve ever read the Song of Solomon in the Bible I think you have a pretty clear example there of how admiration is so helpful for fostering love and affection between lovers.

What is Admiration?

I imagine everyone knows what admiration is, generally. But actually describing it might be a little harder. Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate admiration from other similar positive emotions in marriage. Here’s a helpful quote from a study we reviewed: “Admiration is a feeling of delighted approval of the accomplishment or character of another person[i]”

A lot of the time admiration comes from pleasant surprises: when someone does something or shows characteristics that prompt feelings of fondness, awe, approval and respect[ii]. I think that we can also benefit from being intentional about admiration though, and seek to notice and focus on those attributes in others and in our spouse in particular.

But there are other emotions linked to admiration. These include[iii]:

1. 1. Gratitude: thankfulness for someone’s actions and who they are. Strongly linked to feelings of admiration and often naturally follows on from it. Both have positive effects for relationships
   2. Elevation: researchers describe this as a specific form of admiration felt in response to “witnessing an act of virtue or moral beauty”. It’s like when you see your spouse do something especially incredible you “elevate” them in your mind.
   3. Envy: now this is the dark side of admiration, where instead of approving of the qualities of others, you feel bad about your lack of these qualities. Or you desire to take those qualities for yourself. Envy is desiring the good others have rather than just admiring them. You see, admiration is wholly focused on the other person, while envy is more introspective
   4. Joy: feelings of admiration are physically and psychologically similar to feeling joy. We often experience these together.

Admiration Impacts Marriage Stability and Satisfaction

Here’s a neat, long-term study. Shapiro et al[iv] interviewed 43 newlywed couples and then observed them for 6 years of their marriage. They found that the key qualities which predicted a stable, happy marriage were:

1. 1. Fondness and admiration expressed. Expressed is the keyword there: not just felt.
   2. Awareness of your spouse’s needs and their world
   3. Amount of unity expressed through use of phrases including “we” and “us” rather than “I”

These factors were strongly linked to both marital satisfaction for husbands and wives, and marital stability. Using these factors they were able to predict stability/divorce 6 years later with 94% accuracy.

How fascinating is that? From one conversation the researchers could predict the trajectory of a marriage with almost total success. By the way — we worked really hard in designing our content for our marriage retreat to build these three items up in the couples who attended.

Buffering

Fondness and admiration were also seen as a buffer which protected couples from the stress of major life events such as the birth of the first child.

This was especially true for husbands expressing admiration for their wives: “The fondness and admiration system in a couple’s relationship can be thought of as the glue that holds the relationship together… The more fondness for his wife the husband expresses, or the more glue he puts into the relationship, the more satisfied the wife is with the marriage.[v]” (Shapiro et al, 2000)

Inspiration

Admiration for someone can inspire you to want to be a better person yourself. This kind of inspiration “involves the transcendence of the ordinary preoccupations or limitations of human agency[vi]”, meaning that admiring and being inspired by someone motivates you to push yourself beyond what you would normally think yourself capable of.

Feelings of elevation (admiration for moral excellence) motivates you to be more like your spouse, increases your desire to help those around you, and increases our appreciation for the good things you have in life[vii].

I thought this was a brilliant piece of learning from the research, too. You would think admiring others only builds them up but it has this reflective impact that inspires you to become more and to push yourself towards better things, too.

Finally, researchers have also found that inspiration creates a sense of connectedness between admirer and admired, and can increase openness levels between them and even increase the energy and enthusiasm you feel when together[viii]. All good mojo for marriage, right?

How To Create More Admiration in Your Marriage

So we’ve seen some of the benefits of making admiration a key part of your marriage. So how do you turn this into a reality?

Build Your Admiration System

You might think this stuff maybe sounds too lofty and out of reach. Let me give you a very concrete example of how you can start to make this work today, and of course, if you want to go deeper — get the exercise that we have created to go with this episode.

Remember: admiration is part of a cycle that brings couples together and helps them resolve problems[ix]. So, here’s a simple process to illustrate how you can develop a positive cycle of admiration. Notice how achievable this is:

1. 1. One spouse is experiencing difficulty or some of their needs aren’t being met
   2. The other spouse notices this
   3. The other spouse attempts to meet the needs
   4. The first spouse notices this attempt to help them
   5. The first spouse expresses this admiration for their husband/wife’s ability to meet their needs

This forms a cycle where the expression of admiration motivates the admired spouse to continue finding ways to meet the admiring spouse’s needs, leading to further admiration. Boom. Easy, right?

There’s a couple things more that we want to note, just to give you a leg up on this.

Awareness of Needs

Work on becoming more aware of your spouse’s needs. This is not hard to do.

Expression of admiration and awareness of your spouse’s needs work together to strengthen a marriage. Remember: these are two of the predictors of stability in a marriage. You can work on them simultaneously to make all this easier.

Awareness of your spouse’s needs means you notice when they are stressed or upset, and you express more admiration and affection to help them cope. “If the husband is aware of the stress the wife is going through, for example, he may respond by putting more glue into the relationship or expressing more fondness or admiration toward his wife.[x]“. The wife then notices that her husband is making a particular effort to help her, which strengthens the marriage and helps reduce the stress she is under.

So, to express admiration effectively just slow down and observe your spouse more closely so that you can become aware of your spouse’s needs and how s/he is coping with the stresses of life[xi] (Shapiro et al, 2000).

Meeting Needs

Now that you have got the awareness thing going, the next step is to start thinking about how to better meet those needs. This requires an awareness of your spouse’s inner world.

You see, in order to receive admiration from your spouse you have to be able to meet his or her needs[xii] (Harley, 2011).

If you feel for yourself that you are not being admired enough, it could be because you are not meeting your spouse’s needs properly. This is counterintuitive. But it is really empowering too, because it gives you something to do to change this problem that you are facing.

To be admired you have to do things which are worthy of admiration.

Start by becoming aware of what your spouse’s needs are. Next, determine if those needs are being met. If not, seek to meet those needs. The normal consequence of this kind of interest and effort in your spouse is admiration from your spouse.

Expressing Admiration

There’s a sense in which I want to say, do not make this into too large a project. Like an event. Instead, admiration and respect should be expressed often and simply in small, everyday moments. Don’t go for epic moments…just nurture this in the everyday life of your marriage.

This helps build the fondness and admiration cycle, strengthening the marriage[xiii]. Part of this is learning to form a “habit” of admiration where spouses are constantly “scanning” the environment to notice things to admire about each other.

And don’t think this is just for happy marriages. The mental habit of looking for the good things to admire can help distressed couples too, who may be more prone to only noticing the bad things their spouses do.

So whatever the situation is in your marriage: admiration can help. Give it a shot. Let us know how it goes!

References

[i] Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Rik Pieters, ‘Why Envy Outperforms Admiration’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37.6 (2011), 784–95 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211400421>.

[ii] Sara B. Algoe and Jonathan Haidt, ‘Witnessing Excellence in Action: The “Other-Praising” Emotions of Elevation, Gratitude, and Admiration’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4.2 (2009), 105–27 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760802650519>.

[iii] Algoe and Haidt.

[iv] Alyson Fearnley Shapiro, John M. Gottman, and Sybil Carrere, ‘The Baby and the Marriage: Identifying Factors That Buffer against Decline in Marital Satisfaction after the First Baby Arrives’, Journal of Family Psychology, 14.1 (2000), 59–70.

[v] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[vi] Ven, Zeelenberg, and Pieters.

[vii] Algoe and Haidt.

[viii] Ven, Zeelenberg, and Pieters.

[ix] JOHN MORDECHAI Gottman, ‘Gottman Method Couple Therapy’, Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, 4.8 (2008), 138–64.

[x] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[xi] Shapiro, Gottman, and Carrere.

[xii] Willard F. Harley Jr, His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage (Revell, 2011).

[xiii] Gottman.

Can you remember what it was like to flirt with your spouse before you were together? The fun and excitement of figuring out you were into each other… don’t you wish you could bring that spice into your relationship now that you’ve been together for years? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to look at today!

What is Flirting?

Here’s a simple definition: flirting is any behavior with has the potential to be seen as sexual[i]. Actually I think that’s just a sexualized definition of flirting. I think flirting can be suggestive of romance without needing to lead to sex. I say that for the benefit of Christian singles and married folk alike.

Flirting is often more nonverbal than verbal: smiles, touch, eye contact and so on. It is often playful and ambiguous: you may not be quite sure if you’re being flirted with or not and that’s all part of the fun.

And let me just say, that while I don’t want to take flirting away from singles who are looking for a marriage partner, in this episode we are talking about a couple who are flirting between themselves.

Now it’s hard to imagine that researchers could investigate something like flirting without sucking all the fun out of it but one researcher noted that flirting is often used to achieve one of six main goals[ii]:

1. 1. Sex motivation: flirting to initiate sex
   2. Relational motivation: flirting to increase intimacy in an existing relationship
   3. Exploring motivation: testing a potential marriage partner’s interest in a relationship (this one is definitely for the singles rather than the married couples!)
   4. Fun motivation: flirting simply to have fun
   5. Esteem motivation: flirting to increase your own self esteem
   6. Instrumental motivation: flirting to gain some form of reward from the other person.

Other than the exploring option, I think we can look at all of the others and say that flirtation in marriage can and should be a normal part of our interactions. It may look different than the flirting that happens outside of marriage, but between a husband and wife it can really just be a normal part of marital interaction and can really be used to reinforce the sense of togetherness in the marriage[iii].

One researcher actually noted that long-term marriages use a particular style of flirting called authentic flirting. It has one of those holographic stickers on the side. No, just kidding. No, this study in 2017[iv] suggests that authentic flirting is not aimed at having fun or experimenting or trying to get something from your spouse: it is simply an expression of love.

Here’s a quote: “Authentic flirting is defined as an affectionate, creative, or playful action for connecting emotionally and sexually with another person. The motive is to see and be seen lovingly by a partner through expressing spontaneously a combination of curiosity, play, humor, or flirting gestures for increased emotional intimacy.”

So let me just say on that point: just because your wife flirted with you doesn’t mean you need to expect anything in bed. If flirting in your books only exists as a signal that you are going to have sex tonight, you are actually missing out on a lot of other fun flirting. It is truly a very diverse and flavorful way of expressing love. Don’t make your wife afraid to flirt.

Flirting and Marriage

On that note, sometimes there are barriers to flirting in marriage.

Barriers to Flirting in Marriage

One of those barriers could be just what we mentioned: your spouse may want some flirting just to be for the joy of it. But you sexualize it every time. Leave some room for your spouse to be utterly exhausted and still feeling like throwing some flirt your way without creating expectations that he or she is going to be too tired to meet.

Another challenge that can come up is if the passionate love in our marriage declines over time. It is normal to experience a more stable, companionate love after the first 18 months of marriage but this doesn’t mean you have to lose the fire. We looked at this in an episode on how to date your spouse again.

And then the other barrier is the simple fact that life happens: children, increased work pressures and so on. That can make it hard to have energy for flirting or to feel unburdened enough to do so.

Marital Benefits of Flirting

While some of these things can get in the way, I want to encourage you today to think about the upside.

A study in 2007[v] found that flirting in married couples could serve as a helpful relationship maintenance strategy. You can use flirting to:

1. 1. Reaffirm your love and attraction to your spouse
   2. Increase intimacy between the two of you
   3. Just have fun together
   4. Show positivity
   5. Manage and reduce conflict

Flirting in married couples also serves a purpose not seen in flirting outside of marriage: the desire to create a “private world” between you and your spouse. This is done by using words or actions which you would only use with your spouse. So it can take on this really neat exclusive aspect: like an inside joke.

Flirting was therefore linked to higher marital satisfaction, for both men and women[vi]. However, the outcomes of flirting do vary depending on the motivation behind it, and we’ll get to that below.

Ways of Flirting When Married

Ok, so how does flirting look when you’ve been married ten years and you’ve barely got time to speak to each other, let alone get your flirt on?

As mentioned above, flirting in married couples is often aimed at creating a joint private world. Flirting using language or actions you only use with each other, or flirting in a way that draws on your shared history together can achieve this, leading to a stronger bond and better marital satisfaction[vii]. So just be thinking about how you can develop those areas in your marriage.

Flirting in marriage should also try to be a natural part of the daily routines of the family, and integrated with the rest of your daily interactions[viii]. So instead of setting aside specific times for flirting and romance it should be a natural part of your interactions together, and fit around other responsibilities.

This is especially true if there are lots of demands on your time, due to kids, work etc. It really probably will do better as something spontaneous — that surprise element is always fun. Send a text message if you think of it at work. Whatever it takes.

Similarly, a study in 2017[ix] writes that marital flirting doesn’t have to be planned out or carefully planned, and should instead be “spontaneous and playful”, taking advantage of any time you have together. Flirting in this sense can become automatic, like a habit, and therefore doesn’t require any extra time or effort- it just happens.

Remember that flirting in married couples looks different and has different outcomes depending on the motivation behind it. It’s not going to look the same as when you guys were dating.

For example, research in 2012[x] found that flirting driven by esteem motivation (flirting to increase your own self esteem) is negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Flirting as a way to manage conflict was also negatively correlated with marital quality, so trying to flirt your way out of arguments can be a fail.

I would qualify that by saying that there are times that you can effectively defuse conflict through the use of humor — as long as you’re only defusing and not constantly deflecting. You still need to solve the issue — but humor along the way can make it easier.

One of the studies we looked at thought that two good ways of flirting as married couples were display flirting and attentive flirting. Who knew, these are on top of the six kinds we mentioned earlier!

Display Flirting

This means overt displays of affection or sexual interest, such as:

1. 1. Direct sexual comments and compliments
   2. Boasting/showing off
   3. Acting, dressing or talking in a seductive or romantic way
   4. Big romantic gestures to impress and seduce

Display flirting is often based on sex motivation, or the desire to have fun and create a shared world. This kind of flirting creates greater feelings of romantic love. It also (hopefully) increases sexual satisfaction, leading to higher marital satisfaction.

Attentive Flirting

This is flirting which is focused on the spouse, rather than yourself. Such as:

1. 1. Gifts
   2. Compliments
   3. Romantic touch
   4. Acts of service/gestures of “chivalry” or attentiveness to spouse’s needs

This style of flirting is driven by motivation for intimacy, fun and desire to strengthen the relationship, but could also be driven by instrumental motivation: desire for the spouse to do you favors in return. If done with a good motivation to reaffirm your love/attraction for your spouse this style of flirting increases marital satisfaction and also strengthens commitment.

Researchers also noted that women are much more likely to use this attentive style of flirting than men. They also note that women and men often have similar standards in what they want from marriage, but men more often report having hose needs met than women do.

So husbands should aim to get better at this to help meet their wives emotional needs. Guys: you probably have the display flirting down pat…work on the attentive flirting.

References

[i] Brandi N. Frisby and Melanie Booth-Butterfield, ‘The “How” and “Why” of Flirtatious Communication Between Marital Partners’, Communication Quarterly, 60.4 (2012), 465–80 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2012.704568>.

[ii] David Dryden Henningsen, ‘Flirting with Meaning: An Examination of Miscommunication in Flirting Interactions’, Sex Roles, 50.7–8 (2004), 481–89 <https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SERS.0000023068.49352.4b>.

[iii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[iv] Tarin Olson, ‘An Exploration of Authentic Flirting Within Romantic Marriage – ProQuest’ <https://search.proquest.com/openview/5ef2e4b9d8644b4733428ef0a54dd84a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y> [accessed 7 March 2018].

[v] Brandi N. Frisby, ‘“Without Flirting It Wouldn’t Be a Marriage” : The Relationship between Flirting, Relational Maintenance and Marital Satisfaction’, Virtual Press, 2007 <https://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/188385> [accessed 7 March 2018].

[vi] Frisby.

[vii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[viii] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

[ix] Olson.

[x] Frisby and Booth-Butterfield.

Sarcasm: it can be one cutting comment that is never forgotten. Or, an easy habit that becomes part of our normal day-to-day interaction as couples. Turns out there’s a lot more to it than just a bit of sass as we shall see.

Why Do We Use Sarcasm?

There can be a lot of reasons why we resort to sarcasm but I think it is really good to pause and just peel back the layers on sarcasm. It turns out there’s some important but often very subtle underlying psychological things happening around this sarcasm issue.

Sometimes we use sarcasm to communicate complaints or criticism. We actually do this with the intent to come across in a less hostile way because we are couching our negativity in a touch of humor. Perhaps we feel it makes us appear less rude or less unfair when making a complaint about the person receiving the criticism[i].

In that way, sarcasm can be about me trying to save face while still extending the criticism or complaint in a more superficially polite way.

Other times sarcasm can be used on the other end of that: as a way to respond to criticism. We can dismiss someone’s feedback or argue against them while still appearing calm.

Sometimes it is just about finding a way to express annoyance in a way that is more socially acceptable than outright rage. When you make a cutting remark your peers may laugh and think you funny rather than be disappointed when you lose your temper.

Another interesting way we use sarcasm is for conflict resolution: sometimes we defuse a situation or de-escalate conflict by using sarcasm. Of course, since it has an edge to it, this does not always work.

When you pause and survey these possibilities, one theme that does emerge is that sarcasm is often about finding a way to express negative emotion in a less vulnerable, less directly-critical way. There is a sense in which it can be a little more polite because it is more indirect. In sarcasm, the actual negative intent is left for the listener to interpret. There’s also a relational component because in using sarcasm in this way we also create a sense of distance between ourselves and the recipient.

So you may think your sarcastic comments are just intended to be funny, but if you step back are they serving another, less wholesome purpose?

Sarcastic Communication in Marriage

Let’s examine the behavior more specifically. Sarcasm is often misinterpreted and can be easy to miss, so let’s run down the common characteristics of this form of speech.

Characteristics of Sarcastic Speech

1. 1. Exaggerated tone of voice OR blank, monotone voice
   2. Blank expression
   3. Raised eyebrows
   4. Rolling eyes
   5. Exaggerated fake smile or smirk
   6. False sympathy (“wow, that must have been soooo hard for youuuu”)
   7. Expressing the opposite emotion of what your words are saying (“I’m so glad you did that”)[ii]

What Does Sarcasm Convey in Marriage?

How does sarcasm work in an intimate relationship like marriage? In marriage, sarcasm is most often an expression of contempt[iii]. Contempt in marriage is very dangerous to the longevity of the marriage.

In this context, it often takes the form of expressing superiority or showing a lack of respect (looking down your nose at your spouse) and often has a distant or icy quality to it. Because sarcasm falls under the domain of contempt, it is also a reliable predictor of divorce in a marriage. That’s why we really want you to pause and think about this one if it is part of how you guys interact.

Other researchers see sarcasm as a form of rejection or as defensiveness—because it dismisses or undermines your spouse and what he or she is saying[iv]. Again, this is a distancing effect.

Perception of Sarcasm

As we mentioned earlier, sarcasm is often used to express negative emotions in a more polite, calm way. This makes the sarcastic comment seem less offensive and hurtful to the person saying it[v]. Note that the perceived benefit is only a perception in the mind of the person saying the sarcasm.

The target of the sarcasm, on the other hand, often perceives it as being more hurtful and aggressive than a conventional non-sarcastic attack. You see, sarcastic comments often highlight the gap between what a person did and what they were expected to do (e.g., saying “thanks for your help with that” when your spouse did nothing to help highlights the perceived error) and can also come across as more cold, calculated and deliberately hurtful[vi]. An angry outburst might be easier to forgive as just a momentary feeling, but for someone to take the time to think of a sarcastic putdown adds another layer of deliberate choice, which makes what they say harder to ignore.

The right thing to have said in that example would be more like “When I have to work all day, like you do, and then do household chores alone all evening, I really struggle with feeling resentful towards you”.

It is good to note here: I am not saying you have to stop offering your spouse feedback, just that doing so in a sarcastic tone of voice is likely to end in disaster over time.

Responses to Sarcasm

There may be some of you listening today and you are thinking that you send or receive the odd sarcastic comment with your spouse and it is not a big deal. Fair enough: I’m not saying the very occasional comment means that your marriage is going to fail. But I do want you to seriously consider if even the occasional comment is really a good thing. Whether sarcastic comments and sarcastic responses are seen as humorous or offensive often comes down to the relationship quality of the individual couple. We’ll get back to this in a bit.

Sarcasm also works differently in a close relationship, becoming something of an unseen destructive force if you aren’t careful. Being in a close relationship with someone (having shared experiences and a common understanding of situations) can make sarcasm seem more normal, and a more appropriate way of speaking. However, this sense of common ground does NOT make sarcasm less hurtful. So in a marriage context, sarcasm may seem like a normal, commonplace way of speaking, but this does not actually reduce its negative effects[vii].

There is a difference between laughing together and laughing at ourselves and sarcasm. It is that negative edge.

As we look now at the effect on marriage and then more about how to stop this habit, I want to share a verse that really struck me a few years back. It is a verse from the Bible, in Ephesians 4:28 “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (ESV) It’s just such a crystal clear goal and a wonderful challenge for us all.

Sarcasm’s Effect on Marriage

We’ve talked about sarcasm more generally. What about in marriage specifically?

Overall Satisfaction. Research in 2013[viii] found a strong link between marital dysfunction and “negative” forms of humor, which includes sarcasm and harsh jokes at the spouse’s expense. Remember this is correlation not causation. This effect goes both ways: sarcasm can create dysfunction in marriage, but low satisfaction with marriage can also lead to more sarcastic communication. So this creates a downward spiral of “less satisfying communication that ultimately results in a less satisfying relationship[ix]“.

Sarcasm also has a stronger negative effect in couples who are already struggling in their marriage. Most sarcastic humor contains an element of aggression or accusation (pointing out a flaw, expressing annoyance etc). While well-adjusted couples may see the humor in it and choose to interpret the comment as being harmless, distressed couples will only see the aggressive intent of the comment and will typically react badly to it.

Conflict. Some couples see sarcasm as a tool to manage or resolve conflict, but research shows this is not an effective strategy.

What about humor for reducing conflict? Turns out the use of humor to reduce conflict more often works when the couple are well adjusted and have high relationship satisfaction. Such couples may be able to use benign or playful humor to diffuse conflict situations.

However, in couples where satisfaction is low, attempts to use sarcastic humor as a conflict resolution tool will often be ignored or rejected. Attempts to dismiss the conflict issue using sarcasm can therefore backfire and actually escalate the conflict further[x].

Stability. Research in 1993[xi] found that displays of contempt (such as sarcasm) predicted both spouses seriously considering divorce or separation. We really need to pause and consider the impact.

How To Stop

So maybe sarcasm isn’t the harmless humor you thought. If you’ve identified that it could be a problem for you, or for your spouse, what can you do?

Understanding the Intent. Try to distinguish whether your spouse is using sarcasm to be hurtful or in an attempt to be funny. One way to determine this is to observe whether they are often sarcastic in other contexts, or just when talking/arguing with you. If someone is sarcastic all the time to lots of different people, they may not be aware of the negative effect it has. As noted above, people using sarcasm often think it to be less hurtful than it really is, so just letting them know its real effect may convince them they need to stop[xii]. That’s one approach.

On the other side, if you are the person using sarcasm, remember that it probably feels more hurtful to your spouse than you perceive it as being[xiii]. In fact, I would suggest you tell your spouse that you have a serious question and would appreciate an honest answer: is my sarcasm hurtful?

Convey humor. We don’t want to take all your fun away. Working on how you express yourself while being sarcastic can help your sarcasm come across as funny rather than hurtful. Part of this is picking the right context and knowing which issues are likely to upset your spouse if you approach them sarcastically. You are the expert on your spouse so work out how best to use sarcasm in a way that’s fun rather than harmful.

But it can also be to do with your communication skills and how you express yourself through tone and facial expression. For example a study in 2014[xiv] found that raising your eyebrows while speaking can “guide” the listener to interpret your sarcastic comments as intended to be funny rather than mean. Just little cues like that can help your comments be seen as funny rather than spiteful.

There are times when it may be funny to sarcastically say, “Thanks for your help on that!” for example, if you both know the person you were speaking to was working much harder than you on the task. So I do not want to be a kill joy but there is a way of making sure folks know there is no underlying negative intent to the comment.

Genuine Communication. Sarcasm is a way of expressing yourself while not having to genuinely say what you mean, therefore making it “safer”[xv]. Learning to feel safe expressing yourself therefore reduces the need for sarcasm. This can be can be done by learning conflict managing and communication skills, and by learning to express your needs in a more genuine way. We dive into this specifically for sarcasm in our bonus content, and our flagship communication product, Talk To Me 101 is our online video course that really helps you develop highly effective communication with your spouse. So be sure to check that out too if this is a growth area for you guys.

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References

[i] Julia Jorgensen, ‘The Functions of Sarcastic Irony in Speech’, Journal of Pragmatics, 26.5 (1996), 613–34 <https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00067-4>.

[ii] Salvatore Attardo and others, ‘Multimodal Markers of Irony and Sarcasm.’, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 16.2 (2003), 243–60 <https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2003.012>.

[iii] Lynn Katz and J.M. Gottman, Patterns of Marital Conflict Predict Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors, 1993, xxix <https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.29.6.940>.

[iv] Dudley D. Cahn, Intimates in Conflict: A Communication Perspective (Routledge, 2013).

[v] Andrea Bowes and Albert Katz, ‘When Sarcasm Stings’, Discourse Processes, 48.4 (2011), 215–36 <https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2010.532757>.

[vi] Bowes and Katz.

[vii] Joel Mounts, ‘A History of Sarcasm: Effects of Balanced Use of Sarcasm in a Relationship’, 2012.

[viii] Cahn.

[ix] Cahn.

[x] Cahn.

[xi] Katz and Gottman, xxix.

[xii] Bowes and Katz.

[xiii] Bowes and Katz.

[xiv] Sabina Tabacaru and Maarten Lemmens, ‘Raised Eyebrows as Gestural Triggers in Humour: The Case of Sarcasm and Hyper-Understanding’, The European Journal of Humour Research, 2.2 (2014), 11–31.

[xv] Jorgensen.

Ogling or objectifying the bodies of others by staring with obvious sexual interest can be an easy habit to get into. Especially in a culture that objectifies women. It’s also something that recovering porn addicts have to work really hard at to break. But: there are plenty of non-addicts that deal with this too, so let’s break this down and figure out how to break free of this habit.

I think the first thing I want to note here is that while this activity or habit of checking people out can become almost mundane and very normal for a person, we have to realize it really is a betrayal event for our spouses. So it can be generating a lot of ongoing pain and hurt for one person while the other person is like “What? I was hardly even looking!”

Why Do Men Ogle?

Why is this such a common problem? The short answer is that our culture socializes us to look at women this way. In fact, both men and women are socialized to see women as objects to be viewed and admired[i].

Don’t believe me? Just look on Instagram…if a man or woman posts a photo of him/herself posing — it gets a ton of comments. Even though this is seen as a positive when it’s women complimenting each other…it is still objectifying. Men are taught to look at women in this way, and women are taught to think of and display themselves accordingly.

This socialization happens through advertising, films, television and all the media that almost exclusively portrays women with ideal body shapes. And they emphasize their physical appearance over their personalities and qualities as a person.

The effect of this is that men are trained to view women as sexual objects. In that context, ogling and “checking out” women becomes acceptable. We say things like “I was just looking!” to minimize and defend the behavior. And then the fact that so many people buy into this worldview is also used as a defense — as if you aren’t personally making a choice to check out other women, you’re just conforming to how everyone else acts.

But just because something is commonplace, that doesn’t in any way mean it isn’t harmful. This objectifying of women has a dehumanizing effect. A rather alarming study from 2014[ii] found that when thinking about women in terms of their physical appearance, men would use less human words to describe them, and assign fewer human traits to them than they would to men. This effect can even be seen at the neurological level: focusing on women’s bodies activates the same brain areas that are activated when looking at inanimate objects[iii].

How frightening is that? Men looking at women think of them as less human. Of course, you can only imagine the moral challenges this brings because we hold a different moral standard for what we do to an object versus what we would do to a human being.

The Effect of Ogling on Women

A common defense made is that nobody is being hurt. We are “only looking”. But the research shows that objectifying gaze has tangible, negative effects on the target of the gaze. Even the perception that one might be the target of objectification can have a negative effect. These effects include[iv]:

1. 1. Increased body shame and dissatisfaction with your own appearance
   2. Increased body surveillance — monitoring and worrying about your own appearance
   3. Internalizing the beauty standards of society and trying to live up to them
   4. Increased belief that looks are all that matter
   5. Reduced concentration, cognitive ability and performance (e.g., at work or in sports)
   6. Increased “self objectification” by women: thinking of themselves in more objectifying terms and being constantly preoccupied with how others will see you
   7. Acting less individually and more in line with expectations. For example, talking less and not standing up for yourself[v]

What is really sad is that you begin to get the picture that as you objectify people they begin to internalize that view, and begin to believe this about themselves as well. Women affected in this way actually start acting more like objects, even when the gaze is “complimentary” (making a positive impression about a woman’s appearance).

Along with this, women begin to believe that their physical attractiveness is more important than their qualities as a person. As you can imagine, this can lead to unrealistic standards of beauty which can lead to shame when they fail to live up to those unachievable standards[vi]. If beauty is all that matters, and you’ll never be as beautiful as the airbrushed models on TV and in fashion ads, what does that leave you with?

Does this happen to men? No: this was actually tested and the effects are found for women being gazed on by men, but not the other way around[vii]. This highlights our responsibility as men to break this habit and to challenge our culture about how we view and look at women. Literally.

How Ogling Affects Marriage

Of course this does have a significant impact on marriage. It really is a betrayal and this objectification can happen both through ogling or other means like porn use. Here are some documented negative effects on wives if their husbands display these objectifying attitudes[viii] :

1. 1. Sadness and negative emotions
   2. Increased body shame
   3. Internalization of unattainable beauty standards
   4. Reduced self esteem
   5. Greater likelihood of having eating disorder symptoms caused by body shame

Other researchers have found the same thing. For example, a study in 2011[ix] found that highly objectifying views in the husband predicted self-objectification in the wife. Wives will see themselves how husbands look at other women. Naturally, this impacts the marriage, creating reduced sexual satisfaction for both the husband and wife and reduced relationship satisfaction.

By the way: if you are wondering how it reduces sexual satisfaction…it reduces women’s self esteem and it reduces intimacy. Self-esteem is necessary for desire…if you’re lost in your own insecurities it is going to be hard to feel a lot of desire. Also if you feel like you are actually just part of a larger harem of women but you happen to be the one your husband has physical sex with (rather than virtual) then of course there is a reduction in intimacy that’s going to happen.

It is also really important to note that reduced sexual satisfaction does not lead to husbands engaging in more ogling or objectification in this context[x]. So a husband ogling other woman is not because he is not getting enough sex. What I mean is that withholding sex does not cause ogling. That may be used by him to justify ogling but I would challenge guys to be very careful about going down that road.

At the same time, there are some spouses in a lot of pain because sex is being withheld from them: I do not want to dismiss that pain, but just to gently challenge you to think about how you may be choosing to adjust your own moral values as a result. I’d encourage you both: if you guys have a legit sex problem, go ahead and tackle that, but don’t try to justify ogling by blaming it on your spouse.

Ogling is a Betrayal of Commitment

Don’t forget that in all of this I’ve been calling ogling out as a betrayal event.

Marital commitment is made up of three components:

1. 1. satisfaction with the relationship
   2. exclusivity vs. attention to alternatives
   3. investment in the current relationship

You can see how increased attention to other women really erodes commitment. It is a betrayal.

A few episodes ago when we looked at the dark realities of the porn industry we created a bonus guide that helps men deal with this objectification and ogling issue. So for this episode we’re coming at it from the other side.

This week our bonus guide is for wives who find themselves influenced by popular thought and although it is painful to admit — you’ve really objectified yourself as well. Not necessarily in an immoral way, but you’re noticing you spend a lot of time on body image and concerns there rather than thinking of yourself as a whole person and focusing on personal growth.

What To Do About Ogling Understand the Damage It Causes

Despite the damage ogling and objectification do to women (both the target and the wives of ogling husbands), many people are resistant to the idea that it needs to stop. Men see it as “normal” or “harmless” and in some cases even women are taught that being the object of male attention is desirable[xi].

I think this needs to be a conversation in your marriage if it is a problem. For wives, make your husbands aware of the personal impact of their ogling behavior on you. For some, that may provide motivation to change.

And I want to challenge men out there too — I am challenged by lust as much as the next guy. Character is what you are when nobody is watching — when you can ogle someone do you? I have to stay on top of this…it is an easy habit to get into and in the summer time or in a mall or going past some billboards it takes a concerted effort to bounce your eyes.

And yet, if all of us were intentional about this I believe it would actually begin to change our culture and make it a safer place for women and also safer for our marriages too.

Change How You See Women

Ogling and being drawn to look at attractive women’s bodies may be an automatic or nearly unconscious process, and so can be hard for men to stop. However, we can choose to focus instead on other aspects of women: seeing them as equal human beings rather than objects to be viewed. This is really about how you think about women now.

Over time this will make you less likely to think of women as objects and you will be able to “catch” yourself when you are drawn to start ogling. To demonstrate this effect, a study in 2014[xii] found that focusing on women’s physical appearance caused men to see them as being less competent, less warm and less capable of making moral decisions.

Seeing women as objects and seeing them as having these human qualities was incompatible. So learning to focus on these kinds of qualities in women will naturally make you less likely to look at them in an objectifying way.

It is about reminding yourself: she is a person, not an object. Even if she is objectifying herself.

There’s one other aspect of changing how you see women. This one is delicate but can be very helpful and freeing, so please pay careful attention to my language as you read.

What happens — particularly for porn and sex addicts but I think also this happens to many men — maybe even close to all men (and women too) — is you see an attractive person. Now if you are a Christian you have already been taught that the Lord Jesus said that “…everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28, ESV). I’ll talk to guys here, but gals can translate the genders: you see a very attractive woman and you notice her and then you jump right into guilt and even shame because you think you’ve committed adultery in your heart.

But the verse is very clear: looks at a woman with lustful intent.

What happens is that we end up obsessing about NOT sexualizing or NOT objectifying and then the issue becomes that we find ourselves obsessing over an attractive woman even though we’re trying to point that obsession in the right direction, morally. This still doesn’t feel healthy, right?

What I recommend is that when you see an attractive woman, acknowledge that. This is evidence that God vests beauty in His creation and one of the ways he does that is through physical beauty. Remind yourself that this is a person with a story. Notice the woman beside her: not as attractive, and just take a moment to wonder to yourself about the beauty that lies within that person: virtues of character and personhood. Again, because you know that God vests beauty in every part of His creation. And then move on.

I do not think it is wrong to acknowledge attractiveness. Even to appreciate it — briefly. You will know when you go from acknowledging and appreciating to cross the line into lustful intent. When the appreciation becomes about your own personal gratification or sexual pleasure.

At the same time, start noticing other women and men and acknowledging that every person bears the image of God and so there is some beauty in every person. In my mind, I believe that God dishes out beauty in equal proportions — I think He is fair — but that beauty takes on a thousand varieties of which physical beauty is only one facet. And not nearly as important a facet as popular media wants us to believe.

Filtering Media

As we’ve mentioned, media such as TV, films and advertising all portray attractiveness as being the most important thing for women to aspire to, leading to objectification and ogling by men and self-objectification by women.

This could theoretically be reduced by limiting how much exposure to media you have, or by looking for media which portrays women in less objectifying terms. Fine in principle, but in reality shutting yourself off from all media isn’t really feasible.

Instead, an interesting study in 2013[xiii] suggests developing media literacy in both men and women—  developing the ability to analyze the media you watch, noticing when it is objectifying women and not getting “taken in” by this view. This does help. Watching TV or films with this more analytical mindset can help men to notice when they are acting in a way that objectifies women, and can also help women to stop internalizing societies’ beauty standards.

The mental filter: surprisingly effective.

Reducing Self-Objectification

As a woman there are ways to respond to this as well.

A husband’s ogling and objectifying behavior/attitudes are most harmful to a wife when she starts to internalize these views and compares herself to outside standards of beauty.

Working to prevent this self-objectification can therefore remove most of the negative effects of ogling and objectification[xiv]. So while your husband is working on the ogling issue (or even if he isn’t ready to yet), you can minimize the damage by learning to break the mindset of objectifying yourself. Grab hold of our bonus guide for some practical ways you can get started on this right away.

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References:

[i] Daniel M. Downs, Shaan James, and Gloria Cowan, ‘Body Objectification, Self-Esteem, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Comparison of Exotic Dancers and College Women’, Sex Roles, 54.11–12 (2006), 745–52 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9042-y>.

[ii] Nathan A. Heflick and Jamie L. Goldenberg, ‘Seeing Eye to Body: The Literal Objectification of Women.’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23.3 (2014), 225–29 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414531599>.

[iii] Heflick and Goldenberg.

[iv] Sarah J. Gervais, Theresa K. Vescio, and Jill Allen, ‘When What You See Is What You Get: The Consequences of the Objectifying Gaze for Women and Men’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35.1 (2011), 5–17 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684310386121>.

[v] Tamar Saguy and others, ‘Interacting Like a Body: Objectification Can Lead Women to Narrow Their Presence in Social Interactions’, Psychological Science, 21.2 (2010), 178–82 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609357751>.

[vi] Downs, James, and Cowan.

[vii] Gervais, Vescio, and Allen.

[viii] Tracy L. Tylka and Ashley M. Kroon Van Diest, ‘You Looking at Her “Hot” Body May Not Be “Cool” for Me: Integrating Male Partners’ Pornography Use into Objectification Theory for Women’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39.1 (2015), 67–84 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684314521784>.

[ix] Eileen L. Zurbriggen, Laura R. Ramsey, and Beth K. Jaworski, ‘Self- and Partner-Objectification in Romantic Relationships: Associations with Media Consumption and Relationship Satisfaction’, Sex Roles, 64.7–8 (2011), 449–62 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9933-4>.

[x] Tylka and Kroon Van Diest.

[xi] Tanjare’ McKay, ‘Female Self-Objectification: Causes, Consequences and Prevention’, McNair Scholars Research Journal, 6.1 (2013) <https://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/vol6/iss1/7>.

[xii] Heflick and Goldenberg.

[xiii] McKay.

[xiv] McKay.

Balancing work and family can be a tricky task for any marriage. In fact, sometimes it can seem like it’s impossible to really satisfy either area: either work is going to be unhappy if you put too much emphasis on family, or family is going to be unhappy if there’s too much emphasis on work.

Or: both will be unhappy! This is really hard to figure out!

Work-Family Conflict

Work and family are probably the two biggest demands on your time and energy. When both your career and your family responsibilities are competing for the same hours in the day it can easily lead to conflict in one area or the other.

Work life and home life run into issues usually in one of two ways:

1. 1. When the demands of work interfere with your ability to manage family life, or
   2. When the demands of marriage and family life interfere with the ability to manage work

This can go two ways and consequently there are different causes, different consequences and ways of coping[i]. If you pay attention, what you will usually notice is that stress is caused in one area and then most prominently felt in the opposite area: for example, stress caused at work is felt most strongly in the marriage, and vice versa[ii].

This can be hard for your marriage because you have something outside the marriage that’s bringing stress in. Also, just to be clear, this can happen in dual-income families or it can happen in single-income families: all you need is a demanding or successful job, some long hours or a lot of travel.

Competing Roles

It is good to be compassionate with ourselves here because having a career and being a spouse/parent are two very different roles to hold simultaneously. On top of that, these two roles can compete for the same time and emotional energy[iii].

When that happens there are two processes that can cause conflict between these roles:

1. 1. Spillover: where stress and difficulties in one role spill over into the other (e.g., stress at work leading to conflict at home)
   2. Congruence: where there is a separate factor affecting both home and work equally (e.g., poor conflict resolution skills)

Basically you can either bring stress from one role into the other, or you can bring some other factor with you that’s causing stress in both roles. A tight deadline at work creates stress at home, but a bad attitude creates stress everywhere you go.

Not Enough Resources

What happens is we all have a limited amount of resources such as energy, time, money, knowledge, emotional effort etc. When you do not have enough resources to take care of all the roles this creates tension. Or maybe you have to use an excessive amount of resources trying to balance the roles[iv]. Think about it: is this happening to you? Are you stretching yourself too thin?

Further, work-family conflict can also occur when behavior resources are carried over from one role to another inappropriately. For example: someone who is stressed at work may try to use the same authoritarian management style at home. That’s never going to go well. Then you get conflict in the home[v].

These are all dynamics that we need to be aware of in order to solve work-family conflict.

So is Work the Problem? Or Family?

High demands at home naturally pull your resources away from work, and conflict at home reduces your capacity to handle conflict at work[vi].

Here is a helpful way of figuring out where the stress is and what the impact is:

Factors Consequences Work Interfering with Family

• Stressful or high pressure working conditions
• Conflict with colleagues at work
• Long hours and physically/emotionally tiring work
• Inflexible working hours
• Having to do work you don’t find meaningful or engaging

• Dissatisfaction with family life
• Marital tension, leading to conflict
• Higher overall life stress
• Symptoms of depression and anxiety
• Reduced physical health- such as high blood pressure, sleep disturbances and increased susceptibility to illness
• Higher likelihood of turning to destructive behaviors such as smoking, poor eating and substance abuse

Family Interfering with Work

• Marital conflict
• Number of hours spent on household labor
• Childcare, especially having multiple young children
• Financial instability
• Caring for elderly parents as well as children
• Major events which could drain your resources, such as sickness, injury, financial

• Poorer performance at work
• More days off work due to sickness and stress
• Higher rates of burnout
• Increased likelihood of leaving the job and high turnover rate between jobs

Ways to Reduce Work-Family Conflict

Research on reducing work-family conflict has focused on ways employers can reduce the conflict for their employees, and on issues you as individuals can work on to reduce the conflict as well. Let’s take a quick look at both.

Things Your Employer Can Do

Many employers offer services to address work-life balancing issues. These include:

1. 1. Flexible work hours
   2. Options to work from home
   3. Ability to work part time
   4. Extended maternity/paternity leave
   5. Paid family leave
   6. On-site childcare
   7. Assistance finding childcare and other support

Which of these are actually helpful? In 2008[vii] some researchers conducted a meta-review of studies examining which of these services actually help reduce WFC.

Results were very mixed: some studies show that flexible work arrangements like working from home and on-site childcare can improve work-life balance and reduce conflict, while others show little effect. Some studies even show that these arrangements can increase WFC. For some people working from home meant taking the stress of work home with you rather than reducing the stress.

The research does show that these services work for some people, so whether they are useful or not is probably a matter of personal preference and individual circumstances. So if your employer offers these kinds of services, try taking advantage of them and see what works. Remember that employers have a responsibility to minimize the stress your job causes, so if these services aren’t offered, could you ask for them to be set up?

Things You Can Do

Now let’s look at what you can do to redress this balance. This is the most important part, really, because you can’t control what your employer and your job demands are like, but you can always take steps to learn new skills and look at news ways to manage.

Managing Resources

Like we saw above, conflict between work and marriage is due to a strain on your emotional and practical resources. This means you can reduce the conflict by learning to manage your various resources more effectively. We really dive into this in the bonus content, so give that a really good look if you want to figure out how you can pull all your different strengths and resources together to make things easier.

Time Management Skills

Having good time management skills reduces both work and home stress, and prevents stress from one area spilling over into the other[viii].

This is a great option, by the way, because these are simple skills that anyone can learn. And they’ll help in pretty much every area of life.

Self Esteem

Self esteem has an interesting relationship to work-family conflict. According to a study in 1999[ix], self esteem is not correlated to work-family conflict and does not help prevent it. However, high levels of self esteem are negatively correlated with all the bad outcomes work-family conflict normally produces, such as stress, marital conflict, poor physical health, poor performance at work etc.

So working on building your self esteem doesn’t stop work-family conflict from happening, but it does stop it from having any negative effects on your marriage or work life. Self esteem isn’t the easiest thing to work on but it’s about learning to be comfortable with who you are, and developing the skills and knowledge to act with confidence at work and at home.

Settling Boundaries

How are you at setting boundaries? A study 2009[x] identified some simple strategies people used to create boundaries between work and home, which reduced work-family conflict:

1. 1. Enlisting Help: using other people to help protect your home times from work demands, such as having work colleagues screen calls while you are away, asking colleagues to help with work to reduce stress, or asking your spouse to act as a “buffer” to control which aspects of work are allowed to come home with you.
   2. Prioritizing: only allowing the really essential work demands to interfere with home life and leaving the non-urgent stuff until you are back at work.
   3. Controlling work time: setting clear time boundaries as to when you are at work, and when you have to leave.
   4. Holidays: taking regular time off to recover from work stress.

Sometimes creating healthy work-life boundaries is about standing up for yourself and choosing to make your marriage and family a priority over work. Which leads us on to the final point.

Priorities

This is one to think about carefully.

According to Role theory[xi] individuals with multiple competing roles will naturally lean towards one, developing a primary role and seeing the other role as secondary.

People then come to “specialize” in their primary role by getting better at it and investing more time and effort in it. This often negatively impacts the secondary role(s). This is reflected in the fact that people who choose to spend more hours in work and engage more in their work life experienced reduced quality of marital life, and vice versa[xii].

In this sense, individuals with competing roles may simply need to choose which one is their priority: their job or their marriage. If they choose to prioritize the marriage they may need to accept that there will be some detrimental effects to the job, or vice versa, and use some of the above strategies to minimize the problems.

As I sometimes tell folks, you cannot expect to have different values from your coworkers (e.g., prioritizing family life) and have the same standard of living they do. It’s certainly possible to have a happy marriage and a successful career, but you can’t make both of them your main priority. You can’t wholly pour your heart and soul into both or you’ll run dry.

So sometimes this can come down to making some tough decisions: saying yes to one thing means saying no to another. Whether you like or not. So make a choice that you will look back on with gratitude and satisfaction rather than one you’ll look back on with regret.

References:

[i] Kristin Byron, ‘A Meta-Analytic Review of Work–family Conflict and Its Antecedents’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67.2 (2005), 169–98.

[ii] Paul E. Spector, Tammy D. Allen, and Jeffrey H. Greenhaus, ‘Health Consequences of Work?Family Conflict: The Dark Side of the Work?Family Interface’, in Employee Health, Coping and Methodologies, Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being, 5, 0 vols (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2006), v, 61–98 <https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3555(05)05002-X>.

[iii] Byron.

[iv] Alicia A. Grandey and Russell Cropanzano, ‘The Conservation of Resources Model Applied to Work–family Conflict and Strain’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54.2 (1999), 350–70.

[v] Spector, Allen, and Greenhaus, v.

[vi] Byron.

[vii] ERIN L. KELLY and others, ‘Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes’, The Academy of Management Annals, 2 (2008), 305–49 <https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520802211610>.

[viii] Byron.

[ix] Grandey and Cropanzano.

[x] Glen E. Kreiner, Elaine C. Hollensbe, and Mathew L. Sheep, ‘Balancing Borders and Bridges: Negotiating the Work-Home Interface via Boundary Work Tactics’, Academy of Management Journal, 52.4 (2009), 704–30 <https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2009.43669916>.

[xi] Joseph H. Pleck, ‘The Work-Family Role System’, Social Problems, 24.4 (1977), 417–27 <https://doi.org/10.2307/800135>.

[xii] Byron.

Loyalty is the second strongest predictor of a long term, stable marriage. In other words, this is one of the most important features of creating a thriving, passionate marriage. We’ll see what the most important predictor is a bit later, but today we are going to focus in on why loyalty is so powerful and how to create more of it in your marriage — especially in areas that we commonly get derailed.

What Does Loyalty in Marriage Look Like?

What do you think about when you consider the idea of loyalty in marriage?

Turns out that loyalty is more than just staying faithful to your spouse.

Fletcher[i] gave a very helpful differentiation between minimum loyalty and maximum loyalty. Minimum loyalty is simply not betraying your spouse: not having affairs, not betraying trust, and not being dishonest. It’s the bare minimum: the baseline.

Maximum loyalty is “becoming one” with your spouse through long-term commitment, partnership and devotion. You can see that minimum is about what you do not do — the major taboos of marriage. But maximum is about investing into and pouring yourself into something very deeply.

Maximum loyalty is achieved through a sense of companionship and partnership based on[ii]:

1. 1. A shared vision for life: wanting the same things from life, valuing the same qualities and agreeing on important life issues.
   2. Joint life goals: having goals which matter to both of you which you can work towards, such as parenting, community or charity work, spiritual practice, joint business ventures and so on.
   3. Generosity: investing in your spouse through affection, time, gifts, acts of service etc
   4. Fairness: sharing workloads and taking joint responsibility for the relationship
   5. Openness, vulnerability and honesty

So it turns out there is a lot to this whole subject of loyalty, right?

The other beautiful aspect of loyalty in marriage is not only the commitment to the covenant of marriage, but to the personal growth that comes from marriage. You see, loyalty also implies that I am willing to improve my own character and to bring more of myself to the marriage and allow myself to be challenged to grow and develop as a person.

This brings a “richness and vitality that may be dormant” in the marriage[iii]. So loyalty is something developed both intra-personally (within myself) and inter-personally (between ourselves).

Benefits of Loyalty in Marriage

A loyal marriage is a strong marriage. Let’s go through some of the many benefits loyalty can bring to you and your spouse.

Satisfaction

Loyalty is an important mediating factor between the actions and interactions in a marriage. It also impacts the overall levels of happiness and satisfaction.

According to a study in 2004[iv], actions and behaviors such as displays of affection, agreement, intimacy and sex only positively influence marital satisfaction if love and loyalty are there as mediators. So doing these positive actions in marriage doesn’t necessarily lead to a happy marriage unless the underlying characteristics of love and loyalty are there.

This reality echoes the teaching of 1 Corinthians 13 — the most well known chapter on love in the Bible. That chapter profoundly underscores the reality that you can do all sorts of wonderful things but unless you are doing them in love, the actions really are meaningless. So this is a really good self-check to ask: yeah, I may be checking all the good husband boxes or all the good wife boxes, but is it really clear that these things I’m doing are saturated with love and loyalty?

So loyalty is the hidden link between all these good actions and real satisfaction. Now, loyalty can also lead to marital satisfaction directly. For couples who value loyalty and see devotion to each other as a priority in marriage, being happy with the loyalty displayed by your spouse is enough to create high marital satisfaction independent of any other factors[v]. This is also a great point from the research because it means we need to be willing to stop and notice and be grateful for the loyalty that we may already be experiencing but taking for granted. If we do, we can find contentment and satisfaction in any circumstances, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Long-term Stability and Commitment

A study in 1993[vi] interview 147 couples who had been happily married over 20 years and found that loyalty to the spouse was the second strongest predictor of a long-term and stable marriage.

We just wanted to note this so that you do not miss the significance of this subject of loyalty.

Now, I told you in the intro that we would let you know what the #1 predictor was: it is seeing marriage as a lifelong commitment.

Related concepts like close friendship and companionship were also in the top 10. So there is this constellation of factors in the top 10 that are all on the same spectrum of loyalty, commitment, oneness…all super-important to a lifelong, satisfying marriage.

There’s a couple more benefits to loyalty we should look at before we explore common areas of conflicting loyalty and how to resolve them.

Loyalty Buffers Against Fear

This is an interesting study. Florian et al[vii] found that making participants think about frightening existential issues, such as death and mortality, caused them to report higher levels of commitment and loyalty to their spouse. Thoughts about loyalty and commitment then acted as a buffer, reducing participant’s fear of death.

The researchers concluded that a strong and loyal relationship helps reduce fears of death, since in relationships like this your sense of self has expanded to include the other person: so even if you die, part of your “self” lives on.

A loyal and devoted relationship also helps you find meaning and feel like your life has purpose, causing people to fear death less since their life has been meaningful. Here’s a quote from their study: “Unlike most other threats, the threat of death is inescapable, and support from close others cannot remove the threat itself. In this case, perhaps, the affirmation of one’s importance in others’ lives engenders feelings of meaning that render the prospect of death more tolerable.[viii]”

I think what they were observing is that loyalty also facilitates the creation of legacy: leaving something behind that endures beyond the span of your own life.

Vulnerability and Conflict

Loyalty helps with vulnerability. No surprise there!

When you are in a loyal relationship with your spouse, one that emphasizes partnership and togetherness, this allows you to express vulnerability and respond to one another in positive affirming ways. This makes so much sense, right?

But it also helps the couple to manage conflict: high levels of underlying loyalty allow spouses to “use positive affect — positive emotions such as humor— to maintain calmness and flexibility, attack the issue and not the spouse, and notice opportunities for repair attempts rather than focusing on each other’s negative traits”[ix].

Conflicting Loyalties

While you and I may value loyalty as a top priority, we need to be aware that this is not always going to be easy. Let’s talk about three situations. The first one is not common to all marriages but I think the last two definitely are something that every couple has or will struggle with.

Loyalty Conflicts in Stepfamilies

In blended families there may be conflicting loyalties between your new spouse and children/family from a previous marriage[x]. When you’re trying to make this work it can be hard to know which side to come down on: do you support your spouse or your kids?

Couples should understand that creating a stable marriage and a stable home is the best way to help the children adjust to the new family[xi]. The couple should therefore aim to side with each other over the kids (especially when disciplining and setting rules) or other family members, as doing so will create stability and help the children’s wellbeing in the long run. Creating a new family dynamic and new family rituals can help strengthen the sense of family cohesion, helping couples see loyalty to the spouse and loyalty to the children as being the same thing.

What I see there is that it is really critical to embrace the whole package, not just focus on loyalty in one area especially or at the cost of other areas (e.g., protecting your biological kids vs. your spouse, or siding with your spouse over your biological children). The whole system needs to be embraced with loyalty.

Work-Family Conflict Can Be a Loyalty Issue

Loyalties can be divided between family life and successful careers. For example, demands from one area can make it hard to meet the demands from the other, leading to stress and conflict in both areas[xii]. We’ll actually be doing a full episode on this in the near future, so if balancing loyalty between family and work is an issue for you, stay tuned.

This can be especially true where one spouse has a very successful or prestigious job, or where they run their own business, making a healthy work-life balance difficult. But it can also be an issue for long-distance marriages and especially military couples, where the stay-at-home spouse may feel that their husband/wife is more loyal to their job or country than to them[xiii]. Those are really difficult issues to tease apart.

So how do you create more loyalty in the face of these kinds of challenges? Because it often feels impossible to back off from the work side of things.

One thing couples can do is to plan the time they do get together as effectively as possible so as to get the most satisfaction it, and also to make use of flexible working arrangements in order to reduce conflict. This is a time to be creative: can you work from home? Add a lunch date once a week? Reduce hours on Fridays?

Since joint goals and vision are a big part of loyalty in marriage, couples should also aim to make both spouse’s careers part of their joint vision for their lives. This way even when the job puts a strain on the home life, both spouses can still see it as being an important part of who they are[xiv]. They are both invested. So what would have to change for you to both feel invested in getting the business off the ground? Or established in that particular career? Or, possibly, for the career person: do you need to come up with a mid- or long-term strategy to move to a different career or position which is more honoring of the loyalty you feel towards your spouse? Are you both prepared to accept the sacrifices necessary to prioritize your marriage and family over your career?

These are tough but honest conversations that some of us need to have.

Family vs. Spouse Loyalty

Finally, loyalties can be torn between your spouse and your family of origin. Everyone has a strong attachment bond to both their parents and their spouse, and so conflict between them, or even having to choose which to spend time with, can be hard to deal with and really difficult to balance[xv]. Marital conflict can arise if one spouse supports their family of origin over their husband/wife, or a spouse may resent their husband/wife for putting them in a position where they have to pick a side.

In my opinion, spouses should always aim to side with each other and support one another over their family, but you also need to be sensitive to the fact this can be hard and can feel like you are betraying your family[xvi].

There are some aspects of this that are good to be aware of. Families develop norms and ways of acting over many years, which they come to see as fixed: everything from how they talk to each other to how they celebrate holidays etc.

These norms and rituals can be hard for the new spouse to adjust to. Refusal to change these norms once married can lead to a spouse feeling that their husband/wife is being more loyal to their family than to their marriage. For example, refusing to change a Christmas tradition by saying “that’s just how we do things” or justifying a parent’s behavior by saying “that’s just how she is”. Those kinds of comments indicate loyalty to your family over loyalty to your spouse.

One specific way that spouses can remain loyal to each other is to see these norms as no longer being set in stone, and making an effort to accommodate the new spouse into the family norms, or setting up new norms and traditions of their own[xvii]. Sometimes you need to have a discussion with your family as well to help them understand how or why you are wanting to change norms that you’ve accepted in the past.

So loyalty is something that can be challenging to navigate, and certainly takes time and effort to maintain. But: don’t forget, it is a top 2 predictor of creating a lasting, satisfying marriage. So it is worth figuring out.

References:

[i] George P. Fletcher, Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (Oxford University Press, 1995).

[ii] Elizabeth Fawcett, ‘Helping with the Transition to Parenthood: An Evaluation of the Marriage Moments Program’, All Theses and Dissertations, 2004 <https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1135>.

[iii] Blaine J. Fowers, Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness: How Embracing the Virtues of Loyalty, Generosity, Justice, and Courage Can Strengthen Your Relationship (Wiley, 2000).

[iv] Jane R. Rosen-Grandon, Jane E. Myers, and John A. Hattie, ‘The Relationship Between Marital Characteristics, Marital Interaction Processes, and Marital Satisfaction’, Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD, 82.1 (2004), 58–68.

[v] Rosen-Grandon, Myers, and Hattie.

[vi] David L. Fenell, ‘Characteristics of Long-Term First Marriages.’, Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 1993.

[vii] Victor Florian, Mario Mikulincer, and Gilad Hirschberger, ‘The Anxiety-Buffering Function of Close Relationships: Evidence That Relationship Commitment Acts as a Terror Management Mechanism.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82.4 (2002), 527.

[viii] Florian, Mikulincer, and Hirschberger.

[ix] Jill D. Duba and others, ‘Areas of Marital Dissatisfaction Among Long‐Term Couples’, Adultspan Journal, 11.1 (2012), 39–54.

[x] Kay Pasley and others, ‘SUCCESSFUL STEPFAMILY THERAPY: CLIENTS’PERSPECTIVES’, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 22.3 (1996), 343–57.

[xi] ERIN L. KELLY and others, ‘Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes’, The Academy of Management Annals, 2 (2008), 305–49 <https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520802211610>.

[xii] Jennifer DeNicolis Bragger and others, ‘Work-Family Conflict, Work-Family Culture, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior among Teachers’, Journal of Business and Psychology, 20.2 (2005), 303–24.

[xiii] Daniel J. Canary and Marianne Dainton, Maintaining Relationships Through Communication: Relational, Contextual, and Cultural Variations (Routledge, 2003).

[xiv] Fawcett.

[xv] T. E. Apter, What Do You Want from Me?: Learning to Get Along with In-Laws (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009).

[xvi] Apter.

[xvii] Apter.

I do not think that there is a human being on the face of our planet right now who does not struggle at least a little bit with defensives. Some of us struggle a lot. And defensiveness in marriage is definitely going to make you unhappy and dissatisfied with your marriage. Turns out, it’s not an easy one to overcome either—but today we’re going to show you how.

This week we are gonna call you out and expose this gremlin running around in all our marriages called Defensiveness.

I know what you’re thinking…”I’m not defensive!!” But, that’s the problem right there.

How Defensiveness Works

The Bible says that “A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.” (Proverbs 18:19 ESV) Or we could say a “Wife offended” or “Husband offended”… Once you hit that point where there’s an attack, there’s a known flaw, there’s known issues then it is really easy to become defensive.

So we have some cool stuff to start with because we are really going to break down this defensiveness thing — you have to know the enemy in order to defeat it — and the enemy is not your spouse, the enemy is the defensiveness that happens between you.

Defensiveness happens when four things line up[i]. What I really like about this is that if you take any of these out, you begin to undermine defensiveness in your own life. So the four things are:

1. 1. A self-perceived flaw which you refuses to admit
   2. Sensitivity to that flaw (e.g., you are embarrassed or even ashamed about it)
   3. An attack by another person (doesn’t have to be a huge attack — could just be a blunt observation)
   4. The attacker seeing the same flaw which the defender does not want to admit

Defensiveness Could Be a Personality Trait

The first two items above are more characteristic issues: they enter into that area of ways of thinking and/or personality traits. I have a flaw — I do not want to admit to it — and I am sensitive about it. That’s getting into that character realm of things.

Often we might feel quite inadequate around a flaw or at least insecure about it. We certainly do not want to admit it to others and we may not even really admit it to ourselves.

In order to become defensive, that real or perceived flaw has to relate to something that is an important part of my own sense of self or self-worth, and my identity[ii]. It’s like a closely guarded secret that you’re trying your hardest to hide from everyone— maybe even yourself— so when it’s brought to light you instantly try to shoot it down.

So we get defensive in situations in which our identity is threatened.

A classic example is an addiction — even take it on the lighter end of the scale, like a phone addiction. For me to be defensive, go through the four parts:

1. 1. I perceive it but do not want to admit to it
   2. I am sensitive — I do not want it pointed out
   3. You point it out to me with a harsh edge on your voice because it is a problem that is coming between us
   4. You see the flaw, and I know that.

And then I am beginning to think, I am an addict. I am a bad husband. Good husbands do not have this problem. I stake a lot of my self-identity on being a good husband and father.

Now we have all the ingredients for defensiveness. So how does this get talked (or fought!) through in a marriage?

Defensive Communication in Marriage

There are two sides to defensive communication: the defensive reaction, and the action which caused it. We need to separate these. Just think carefully about how you either trigger defensiveness in your spouse, or how you respond to your spouse when you are feeling defensive[iii]. Let’s start with the first.

How to Trigger Defensiveness In Your Spouse

Here are some sure-fire ways to put your spouse into a defensive mindset:

1. 1. Use words or tone of voice that evaluates or judges the listener (“I see you are on your phone…again”)
   2. Attempt to control or coerce the listener (“If you don’t put that down I am going to freak on you.”)
   3. Strategic or manipulative communication (targeting, needling or guilting over it)
   4. Neutral speech that conveys a lack of concern (#hairflip you’re on your phone again)
   5. Implications of superiority
   6. Dogmatism or certainty in your own opinion
   7. Any behavior that your spouse deems threatening or punishing
   8. Loud or rapid speech
   9. Frequent interruptions or corrections

These last 2-3 are typical of conflict scenarios: you’re shouting and demanding in every way you can think of but nothing is getting through, and the angrier you get, the more defensive your spouse gets.

What You Likely Do When You Are Feeling Defensive

And here’s how you’re likely to react when you’re in defense-mode:

1. 1. Dismiss your spouse’s concerns (“what, I’m just looking for a place to eat tonight”)
   2. Denying or minimizing your own responsibility (“People from work keep asking me for stuff”)
   3. Shifting blame to the attacker (“If you’d be a little friendlier I wouldn’t have to use my phone for an escape”)
   4. Making excuses (“Why? Other people use their phones way more than me!”)
   5. Justifications of your actions (“This is how I make a living, OK!”)

How Defensiveness Impacts Marriage

This is one of those “you can win the battle but you’re going to lose the war” scenarios.

Defensive styles of communication lead to increased sensitivity and escalation of the conflict, as the attacker feels like they are not being heard and the defender keeps trying to deflect responsibility[iv].

Where this really hits a marriage in the gut is it is sending a signal to your spouse (when you are defensive) that s/he is not getting through to you. Basically it is an abandonment or rejection signal. It is saying you are alone in what you think because you cannot get through to me. Or it is saying I do not care what you think, go away.

And you thought you were just being defensive!

Researchers have noted a couple important things about why defensiveness really never has anything positive to offer your marriage:

1. 1. Defensiveness in one spouse also makes the other spouse more prone to defensiveness, creating a destructive cycle that perpetuates itself[v].
   2. Couples who frequently engage in defensive communication report fewer positive feelings for each other and experience lower marital quality and satisfaction[vi]

Ok so that’s how defensiveness works to wreck marriages. Now let’s explore how to stop it.

Reducing Defensiveness Owning Your Flaws

The built-in objection within defensiveness is that we do not want to be flawed people. Nor do we wish to be seen by the most important people in our lives as being flawed.

If you can change your perspective of marriage to one that includes seeing your marriage as a crucible for personal growth, then you are going to be receptive to the complaints that your spouse makes.

So when she says, “You’re on your phone too much” you can respond differently. You choose to be married because you wish to grow, and your spouse just offered you some feedback that could trigger growth. So instead of becoming defensive, you are now in a position to embrace the feedback even if it hurts.

Remember, one of the core components of defensiveness is a self-perceived flaw which you refuse to admit. When you admit and own the flaw, you are no longer in the position of being defensive.

Part of this is based on the perspective that we are all broken as human beings. So when someone points out one of my flaws, they may do so in a hurtful manner, but because I know that I am already flawed my identity is not threatened.

So there’s an attack but there is no sensitivity because I’ve already embraced my brokenness. Now, I may choose to set a boundary on people who consistently point out flaws in a hurtful way because they are toxic or unhealthy — they’re corrosive — but when it is someone who cares and is normally respectful I can much more readily embrace the feedback.

Believing in Self-Determination

If you’re from a Christian background like us, you may get a little nervous around the idea of self-determination, which is the ability to make decisions without relying on others, and doing things out of your own free will rather than being coerced and manipulated.

We believe in the will of God, but we also believe that God has given to every person the ability to make their own choices. I believe in free will.

In this context, then, you can make choices based on the values that matter to you. As opposed to being forced into things by other people.

So take my phone example, and our definition of how defensiveness happens: someone points out a flaw which you are sensitive to and refuse to admit. Defensiveness says that you can choose to deny the flaw, conceal what is sensitive and try to protect yourself. Self-Determination says that you have chosen to enter marriage, you are invested in the health of that marriage and in the care of your spouse. With this mindset you see the problem as a challenge to be faced together rather than something that needs to be denied, minimized or hidden[vii].

When you see yourself as capable of addressing something rather than as a victim or someone with an unchangeable character flaw, that is a more empowered position to act from. When you see your marriage as part of this in the sense that this is where you get to be seen, warts and all, then you will be even less defensive. In that way, you’re acknowledging this is what you signed up for: refinement, growth, and challenges.

People who show this kind of self-determination generally experience better emotional wellbeing and better relationship satisfaction overall[viii]. Being confident in your ability to face challenges together helps you move past defensiveness and strengthens your marriage across the board.

References:

[i] Glen H. Stamp, Anita L. Vangelisti, and John A. Daly, ‘The Creation of Defensiveness in Social Interaction’, Communication Quarterly, 40.2 (1992), 177–90.

[ii] Stamp, Vangelisti, and Daly.

[iii] Stamp, Vangelisti, and Daly.

[iv] Jennifer Becker, Barbara Ellevold, and Glen Stamp, The Creation of Defensiveness in Social Interaction II: A Model of Defensive Communication among Romantic Couples, 2008, lxxv <https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750701885415>.

[v] Becker, Ellevold, and Stamp, lxxv.

[vi] C. Raymond Knee and others, ‘Self-Determination and Conflict in Romantic Relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89.6 (2005), 997–1009 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.997>.

[vii] Knee and others.

[viii] Knee and others.

Resentment is what happens when you are treated unfairly and you begin to feel angry and bitter. Resentment can be directed at your spouse, at God, at your life: but if it begins to play a significant role in your marriage, that’s going to make home a pretty tough place to be.

Proverbs 12:25 says that anxiety makes the heart heavy and as I thought about the subject of resentment it occurred to me that resentment can be a form of anxiety. You don’t see this in any diagnostic manual, but it has the same ruminating characteristic of repeatedly mulling over past grievances, with a lot of negativity.

We all end up with resentment at different places and times in our marriage. We don’t want to be getting after you about it, but rather we want to help you understand how it happens, why it doesn’t help and what to do differently!

Resentment often strikes us when we feel that we have been treated badly. Especially if it’s in a way we did not deserve, but it can even happen when good things happen to others which you feel they did not earn[i]. That starts to look a lot like envy.

In marriage it often occurs when you feel you have been unfairly wronged and so it might bring about a desire to get even by holding onto a grudge and remaining bitter[ii].

Major Sources of Resentment in Marriage Unresolved Conflict

If you struggle with poor conflict resolution and a fairly frequent inability to solve disagreements this often leads to a buildup of resentment and anger[iii]. You get this buildup of annoyances and hurts which might be individually small but if left unforgiven and unaddressed can start to look pretty big. This slowly building resentment then negatively impacts marital satisfaction for both partners.

It is also helpful to note that certain styles of conflict are specifically linked to creating high levels of resentment, especially the competitive style of conflict where each spouse is trying to “win” the argument rather than reach a joint solution[iv].

Unless arguments are properly resolved and forgiven, resentment at the initial transgression which caused the argument will continue to impact the marriage. I often tell the couples I am providing counseling to that how much you argue is not nearly as important as if you resolve those arguments.

Underlying resentment about past grievances can then fuel future conflict and impede conflict resolution in the future, creating a negative spiral[v]. If you’re still angry about something from last week then this week’s annoyance is going to seem even more infuriating. And then when you’re arguing you start to throw in all the little things from the last few days that have annoyed you, and the whole thing blows up.

Don’t worry, we’re going to show you what to do about all this in just a moment!

Perceived Unfairness

Believing that your spouse is acting unfairly often leads to feelings of resentment which can create conflict and reduce marital satisfaction. This can occur over all kinds of aspects of life, such as:

1. 1. Division of household labor: believing that you do more work than your spouse or that the work is split unfairly leads to resentment, especially for wives[vi].
   2. Emotion work: similarly, feeling that you are doing all the emotional work to maintain the relationship (you’re the one doing all the maintenance behaviors like expressing love, confiding and intimacy etc) or feeling like you put more work into the emotional side of the marriage than your spouse does can also create resentment[vii].
   3. Secrecy: feeling that information is being kept from you by your spouse can also lead to resentment[viii].
   4. Lack of perceived support: feeling unsupported and thinking that your spouse is not helping you through difficulties also leads to hurt and resentment. For example a study in 2000[ix] examined marital satisfaction in couples where one spouse had a serious illness and found that a lack of support and concern or a refusal to help led to feelings of resentment which reduced marital satisfaction.

All these factors are also affected by attributions: whether you think you’re spouses actions are intentional, or driven by who they are as a person or just by circumstance. Believing that your spouse’s unfair actions were intentional or driven by who they are as a person makes the ensuing resentment more severe[x]. We did a whole episode on how to stop when you’re misinterpreting your spouse so make sure to go back and check that one out if this sounds familiar.

So perceived unfairness leads to resentment, and resentment leads to lower marital satisfaction. However, low marital satisfaction can also cause perceived unfairness. A study in 2001[xi] studied married couples’ levels of satisfaction at 3 points over several months. They found that dissatisfaction with the marriage at time 1 predicted perceptions of unfairness in relation to issues like division of labor at time 2. This then predicted conflict, resentment and dissatisfaction at time 3.

So, if marital satisfaction is already low (for whatever reason) then spouses tend to scrutinize their marriage more harshly and perceive aspects of it as being unfair, leading to resentment and conflict.

In other words, resentment becomes the lens through which you view all of your marriage and through which you see and interpret your spouse’s actions.

Now, how do you deal with resentment?

How to Deal With Resentment Towards Your Spouse

We want to give you three things to look at here.

Moving Towards Fairness

Addressing the reason for the perceived unfairness can prevent resentment from building up. It is important to identify the unfairness and then address it if you believe it is important to you.

Working on a fairer division of labor or more emotional support or whatever the perceived injustice can also remove the underlying resentment and improve marital wellbeing. Simple enough, right? Resolve the issue, remove the resentment.

Forgiving Your Spouse

Forgiving your spouse for the thing which offended you means choosing to let go of the resentment and not let their past actions dominate your present emotions.

Forgiveness is not the same as condoning your spouse’s behavior, or letting them off the hook for doing something that upset you. Rather it is choosing not to hold on to the resentment and releasing the person from being indebted to you.

Like I said, we’ve got some high quality detail on this in our bonus download for our patrons, but here is a very helpful quote from a research team:

“As the person decides to forgive and so proclaims, several important things happen. First, the forgiver has crossed an important line… He or she has moved from a position of resentment to one of not letting the resentment dominate the interaction. Although the one who forgives may still feel resentful, the person chooses not to let it be a controlling factor. Second, the decision and proclamation show that the forgiver is consciously aware of his or her new position. The forgiver, in other words, is not abandoning resentment because of taking some memory-loss pill or simply letting time run its course. Instead, the decision is a defining moment regarding who the forgiver is (“I am one who forgives”),who the forgiven is (“He/she is worthy of respect”), and what their relationship may be like as a result of this decision.[xii]”

Forgiveness has very strong links to marital wellbeing, commitment and satisfaction, and is especially linked with better ability to resolve conflict and prevent the negative cycles of resentment and conflict[xiii].

That’s why this is the focus of our bonus guide: forgiveness is a huge lever that you can pull to move you out of resentment and towards contentment.

Gratitude Helps, Too

This is really interesting: gratitude and resentfulness are often considered “mirror images” of each other[xiv].

Both arise in response to a person’s actions towards you and both invoke a desire to reciprocate or get even, either in a positive way (gratitude) or a negative way (resentment). Resentment therefore forms a cycle of conflict and negativity while gratitude starts a cycle of positivity and thankfulness.

Gratitude and resentment as personality traits are negatively correlated: being high in one makes you naturally lower in the other[xv]. So working on increasing your feeling and expression of gratitude will cause your tendency towards resentment to decrease. Being a generally grateful person is also highly correlated with being easily able to forgive, which also helps remove resentment[xvi].

An attitude of gratitude always helps!

References:

[i] N. T. Feather and Rebecca Sherman, ‘Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28.7 (2002), 953–61 <https://doi.org/10.1177/014616720202800708>.

[ii] Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, The Psychology of Gratitude (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004).

[iii] Frank D. Fincham, Steven R. H. Beach, and Joanne Davila, ‘Longitudinal Relations between Forgiveness and Conflict Resolution in Marriage’, Journal of Family Psychology: JFP: Journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 21.3 (2007), 542–45 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.21.3.542>.

[iv] A. P. Greeff and T. de Bruyne, ‘Conflict Management Style and Marital Satisfaction’, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26.4 (2000), 321–34 <https://doi.org/10.1080/009262300438724>.

[v] Fincham, Beach, and Davila.

[vi] Daphne Stevens, Gary Kiger, and Pamela J. Riley, ‘Working Hard and Hardly Working: Domestic Labor and Marital Satisfaction among Dual-Earner Couples’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 63.2 (2001), 514–26.

[vii] Stevens, Kiger, and Riley.

[viii] Catrin Finkenauer and Hana Hazam, ‘Disclosure and Secrecy in Marriage: Do Both Contribute to Marital Satisfaction?’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17.2 (2000), 245–63.

[ix] M. Hagedoorn and others, ‘Marital Satisfaction in Patients with Cancer: Does Support from Intimate Partners Benefit Those Who Need It the Most?’, Health Psychology: Official Journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 19.3 (2000), 274–82.

[x] Elaine Hatfield, Richard L. Rapson, and Katherine Aumer-Ryan, ‘Social Justice in Love Relationships: Recent Developments’, Social Justice Research, 21.4 (2008), 413–31.

[xi] Nancy Grote and Margaret Clark, Perceiving Unfairness in the Family: Cause or Consequence of Marital Distress?, 2001, lxxx <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.281>.

[xii] Thomas W. Baskin and Robert D. Enright, ‘Intervention Studies on Forgiveness: A Meta‐analysis’, Journal of Counseling & Development, 82.1 (2004), 79–90.

[xiii] Frank D. Fincham, Julie Hall, and Steven RH Beach, ‘Forgiveness in Marriage: Current Status and Future Directions’, Family Relations, 55.4 (2006), 415–27.

[xiv] Emmons and McCullough.

[xv] Félix Neto, ‘Forgiveness, Personality and Gratitude’, Personality and Individual Differences, 43.8 (2007), 2313–23 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.07.010>.

[xvi] Neto.

Today we want to lift the hood on the world of marriage counseling and look at one particular approach and how it works. If you’ve ever been curious about what happens in the counseling room or are considering counseling there’s a lot more to it than you might think!

The Mystery of Marriage Counseling

The world of counseling may seem like a mysterious or even intimidating place to those who know little about it. There’s a stigma around mental health itself, and although a distressed marriage is not a mental health problem, we rarely talk about our struggles as a couple. We like to appear like we have it all together and I think us church-going folk are even more prone to this.

But then you do hear the horror stories when things don’t go well and people open up. Some terrible advice comes from people who call themselves counselors.

So then when it comes to choosing a marriage counselor it can be pretty scary because your marriage is a big deal and you don’t want to the wrong person trying to help you with it!

Basic Marriage Counselor Criteria

Now I want to say that this article is not an extended advertisement for our services, but the things I am going to tell you are important facts you need to know, whether you decide to work with someone from my counseling practice or find a local counselor.

The first thing is that not all counseling degrees are created equal. When a person is earning their Master’s degree in order to become a therapist, their school and the degree program they choose will generally orient itself around a particular school of thought.

Of course, there are a plethora of flavors. But when it comes to marriage counseling you should know that there are a number of universities around North America that offer marriage and family therapy programs specifically. These kinds of degrees have less focus on specific mental health problems like anxiety disorders or even addictions, and they focus very much on relationships, how humans interact, how children learn to love and relate to others, on marriage dynamics and on family systems.

So when you choose a therapist the first thing you should filter on is their education: do they have a degree that specializes in marriage and family? And usually you’ll see this in the letters after their last name in that either their degree will look like MAMFT (Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy) or their certifying body will supply MFT credentials like LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist). If you’re not sure, ask about the person’s training.

The second thing you want to look for is whether the therapist has a specific approach to marriage counseling that is evidence-based. “Evidence-based” means that they are using a treatment approach which has been tested and tried through research and peer-reviewed journals.

Surprisingly, there are only a handful of marriage approaches that have been rigorously tested in this way, and so if you want to give you marriage the best chance of success you would do well to ensure you are selecting a counselor who uses an evidence based approach. Otherwise you’ll have no idea whether what you’re being told actually works or not.

Probably the two most popular evidence-based counseling approaches are Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (sometimes called EFT or EFCT) and the Gottman Method. I have taken specific training in both of these, on top of my MFT degree, as has my colleague in my practice, Jesse Schellenberg. They are quite different but very complementary.

Both of us favor EFCT as our preferred approach: about 90% of couples show significant improvements using this approach and we’ll talk more about success rates in a moment, but 90% is incredible.

How EFCT Works Key Principles

Now, I am going to work hard to break the scientific jargon and psychobabble into English here but there are some key principles in this approach to marriage counseling that are important (Gurman et al, 2015[i])

Collaborative alliance: meaning the couple needs to be coached to become allies in working through their difficulties and working together to discover solutions. The onus is on the therapist to facilitate this. When you take this approach to marriage counseling, the relationship between the couple becomes the “client” or the target of the therapy, rather than each individual spouse. And I am very explicit with couples about this: I tell them, “I am not on your side or your side, I am on the side of your marriage.”

Person centered: In its secular form, this approach views people as being essentially good, and capable of making good and healthy choices. The bond and attachment between the couple is viewed as being essentially good and healthy. In this view everyone has the capacity to have a happy, healthy marriage and the ability to break free from conflict and unhealthy patterns.

Now as Christians we own the problem of sin so I prefer to look at it in the sense of acknowledging that people are created in the image of God, which is one source of goodness, but because of sin we act in ways that are self-serving and self-preserving, rather than loving our neighbor/spouse as ourselves.

So I think about it differently but it still invokes the same interventions. Since we’re made in God’s image we all have the capacity to reflect him in our marriage. It’s just sometimes a bit of struggle getting there. A Christian approach to EFCT also argues that the marriage bond is a universally positive and valuable connection that has the capacity to heal and strengthen individuals. Both EFCT and the biblical worldview see marriage as a powerful place for individual growth[ii].

Patterns of reacting: According to EFCT thinking, problems arise when individuals get “stuck” using certain ways of responding and interacting with each other, such as anger or fear of rejection. Often couples will already be somewhat or very aware of this, saying things like, “We always get stuck on the same issues.” These emotions form unhelpful patterns of acting as a couple, which need to be understood and deconstructed.

Expanding emotional responses. Emotions are the main focus of the therapy as they guide how the couple interacts. “Emotion guides and gives meaning to perception, motivates and cues attachment responses, and when expressed, communicates to others and organizes their response[iii]“.

The therapists helps couples to analyze their emotional responses to conflict and find new ways to express themselves in order to help them move forward. For example if a couple often show anger to each other they can work on expressing the underlying fear or vulnerability which is causing the anger. Positive change comes from expressing new, softer emotions and expressing yourself in new ways, not necessarily from uncovering past trauma or working on old issues.

Goals of EFCT

We have three goals.

First, we want to create a safe, collaborative alliance between the spouses where they are both willing to work on their difficulties. This, by the way, is why we do not do marriage counseling when there is an abusive husband in the picture. That issue needs to be resolved first, because there is no emotional safety for the wife, so making her more vulnerable puts her at greater risk for violence or abuse. This is a very common mistake made by therapists who do marriage counseling without being specifically trained in it.

Second, we want to expand the range of emotions which guide the couple’s interactions. Often they are not aware of all that is going on in their hearts, leading people to act in ways that aren’t helpful just because they can’t get at the root of the problem. EFCT does an incredible job of building emotional intelligence.

Thirdly, we work to restructure the couples’ interactions in a more positive and responsive direction. Meaning, they respond to each other positively and with care and sensitivity. We end up creating a positive interaction cycle.

The Marriage Counseling Process

How do we reach those goals? In EFCT there are nine main steps[iv] and we’ll go through them pretty quickly:

1. 1. Identifying the conflict issues within the marriage. “What brings you to counseling?”
   2. Identifying the negative interaction cycle: figuring out how and why the couple are getting stuck. This requires a very skilled therapist so that you can see exactly what is happening.
   3. Uncovering the unacknowledged emotion relating to the couple’s attachment bond which is underpinning the cycle of interaction for each partner. So, finding out what’s really driving the problem: fear, lack of trust, rejection and so on.
   4. Re-framing the initial problem in terms of the cycle of interaction and the underlying needs. Couples need to see that this cycle has been unknowingly created and that both spouses have fallen “victim” to it in the marriage. This is where you reframe the cycle as the enemy, instead of your spouse being the enemy.
   5. Helping individuals to connect with the attachment needs of parts of themselves they have been ignoring. For example the need for reassurance or comfort, or a sense of shame or unworthiness.
   6. Encouraging each partner to accept the other’s experience and perspective.
   7. Helping each spouse express their needs in relation to the original conflict, in order to restructure the cycle of interaction based on new perspectives and emotions.
   8. With these new perspectives, discovering new solutions to old problems.
   9. Developing new, better cycles and patterns of behavior.

So that’s a very brief rundown of the aims, principles and basic steps involved in EFCT. Let’s talk about the effectiveness of EFCT — how well does this approach work, and what are the specific things that make it work well?

Effectiveness of EFCT Marriage Counseling

EFCT has been shown to be highly effective in alleviating marital distress in couples[v]. You see different results in different places but on the EFCT website they note that 90% or couples show significant improvements and over half of couples finish the therapy with no marital distress at all.

What’s really interesting is that 3 months later, an even higher percentage of couples recover their marriage bond. So it’s not just that you treat the symptoms and then the coupe will slowly fade back towards distress, but it really equips them and transformers their marriage.

Not only that, but EFCT can also help reduce depressive symptoms, and can also improve marital quality even for couples who do not consider themselves distressed. So it can improve marriages which are already going well[vi]. Even relatively happy marriages can still benefit from learning to process and express their emotions more clearly. That’s cool.

Specific Factors Which Make EFCT Effective

Let’s have a look at some of the specific issues which come up in EFCT and which make it work so well.

Softening. Softening is a process where an individual who has previously been very critical of their spouse learns to express the underlying need in less aggressive terms. They learn to express vulnerability and state what they need from their spouse (comfort, support etc) on an emotional level rather than criticizing what the spouse is doing[vii]. This softening effect is a specific factor linked to improved marital functioning during therapy.

Blaming. Moving away from blaming your spouse for the conflict or trying to coerce them into changing, and taking a joint or collaborative stance towards problems was also linked to better outcomes after treatment[viii]. So you go from “You are the problem!” to “Let’s figure out how we got derailed…”

Self disclosure. Research shows that couples who were able to disclose more about themselves and their emotional processes received more support and understanding from their spouse, leading to a stronger bond and a more effective progression through the therapy[ix]. This is where you really create intimacy right? We teach couples how to open up the deepest recesses of their hearts to each other, and how to safely receive that information and respond to it.

Feeling cared for. Belief that your spouse still cares for you despite your marital problems was an important predictor of success before therapy starts[x]. I’ll often ask the question, “What is the glue that keeps you together?” near the start of therapy to assess this.

Forgiveness. A study in 2010[xi] studied couples who had been struggling with serious issues of anger and unresolved hurt for over two years. The found that EFCT was effective in helping couples to forgive each other, which led to increases in trust and overall marital satisfaction.

What’s also cool is that some of the factors which can affect success in other therapy types do not impede the progress of EFCT. These include the couple being older, the man being emotionally un-expressive and the couple holding very rigid or traditional views about marriage. These factors can limit success in other types of therapy but were not a problem in EFCT[xii].

So this is a little longer episode but I hope it has given you some insight. This is not some magical “woo-woo” kind of process but it actually relies on a very strategic approach. What’s amazing is that this approach can adapt to the plethora of different issues that couples present with.

Again, this is not meant to be a long advertisement, but to demystify the process. However, if you are in help do reach out to us via our website and we can talk about getting you into this very effective therapy approach.

References:

[i] Alan S. Gurman, Jay L. Lebow, and Douglas K. Snyder, Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy (Guilford Publications, 2015).

[ii] Todd Hardin, ‘Redeeming Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Christian Analysis of Its Worldview, Epistemology, and Emphasis’, Religions, 5.1 (2014), 323–33.

[iii] Susan M. Johnson, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, 2 edition (New York: Routledge, 2004).

[iv] Gurman, Lebow, and Snyder.

[v] Susan M. Johnson and others, ‘Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy: Status and Challenges’, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6.1 (1999), 67–79.

[vi] Johnson and others.

[vii] Johnson and others.

[viii] Johnson and others.

[ix] Johnson and others.

[x] Johnson and others.

[xi] Leslie Greenberg, Serine Warwar, and Wanda Malcolm, ‘Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy and the Facilitation of Forgiveness’, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 36.1 (2010), 28–42.

[xii] Johnson and others.

I am excited about this episode today. We all dread mental health issues but today you’ll find out that there is a lot of hope for marriages where one spouse has significant mental health problems.

Mental health is a huge problem that affects millions of people around the world. Disorders including depression, anxiety, bipolar and others impact many more people than you may think and can cause real pain and distress.

Living with a long term mental illness is hard, and so is being married to someone with such a disorder. So today we want to look at the reality of how mental health impacts marriages, and what you can do to support your spouse if you are in this situation.

How Mental Illness Impacts Marriage

We need to be realistic about the impact of mental illness on marriage. Mental illness in one spouse often has a negative impact on wellbeing and marital satisfaction for both the mentally ill spouse and the other[i]. This is normally stronger for the mentally ill spouse but both spouses to feel the effects.

What we’d like to share with you is that for both the ill spouse and the healthy spouse, there are specific mediating factors which can account for much of the marital distress, and therefore be used to help keep marital satisfaction high even when dealing with severe mental issues like mood disorders, anxiety disorders and substance abuse disorders.

Attributions

Mental health disorders (especially mood disorders like depression or bipolar) affect how you interpret your spouse’s actions and what you attribute them to[ii]. This attribution effect is important to be aware of.

Mental health disorders cause people to attribute their spouse’s actions more negatively. They can also cause people to attribute negative behaviors to being stable parts of their spouse’s personality rather than being isolated one-off incidents. This tendency to attribute things negatively leads to lower marital satisfaction over time. Levels of depression themselves do not lead to lower marital satisfaction: all the changes are due to this attribution issue[iii].

Remember our recent episode on attribution and misinterpretations in marriage? We talked about how the way you interpret your spouse’s actions can either set you on an upward or a downward spiral. Mental illness can, if you aren’t careful, make you more likely to see everything as negative, which then alters the way you act and feel. So we really have to watch the attribution piece and thoughtfully counteract that.

Negative Thoughts and Views

People with mental illness will hold more negative views about themselves, and about their marriage. Mental illness can affect perception so that the mentally ill spouse pays more attention to negative events and disregards the good things that happen. Mental illness can also cause people to have more negative expectations about the future[iv]. All these negative beliefs and expectations can influence the way people act and cause them to withdraw and hide away.

Interpersonal Difficulties

Anxiety, depression and personality disorders can all lead to impaired social skills,[v] such as expressing more negative views, difficulty expressing emotion, reduced problem-solving ability, a high need for reassurance and difficulty accepting and believing the reassurances offered.

The cycle of repeatedly asking for reassurance or seeking comfort and the refusal or inability to accept comfort can eventually lead to rejection.

These issues can create interpersonal problems within marriage over time as the non-ill spouse has to constantly reassure and comfort their mentally ill partner without getting as much support in return. Also without getting appreciation for the effort required to support the ill spouse.

To help with this, training in communication and social skills can lead to improvements in symptoms of mental illness, and improve marital functioning at the same time[vi]. Once again the point here is that it isn’t the mental illness itself that’s causing the marital problems, it’s a specific issue that’s caused by the illness but has a very practical solution. So there’s hope there.

Dealing with a Mentally Ill Spouse

So how can you support your spouse through mental illness? If your spouse has some kind of long term mental illness you may feel powerless to help them, but it turns out that you as the spouse are perfectly positioned to help them through it. Here are a few ideas.

Positive behaviors. A study in 1998[vii] identified five key positive behaviors which can be used to support a mentally ill spouse:

1. Enjoyable time spent together
2. Positive listening
3. Tangible/practical assistance
4. Self esteem support
5. Intimacy and confiding

These behaviors help the mentally ill spouse feel supported and can reduce symptoms over time. So these simple things which should be a part of any healthy marriage can actually reduce the burden of mental illness. We go into more detail on each of those five in our bonus guide so definitely check that out.

Accept the issue. While there are definitely things you can do to help your spouse, expecting the mental health issue to just vanish is going to make things much worse. Expecting or putting pressure on your mentally ill spouse to change creates a higher risk of marital distress[viii]. It can be difficult to understand what your spouse is going through since there are no outward signs of illness, but it’s important to understand that mental health issues are just as real and serious as physical ones.

Change is possible but it has to be a very gradual process and challenges and setbacks are likely, so expecting or needing your spouse to recover is likely to turn mental illness into a bigger marital problem.

Conflict and problem solving. A study in 2002[ix] surveyed 22 couples where the wife suffered from an anxiety disorder such as agoraphobia. They found that husbands in these marriages were often more critical of their wives and less likely to use positive problem solving skills. These couples also showed higher rates of negative nonverbal behavior and longer “negative exchanges” (arguments). This then led to higher marital discord. So working on good conflict resolution and communication skills can certainly make the mental illness less of an issue.

Similarly, a study by Coyne et al[x] found that arguments with your spouse are a risk factor for the onset of depressive disorder, and having a spouse you don’t feel you can turn to or confide in also leaves people vulnerable to depression.

So you want to work hard at maintaining a posture of approachability and helpfulness.

Compassion and reassurance. As we saw above, mentally ill people often need regular reassurance that they are still valued and cared for, but struggle to accept reassurance and comfort when it is offered.

This is because people with anxiety or depression suffer from both negative emotions (sadness, worry, hopelessness) and negative thoughts and beliefs about themselves (thinking they are worthless or that other people don’t like them). So they need reassurance to comfort the emotional side of the illness, but the thoughts and beliefs they hold make it hard for them to believe that they are really loved and supported[xi].

Spouses should therefore continue to offer reassurance and comfort whenever needed and try not to get frustrated when the person continually asks for support. Continually affirming that your ill spouse is loved and valued can slowly change their perception of themselves and help change their negative beliefs over time.

However, spouses need to be careful to show support and validation to their spouse, but not to their ill spouse’s negative views and beliefs about themselves. Normally showing that you understand and agree with your spouse’s views and perceptions is a good thing, but when your spouse holds very negative views of themselves due to mental illness, showing agreement with these views can reinforce them and end up being harmful[xii]. You want to try and lift your spouse out of their negative thoughts and beliefs, not wallow in them alongside them.

Supporting Yourself While Your Spouse is Mentally Ill

The other side to this is making sure that you are ok while your spouse is mentally ill. A happy spouse will go a long way to reducing the impact of mental illness, and just because you are the “healthy” one that doesn’t mean you don’t have needs that should be met.

So let’s look at some issues that you need to think about.

Attributions. Mental illness can cause people to say or do things they would never do otherwise. For example, illness may make people more easily angered, more prone to self destructive behavior or less willing to engage with their spouse.

Spouses should attribute these things to the illness, not to their spouse. Thinking that negative behaviors are deliberately performed by your mentally ill spouse and intended to cause harm creates higher distress within the marriage[xiii]. So learning to separate your spouse from the things the illness causes them to do or say can protect you from distress. A simple question you can ask yourself is, “Is this the illness speaking or my spouse speaking?”

Stigma. Mental health is often poorly understood or stigmatized by society, which can lead to the other spouse feeling isolated or unable to share about the difficulty of supporting their mentally ill spouse[xiv]. Friends and family may, for example, be unable to understand and accept mental illness and instead refer to it in other terms such as thinking the mentally ill spouse is just stressed, or that they just have a weak or anxious character.

The non-ill spouse may also come across the attitude that they are in some way responsible for their spouse’s condition. Being aware of these issues and choosing to selectively confide in a few trusted friends can help you get the support you need without feeling isolated or stigmatized.

Identity. Supporting a mentally ill spouse can “absorb” your sense of self and identity as you spend all your time and energy supporting your spouse or dealing with doctors and mental health services[xv].

To cope with this, spouses should aim to develop a more balanced relationship in which they can care for their mentally ill spouse while also pursuing their own interests and friendships. In this way caring for their spouse becomes part of their identity, but not the full extent of it.

Part of this requires the healthy spouse to understand that they cannot be solely responsible for curing or controlling their spouse’s mental health[xvi]. You can certainly help them, but taking sole responsibility for the health of your spouse creates a situation of codependency, which isn’t good for anyone.

Couple Therapy. Obviously if your spouse is mentally ill then therapy, medication or counseling are great treatment options to ask your doctor about. But joint therapy has also been shown to be particularly helpful for couples where one spouse is suffering from mental illness[xvii].

Joint marital counseling or therapy reduces symptoms for the mentally ill spouse and reduces the strain for the non-ill spouse. Reductions in mental illness are often fully caused by improvements in marital functioning caused by the joint therapy. So couple therapy improves marital functioning and marital satisfaction, which in turn lowers symptoms of mental illness[xviii].

That is REALLY cool as well! Of course, marriage therapy is our specialty and if we can help you with that please reach out to us.

References:

[i] Mark A Whisman, Lisa Uebelacker, and Lauren Weinstock, Psychopathology and Marital Satisfaction: The Importance of Evaluating Both Partners., 2004, lxxii <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.72.5.830>.

[ii] Frank D. Fincham and Thomas N. Bradbury, ‘Marital Satisfaction, Depression, and Attributions: A Longitudinal Analysis.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64.3 (1993), 442.

[iii] Fincham and Bradbury.

[iv] Steven RH Beach, Frank D. Fincham, and Jennifer Katz, ‘Marital Therapy in the Treatment of Depression: Toward a Third Generation of Therapy and Research’, Clinical Psychology Review, 18.6 (1998), 635–61.

[v] C. Segrin, ‘Social Skills Deficits Associated with Depression’, Clinical Psychology Review, 20.3 (2000), 379–403.

[vi] Segrin.

[vii] Beach, Fincham, and Katz.

[viii] Sue Bauserman, Ileana Arias, and W Edward Craighead, ‘Marital Attributions in Spouses of Depressed Patients’, Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 17 (1995), 231–49 <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02229300>.

[ix] Dianne L Chambless and others, ‘Marital Interaction of Agoraphobic Women: A Controlled, Behavioral Observation Study’, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111 (2002), 502–12 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.111.3.502>.

[x] James C. Coyne, Richard Thompson, and Steven C. Palmer, ‘Marital Quality, Coping with Conflict, Marital Complaints, and Affection in Couples with a Depressed Wife.’, Journal of Family Psychology, 16.1 (2002), 26.

[xi] Segrin.

[xii] Beach, Fincham, and Katz.

[xiii] Bauserman, Arias, and Edward Craighead.

[xiv] Jeppe Oute Hansen and Niels Buus, ‘Living with a Depressed Person in Denmark: A Qualitative Study’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 59.4 (2013), 401–6.

[xv] Hansen and Buus.

[xvi] Hansen and Buus.

[xvii] Beach, Fincham, and Katz.

[xviii] Beach, Fincham, and Katz.

Compassion is probably something that you find harder to provide for yourself than for others. However, did you know that self-compassion can help your marriage? Yes, we often talk about what you could and should give to your spouse in marriage, but today we want to talk about the need for self-compassion and how beneficial that can be both for yourself and for your marriage.

In Western culture, compassion is most commonly thought of as something that should be extended to others. In fact, most of what you will read nowadays about self-compassion finds its roots in Buddhist traditions where compassion to oneself is considered to be as important as one’s compassion to others.

At OnlyYouForever, we operate out of a Christian worldview, and we think we can very easily point to a Biblical basis for self-compassion in the second greatest commandment that the Lord Jesus stated: love your neighbor as yourself. That little phrase, “as yourself” is the justification for taking a serious interest in self-compassion because your love for your neighbor (or your spouse!) is going to be based on this.

What is Self-Compassion

Self-compassion was first defined by psychologist Kristin Neff and she described it as “Kindness toward the self, which entails being gentle, supportive and understanding.”[1] So rather than harshly judging oneself for personal shortcomings, one offers oneself warmth and unconditional acceptance.

The reason why this subject is worth addressing is that a growing body of research suggests that self-compassion is strongly associated with psychological health, and less anxiety and depression.[2] As well, Self-compassion is negatively correlated with depression, anxiety, and perfectionism, and is positively correlated with life satisfaction.[3] Research also indicates that self-compassion is associated with better emotional coping skills, greater ability to repair negative emotional states, and generally a more positive state of being.[4] You can imagine how those things can all benefit marriage as well.

How Self-Compassion Can Benefit Your Marriage

A recent study from 2018 looked at the effects of self-compassion on romantic relationships.[5] The students involved in the study who reported higher levels of self-compassion tended to report having higher quality romantic relationships. Now, one of the limitations of the study was that it was done on young people in romantic relationships who were in undergraduate students in university. Nevertheless, the results are worth considering for anyone in a romantic relationship/marriage. 

So, why does self-compassion lead to greater satisfaction in relationships? One reason is that people with higher self-compassion are more aware of and able to meet their own needs for kindness and self-comfort. In a distressed marriage, a lot of the focus goes toward figuring out what your spouse needs so this may be a little counterintuitive. But, the ability to balance independence with connectedness, which is being able to observe and respond to your own needs as well as to your spouse’s, is important for healthy relationships.

Another reason that individuals with high levels of self-compassion have stronger conflict resolution abilities is that self-compassion gives you more of an ability to see their spouse’s point of view during the disagreement as part of your common humanity rather than a personal hardship that is happening to you. In essence, it means you can love your spouse as yourself while in conflict. That’s a very powerful skill to have when working through conflict.[6]

When to Use Self-Compassion

Of course, with self-compassion one might simply say “use it everywhere,” but here are a few specific examples to consider.

1. Compassion can be extended toward yourself when suffering occurs through no fault of your own, such as when the external circumstances of life are simply painful or difficult to bear.[7] For example, your company downsizes or your child is bullied at school or you have a parent who is given a difficult diagnosis. Yes, care for the other may be necessary, but what about compassion for your own pain in those circumstances?
2. A more challenging example may be when you suffer as a result of your own mistakes, failures or personal inadequacies. How are you going to take care of yourself when you screw up? Are you able to accept that you made a mistake, and to think about understanding and rectifying it in a calm, engaged way?
3. Coming back to difficult life circumstances: can you show self-compassion in circumstances where you may have previously turned to self-medication? One of the things that self-compassionate people do is they turn inward to offer themselves soothing and comfort. They allow themselves to be moved by their own distress so that they foster a desire to heal and overcome the difficulties they are experiencing.[8] They don’t numb or dissociate from the pain or challenges: they look at them, they look at what they need, and they recognize those needs and then they pursue adaptive (rather than dysfunctional) ways of meeting those needs. 

How To Practice Self-Compassion

We’re going to give you six ways you can practice self-compassion. The first three are the core constructs of self-compassion:

1. Self-kindness vs. self-judgment
2. Common humanity vs. isolation
3. Mindfulness vs. over-identification[9]

Practice Self-Kindness

Rather than judgment and criticism towards yourself, self-kindness is the tendency to apply a caring and tender attitude toward your difficult circumstances.[10] This could be in respect to something smaller like not getting your physical exercise done for the day: can you view that in a forgiving and kind manner, understanding that tomorrow is a new day? Or do you beat yourself up? Or, if you notice some aspect of your personality that you dislike, can you treat that flaw gently? Really pay attention to the emotional tone of the language that you use toward yourself. Is it kind and supportive? It’s important not to dismiss the small things when you practice self-compassion.

When you do fail to meet a personal goal or expectation, rather than attacking and berating yourself for being inadequate: offer yourself warmth and unconditional acceptance. If you do need to change, it’s not canceling the need to change, or making excuses, but kindness actually does a lot more to prepare and enable change than criticism or contempt.

Recognize Your Common Humanity

It’s important to recognize that it is only human to make mistakes, even to do things that are wrong, and that you are not alone in this.[11] This is not the same as making excuses: the goal is to reduce or remove any sense of isolation.

We have to understand that all humans are imperfect and that we all sin, fail and make mistakes. My flawed condition is a shared human condition. The same goes for suffering: my life difficulties are part of the broader human experience. It is comforting to know that I am not alone and possibly even millions of others have experienced what I am experiencing.[12] Where this really helps is in reaching out to others in the midst of our personal struggles[13] so that we don’t feel isolated.

Practice Mindfulness

When you are in the middle of a struggle — say experiencing distress in your marriage — you can very easily get carried away in the torrent of pain that you are experiencing. And you can get carried away to the point where you over-identify with the problem.[14]

Mindfulness just involves stepping back to observe and notice what’s happening. It gives you a little bit of distance and objectivity on your own distress. It’s not dissociation, which is disconnecting from reality. It’s more that you carefully observe it but you just step back from needing to solve or fix or numb. It’s like watching the credits scroll at the end of a movie: just notice what comes up for you. Try not to react to your reactions. Just observe, notice, and let it scroll by.

The practice of mindfulness helps people step back from obsessing over negative thoughts or emotions — especially about yourself — which can help you get back to a place of self-compassion.

Treat Yourself as You Would Someone Else

One thing that some of my clients find helpful is to treat themselves as they would treat a small child in need of their care and compassion. Often, we as adults will say that we don’t know what we need. Well, think of a small child in similar circumstances or with similar feelings: what would you want to do for that child? Inevitably, we know what those good, caring, nurturing things to do would be. Well, can you extend those things to yourself?[15]

Give Yourself Permission to Be Imperfect

In the Christian world when I am speaking at church, I will sometimes refer to the need to recognize that our sanctification is incomplete. We are not who we want to be, but neither are we who we were. We are in a process of growth.

It’s helpful to cultivate a perspective of yourself that sees yourself as in a journey towards wholeness and completeness. The implication is that it is OK for you not to be there yet. This helps us not to lose faith in our potential or ability to heal and to find ourselves a way out of difficult circumstances.

In a way, it allows us to note our moments even of laziness or unproductively without having to define ourselves by those moments. Yes, they happened. But it is not all of who I am and I can find my way out of these difficulties.[16]

Work with a Supportive Therapist

Therapy is an ideal context to have someone coach you through your first steps of self-compassion. We know that our brains have the ability to practice self-compassion or learn new patterns of thinking/behavior, but sometimes we need help putting that into practice[17]

Therapy creates a safe space for you to:

1. notice your thoughts/feelings
2. have a realistic perspective of yourself and others
3. demonstrate empathy for yourself.

In time, you will begin to internalize these skills and integrate them into your life.[18]

References

[1] Allison Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion,” 2017,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201703/how-cultivate-more-self-compassion.
[2] Kristin Neff and Elizabeth Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators,” Self and Identity 12, no. 2 (2012): 160–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2011.649546.
[3] Jia Wei Zhang et al., “A Compassionate Self Is a True Self? Self-Compassion Promotes Subjective Authenticity” 45, no. 9 (2019): 1323–37, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218820914.
[4] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”
[5] Emily Jacobson et al., “Examining Self-Compassion in Romantic Relationships,” Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, n.d., https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Jacobson2018.pdf.
[6] Jacobson et al.
[7] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”
[8] Neff and Pommier.
[9] David Biber and Rebecca Ellis, “The Effect of Self-Compassion on the Self-Regulation of Health Behaviors: A Systematic Review,” Journal of Health Psychology 24, no. 4 (2017): 2060–71,
https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105317713361.
[10] Zhang et al., “A Compassionate Self Is a True Self? Self-Compassion Promotes Subjective Authenticity.”
[11] Zhang et al.
[12] Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion.”
[13] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”
[14] Neff and Pommier.
[15] Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion.”
[16] Abrams.
[17] Abrams.
[18] Abrams.

When you become aware and appreciative of that which is valuable and meaningful, that is called gratitude. Gratitude needs to be expressed, and what we notice in our marriage is that we tend to experience it more than we express it. So we thought we should think more about that.

Gratitude is a powerful thing. Being mindful of all the good things in your life can change your whole outlook and make you a happier, more contented person. This is especially true in your marriage. It might not always be easy to be thankful for your spouse and your marriage, but if your marriage is struggling them making gratitude a part of your daily thinking can really turn things around.

Benefits of Gratitude

Research finds that expressions of gratitude have positive effects on marital satisfaction[i] . This works as both a long term way of building satisfaction over time, and also as a “booster shot” where gratitude produces short term increases in satisfaction[ii].

You probably already knew this: gratitude is good for your marriage. Let’s unpack how and why it helps, and then look at ways to increase the amount of gratitude we all show to our spouses.

Gratitude and Relationship Strength

A study in 2010[iii] surveyed 137 couples for how often they expressed gratitude to their spouse. In a follow up study they asked spouses to express gratitude to each other, with a control condition of thinking grateful thoughts without expressing them.

In both studies they found that expressing gratitude increased the expresser’s perception of the “communal strength” of the relationship. Regularly expressing gratitude increased this sense of joint strength and commitment over time. Expressions of gratitude towards your partner are also linked to more positive perceptions of them[iv].

This was specifically true for the expresser of gratitude, not the person receiving it. So if you are unhappy because of the lack of gratitude you may actually need to try expressing it more rather than requesting it more!

The other crucial point is that the effect was only found for expressing gratitude, not just thinking it. So being grateful for your spouse is not enough to benefit from this increased relationship strength: you have to express it.

Commitment and Reciprocity

Now there is a reciprocal component to gratitude.

Expressions of gratitude towards your spouse leads to them feeling appreciated and valued. Feeling appreciated then leads to them appreciating you more.

So expressing gratitude strengthens the relationship for both the expresser and the receiver of gratitude. Increased appreciation leads spouses to be more sensitive to each other’s needs and over time leads to higher levels of commitment[v]. The simple act of giving voice to the things you value about your spouse brings you closer together and helps you see each other in a better light.

Gratitude also helps couples grow closer together and become better at responding to each other’s needs. Expressing gratitude for actions that really matter to you, or things that show that your spouse has been especially thoughtful helps to solidify those actions and helps your spouse to notice that their actions were appreciated. Put simply: if you say you like something your spouse did, they are more likely to do it again!

Expressing gratitude therefore creates and “upward spiral” where positive actions are reinforced and both spouses end up feeling closer together[vi]. You both end up benefiting.

This is what we have talked about before when we encourage you to reinforce what you want more of. That positive cycle or upward spiral is a powerful force for good in your marriage.

Interpretations

Another study in 2009[vii] surveyed 166 people and found a link between trait gratitude (being a grateful person generally) and a sense of “coherence”: the belief that life is meaningful and that you are able to cope with it. Being a grateful person helps you see life as having value and meaning.

This is why the Bible teaches us to be thankful people — it actually helps us cope with life and make sense of it. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

But there’s another piece to this. The mediating factor between gratitude and coherence is positive reframing: the tendency to interpret your spouse’s actions positively and focus on positive aspects of the relationship rather than negative.

Increasing your gratitude enables you to interpret your spouse’s actions more positively, which increases commitment and relationship satisfaction, among many other benefits. We looked at attributions and interpretation and how they can benefit your marriage in a recent episode, and gratefulness taps into the exact same process.

Gratitude Impacts Conflict Resolution

There are even more benefits to feeling and expressing gratitude. For example, expressions of gratitude are linked to better ability to resolve conflict, and a greater confidence in your ability to solve disagreements peacefully[viii]. Gratitude leads to more positive feelings about your spouse, which leads to feeling more comfortable expressing concerns about the relationship. And this comfort lets you talk about tricky subjects constructively rather than getting defensive or pulling away.

Buffering Against Distress

Expressions of gratitude can protect couples from suffering as a result of hardships and distressing circumstances. For example a study in 2015[ix] found that expressions of gratitude between couples prevented financial distress from negatively impacting their marital quality. Just having high levels of gratitude built into your marriage helps you appreciate the good times and can make the hard times more bearable.

It’s amazing to think of this powerful buffering effect in marriage.

Personal Benefits

Feeling and expressing high levels of gratitude also has numerous personal benefits, such as[x]:

1. 1. High levels of optimism
   2. Better ability to progress towards personal goals
   3. Feeling better about your life overall
   4. Improved mental health
   5. Greater willingness to help people
   6. Fewer negative health symptoms

All of this good stuff will naturally have a positive impact on your marriage too.

How to Increase Gratitude in Marriage

So if you weren’t sold on gratitude being a good thing, hopefully you’re on board now. So how do you bring more if it into your marriage?

You and I can work on developing gratitude as a trait and as part of our personality by regularly thinking of things we are grateful for (either about our spouses or about life in general) and expressing these thoughts. Remember that expression is key: you might think your spouse is the best thing in the world (hopefully you do!) but unless you let them know then it isn’t going to do much good.

This is where we need to take this from just being theory to “how can I actually make this part of my life?”

Specific factors in increasing your “attitude of gratitude” include the following[xi]:

1. 1. Find new things to be grateful for, rather than just appreciating the same traits/actions in your spouse all the time.
   2. Gratitude should be expressed in a genuine and natural way that fits with your personality and values, rather than being forced or rote.
   3. When starting out, don’t do it too regularly. An interesting study from 2007[xii] found that people who were asked to express gratitude once a week showed higher wellbeing after 6 weeks, but participants asked to express gratitude 3 times a week did not.
      For those asked to do it more regularly, it may become harder work to think of things to be grateful for, and therefore become an obligation or chore rather than being genuine.

I think that’s the idea of intermittent reinforcement — it’s more powerful if you give your dog a treat occasionally when he sits down than to give him a treat every time. If it’s too strong or if it’s forced or if it becomes ritualistic — all these things take away from gratitude being a genuine, simple act.

But expressing gratitude toward new things and keeping it real turns it into a positive habit which makes it much more likely to influence your thinking and actions and your marriage.

Prayer Increases Gratitude

Another useful consideration is your faith. Speaking from a research based perspective, religious faith has been shown to increase gratitude.

More specifically, thankfulness is encouraged in Christianity and when we attribute good things in our lives to God this helps create a sense of thankfulness. Prayers of thankfulness are an important part of this. A study in 2009[xiii] found a strong link between the frequency of prayer and levels of thankfulness. They found that frequency of prayer predicts gratitude 6 weeks later, suggesting that prayer causes gratitude, rather than grateful people praying more often.

In the app I use for prayer I have this occasional item that comes up where I compel myself to stop and think of three things I am grateful for. Like we saw earlier, I do not want this to be a daily routine. When it’s intermittent it kind of throws me off balance from routine prayer and really challenges me to pause and consider what new, or current, or prominent blessings I need to be showing gratitude to God for. It’s an exercise I enjoy and that I’d recommend to you as well. Gratitude is such a wonderful thing and anything that helps you experience it more is definitely worth your time. So start thinking of ways you can express more gratitude in your life and in your marriage!

References:

[i] Nathaniel M. Lambert and Frank D. Fincham, ‘Expressing Gratitude to a Partner Leads to More Relationship Maintenance Behavior’, Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 11.1 (2011), 52–60 <https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021557>.

[ii] Sara B. Algoe, ‘Find, Remind, and Bind: The Functions of Gratitude in Everyday Relationships’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6.6 (2012), 455–69.

[iii] Nathaniel M. Lambert, Frank D. Fincham, Tyler F. Stillman, and others, ‘Motivating Change in Relationships: Can Prayer Increase Forgiveness?’, Psychological Science, 21.1 (2010), 126–32.

[iv] Lambert and Fincham.

[v] Amie M. Gordon and others, ‘To Have and to Hold: Gratitude Promotes Relationship Maintenance in Intimate Bonds’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103.2 (2012), 257.

[vi] Algoe.

[vii] Nathaniel M. Lambert, Steven M. Graham, and others, ‘A Changed Perspective: How Gratitude Can Affect Sense of Coherence through Positive Reframing’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4.6 (2009), 461–70 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760903157182>.

[viii] Lambert and Fincham.

[ix] Allen W. Barton, Ted G. Futris, and Robert B. Nielsen, ‘Linking Financial Distress to Marital Quality: The Intermediary Roles of Demand/Withdraw and Spousal Gratitude Expressions’, Personal Relationships, 22.3 (2015), 536–49 <https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12094>.

[x] Nathaniel M. Lambert, Frank D. Fincham, Scott R. Braithwaite, and others, ‘Can Prayer Increase Gratitude?’, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 1.3 (2009), 139.

[xi] Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky, ‘Is It Possible to Become Happier?(And If so, How?)’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1.1 (2007), 129–45.

[xii] Sheldon and Lyubomirsky.

[xiii] Lambert, Fincham, Braithwaite, and others.

We all carry at least a little narcissism in our hearts. We all show a few traits that belie underlying pride and entitlement. But what happens in marriages when narcissism is a defining feature? And how can spouses of narcissists learn best to cope with this issue?

Ok let’s get into the topic of narcissism — which, actually, can be one that feels pretty hopeless. But this is the first time I’ve really examined how to work with a narcissistic spouse and I am glad that there is hope. It can be very difficult to live with narcissism and no doubt some of our listeners today feel the reality of this: but there is hope.

What Does Narcissism Look Like?

Narcissism either comes as a personality trait or traits — when we look at those you’ll probably notice that we all exhibit some of these characteristics at least on an occasional basis. For example, showing a sense of entitlement in your marriage — like you deserve to have something done for you by your spouse — but this does not necessarily mean that you have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD. NPD is a whole level above narcissistic traits. So let’s look at these traits vs. having a diagnosed personality disorder.

Narcissistic Traits

Narcissism as a personality trait is defined as:

1. Belief in one’s own superiority
2. A sense of entitlement and a need for admiration from others
3. Displays of dominant, controlling or manipulative behavior and a disregard for the needs of others

So generally seeing yourself as above other people is the central issue. Narcissism does not always produce a universal sense of superiority but leads to narcissists thinking they are better in certain areas which they value. They may value their looks, success, wealth or some other form of ability but overlook areas where they might be considered lacking.

Narcissists are often prone to extreme jealousy and have very fragile self esteem as their sense of worth is directly tied to their ability to feel and be seen as superior to others[i]. As soon as that superiority is threatened their sense of who they are starts to fall apart.

Now just remember that any time we talk about abnormal psychology that it’s easy for any one of us to freak out and think — “Wow! That is me! I am so messed up!!” Especially for something like this.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, as Verlynda and I are, and you understand that the Bible talks a lot about pride and you see the pride that exists in your life as I see the pride in mine, it can be easy to go from thinking we have the normal set of pride issues that come with our broken humanity to thinking that wow, maybe I have a huge personality problem.

Stay calm. Think this through. Talk to the people who know you best and who will be honest with you.

Take, for example, beliefs in one’s own superiority. Here’s a good example – I’m the guy who tries to nail the best parking spots when I go to the store. As close to the door as I can. I don’t park in any handicap spots — don’t worry! But when I nail an awesome parking spot there’s some major gloating that happens! But just because I do a few things like that, which involve the belief in one’s own superiority (“who’s the mac daddy for parking spots??”) or a sense of entitlement (“I deserve an awesome paring spot”) it does not mean I am a narcissist.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

I think all of us display narcissistic behaviors from time to time.

A much smaller subset of the population would exhibit regular narcissistic traits or have narcissism as a more central part of their personality. That would make that person more challenging to be married to.

NPD on the other hand is the most severe situation. This disorder affects about 8% of men and 5% of women. The DSM definition of NPD includes:

1. Pathological personality traits such as antagonism, grandiosity, and attention seeking
2. Impaired individual functioning due to unreasonably high standards and the need for approval from others in order to form a stable identity,
3. Impaired interpersonal functioning due to a lack of empathy and intimacy

So here we’re dealing with a sense of superiority so strong that it impairs the person’s ability to relate to other people, and also affects their own inner world due to the intense pressure to live up to their own impossible standards. Characteristics of those with the disorder include:

1. An insatiable appetite for the attention of other people.
2. Behaving as if they deserve special treatment.
3. Commonly exaggerating their achievements, talents, and importance.
4. Finding it difficult to maintain healthy relationships.
5. Having fantasies regarding their own intelligence, success, power, and good looks.
6. If they have to take advantage of others to get what they want, they will, without regret or conscience.
7. Responding to criticism with anger, humiliation, and shame.

One question you may be wondering about is “can narcissism ever be a good thing?” It sort of makes sense to think that loving yourself and having high self esteem may yield some benefits. Does that end up being the case?

Well, narcissistic personality disorder (and to a lesser extent sub-clinical narcissism) is occasionally associated with moderate levels of distress, depression and anxiety for the narcissistic individual, but sometimes linked to high levels of functioning and mental wellbeing. So yes, it can be a bit of a mixed bag for the narcissistic individual.

However, narcissism is consistently linked to very high levels of distress for those around them[ii]. To put it another way: “the mind of a narcissist is like a sports utility vehicle. It is great to be in the driving seat, but fellow motorists must watch out, lest a collision with this mobile fortress demolish their more humble hatchbacks.[iii]”

So those are the characteristics generally, but we want to help specifically with narcissism and marriage. Now we’ll move on to looking at how these traits impact marriage so you can make sense of why your marriage is the way it is.

Narcissistic Traits and Marriage

Narcissistic traits lead to relationship dysfunction over time, but not initially. A study in 2016[iv] interviewed 146 newlywed couples over the first four years of marriage. They found that narcissistic traits in either husbands or wives predicted a sharp decline in marital quality over time and an increase in marital problems such as conflict.

The effect of wives’ narcissism was stronger than the effect of husband’s, and specific traits of entitlement and exploitative behaviors were the strongest factors. Effects of wives’ narcissism may be stronger because men are expected to act more self-interested and boastful than women, so narcissism is seen as more normal in men and more problematic in women[v].

Before these problems start to kick in, narcissistic relationships may initially function well, for both the narcissist and their spouse. At the start of the relationship the narcissist sees the relationship as a way of enhancing themself and increasing their own happiness, while seeing little cost or investment to the relationship.

The narcissist will probably be good at presenting themselves positively and may come across as confident and charismatic, therefore leading to higher satisfaction for the spouse at first. Over time the Narcissistic traits start to become harmful to the partner, while the narcissist themselves are required to invest more into the relationship over time, which they will not be motivated to do[vi]. And so the relationship starts to deteriorate from both ends.

Later into the relationship, narcissism can have some specific effects, which we’ll look at now.

Beliefs and Goals

Narcissists often have very specific beliefs and goals when coming into a relationship. They will aim to choose to marry someone who enhances their own status, power or self-image, so are often drawn to people who are attractive and successful. They will also pick spouses who are very attentive and affectionate towards them to enhance their own self esteem.

Here’s an interesting observation: despite being drawn to socially desirable spouses, narcissists do not see their spouses as being especially desirable. In one study narcissists rated their partners as being no better than average on measures of attractiveness and desirableness, while rating themselves as higher than average[vii].

Intimacy

Narcissists are interested in self-enhancing behaviors and attitudes more than they care about communal interests.

They are therefore most interested in their own needs and in seeking sensation and excitement, while valuing their own traits of power and dominance. They are less interested in traits and actions which benefit both them and their partner, such as intimacy, warmth and concern, often seeing relationships as a way of enhancing their own pleasure at the expense of the partner[viii].

This “all about me” attitude reduces relationship quality and levels of intimacy for the spouse of the Narcissist. A real and passionate connection to someone only comes when you care about them as much as (or more than) yourself, and for a narcissist that just isn’t going to happen.

Sex

The lack of intimacy (and lack of interest in intimacy) described above negatively impacts sexual satisfaction. No surprise there. Narcissists are also usually more interested in physical pleasure than the emotional connection of sex, seeing sex as a means of personal pleasure[ix]. Which ironically ends up making sex less enjoyable since the emotional connection is missing.

Going through these details you can really see that this is a different way of seeing the world. Yes, all of us married folk pursue sex for pleasure but really we have this drive for connection and for being with someone and for being seen and known and loved and appreciated. But for the narcissist it is almost like a more reductionist approach where something like sex is reduced to a way of producing something pleasurable for myself. It likely feels very selfish if you are married to a narcissist.

Commitment and Infidelity

Narcissism is also linked to lower relationship commitment and higher infidelity[x].

The reasons for this are interesting — a little complex — but they make sense.

The Investment Model (which we touched on in our episode on how porn impacts marriage) states that any relationship commitment is determined by three factors: satisfaction with the relationship, investment in the relationship and availability of alternatives. Narcissism affects all three of these factors:

1. Naturally there is reduced relationship satisfaction,
2. which de-motivates the Narcissist to invest in the relationship and
3. they carry an inflated view of their ability to find alternative partners[xi]. They see themselves as perfect, right? So of course other people will be willing to take them in if their current relationship doesn’t work out.

Narcissism is part of a cluster of personality traits that are all linked to lower levels of sexual restrictiveness, meaning a lower belief that sex should only happen in loving and committed relationships. Narcissism also is linked to high levels of self-monitoring (the ability to regulate how you come across to other people), Machiavellian personality (being manipulative), high extroversion and low agreeableness, all of which are linked to less restricted views of sex and to higher infidelity[xii]. In other words, the character traits and values required to be more predisposed to extramarital affairs are all there.

Probably there’s a spouse listening today and you are married to a narcissist and probably you have been blamed for the affairs. I want you to know that this is not all your fault. Really, there is probably very little you could have done to stop the narcissist and ultimately he or she needs to take ownership of these broken parts of their life and seek to find healing and recovery. Narcissistic traits and NPD are pretty common in sex addicts.

Mind Games and Abuse

Narcissists often use relationships and other people as a means of self-enhancement. They do this by seeking and expressing superiority or dominance over others and by drawing attention to themselves through exhibitionism— extravagant behaviors to attract attention[xiii]. When their attempts to prove superiority are thwarted, narcissists can become aggressive or may take credit for their partner’s accomplishments.

Narcissists often adopt a “game playing” style of love, where they aim to get exactly what they want from the relationship (status, power, physical pleasure) while giving as little as possible. This quote from a study in 2002[xiv] summaries the Narcissist’s style of relationship:

“We suspect that the ideal solution for narcissists is to begin and maintain a relationship with a partner using charm, extroversion, and confidence. This gives narcissists access to positive attention, esteem, and sexual resources. They would be careful to keep this relationship from becoming too intimate or emotionally close lest they lose control.

Finally, narcissists would covertly seek out other potential romantic partners. This strategy would allow narcissists to maintain power and freedom in the existing relationship. Likewise, it would allow narcissists to garner esteem and sexual access from additional partners. Finally, it would offer narcissists an easy transition to another relationship if their current relationship ends.”

This pattern of mind games and controlling or manipulative behavior often constitutes emotional abuse, and can spill over into physical abuse. Research shows there is sometimes a link between the two. A study in 2008[xv] found that abusive husbands often displayed an egocentric style of behavior referred to as “sexual narcissism” in which they held an inflated view of their own abilities while having a reduced interest in closeness and lower sexual satisfaction overall.

At the end of the day narcissists are very wounded people. But in their attempts to fill that wound and to protect their incredibly fragile egos they end up destroying a lot of other people and relationships too. That is why it is so difficult to be in relationship with them. They bear the image of God but it can be so painful to relate to them.

How To Help Your Narcissistic Spouse

Most of what we have to say about this is in the bonus guide for the episode, but here are some thoughts to get you started in case you’re not able to become a patron today.

You need to be aware that narcissism as both a trait and a personality disorder are very difficult to change. This is partly because they reflect core components of the person’s character which are very resistant to change, and partly because the narcissist will not want to change, due to having a very high view of themselves and therefore seeing no motivation to get help[xvi].

They need good psychotherapy to deal with whatever hurts are underneath their insecurities and change their patterns of thinking. But when you have this inflated view of yourself why would you think that you need therapy? That’s the dilemma. But in moments where they feel they have failed in some way, or been unable to prove themselves superior, these moments may provide the motivation needed to get help[xvii]. These brief moments of weakness can be the gap in their armor that you need to get in.

So change may be difficult, but when specific traits and attitudes are worked on, trait narcissism can actually be positively correlated with relationship satisfaction and psychological wellbeing. In other words, you can take what you are confronted with and work towards pointing that in a good direction. There are two areas where this can be developed:

Self Esteem

Remember how we saw that narcissism wasn’t necessarily all bad? A study in 2004[xviii] found a positive link between sub-clinical narcissism and a range of positive outcomes. But this link is entirely mediated by levels of self esteem: when self esteem is high, narcissism can have a range of personal and couple benefits including:

1. 1. Daily and long-term well being for the narcissist and their partner
   2. Reduced anxiety
   3. Reduced depression
   4. Reduced feelings of loneliness
   5. Low levels of neuroticism

So narcissism can potentially be a good thing if it leads to high self esteem. Working on self esteem through developing the narcissist’s interpersonal skills, confidence and identity could therefore turn narcissism into a good thing[xix].

Communal Activation

Here’s one specific way you can work on gently changing narcissistic attitudes in your spouse. A study in 2009[xx] described a process called communal activation, in which a narcissist can be taught to think more in terms of others and less about serving their own needs. This is done by “priming” them with thoughts about caring for others and acting in a way that benefits other people.

Simply presenting these thoughts or ideas to them causes narcissists to place more value on commitment and actions that benefit the spouse as well as themselves. I think this is where being a part of a local church can be a huge help because it normalizes this perspective.

This priming process produces an immediate short-term effect and also increases commitment levels over time in married couples, while increasing the narcissist’s thoughts and motivations towards caring, empathy and concern for others. This process eliminated the lack of commitment found in many narcissists, and in some cases brought their levels of commitment to above what is normally expected in married couples[xxi].

In a follow up study Finckel[xxii] asked people high in narcissism to discuss their own personal goals. When their partners made them feel loved and cared for during this conversation, the narcissistic spouse would later report higher levels of commitment to the relationship.

So while this can be a very difficult kind of personality to work with — and if you are in an abusive situation you do need to prioritize your own safety — there is hope. There are things you can do to help yourself and help your spouse. The more educated you are, the better equipped you are to handle all that goes with this kind of situation.

References:

[i] J. D. Miller, W. K. Campbell, and P. A. Pilkonis, ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Relations with Distress and Functional Impairment., Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Relations with Distress and Functional Impairment’, Comprehensive Psychiatry, Comprehensive Psychiatry, 48, 48.2, 2 (2007), 170, 170–77 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2006.10.003, 10.1016/j.comppsych.2006.10.003>.

[ii] Miller, Campbell, and Pilkonis.

[iii] Constantine Sedikides and others, ‘Are Normal Narcissists Psychologically Healthy?: Self-Esteem Matters’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87.3 (2004), 400–416 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.400>.

[iv] J. A. Lavner and others, ‘Narcissism and Newlywed Marriage: Partner Characteristics and Marital Trajectories., Narcissism and Newlywed Marriage: Partner Characteristics and Marital Trajectories’, Personality Disorders, Personality Disorders, 7, 7.2, 2 (2016), 169, 169–79 <https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000137, 10.1037/per0000137>.

[v] Lavner and others.

[vi] Lavner and others.

[vii] W. Keith Campbell, Craig A. Foster, and Eli J. Finkel, ‘Does Self-Love Lead to Love for Others? A Story of Narcissistic Game Playing’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83.2 (2002), 340–54 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.340>.

[viii] Joshua D. Foster, Ilan Shrira, and W. Keith Campbell, ‘Theoretical Models of Narcissism, Sexuality, and Relationship Commitment’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23.3 (2006), 367–86 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407506064204>.

[ix] Foster, Shrira, and Campbell.

[x] David M. Buss and Todd K. Shackelford, ‘Susceptibility to Infidelity in the First Year of Marriage’, Journal of Research in Personality, 31.2 (1997), 193–221 <https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1997.2175>.

[xi] Foster, Shrira, and Campbell.

[xii] Foster, Shrira, and Campbell.

[xiii] Campbell, Foster, and Finkel.

[xiv] Campbell, Foster, and Finkel.

[xv] David Farley Hurlbert and Carol Apt, ‘Sexual Narcissism and the Abusive Male’, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 17.4 (1991), 279–92 <https://doi.org/10.1080/00926239108404352>.

[xvi] W. Keith Campbell and Joshua D. Miller, The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatments (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).

[xvii] Campbell and Miller.

[xviii] Sedikides and others.

[xix] Sedikides and others.

[xx] Eli J. Finkel and others, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus: Communal Activation Promotes Relationship Commitment among Narcissists’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35.10 (2009), 1271–84.

[xxi] Finkel and others.

[xxii] Finkel and others.

Merry Christmas!! Or, at least, that’s the way it is supposed to be. But does it always work out that way? Read on and we’ll tell you why it might — or it might not!

Christmas is a time for coming together as a family and celebrating. Right? While lots of people probably have very merry Christmases, many will also find the holiday season stressful and difficult. Having a merry Christmas as a couple doesn’t happen automatically— you have to be aware of a few things and work together at it.

Do Most People Have a Happy Christmas?

Turns out that 75% of people are generally satisfied with their Christmas experience[i]. I don’t know if it’s the skeptic in me but I wonder if that is overstated. Perhaps the data was collected by a guy in a green suit.

Less than 10% of people report significant levels of anger and sadness. That’s good to hear. And about half of people report some level of stress during Christmas.

Not too bad. But there’s some pretty interesting facts to learn as we go through this that are good to think about as we come up to this holiday.

A study in 2002[ii] interviewed 117 individuals to determine the specific factors that contributed to making Christmas holidays stressful or enjoyable. Here’s what they found:

1. 1. Emphasizing family and spending time together was linked to greater happiness
   2. Emphasizing religious beliefs was linked to greater happiness
   3. Lower happiness and greater stress was reported when spending money and receiving gifts were the most important aspect of the holiday.
   4. Giving gifts and consuming in a way that was environmentally friendly was linked to higher happiness
   5. Men generally reported being happier and less stressed at Christmas than women- possibly because much of the responsibility for the shopping/cooking Christmas dinner etc falls to the woman.

This quote sums up their findings nicely: “In sum, the materialistic aspects of modern Christmas celebrations may undermine well-being, while family and spiritual activities may help people to feel more satisfied[iii]”

Christmas Gifts

Obviously this is starting to highlight what we already know: that gifts and materialistic expressions should not be the main focus of Christmas.

But what is really interesting is if you try to limit the amount of money you spend and you limit your gift giving, this is also linked to lower happiness over Christmas[iv]. In fact, another study in 2008[v] found that spending a higher proportion of your income on others than yourself predicted higher levels of happiness.

This, of course, gives evidence to the truth claim of Scripture that it is more blessed to give than receive (Acts 20:35).

So it shouldn’t be the main focus of the season, but gift giving can be a great way to show love and have fun together. Gift giving should be[vi]:

1. 1. An expression of love
   2. Valuable- not necessarily in terms of cost but in the thought and effort that went into the gift
   3. Altruistic and not focussed on obligation or creating a feeling on indebtedness in the receiver
   4. Ideally contain some symbolic meaning, such as giving someone a gift to indicate that they are part of the family or giving a gift that will have special meaning to the receiver
   5. Tailored to who the receiver is, not based on your own preferences. So no giving your wife a gift that you secretly want for yourself!

How does the present buying process break down in a typical marriage? Women normally spend more time on gift shopping than men and often take overall responsibility for the first buying process, seeing it as “work”. Men often take less of an active role in this and feel the need to buy presents for fewer people or see it as “woman’s work”[vii].

So husbands, you could definitely make the holiday season less stressful for your wives by being more willing to be involved in the gift buying, by starting buying gifts earlier (rather than leaving it till Christmas eve!) and by getting gifts for more people rather than just close family.

Christmas Traditions

Traditions during holidays and occasions like Christmas are a form of “family ritual”. We talked about the important place rituals have in the family in our episode on blended families. The unique way your family does things at Christmas takes on a symbolic meaning for the family and “contributes significantly to the establishment and preservation of a family’s collective sense of itself[viii]“.

Rituals and Christmas traditions should be[ix]:

1. 1. Repeated regularly
   2. Involving actions and doing things: not just thoughts or words
   3. Involving special or stylized behavior, where actions are given a different meaning to their daily norm
   4. Evocative: featuring an emphasis on presentation to create something that the entire family can be attentive to. Just taking the time for those little details like the decorations on the tree to give everyone a sense of joint accomplishment.

Rituals at Christmas are unique to individual families, helping them feel connected to each other and develop a sense of family identity, but there are also some common aspects to the way most people celebrate Christmas, like the turkey, the tree, the pudding and so on. Getting on board with these common symbols helps the family feel connected to their wider society at large and feel like they have a place in their culture and heritage[x].

You can see this comes back to creating a sense of belonging. Let’s talk about three key features of Christmas traditions: stability, meaning and agreement.

Stability

Repeating Christmas traditions year after year helps create stability in the family: there’s predictability and that sense of common bonding there. It gives the whole family something specific to look forward to.

At the same time, rituals should not become too “rigid” or set in stone and need to be flexible to accommodate changes. For example they should be able to adapt to include new family members[xi]. Rituals should also not be so strict or rigid as to feel imposed or followed out of obligation: to be successful they need to be voluntarily acted out and enjoyed by the whole family[xii].

I think a good rule of thumb here is the rituals should serve the family and not vice versa. They are special but not necessarily sacred. Except that Christmas pudding Verlynda makes for me every year with that lemon sauce…that is definitely sacred.

Spiritual Meaning

Christmas is, first and foremost, a Christian holiday. Remembering that can help everyone enjoy the season more deeply. A study from 2001[xiii] interviewed 120 married couples who had been married for 9 years on average, and found a strong link between marital satisfaction and the spiritual meaning attributed to their family rituals.

Incorporating faith traditions into family rituals helped couples (and families) affirm and strengthen their relationships and connect their values to their actions.

When you attach spiritual meaning to holidays and act based on this, it increases marital satisfaction over and above simply having faith. It is the idea of enacting faith here: not just being hearers but doers also. So make sure the real meaning doesn’t get lost amid the presents and the chaos.

Agreement

Typically, the Christmas traditions you create as a married couple are determined by how you did things in your family of origin.

Couples who come from similar backgrounds may think that they will do Christmas in similar ways and then end up in conflict over all the little details they do differently. Silly little things like when you open presents, or how you open them— all at once or in turn— can become a reason to feel like your traditions aren’t being respected. Couples should therefore discuss their plans in advance to avoid this uncertainty.

There was one funny quote around this… you can hear the frustration I think. One woman who participated in one of the original studies on rituals[xiv] stated that “people should not be allowed to get married until they’ve discussed Christmas.”

Why You Need To Get Christmas Traditions Right

Successful rituals and traditions have positive effects for married couples in that they can protect the couple’s marital satisfaction against the effects of stress and difficulty[xv]. So long as you get that perfect Christmas pudding it can be worth all the stress, right?

High participation in ritualized family celebrations led to increased well being, satisfaction with life and “family climate” or overall mood within the family.  And investment in creating positive traditions which the whole family can participate in leads to stronger attachment bonds for married couples and greater closeness and relationship quality within the family[xvi].

Positive traditions also have benefits for the children: A study in 2002[xvii] found that participation in family traditions increased satisfaction with the family for teenagers, which in turn protected them from mental health difficulties and behavior problems later in life.

So you can really see that a lot of good can come from learning to make Christmas merry.

Now we need to end on a strongly positive note so let’s talk about in-laws!!

Family of Origin vs In-Laws

Each family has their own way of doing things at Christmas, so conflict can arise when new couples have to figure out how they want to do things, or when spending Christmas with one spouse’s family. Even little things like what you eat for dinner can create feelings of “disloyalty” to your family if you do them differently when with your in-laws[xviii].

Of course, conflict can arise over which family to spend Christmas with, especially if both spouses have positive memories of Christmas with the family. This requires you as a couple to demonstrate flexibility and give-and-take.

If one spouse does not have happy memories of Christmas from growing up, this can create internal guilt or tension at not wanting to spend time with their family. But that distress does not have to be all bad. Here’s an interesting quote: “When spouses have good communication and are empathic allies with each other, the pain about families of origin can bring them closer. However, if the couple lacks good understanding and they are not being supportive of each other, old feelings create new tension.[xix]“.

So we are back to open, honest, vulnerable communication. It is great to be able to start the discussion with really talking about what happened in your family of origin and then your spouse’s. Talk about memories, feelings, experiences, family dynamics. All that good stuff. If you can take this attitude, have each other’s back and become “allies” with each other in this matter, then I think you can have yourselves a merry Christmas no matter the circumstances.

References:

[i] Tim Kasser and Kennon M. Sheldon, ‘What Makes for a Merry Christmas?’, Journal of Happiness Studies, 3.4 (2002), 313–29.

[ii] Kasser and Sheldon.

[iii] Kasser and Sheldon.

[iv] Kasser and Sheldon.

[v] Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, and Michael I. Norton, ‘Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 319.5870 (2008), 1687–88 <https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150952>.

[vi] Mary Finley Wolfinbarger, ‘Motivations and Symbolism in Gift-Giving Behavior’, ACR North American Advances, 1990.

[vii] Eileen Fischer and Stephen J. Arnold, ‘More than a Labor of Love: Gender Roles and Christmas Gift Shopping’, Journal of Consumer Research, 17.3 (1990), 333–45.

[viii] Steven J. Wolin and Linda A. Bennett, ‘Family Rituals’, Family Process, 23.3 (1984), 401–20.

[ix] Grace M. Viere, ‘Examining Family Rituals’, The Family Journal, 9.3 (2001), 285–88.

[x] Wolin and Bennett.

[xi] E. Compañ and others, ‘Doing Things Together: Adolescent Health and Family Rituals’, Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 56.2 (2002), 89–94 <https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.56.2.89>.

[xii] Dawn O. Braithwaite, Leslie A. Baxter, and Anneliese M. Harper, ‘The Role of Rituals in the Management of the Dialectical Tension of “Old” and “New” in Blended Families’, Communication Studies, 49.2 (1998), 101–20.

[xiii] Barbara H. Fiese and Thomas J. Tomcho, ‘Finding Meaning in Religious Practices: The Relation between Religious Holiday Rituals and Marital Satisfaction.’, Journal of Family Psychology, 15.4 (2001), 597.

[xiv] Wolin and Bennett.

[xv] Barbara H. Fiese and others, ‘Family Rituals in the Early Stages of Parenthood’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 55.3 (1993), 633–42 <https://doi.org/10.2307/353344>.

[xvi] Carla Crespo and others, ‘Family Rituals in Married Couples: Links with Attachment, Relationship Quality, and Closeness’, Personal Relationships, 15.2 (2008), 191–203 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2008.00193.x>.

[xvii] Compañ and others.

[xviii] Judith L. Silverstein, ‘The Problem with In-Laws’, Journal of Family Therapy, 14.4 (1992), 399–412 <https://doi.org/10.1046/j..1992.00469.x>.

[xix] Silverstein.

Today is a difficult episode about the hardcore realities of the pornography industry. How is this marriage related? Well, pornography is a leading cause of divorce nowadays and one of the myths that we need to debunk as we fight this cancer is that viewing porn is a victimless activity.

Around 1/2 of marriages have at least one pornography-using spouse. Objectification is a big part of using porn: seeing the actors as sex objects. We’ve looked before at how watching porn impacts your marriage, but there’s another side to it too. Some people may watch porn thinking that it’s harmless fun, made by willing actors having the time of their lives. So I want to convey something of the human cost of the real people involved in creating pornography so that we all understand that viewing porn is not a victimless or harmless activity. Quite the opposite.

Human Trafficking and Abuse

So you need to know that pornography relies on trafficked victims to create its content[i]. In fact, major centers for human trafficking such as St. Petersburg in Russia and Budapest in Hungary are also large producers of pornography. Many women that are trafficked for prostitution in these circumstances are also forced to make porn.

Even what you may consider ‘legit’ or at least, legal jobs like porn acting, modeling or stripping in clubs can also be an entrance point into the sex industry. Women that start in these roles are often pressured or forced into prostitution or other illegal activities[ii].

Research and first-hand accounts show that in the sex industry, control, intimidation and violence are commonplace. Around 71% of women in the sex industry are not “free to leave” the industry, either due to being physically withheld or trafficked, or else unfree to leave until they have paid off debts[iii].

50% of American women in the industry reported regular or daily violence from their agents, handlers or pimps and 90% reported verbal abuse.

Pornography is also sometimes used as a means of control: threatening to expose the pornographic videos they have made was a way of keeping women in the sex industry[iv]. In other instances women were totally unaware their pictures were being spread in magazines or online.

The picture research paints is that once you’re in this world of sex and porn, whether you entered it willingly or not, getting out of it again is difficult and dangerous. And once you’re involved many men and women find themselves forced into situations and acts they would never have agreed to. They find control slipping away from them and into the hands of people who would exploit them for all they’re worth. And you, the viewer, have no idea what circumstances the videos you are watching were made under.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases

STDs are a major problem among porn actors, and one of the main concerns actors report about their work[v].

In the US porn industry Chlamydia rates are 14.3% (compared to between 0.6% and 3% for the general population) and gonorrhea rates are 5.1% (compared to less than 0.1% in the general population)[vi]. Reinfection rates within a year are 26.1%[vii]. Other STDs are not routinely screened for so prevalence rates are unknown.

HIV can also be spread within the porn industry due to the high number of sexual partners actors are required to have and given that safe sex using condoms is rarely practiced. For example there was an outbreak in Los Angeles among porn actors in 2004, where 65 men and women were infected with HIV in a single month. Screening processes used in the industry failed to stop the disease spreading[viii].

Safety standards in the industry are poor and often violate health and safety regulations. For example actors are required to pay for their own screening tests and made to sign a waiver releasing their employer from responsibility if they contract HIV or an STD[ix]. Safe sex using condoms is uncommon, and risky or extreme sexual acts are treated as commonplace. “Unsafe sex in pornography sends the explicit message that condoms and other prophylactics are unnecessary barriers to pleasure, all the while putting performers at risk of disease transmission[x]“.

So consumer demand is really driving these actors to put their personal health at great risk. And this is only talking about the physical consequences.

Objectification

Both male and female porn actors are objectified by the films focusing solely on their bodies and sexual performance, while portraying the actors as purely interested in sex and not giving them any kind of personality or character outside of wanting sex[xi].

This constant objectification takes its toll on actor’s wellbeing and self esteem. Jenna Jameson, one of the most successful porn stars in the USA, describes this effect in her own autobiography. “These guys don’t care about seeing a show. They just wanted to see some skin. So much for my delusion of actually being respected”. Later she writes how this creates a numbness and a “sickness” in her soul:

“I never take the time to feel the effects of my choices. Maybe it’s because I would be ashamed, maybe afraid. I realize I have avoided my pain as long as I can remember… As life goes racing by me, all the while my soul goes on with sickness. Yes, sickness. It feels like I’m ailing. Because the one that should be nursing it is too busy trying to succeed and be accepted.[xii]”

This objectification also effects the viewers and their relationships. A study in 2015[xiii] interviewed 171 women about their partner’s porn use. They found that porn use directly predicted sexual objectification within the relationship and caused the women to internalize the beauty standards upheld in porn.

This internalization led to higher levels of body shame for the women. Porn use and objectification also predicted anxiety about the relationship, reduced self esteem, and higher likelihood of eating disorder symptoms. We talk more about body image and sexual function in episodes 88a and b.

The Reality For Porn Actors

Now we’re going to dove deeper into what life is really like for porn actors, using real stories taken from books, interviews and documentaries on the inner workings of the porn industry.

Just a warning that if you are a recovering sex or porn addict this could be quite triggering. So only proceed with reading if you are safe to do so.

Male Porn Actors

Performance pressure. Men are often paid by the scene, or by their ability to perform some very specific sexual acts reliably in front of the cameras.

The pressure on the male actors can be pretty agonizing. We read of one scenario where you have an actor and an actress thrust into the same production with zero relationship with each other, several cameras, lights, other people doing sound and filming and set props and they are completely exposed and vulnerable. If he cannot perform, his career is over. And this is a woman he is being forced to act intimately with but with whom he has no relationship and quite possibly no real interest.

It’s so base: it’s reduced to completing the physical act while pretending that it is a deeply fulfilling experience and then you have all the pressure of film production on top of this.

There’s a lot of pressure and real struggles. They are being forced to perform day in and day out without any regard for the human connection that is so central to sexuality, and without any regard for the sacredness of their own souls and bodies. Intimacy is reduced to two people just getting their bodies to work and while they may portray notions of passion or interest or love those are just acted. They don’t feel that. And so there must be a huge impact not only on their bodies but on their souls as well.

Aggression. Men in low-brow porn are encouraged to display aggressive, misogynistic and violent attitudes. In one firsthand account[xiv] the author meets actor “T.T. Boy”, who said the following in an interview: “I was a shy little kid when I started, and now I’m just a guy who wants to …” he reverts to obscene, self-gratifying language about how he uses porn actresses to satisfy his own eroticized rage while encouraging the women he works with to fear having to work with him. When he addresses these actresses there is an utter disregard for their personhood. Other industry observers note the uncaring, abusive sexual self-expression and the unbridled aggression therein as being the standard way of thinking for many male actors.

As a child T.T. Boy was raised by his violently abusive father and made to work on the family plantation. He was expected to keep working on the plantation all his life, and told by his father that he would never find work elsewhere, and that not even McDonalds would take him. Porn was the only work he could find. Despite the abuse he suffered, he idolized his father as a “powerful man” and as an adult he would physically abuse his own girlfriend, while seeing himself as protecting her[xv].

Again a real human behind the aggression: in need of care and nurture and healing and yet in this industry he will be used until discarded and then what? He’s acting out of the abuse and hurt he experienced while further abusing and hurting women who are already broken. It really is an industry of pain and horror and abuse that is self-escalating, creating more and more abuse and wounding.

Female Porn Actors

Escaping poverty. Many women enter into the porn business due to a lack of alternative, due to poverty and financial pressures as well as lack of other employment options. Some also use it as a means of escaping oppressive conditions in their home countries and become trafficked as part of the sex trade, or else end up in the business after immigrating to the US due to being unable to find another way to work[xvi]. “It is not sufficient, however, to say that poverty was a precipitating factor. With most women, it was a poverty that was preyed upon by recruiters, traffickers and pimps.[xvii]”

Young women are often preyed upon in clubs and malls where the pimps “befriend women, create emotional and/or chemical dependencies, and then convince them to earn money[xviii].”

Drug and alcohol abuse are often also used by pimps of handlers in the industry to create dependency and control, forcing women to use drugs until they’re addicted and being their only source of more.

Financial control is also used, for example with women who immigrate to the US and other western countries illegally and are forced to work in the sex industry until their debts are paid off. Often in reality the debts are never paid off as the handlers continue to add “expenses” or “interest” and keep the women working for them permanently[xix].

Luring amateur girls. There is big demand for young girls who have an “innocent girl next door” look in porn movies. To cater for this the industry finds young girls (age 18-21) who have never worked in porn before and recruits them online. These girls are then picked up by “talent agents” and driven to porn centers like Miami or California where they live in shared houses and given their new “porn names”.

Often these are girls who never graduated from college and have few career prospects, allured by the idea of making a name for themselves and making huge amounts of money (up to $800 for a single shoot) that they would never make otherwise.

Again you can imagine they think they’ll do a few videos, not a big deal, and then get on with their lives with the cash. But then the manipulation begins or else the experience has been painful enough they’re drug addicted and so they are either hooked into or forced into staying.

Extremes. The constant demand for “newbies” means that these girls often only get booked 2 or 3 times by major companies before they lose their newness factor and are replaced. They then have to resort to more niche or extreme and degrading forms of porn like bondage or exploitative scenarios. An example we found in the documentary film Hot Girls Wanted was the amateur porn actress Ava, who left home at 18 to work in porn. She worked in major porn studios for around 3 months before people lost interest in her and she had to find work in the genre where she plays a young girl being taken advantage of by older men. According to her “in the amateur porn world, you’re just processed meat”.

Another example is Jade, a 25 year old Latin American woman who frequently has to shoot very abusive scenes featuring degrading, physically violating activities that would never be a part of healthy sexuality. She is also forced to play roles that feature degrading and racist stereotypes of Latin American women and to have sex with men while they call her racist insults. Imagine the impact of repeatedly exposing yourself to this and then knowing that what is recorded is being broadcast on the Internet.

Women are tricked or manipulated into these films by their handlers and get increasingly less money for it. In one instance Ava arrived for a scene and was told it would feature abuse and violence. “I was terrified. I didn’t know if I could actually say no. It must be how rape victims feel, they feel bad about themselves. Did I really want money that badly?”

Lasting Abuse. For women (and men) in the porn business, having made the videos creates a unique kind of trauma where the act of violation keeps on going. As long as the videos or magazines are available, the actors in them continue to be exploited by the viewers. Since it’s impossible to ever get rid of all copies of an image or video once it’s online, the trauma of knowing it’s out there may never go away. One woman who acted in porn stated that “every time someone watches that film, they are watching me being raped.[xx]”

So what is it like knowing that others derive pleasure from watching you being raped, never mind the horror of being raped itself?

The permanence of porn films once they’re made makes existing suffering and abuse so much worse. For women in prostitution, the act of being forced to make porn significantly increased their symptoms of PTSD[xxi].

This is a horrible, sickening industry.

So if you’ve been watching porn thinking it’s innocent enough, nobody’s getting hurt and these people are enjoying their careers in the porn industry…think again. These are real humans and they are coming to this work not because they are whole but because they are broken. And they are breaking themselves even more every day. All for your viewing pleasure.

References:

[i] Donna Hughes and Oscar M Carlson, ‘The Demand for Victims of Sex Trafficking’, 2017.

[ii] Janice G. Raymond, Donna M. Hughes, and Carol J. Gomez, ‘Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States’, International Sex Trafficking of Women & Children: Understanding the Global Epidemic, 2001, 3–14.

[iii] Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez.

[iv] Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez.

[v] Jonathan E. Fielding and Steven M. Teutsch, Public Health Practice: What Works (Oxford University Press, 2012).

[vi] Fielding and Teutsch.

[vii] Fielding and Teutsch.

[viii] Fielding and Teutsch.

[ix] Fielding and Teutsch.

[x] Lauren Vogel, ‘Public Health Advocates Push for Safer Sex in Pornographic Film Industry’, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 183.5 (2011), E261–62 <https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-3770>.

[xi] Alan McKee, ‘The Objectification of Women in Mainstream Pornographic Videos in Australia’, The Journal of Sex Research, 42.4 (2005), 277–90 <https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490509552283>.

[xii] Matt Fradd, The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography (Ignatius Press, 2017).

[xiii] Tracy L. Tylka and Ashley M. Kroon Van Diest, ‘You Looking at Her “Hot” Body May Not Be “Cool” for Me: Integrating Male Partners’ Pornography Use into Objectification Theory for Women’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39.1 (2015), 67–84 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684314521784>.

[xiv] Susan Faludi, Stiffed: Betrayal of the Modern Man (Random House, 2011).

[xv] Faludi.

[xvi] Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez.

[xvii] Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez.

[xviii] Faludi.

[xix] Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez.

[xx] Catharine A. MacKinnon, ‘Pornography as Trafficking’, Mich. J. Int’l L., 26 (2004), 993.

[xxi] MacKinnon.

Families involving stepparents and step children are always tricky. And yet they’re a very common kind of family unit in today’s society. So how do the marriages look in these blended families? As we look into this we’ll see that a happy marriage and a happy blended family are very closely linked.

How Common are Blended Marriages?

Over half of marriages every year are second marriages for one or both spouses, and 65% of those are bringing kids from the previous relationship[i].

80% of blended families feature the biological mother and a step-father, rather than featuring a step-mother, or being “complex stepfamilies” where both spouses bring children from a prior relationship.

Let’s look at some of the common issues and challenges that couples in these families face. Forming a blended family or stepfamily presents challenges to the marriage, including:

1. 1. Negotiating parenting roles
   2. The stepparent forming a new relationship with the child
   3. The divorced parent still having some control/responsibility for the children’s upbringing, affecting the decision-making process for the new couples
   4. Negative appraisals of the family and the step-parent role from society or your social circle. In a lot of ways stepparents are looked down on or seen as not-quite parents, and the very fact that you’re in this situation can lead people to think that the original family has failed in some way, which is a lot of added negativity from outside that really isn’t going to help.

How couples navigate these challenges becomes a big part of how they function as husband and wife. “Researchers note that stepfamily functioning and couple functioning are inexorably linked, suggesting that it is difficult to create a happy second marriage without also creating a workable stepfamily[ii]. This is a dynamic that two people entering their first marriage without children do not have to navigate.

Luckily, research emphasizes that couple functioning in stepfamilies is significantly determined by the same processes and factors that affect any other marriage: communication skills, empathy, values and beliefs etc. But there are some specific factors and issues within blended families that do need special attention.

Bottom line: the usual skills apply, and a few more on top.

Establishing Norms

As blended families are a fairly new concept relative to traditional first marriages there aren’t as many norms and established ways of functioning. The “family” has been around as long as human civilization, but the “blended family” is a pretty new idea. So while families have thousands of years of convention and wisdom to lean on, blended families are a bit more in the dark.

For example there are set norms for looking after and disciplining kids, managing finances and decision making in first marriages, but there’s no “set” or expected way of doing things in a blended family[iii]. Couples in blended families have to figure things out for themselves. This can create uncertainty over roles and lead to conflict, especially over complex issues like combining your assets/finances as you get married or looking after step children as well as your own children. These are tough issues to deal with and it can feel like you’re the only ones struggling with them.

So: it would be good for couples to explicitly discuss these issues and agree on how to manage responsibilities, finances and childcare[iv]. Doing so eliminates that uncertainty and helps couples work together on creating their own set of norms for their family. And I imagine this could actually be quite liberating: having no set way of running a family imposed on you, so getting to set the rules yourself. Just make sure it’s a joint process.

Getting the family part right will make things much better in your marriage too. Agreement on parenting and family roles is associated with lower rates of conflict and higher marital satisfaction[v].

Social Support

Step-families typically receive less social support from their extended family than first marriages and often feel stigmatized. This disapproval from society and from family/friends can negatively impact marriage in a lot of ways, which we looked at in our episode on what to do when your folks don’t like your spouse. This is certainly true of blended families as well. A study in 2001[vi] found that lack of support from family and friends was a specific factor that led to lower marital happiness for wives in second marriages.

Step families also have to deal with a lack of recognition and formal support from society. For example there is often less practical support available to step parents and less formal or legal recognition of the relationship between a child and their step-parent.

Simply understanding and validating these experiences and difficulties can be beneficial to couple’s wellbeing[vii], so couples could try to find support from other couples in similar situations, or from formal support groups or counseling. All the methods used for coping with social circle disapproval from episode 159 also apply here.

Managing Expectations

Couples need to understand that forming a new family dynamic will take time and effort. It won’t happen overnight, and thinking that it will can be damaging for everyone involved. Expectations that you will be able to instantly establish great relationships with step kids or that you’ll naturally fall into a good dynamic are linked to lower marital quality[viii].

How long should it take? It’s bound to be different for every family, but research suggests that stepfamilies often go through 1-2 years of “disorganization and turbulence” before stabilizing and starting to function as a new family over the next 1-3 years[ix]. So couples need to be realistic about this.

Flexible Family Dynamics

Because of the complex nature of families involving stepchildren and former partners, having a flexible definition of what “the family” is becomes important.

Research shows that individual relationships within the family are more important than forming a single cohesive family unit. For example, focusing on the one-on-one relationships between the stepfather and stepchildren, or between the new couple, are more important than focusing solely on functioning as a family[x].

So there’s a lot of extra work to sort out these other roles. That’s why you need to lower expectations and understand that this all takes time.

Ritual Behaviors

All families have rituals: regular routines or behaviors which are important to them as a family and become representative of the family’s identity. For example, how you celebrate Christmas or birthdays, bedtime routines, mealtime routines or traditional days out and so on[xi]. These little routines and unique ways of doing things are very important for creating a sense of family identity and stability.

Making new rituals as a blended family is an important part of learning to function as a family. A study in 1998[xii] interviewed 53 blended families about the importance of rituals. They found that rituals were successful in creating family unity when they included members of both the old and new family (eg family gatherings involving the stepchildren and the new couple’s biological children, or a stepfather going to sports games with his stepson and biological son).

These rituals encourage bonding between individuals in the blended family while emphasizing the importance of both old and new family members. Bringing in rituals from the old family but adapting them to include the entire blended family was also important in building a sense of unity as a family. So it’s about making sure everyone is included and taking elements from the old family if they can still be used in the current family.

Rituals failed to lead to family unity when they felt imposed or compulsory or involved treating members of the old and new family differently (eg activities where the biological children are included but the stepchildren are not, or where biological children are punished for not participating but stepchildren aren’t).

So there is quite a bit to navigate in this area. This is a conversation that you need to have and need to do well.

Relationship with Stepchild

The relationship between a happy parent-child relationship and a happy marriage is interesting here. In first marriages, a happy, well-functioning marriage leads to happy children and positive interactions between parents and children. In a blended family, the effect is the other way around: establishing some kind of workable positive relationship with the stepchildren is the key to creating a stable and happy marriage[xiii]. Once you have that stability and basic level of trust between parent and stepchild that allows you to function day to day, the marriage starts to strengthen and grow.

I have to confess I had no idea this was the case so it was really interesting for this to come out in the research.

Are there any specific parenting styles that step parents can utilize? A study in 2003[xiv] found that stepparents report the highest satisfaction with their family life and marriage when they initially take a secondary role in parenting: acting warm and supportive to their stepchild and supporting their spouse in discipline issues but not taking a leading role in discipline until a stronger bond with the child has been established. Stepfathers in particular need to be careful to avoid being authoritarian and distant and should take an active interest in forming a relationship with the step children before assuming any kind of disciplinarian role.

The age of the children is also an important factor: if the kids are very young when the new family is formed then the step parent can expect to form a strong parental bond with them over time. If the children are adolescent then forming a bond that is as strong as a biological parent-child bond probably isn’t going to happen, and might not be realistic to expect. Simply establishing a positive, trusting relationship with the stepchildren is enough.

Relationship to Former Spouses

Another relationship to consider is the ex.

Having the former spouses be highly involved in the new family reduces the relationship quality for the married couple. This is true regardless of whether the interaction with the former spouse is positive or negative: constantly arguing with your ex is bad, but so is showing that you still have some affection for them and wanting them to be highly involved in your life[xv].

There’s a delicate balance in there.

High levels of competition between the stepparent and the former spouse — trying to one up each other in terms of gifts or playing the child off against each other — will negatively impact the child, leading to bad behavior and bad relationships with the step-parent. This then negatively impacts marital satisfaction. So in order to have good relationships with the children — and therefore a good marriage — the couple need to set proper emotional and practical boundaries with the old spouse and establish a relationship to the old spouse that is cooperative, or “businesslike”, but not intimate.

That can be tricky — it requires a pretty robust understanding of healthy boundaries along with a collaborative spirit about the whole thing. And obviously you can’t control what the ex-partner wants in all of this, or how they are going to act. So that can be hard.

So these are some of the key ingredients to making that blended family work well. Loving your spouse’s kids is a huge gift. As I reflect on this, it’s almost like adoption. It reflects the heart of God and I think that doing this well is something that God will bless. I just remember a roommate from college, terrific guy. He came from a blended family — he even had two brothers with the same name, the same age. They were like twins. He spoke very highly of his family and his stepmother and father.

I just mention this because chances are if you stumbled across this episode because you were looking for help, you may be in that turbulent stage right now. Stick with it. Realize that this is a journey. Manage your expectations and don’t be afraid to get help. There’s more and more being written about this and of course, there’s always marriage and family therapists like myself who would be happy to assist.

References:

[i] Francesca Adler-Baeder and Brian Higginbotham, ‘Implications of Remarriage and Stepfamily Formation for Marriage Education’, Family Relations, 53.5 (2004), 448–58.

[ii] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[iii] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[iv] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[v] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[vi] David Knox and Marty E. Zusman, ‘Marrying a Man with “Baggage”’, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 35.3–4 (2001), 67–79 <https://doi.org/10.1300/J087v35n03_04>.

[vii] Froma Walsh, Normal Family Processes: Growing Diversity and Complexity (Guilford Press, 2012).

[viii] E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better Or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (W.W. Norton, 2003).

[ix] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[x] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[xi] Dawn O. Braithwaite, Leslie A. Baxter, and Anneliese M. Harper, ‘The Role of Rituals in the Management of the Dialectical Tension of “Old” and “New” in Blended Families’, Communication Studies, 49.2 (1998), 101–20.

[xii] Braithwaite, Baxter, and Harper.

[xiii] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

[xiv] Hetherington and Kelly.

[xv] Adler-Baeder and Higginbotham.

One of the things I hear a lot of wives calling their husbands out on is spiritual leadership. Even in marriages that aren’t particularly distressed. This isn’t a subject we’ve tackled before so I thought it would be good to look at so that we can give husbands some help on how to move forward in this area of married life.

This is a tricky topic for a lot of guys. I know in our marriage for the longest time the “spiritual leadership” would look more like Verlynda prodding and me obliging, which is no criticism of her but just reflects my own reluctance. When I talk to guys about this, there are a lot of reasons why we do not show spiritual leadership, including issues like:

1. 1. Not knowing what to do can be a challenge
   2. It can feel like a huge task and one that you’re not qualified for. You don’t know where or how to start
   3. It feels awkward. Spirituality is often a private relationship with God and now you are being called to live that out in front of others.
   4. Perhaps the spiritual leadership you saw as a child was unattractive because it was dry or hypocritical or just unpleasant
   5. Then there’s the huge issue of just feeling like I don’t have it all together enough to lead myself, how am I supposed to lead you?

I just mention these to help people understand there can be a lot of reasons why it is hard to do this whole spiritual leadership thing. I’m sure a lot of people reading this will be struggling with the same issues or hang-ups. I think a big one is just feeling like you’re being called to be something that you aren’t. Not many guys wake up in their marriage one day thinking, “OK, I finally feel like a spiritual leader today”. But that doesn’t exclude you from being able to do it. So let’s unpack this and then give some guidance.

Why Spiritual Leadership?

Spiritual leadership might be something that God calls each man to in their marriage and their family, but there are also a range of practical life benefits to taking this seriously. A study in 1999[i] looked at nearly 100 married couples and examined the effect of joint spiritual activities compared to individual spiritual activities and beliefs. They looked at how this impacted marriage and found that the benefits of joint spirituality included:

1. 1. Closer integration of faith into the marriage
   2. More perceived benefits to the marriage, for both the husband and wife
   3. Less conflict
   4. More verbal collaboration
   5. Better ability to discuss agreements

This came from shared activities like prayer, worship, spiritual discussion, mission or charity work and church attendance as a couple.

So it’s great to note that doing these things that seem unrelated actually has these tangible benefits inside of marriage.

Getting Started With Spiritual Leadership

I think the biggest barrier to getting started properly is the belief that you have to have it all together before you can show spiritual leadership. I know this is an issue for me: I’d like to feel like I am an expert before I try something. I guess that’s part perfectionism, part shame-based self-identity, but most importantly it’s about having impossible standards.

I mean, if you stop and think about it, in terms of the Christian faith if you wake up one morning and think to yourself, “I am definitely qualified to be a spiritual leader!” At that moment, you are probably DIS-qualified!

We’re never called to have it all together and we’re never going to be perfect. So instead of thinking that you have to lead this from a place of accomplishment and expertise, why not approach it as a shared journey together? So instead of doing this because you have it all together spiritually, why not do this because you’d like to bring your wife and children with you as you figure out how to grow spiritually?

As part of this, you need to believe that God is actively at work in your marriage and that marriage, including yours, is sacred[ii]. So He is invested in this journey of growth and discovery as well. Holding that fact in your head and knowing that God is with you can be a powerful thing.

What happens here is a subtle but important shift from needing to model accomplishment or perfection towards realizing that you just need to model curiosity, humility and discovery.

Real leadership is about getting past yourself and getting past focussing on your own limitations and believing that there is a higher purpose and send of meaning for your life and your marriage[iii] and then stumbling towards that as a couple. You don’t need to get it perfect all the time because now instead of asking you to be something, we’re just talking about initiating something.

Spiritual Leadership Requires Authentic Love

One thing all of us husbands are doing every day is learning how to love our wives better. Things change. Life changes. We change. Circumstances change. We’re in this constant state of flux and what I notice — maybe because this has really been us lately (the change thing) — is that it is easy for my fuse to shorten and I stop loving Verlynda the way she should be loved.

But this is a good thing, right? The change, I mean. Because now marriage becomes a crucible for refining the quality of love I am showing you. Because when I snap at you I have to both apologize for that and then stop and pause and really self-reflect about what is going on inside of me that I would be willing to snap at the most important, the most valued person in my life. The behaviour doesn’t make sense, right? And yet, at some level it does.

And I’m asking, am I not taking care of myself? Am I not meeting your emotional or practical needs somehow? Something is off if my behaviour is off[iv]

So spiritual leadership again is not about being perfect but about catching those imperfect moments and taking them back into the presence of God and asking for sanctification. It becomes a way of identifying areas I need to grow in and then taking those to God

The Prayer Life of a Spiritual Leader

Praying with your spouse is important — and very difficult.

Again, referring to our own spiritual experience it took me a long time to figure out why it was hard for me to pray with Verlynda.

I think that when husbands pray with their wives they are faced with an existential dilemma. Prayer demands that we be completely vulnerable in order to be authentic. And that’s not easy.

So the dilemma is: do I pray in a comfortable way, which is going to be shallow and not feel very authentic? Or, do I just not pray? Either I feel like a heel for not being authentic or I feel like a heel for not being a spiritual leader! And meanwhile, our beloved wives are prodding and prodding us so on top of this we get this pursue-withdraw cycle going on.

What’s happening? We are afraid of vulnerability.

And it wasn’t until I realized that what I didn’t want was actually what I most needed that I decided I was just going to have to man up and put my big boy pants on and start honestly praying with my wife. And initiating this rather than waiting for her to prompt me. One of the outcomes of that is we get to be more vulnerable together, and vulnerability leads to emotional intimacy and emotional intimacy in bed together at the end of the day…well…there may be some unspiritual motives there too. Unless, of course, you believe that God is interested in your sexual intimacy as well!!

So I would really encourage you to push through on the prayer front. If it’s possible given work schedules etc, go to bed together and either kneel beside each other or hold each other as you pray, and learn to be real in front of God together. It is a beautiful thing. I know we’ve had some pretty tender moments because of taking this challenge on.

Where To Go From Here

Once you are loving each other well and you are praying together, then what you’ll find is you have room to talk about the bigger picture things in life.

Things like vision and service and purpose. Before God, and with his help, how are you going to create legacy together? What are your long-term plans or goals? How do you want to impact your local community or your faith community or the global community? As the spiritual leader you can play a big part in these things, and in deciding how you and your wife are going to impact the world together.

References:

[i] Annette Mahoney and others, ‘Marriage and the Spiritual Realm: The Role of Proximal and Distal Religious Constructs in Marital Functioning.’, Journal of Family Psychology, 13.3 (1999), 321.

[ii] Mahoney and others.

[iii] Louis W. Fry, ‘Toward a Theory of Spiritual Leadership’, The Leadership Quarterly, 14.6 (2003), 693–727.

[iv] Fry.

I’ve run across a number of couples lately — mainly younger couples — who are watching X-rated movies or pornography in order to “spice up their sex life”. It is not uncommon in our world to think that pornography has something to offer your marriage, but today, we’re going to take a look at what the research says porn really does for, or, more precisely, to your marriage.

So I am going to come at this as if I was talking to a younger couple, maybe newlyweds, and they’ve watched some porn together and they feel like it turns up the heat in the bedroom.

But I need you to understand, as the reader, that as a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist part of my counseling work is actually helping couples recover from the impact of pornography on marriage. I cannot begin to describe to you the depth of hurt experienced in the hearts of betrayed spouses and in the hearts of pornography addicts, too. Like bad enough for suicide to be on the table.

You should know that I am not a fan of pornography. While it certainly can produce heightened arousal, even if we were to push aside the moral implications of the sexual abuse and trafficking of men and women in that industry, the consequences of using pornography in your marriage are significant and very serious. So while I want to be non-judgmental and this post definitely isn’t aiming to shame anyone, there are some serious warnings to heed here.

Porn Impacts Marital Satisfaction

Research consistently finds that frequent porn use is linked to lower relationship satisfaction for all kinds of romantic relationships[i][ii]. Porn use is particularly damaging for marriages compared to dating relationships[iii], and this effect gets stronger over time so that the longer you are married and using porn, the more it damages your marital satisfaction.[iv] So something that may seem like harmless fun for dating couples or newlyweds is only going to cause more and more problems the longer you’re married.

Which direction is this effect? Does porn decrease marital satisfaction? Or does decreasing marital satisfaction fuel porn use?

A study in 2004[v] found that an unhappy marriage can be a predictor of frequent porn use. That’s probably entitlement coming out, although it may also be a coping mechanism—if I act out with porn, I can stay married and stay air “faithful”.

But other research shows that porn use can cause marital problems: A recent study in 2017[vi] surveyed married couples for porn use and marital quality in 2006 and then again in 2012. They found that porn use in 2006 predicted lower marital quality in 2012. In fact it was the strongest predictor of low marital satisfaction. So while the effect can go both ways— porn as a symptom and a cause of marital problems— “experimental research suggests that it is porn use that more often negatively affects couples’ outcomes than vice versa[vii]”

How Porn Impacts Relationships

So let’s look at the specific ways porn is damaging to marriages.

Commitment

According to a theory called the Investment Model, commitment in relationships is comprised of 3 elements: satisfaction with the relationship, attractiveness of available alternatives and investment in the relationship[viii].

We just seen that satisfaction is impacted by porn use.

Porn use also increases your attention to attractive alternatives to your spouse, thereby lowering commitment to your spouse. Because you are looking at a wide variety of attractive alternatives to your spouse in the porn, you are likely to become less satisfied and committed to a single spouse and more desiring of variety.

This is one of the beliefs implicit in a worldview that accepts pornography: that a variety of sexual partners is more fulfilling than one sexual partner.

Even if you consider yourself faithfully married and you consume porn just to spice things up, you are, by virtue of your actions, also implicitly agreeing that being involved in other people’s sexual activities is necessary to provide greater sexual fulfillment in your marriage.

I would really challenge you on this. If you believe that sex is purely an animalistic urge, like hunger, and that it is not related to the intimacy of body, soul and spirit between two people, where they are joined and become one, then that animalistic urge really has no boundaries.

But if you are reading this today because you believe marriage is the ideal place for two people to become profoundly intimate, which is the journey of a lifetime, and includes emotional, spiritual and sexual intimacy, then pornography use has no place in that paradigm. Because to use porn is to say that the two of you are not enough.

Which, in turn, is really pointing to the fact that you are not comfortable with yourselves. There is a fundamental disacceptance of who you are: of one or both of you, either interpersonally or intrapersonally. And you are using pornography as a coping mechanism to distract from this reality.

Now: I believe marriage is a crucible for personal growth. So if you take your coping mechanism out, you have to deal with what is in front of you. And that’s a good thing: although it may be painful, it is a worthy thing. You will grow, you will be sanctified through confronting rather than coping. But porn is preventing this growth from happening. You’re really selling yourselves short on creating a soul-mate marriage.

Self-esteem

Another study in 2012[ix] found that husbands frequently using porn lowered their wives’ esteem, especially when the wife perceived the porn use to be problematic. Wives believed their husband’s use of porn was in some way their own fault and caused by their own unattractiveness.

Here’s a quote from the study: “In her eyes, his involvement implied that she must be physically unattractive, sexually undesirable, worthless, inadequate as a wife and as a woman, and weak and stupid for not taking a very strong stand against the pornography use.”

This reduced self esteem went on to reduce relationship quality and sexual satisfaction. So you can see the horrible effect it has on your wife’s image of herself when you turn to porn for satisfaction rather than her. A lot of guys, especially, don’t realize what pornography use does to their spouse.

Trust and Attachment

Now, I have been speaking about couples using porn openly, but if you are using it secretly, perhaps with the thought of enhancing your marriage you need to know you are creating a betrayal event. It is just a matter of time until that explodes.

Use of porn, and also the act of deception and hiding your porn use from your spouse, damages the trust and attachment bond in marriages[x]. This creates a “fault line” or a crack in the bond, which often then widens as the wife becomes distant from her husband after discovering his porn use and the attempts he made to cover it up. Couples often then become estranged due to feeling emotionally unsafe in the relationship. You’re creating a situation in your life that you don’t want your wife to be a part of, and that will erode at the trust between you.

Intimacy

High porn use lowers intimacy between couples and perceived closeness, especially for women whose husbands are problematic porn users. We saw how a husband’s porn use changed his wife’s self image, but it also affects her image of him. Discovering their husband’s porn use changed their view of the relationship, often leaving women feeling betrayed, and thinking that their husbands are no longer interested in them sexually or invested in their relationship[xi].

This discovery also changed wives’ views of their husband, reducing their respect for him and seeing him as selfish and objectifying of women.

Pornography’s Influence on Stability and Infidelity

Due to the fact that porn use erodes commitment by increasing the amount of attention paid to potential alternative partners (as we saw above), high porn use is linked to lower relationship stability and to higher rates of infidelity[xii]. It is like you are opening a window in your mind that eventually opens doors in your life to things you never thought you would do.

See, frequent porn users are already in some way getting sexual fulfillment from sources other than their spouse, so it follows that they would have a higher acceptance of the idea of sex outside of marriage. A study in 2014[xiii] found that viewing internet porn or X rated movies predicted both extramarital affairs and divorce. Even when couples only watch porn together as part of their joint sexual activity, rates of infidelity are higher than for couples who never watch porn[xiv]. So even making this a joint activity is risky.

Sexual Satisfaction is Damaged by Pornography Consumption

Male porn use is negatively linked to sexual satisfaction for both husbands and wives[xv]. As with marital satisfaction, this effect gets stronger the longer a marriage with porn use goes on[xvi]. Porn use also damages intimacy, and lowers self esteem for women, both of which reduce sexual satisfaction.

Porn interferes with sex because it changes how couples think about sex. It affects couple’s sexual scripts- their beliefs about how they and their spouse should act during sex.

A study in 2007[xvii] surveyed men and women about what they think is important in great sex, and on what they think is important in pornographic depictions of sex. The more porn people watched, the more similar these two lists were: people who were frequent porn users believed that their sex should be similar to what is portrayed in porn.

You can see how that would be unhealthy, right? Since porn sex is all about performance and totally ignores intimacy and emotional connection, people whose sexual scripts are highly influenced by the porn they watch will miss out on this, which will make their sex much less satisfying.

So even the belief that porn can spice up your sex life is actually misinformed. You’ve been told a lie. Pornography distorts what should naturally unfold between you, and what should naturally unfold is richer and more intimate than anything you could learn from watching porn.

Further, since porn paints such an unrealistic depiction of sex, having sexual scripts based on porn can also lead to dissatisfaction with your spouse, or with yourself[xviii]. These effects include being dissatisfied with your partner’s appearance, sexual performance and levels of displayed affection.

You can’t compete in terms of performance — I don’t mean sexual performance, but in terms of acting. It’s like you watch a martial arts movie or any action movie and you know that you cannot drive like that or fight like that. That’s OK — the hero lives on the screen. But with pornography, people take the scenarios, the acting that they see and they expect themselves or their spouse to replicate this. But, that’s not possible in real life.

Porn in Marriage Impacts Men and Women Differently

Let’s point out a few gender difference that it’s useful to be aware of. Most of the negative effects of porn use in marriage come from the husband’s porn use[xix].

Male porn use reduces the husband’s sexual satisfaction through creating unrealistic expectations and negative evaluations of their own sexual competency, and reduces women’s self esteem and feelings of intimacy, which go on to impact marital and sexual satisfaction.

Female porn use does not have these effects to the same extent, with most studies reporting that female porn viewing has no effect or even small positive effects on sexual and marital satisfaction. Porn use doesn’t seem to be stigmatized in women to the same extent, and perhaps doesn’t affect their self esteem or expectations in quite the same way. But it’s still going to affect your intimacy and trust so it’s still a bad idea.

Religiosity and Porn Use

Here’s an interesting extra factor to those of you who share our Christian worldview, or follow another religion. A study in 2016[xx] examined links between religiosity, porn use and marital quality. They found that religious beliefs improve marital quality and that porn use lowers it. consistent with other research.

However, religious beliefs intensify the negative effect of porn use on marriage. The high guilt and shame attached to porn use in religious cultures, and the high emotional cost that a continued use of porn requires means that religiosity can make the negative effects of porn in marriage even worse.

Basically this is saying that if you are living incongruently with your value system, the negative effects of porn use are amplified. The solution is to get rid of the porn, not your faith!

Which really brings us to a good spot to conclude.

In episode 128, we made a research-based case for why the best sex is happening inside marriages.

And we get it: your marriage may not be like that right now. And it may be that the only sex happening is what happens on your phone. Or, worse, on your spouse’s phone. That’s a tough spot to be in. Super tough.

But: you probably have not exhausted all your options, if you really stop and think about it. There’s more and more internet based resources that are free. We’ve covered some of this in our episode on how to porn proof your marriage. Also, if you really want to take it seriously there are marriage and pornography recovery experts like myself who can help you. The first step is to reach out, and if you do so, I promise I will respond.

References:

[i] Perry, “From Bad to Worse?”

[ii] Doran and Price, “Pornography and Marriage.”

[iii] Perry, “From Bad to Worse?”

[iv] Perry, “Does Viewing Pornography Reduce Marital Quality Over Time?”

[v] Stack, Wasserman, and Kern, “Adult Social Bonds and Use of Internet Pornography*.”

[vi] Perry, “Does Viewing Pornography Reduce Marital Quality Over Time?”

[vii] Perry.

[viii] Lambert et al., “Praying Together and Staying Together.”

[ix] Stewart and Szymanski, “Young Adult Women’s Reports of Their Male Romantic Partner’s Pornography Use as a Correlate of Their Self-Esteem, Relationship Quality, and Sexual Satisfaction.”

[x] T. Zitzman and H. Butler, “Wives’ Experience of Husbands’ Pornography Use and Concomitant Deception as an Attachment Threat in the Adult Pair-Bond Relationship.”

[xi] Bechara et al., “Romantic Partners Use of Pornography: Its Significance for Women.”

[xii] Lambert et al., “Praying Together and Staying Together.”

[xiii] Doran and Price, “Pornography and Marriage.”

[xiv] M Maddox, K Rhoades, and J Markman, “Viewing Sexually-Explicit Materials Alone or Together.”

[xv] Perry, “From Bad to Worse?”

[xvi] Stewart and Szymanski, “Young Adult Women’s Reports of Their Male Romantic Partner’s Pornography Use as a Correlate of Their Self-Esteem, Relationship Quality, and Sexual Satisfaction.”

[xvii] Štulhofer et al., “Pornography and Sexual Satisfaction among Young Women and Men: How to Conceptualize and Measure Possible Associations.”

[xviii] Perry, “Does Viewing Pornography Reduce Marital Quality Over Time?”

[xix] Perry, “From Bad to Worse?”

[xx] Perry.

You know how sometimes you get so wrapped up in an issue — some kind of disagreement with your spouse — that you really feel like you cannot see the forest for the trees? It’s as if you no longer remember why you were arguing — you are just arguing about the arguing? Today we are going to help you take a step back so you can see the forest again and figure out why you keep misinterpreting your spouse.

We are going to be looking at attributions, and why this process of attributing or interpreting your spouse’s actions can lead to cycles of arguments and problems that don’t go anywhere. But the cool thing is that these same processes can also be used to start positive cycles in your marriage that keep drawing you closer together.

So attribution is a topic that’s definitely worth learning about. Let’s start with the big one.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

This is one of my favorite things to talk about!

The fundamental attribution error is something that we all do. When I attribute your actions to a flaw in your character, rather than to an environmental factor then I commit the fundamental attribution error[i].

Where this really gets problematic is when I attribute your actions to a flaw in your character, but I attribute mine to environmental or situational factors.

For example, let’s say you and I are both out working at our respective jobs one day. I get home late. You get home really late. I’m upset because you’re usually home before me and I had to make supper and do a bunch of extra stuff. Here’s how the fundamental attribution error plays out:

1. 1. I think to myself, she is never home on time: she is so disorganized! (see the character attribution?)
   2. You ask me why I was late. I tell you, “Well, traffic was really bad.” (see the environmental attribution?)

See: we could be in the same situation but you have a character flaw whereas for me, I was just caught in some circumstances outside my control!

Or let’s say a couple gets into conflict and they both say a few mean, unkind things to each other. Name calling. She thinks, “He has an anger problem!” (attribution to character) but while she feels bad about her own behavior, she thinks to herself, “If he wasn’t such a jerk she wouldn’t have to talk like that to get through to him!” (attribution to circumstances).

Now I am not defending abusive men, but you get the picture: this happens both in healthy marriages and in conflictual, non-abusive marriages.

Why Do We Do This?

We all fall into this attribution trap because it is easier to make judgments based on personality rather taking into account all the possible situational variables.

Personal characteristics are easier to identify — they help us to understand a person and make sense of their behavior. These characteristics are more stable in a person and so it is easier and faster to make snap-judgments based on a person’s nature than it is to look for other circumstantial explanations[ii].

Having these concrete judgments in place about a person’s character makes their behavior seem more predictable. Your brain likes being able to make decisions quickly based on information that’s readily available. So rather than looking for all the possible factors that could have influenced your spouse’s actions, it’s easier to just attribute them to his or her character. Easier, but not necessarily more helpful for your marriage.

Attributions = Misinterpreting Your Spouse

You need to know that this whole fundamental attribution error thing is governed in marriage by how happy your marriage is. You will interpret events and actions according to your existing beliefs about your spouse and your marriage, whether good or bad. And if your spouse acts in a way that does not fit with your perception of the marriage, you will discount or explain away the action.

As a side note: that, by the way, is how a perfectly intelligent spouse who believes she is married to a committed husband can explain away evidence to the contrary and then be completely flabbergasted months or years later when she discovers his infidelity.

I am not sharing this so that we all go on a witch hunt, but for those of you who have found yourselves in this situation I just want you to know you are not stupid or blind or anything: you are just a normal spouse. It’s not your fault because it’s not wrong to presume upon the trustworthiness of your spouse.

There’s been plenty of research into this attribution process in marriage. Now a couple researchers[iii] looked at 23 previous studies of attributions in couples and they found that if marital satisfaction was high, people would attribute their spouse’s previous positive actions to stable personality factors. For example, “He brought me flowers because he cares about me and is a nice person” or “she tidied the kitchen because she is organized and selfless”. This is attribution to character, but in a positive way.

By the same token, in a happy marriage spouses would attribute negative actions to external factors, view them as unintentional, or see them as isolated incidents that don’t reflect the spouse’s true personality. For example, “He only said that because he has had a tough day at work and he didn’t really mean it” or “she didn’t clean the kitchen today because she’s had a rough day. She normally keeps the house spotless.”

On the other hand, if marital satisfaction was low, people would assign their spouse’s negative behaviors to enduring characteristics, in line with the fundamental attribution error. The spouse would then see negative acts as being intentional, motivated by negative emotions and as being stable across all situations rather than specific or isolated. See how this has all switched around? So an example would be, “He said that because he wanted to upset me and because he is a spiteful person.”

These spouses in dissatisfying marriages would also interpret positive actions in a more negative light, seeing them as less deliberate, more isolated and more likely to be motivated selfishly. For example, “He only gave me flowers because he wants to have sex later.”

As you can see, these attributions affect two things: satisfaction with the marriage and behavior in the marriage.

Attributions Influence Satisfaction

What is important to know is that this is not just a bad habit or a little concern that you should figure out sometime, but that negative attributions themselves actually cause low marital satisfaction over time[iv]. So low marital satisfaction leads to negative attribution, but that negative attribution over time also causes low marital satisfaction.

Thankfully, the opposite is also true: high marital satisfaction leads to positive attributions (and putting less emphasis on negative events) which further enhances marital satisfaction. So you’ve got cycles going in both directions.

Attributions Influence Behavior 

As it happens, attributions also influence behavior. Again, the same researchers[v] assessed couples for levels of marital satisfaction and then asked them how much they attributed problems in their marriage to each other, and then they asked the couples to discuss a problematic issue in the marriage.

They found that maladaptive attributions (thinking things are all your spouse’s fault and that those problems are indicative of your spouse’s character overall) were linked to both spouses using less effective problem solving, to higher rates of anger and negative behavior, and higher levels of reciprocal negative behavior.

This is just amazing and so sad at the same time because now we’ve gone from something we think in our head to something we are actually doing and reinforcing in our marriage — in a destructive way. That is why it is so important to get this whole attribution thing pointed in the right direction.

So we’ve seen how our attributions affect our marriage satisfaction and even our own behavior in the marriage. If you’ve been doing this a long time, reach out to me via our website. We’d love to do some marriage counseling with you and help you get this turned around and pointed in the right direction.

How To Overcome Attribution Biases

So now let’s look at some ways you can stop these attributions causing such problems in your marriage and get them working in your favor instead.

Assign Attributions More Consciously

You can outsmart your brain with this one.

Remember that the Fundamental Attribution Error and these attribution biases are actually mental shortcuts that your mind uses to make quick evaluations based on limited information. It is your brain trying to quickly categorize what you are seeing into the nearest bucket.

You can choose to carefully think through actions and the possible reasons behind them in order to bypass or overcome these reflexive biases[vi].

Stop and give proper consideration whether your spouse’s actions can be explained by situational or environmental factors rather than attributions. Are their actions really indicative of their deep personality traits? Would you interpret your own actions in the same way? These kinds of questions can help you avoid this error and give you enough space to objectively evaluate your spouse’s actions.

Start a Positive Cycle

Remember the cycle piece: negative attributions lead to lower marital satisfaction which leads to more negative attributions. But high marital satisfaction leads to positive attributions.

This means that if you choose to increase your marital satisfaction through some other route (e.g., learning better communication skills, more intimacy, better sex, better shared leisure) then this increased satisfaction will make you more likely to make positive attributions of your spouse’s actions. And this in turn will further increase marital satisfaction. So have a browse through the list of topics we have on the website and see if you think brushing up on any of them could get a positive cycle going in your marriage.

Conflict and Expectations

Negative attributions lead to poor conflict resolution and unhelpful behavior. That behavior escalates conflict rather than solving it. This then reduces marital satisfaction. However, the link between attributions and marital satisfaction is mediated by something called “efficacy expectations”. Efficacy expectation is your own beliefs in your own ability to solve the conflict.

If you attribute conflict and problems in the marriage to the universal characteristics of your spouse then you will have a low level of efficacy expectation: you will think that your spouse is fundamentally bad in some way and won’t expect to be able to improve things.

This is a fundamentally disempowered position: you cannot change the marriage because your spouse is ________ (whatever character attribution). However, if you choose to believe that you can learn new conflict resolution and communication skills then you are empowering yourself to solve problems.

This will increase your efficacy expectation. And the research shows that a higher level of efficacy expectation will mean that negative attributions do not impact your marriage satisfaction. You’ll feel more in control of your situation and that confidence and positivity can make all the difference.

Trust

Here’s an interesting study from 2004[vii]: 75 couples rated their levels of trust in each other and their attributions of each other’s motives, and then were observed discussing a conflict point. 2 years later they were again assessed for levels of trust and attributions. The researchers found a cyclical link between “partner enhancing” attributions (attributing spouse’s actions to positive motivations) and levels of trust.

What we’re seeing here is that trusting your spouse causes you to attribute more positive reasons to their actions, and to see them as more positive overall. These positive attributions further increase trust. So making the effort to see the best in them or working on your trust issues is another way to work on your attributions.

Accountability

Another useful way to combat your attribution errors is to get them out in the open. A study in 1985[viii] found that people are much less prone to the F.A.E. when they are expecting to have to justify their appraisals and attributions to a third party. When they know they will have to explain why they have formed their attributions, people take more account of situational variables and make less all-encompassing attributions. Within marriage this accountability could be provided through friends and family, or from a counselor.

So, practically, you could choose someone to hold you accountable for how you interpret your spouse’s actions. All this person needs to do is to ask you: “Can you think of a different way of interpreting that? Another way that doesn’t assign your spouse’s behavior to a negative character flaw? What else might have been going on?”

This is awesome as well — of course, it is challenging to find the right kind of friend who won’t just commiserate with you. That is where a qualified marriage counselor can be a big help.

Attributions are such a fascinating topic in marriages because negative attributions can color every aspect of your marriage and cause you to only see the bad. On the other hand with a bit of work you can get into the practice of focusing on the positive in your spouse and that becomes a really powerful force for good in your marriage.

References:

[i] Jones and Harris, “The Attribution of Attitudes.”

[ii] Bradbury and Fincham, “Attributions in Marriage.”

[iii] Bradbury and Fincham.

[iv] Bradbury and Fincham.

[v] Bradbury and Fincham.

[vi] Tetlock, “Accountability.”

[vii] Miller and Rempel, “Trust and Partner-Enhancing Attributions in Close Relationships.”

[viii] Tetlock, “Accountability.”

A few days after this episode is released is Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day. We wanted to acknowledge our servicemen and women who serve our country and that of our neighbor, the USA, and to thank you for helping make it possible for us to live lives of freedom and meaning. If you’re not a veteran I would encourage you to take in today’s episode regardless to better understand some of the sacrifices and challenges our military members face on the home front.

It’s hard to imagine a marriage with more strain on it than that of a serviceman or woman and their spouse. I have to confess I thought looking into these marriages was mostly going to be negative — that we’d see a lot of challenges and not a lot of upside. And yet, of course, we’ll see that human resiliency is a beautiful thing and that there are a lot of positive, hopeful things happening in military marriages as well.

Marriage and Military Deployment

Of course there are a lot of challenges faced by both the serving soldier and the spouse who remains at home. These can include mental health issues, for example,

1. 1. Rates of depression are 12% among active service members and 13% among those who have returned from duty[i]
   2. Rates of PTSD are 2% among returned service members
   3. Wives who are left at home suffer from increased rates of depression, sleep disorders and acute stress[ii]

Military service undeniably puts strain on a marriage, through the emotional roller-coaster of separation and reuniting, and the fears of losing your loved one each time they are deployed. This unfortunately leads to some of these marriages becoming unstable, resulting in divorce rates of 53% among military couples, which is higher than for non-military couples[iii]. So these are serious challenges, but it’s not all bad news.

Despite the challenges of military service some couples report that it strengthens the marriage. A study from 2013[iv] interviewed 118 military couples and found that 44% of them reported “better relationship dynamics” upon reuniting, while 35% reported more destructive communication and 21% reported no change. Almost half of the couples in this situation were able to draw some positive from it, whether that’s from the strong bond they feel for each other, the sense of pride and purpose their service brings, or the support they receive from those around them.

93% of couples were able to identify at least one positive change as a result of the deployment, for example increased confidence and autonomy for the wife, or a new sense of purpose for the husband or a greater appreciation for family life upon return. So even in the midst of extremely tough circumstances couples can still find things to be grateful for. And that’s pretty awesome.

If you are a couple in this situation, or you know someone who is about to face their first deployment, it can be useful to know what to expect. So let’s look at the emotional cycle of deployment and how couples typically react to each stage of the journey.

Emotional Cycle of Deployment

Couples typically go through five stages when one spouse is deployed to active service for a long period of time[v].

Pre-Deployment Stage

This is the time from receiving orders to deploy to then actually leaving. It can be weeks or months.

What to expect:

1. 1. The wife staying home may experience denial or high levels of fear, or even anticipate losing their spouse for good. They may also feel anger at their soldier husband for leaving, leading to conflict in the marriage. This is going to be a very stressful time so all kinds of emotions are to be expected.
   2. The soldier may become emotionally and physically distant as he starts training and bonding with his squad mates. The soldier is, in some sense, mentally already deployed, and already looking ahead to the challenges facing him[vi].
   3. Both spouses may come into conflict and stress over trying to get their affairs in order, for example the husband doing all the important DIY tasks before leaving, or both spouses sorting out finances, wills, childcare etc.
   4. Couples often have a strong desire to make the most of the time before the soldier leaves, for example by having the “perfect” Christmas or birthday. And this ends up putting even more pressure on them in an already stressful time.
   5. They may also experience fears and doubts about whether the marriage will survive, and possibly about infidelity while the wife is at home.

I would add from non-military marriages that there is a fairly normal thing that happens when couples know they are going to be separating due to travel or work: they tend to pull back and may even almost seek conflict. It just helps create the distance while the other spouse is still around, perhaps in the hopes of reducing the pain of loss when the spouse leaves.

Couples can cope with this by ensuring conflicts are properly resolved before the soldier leaves and ensuring they separate on good terms. Having conflict hanging over them can interfere with the wife’s routine and can make the soldier unfocused, which could be dangerous for him when on duty. Talking about their expectations of what the separation will be like is also important[vii].

Deployment Stage

Stage two is the first month of separation.

What to expect:

1. 1. Spouses can expect a huge range of emotions following the departure of their military spouse, from numbness and grief to relief at no longer having to appear strong and supportive in front of your deployed spouse.
   2. Worries about security in relation to finances, childcare and other concerns are common.

During this time, staying in contact by phone or Skype is helpful for both spouses, although not always possible. Conflict can make the stress at this stage much worse so this first month sounds like it must be really hard.

Sustainment Stage

This is the period of continued separation from the first month onwards.

What to expect:

1. 1. During this time the spouse learns to find support from other sources, such as support groups, family or church. S/he learns that s/he is able to cope with difficulties as they arise and make important decisions by alone[viii].
   2. Continued communication with the soldier is important to help them stay connected but can also cause conflict. Phone communication is always more prone to misinterpretation and distortion since you’re relying on voice without any clue to your spouse’s facial expressions or the context they’re calling from. If you cannot use video during your calls you don’t have body language and all those non-verbal cue to rely on as when you communicate in person.

Hopefully by this point you’re both settling into something of a routine and learning to cope with the challenges you’re facing. Continued communication is so important here. In a previous episode on long distance relationships (and military couples definitely fall into this category) we saw that staying in face to face contact where possible was good for keeping your bond strong, and talking about all the little details of life together was also important.

Re-Deployment Stage

This is the last month before the soldier returns home.

What to expect:

1. 1. Both spouses will obviously feel intense anticipation about reuniting. Expectations will definitely be high.
   2. At the same time, the at-home spouse may feel apprehension about giving up independence or about whether the deployed spouse will have changed and whether you’ll get along upon reuniting. S/he has basically been running the house entirely alone for several long months and changes to the house or to the family routine may cause worry that the military spouse may not approve upon his or her return.
   3. At this point it may be harder to make decisions as you become acutely aware that the soldier will be returning soon. Do I make the decision? Do I wait for him or her to get home?

As with the months before leaving, looking forward to your happy reunion is definitely a good thing and you should take comfort in the fact that your separation is nearly over. But managing your expectations is also important. You’ve been apart in very difficult circumstances for a long time: things aren’t going to go back to normal right away.

Post-Deployment Stage

Reuniting can be a very joyful and happy experience, creating a “honeymoon period” where all seems to be going great. But reuniting also has its own challenges.

The soldier spouse may have changed significantly during the time away. This can include positive and negative elements[ix]. Here’s some examples from the research:

1. 1. They may be disillusioned with their own beliefs and values due to the horrors they have experienced, leading to apathy and an erosion of the soldier’s sense of self.
   2. On the other hand they could come back with their faith in their country and their purpose stronger than ever.
   3. Soldiers will definitely have gained new skills, as well as physical and mental strength.
   4. Learning to suppress emotions: soldiers are trained in suppressing their fears and emotions in order to survive in combat. Now when they are home, showing this vulnerability, which is required in a marriage, is just the opposite of what helped them to survive when deployed.
   5. Reactiveness: soldiers need to learn to react quickly and with extreme violence to any perceived threat. Again this is an essential skill for wartime but not at all helpful upon return. Soldiers are drilled to see all situations in terms of potential threats, victims and bystanders, and this is a mindset that will take time to break out of.

Reintegration can be hard as the soldier readjusts to the role of husband and parent, while coming to terms with the trauma of warfare. Family dynamics may have changed as the at home spouse has had to take all the responsibility for the house, children and finances. The at home spouse may also resent the loss of freedom and control they had over family life while the soldier was away.

I think it is wise for couples to not set their expectations too high for this reunion phase and just understand that it will take time to reconnect[x], slowly re-negotiating roles and creating a new dynamic.

Other Factors

So that’s the five stages of deployment. Hopefully you can see some of the challenges each stage presents and get a better idea of what to expect. If you are a military couple then you may want to talk through these different stages, with the help of our free bonus guide, and think about how you’ll cope with each difficulty.

Let’s finish by considering a few other factors that come into play during separation.

Relational turbulence: reuniting after military service creates a state of relational turbulence (a concept we’ve looked at when we talked about empty nest syndrome) in which there is an increased reactivity to both positive and negative actions from your spouse[xi]. Stressful times generally bring out both the best and worst in a couple. This is driven by:

1. 1. Relational uncertainty: the state of change and the long time apart can alter each spouse’s perceptions of how stable the relationship is. Partners may feel that if their soldier spouse is willing to travel away and risk his life for his job then he may be more committed to the army than to the marriage[xii].
   2. Perceived interference: when couples are doing normal life together, most day to day tasks are done without much conscious thought. You usually never sit down and decide who does the dishes or the school run, you just get into a routine. When couples are reunited after a long absence they have to become more consciously aware of who does what task (eg in housework, financial matters) and this can lead to the perception than your spouse is interfering with or undermining you. If you’re consciously thinking about these little things for the first time, it can be a fertile ground for conflict if you aren’t careful.

Depressive symptoms, relational uncertainty and perceived partner interference all predicted difficulty reintegrating. So couples should take steps to reaffirm their commitment to each other and work out ways to re-negotiate roles in the house so as to not create perceived interference. This will make reintegration much easier.

While diagnosed rates of PTSD are lower than you might expect in post-deployment military couples, PTSD symptoms can still negatively impact marriages. A study in 2010[xiii] surveyed 434 recently reunited military couples and found that PTSD symptoms were linked to decreases in marital satisfaction, confidence in the relationship, bonding behaviors between spouses (doing fun things, physical intimacy), parenting alliance (agreeing with each other on how to raise and discipline the children) and dedication to the relationship. These decreases were found for both the husband and wife.

However, the decreases in marital satisfaction were entirely mediated by the changes in parenting, negative communication and bonding behaviors. So if these things are addressed then war and PTSD symptoms do not impact marriages.

Overall I think the message here is that couples who are in this kind of relationship need to know what to expect and be prepared for some difficulties, both before and during deployment, and afterwards when reunited. But like all challenges the stresses of being a military couple can be faced together, and your marriage may come through stronger than ever.

References:

[i] Gadermann et al., “Prevalence of DSM-IV Major Depression among U.S. Military Personnel.”

[ii] Mansfield et al., “Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services among U.S. Army Wives.”

[iii] Cox and Albright, The Road to Recovery: Addressing the Challenges and Resilience of Military Couples in the Scope of Veteran’s Mental Health.

[iv] Knobloch et al., “Generalized Anxiety and Relational Uncertainty as Predictors of Topic Avoidance During Reintegration Following Military Deployment.”

[v] Pincus et al., The Emotional Cycle of Deployment: A Military Family Perspective.

[vi] Pincus et al.

[vii] Pincus et al.

[viii] Pincus et al.

[ix] Basham, “Homecoming as Safe Haven or the New Front.”

[x] Pincus et al., The Emotional Cycle of Deployment: A Military Family Perspective.

[xi] Knobloch et al., “Generalized Anxiety and Relational Uncertainty as Predictors of Topic Avoidance During Reintegration Following Military Deployment.”

[xii] Cox and Albright, The Road to Recovery: Addressing the Challenges and Resilience of Military Couples in the Scope of Veteran’s Mental Health.

[xiii] Allen et al., “Hitting Home: Relationships between Recent Deployment, Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, and Marital Functioning for Army Couples.”

We are going to look at foreplay today. But before we do, please be reminded that emotional factors are a much stronger determinant of sexual satisfaction and orgasm frequency than biological or practical factors like sexual frequency and lack of foreplay. So make sure the emotional connection gets most of your focus, and then consider what we’re thinking about in this episode!

Questions around foreplay and orgasm are fairly common in marriages. How much foreplay does my wife need to reliably reach orgasm? How much time should I expect my husband to devote to foreplay each time we have sex?

Today we’ll be looking at some of these factors that affect foreplay, orgasm frequency and sexual satisfaction overall, so if your sex life isn’t all you’d like it to be, this is definitely worth your time. But let’s just briefly reiterate the disclaimer above. A study from 1993[i] showed what we probably all know already: individual relationship variables like closeness, intimacy, marital satisfaction etc. predict female sexual satisfaction over and above biological and practical issues like sexual frequency and length of foreplay. We’ve seen this fact reflected numerous times in the research for this podcast, and even produced a whole episode on why emotional intimacy is the key to great sex.

So we’re going to talk about these things, but if you want to improve your sex life, you’ll get the most benefit from improving your emotional connection to one another.

Foreplay and Orgasm Duration of Foreplay

What’s interesting about this research is that there are some general observations, but the research also really seems to highlight the fact that everyone is unique. There’s no recipe for orgasm: it’s more like a journey of discovery that a couple needs to tackle together and explore together. It requires gentleness and collaboration and curiosity.

So, for example, a couple studies we found indicate that increased time spent in foreplay is often linked to increased probability of orgasm[ii][iii].

However, if you are experiencing some kind of sexual dysfunction then there may be no benefit to spending more time in foreplay: A study by Huey et al[iv] examined 619 women who reported sexual dysfunction and found no support for a link between length of foreplay and female orgasmic response.

Further, the duration of foreplay may differently affect women depending on how regularly they already achieve orgasm during sex. “Extending foreplay and intromission (penetration) might enable some women who were already orgasmic to have more frequent orgasms than they would under shorter periods of stimulation.[v]”

For women who already achieve orgasm at least some of the time, increasing foreplay can make orgasm even more regular. However, for women who rarely or never achieve orgasm, duration of foreplay appears to have little effect. This again suggests that foreplay is not the main issue in sexual satisfaction and orgasm: if you already have the emotional connection then foreplay can help, but if you don’t have that connection then foreplay isn’t an adequate replacement in itself.

Assuming you’ve got the emotional connection thing nailed, then is there an ideal amount of time to spend in foreplay? Unfortunately it’s not that simple. There are high levels of variability between women. We do not mean to imply promiscuity, but just managing expectations about one’s own personal experience. Some women achieve orgasm with little or no foreplay and some remain inorgasmic after twenty minutes or more of foreplay[vi].

There is also high variability in desired levels of foreplay: when given a questionnaire about their ideal foreplay length, different men and women both reported anywhere from “less than five minutes” to “more than thirty minutes”[vii]. So there’s a huge range in what both men and women prefer.

Nature of Foreplay

Now the nature of foreplay also is worth considering in addition to the duration of foreplay.

A study by Hoon & Hoon[viii] found that women who were most satisfied with their sexual activity and responsiveness enjoyed foreplay featuring:

1. 1. “Gently seductive” erotic activities
   2. Breast stimulation
   3. Genital stimulation
   4. Varied foreplay

These women enjoyed high satisfaction with their sex lives, frequent sex and consistent orgasm. They were also unresponsive to “erotic literature and media” (porn), so as a side note good sex guards against the desire or need to look for satisfaction elsewhere. Consistency of orgasm was also linked to a greater understanding of the physiological changes that occur during orgasm- knowing physically how it all works seems to help encourage orgasm in practical terms.

Direct clitoral stimulation is strongly correlated with frequency of orgasm[ix] so sexual behaviors directly targeting the clitoris during foreplay are good for arousal and orgasm. Uninterrupted pressure and rhythmic stimulation and external genital friction are all important.

So there’s some good practical tips there for you to get to grips with.

Compatibility

Compatibility is an issue too, but maybe not the kind of compatibility that immediately comes to mind.

When we talk about compatibility in the context of romantic relationships we’re often asking if two people can get along with each other. Are they compatible?

But sexual compatibility is about things like interest in sex, interest in duration and type of foreplay, and communication about sexual issues.

Now I think it’s almost universally true that there are differences in desire and frequency and those things. Also men and women work differently: the physiology and even the orgasmic processes are different. What happens around this compatibility issue is that the couple gets out of sync or loses patience with each other or takes these differences personally etc etc and then you have sexual distress as a result of problems in sexual compatibility. It is possible for sexual dysfunction to follow and even the inability to orgasm[x].

So problems that arise out of not discussing preferences and not finding the right balance of foreplay/activities may be more important than simply looking at the duration of foreplay. For example 42% of women complain that there is “too little foreplay” in their sex lives. It’s not about the lack of duration as much as the lack of working together on duration.

Communicating your preferences is key, as often men and women fall back on gender stereotypes in determining how to act in foreplay and sex. Here’s a study that’s going to challenge your stereotypes: Miller & Byers[xi] interviewed couples about their actual foreplay duration, ideal foreplay duration, and what they thought their partner’s ideal duration would be. They found that:

1. 1. Both men and women reported that their ideal foreplay duration was longer than what they were actually experiencing.
   2. Women significantly underestimated how long their husbands would want to spend in foreplay: men wanted to spend longer in foreplay than their wives thought they would.
   3. Men were fairly accurate in their estimations of how much foreplay their wives wanted.

Both men and women believed in stereotypes that men want sex to be short and “to the point” while women want longer in foreplay, even when this was not true of their own marriage.

Both these stereotypes or “cultural scripts” and their own ideal preferences influenced the actual levels of foreplay and intercourse they participated in. So there are unseen, assumed expectations which are influencing the most intimate part of marriage, just because you aren’t talking about your own preferences.

Women are also probably more likely to disclose their sexual preferences, which could be why men were better at predicting their spouse’s desires than women were. Again: there are conversations not happening that need to happen.

Other Factors Affecting Orgasm

To wrap up let’s run through some other factors that might be influencing your rates of orgasm other than foreplay. All these things are worth being aware of so that you don’t assume that the problem is a lack of foreplay when really there’s something else going on that’s easily solved.

Age

Some (not all) research shows that it takes longer to orgasm the older you get, or that female orgasm becomes more difficult to achieve with age[xii], often due to physical changes like dryness. These issues can easily be compensated for (e.g., by using lubrication) and do not have a large impact on sexual satisfaction. But for many, this may be an unexpected change so it’s good to know about.

Medical Factors

Arousal and orgasm involve a complex system of chemical and bodily changes, which can sometimes be impaired. For example, antidepressants can interfere with serotonin production, reducing orgasm rates. Or, pelvic injury, surgery, hormone abnormalities and generally poor health can also cause problems[xiii]. Asking your family doctor may be wise as well, even for finding out about known side effects of medications you may be taking.

Age at First Orgasm

Younger age at first orgasm is predictive of later ease of orgasm. Younger orgasm experiences are linked to higher orgasm frequency in that they “prime” women for sexual activity and help them become receptive to sexual stimulation[xiv].

So if you’re a couple who has married later in life you should recognize that it will take longer to reach frequent orgasm as you may not have had this earlier experience. If you’re in this situation you’ll definitely want to check out our episode on how to have your first (or best) orgasm.

Other Factors

Other physical or contextual factors like race, socioeconomic status, personality traits and sexual history (number of partners etc) have been found to have little significant effect. Which is good, because those aren’t really issues that you can change. But turns out they aren’t going to impact your sex life all that much.

However, if you think these things are an issue, the thought itself may be the problem. For example, if you have a longer sexual history than you would like to have and perhaps feel guilt over this, that could be impacting your ability to achieve orgasm.

This is another area where working with a qualified marriage or sex therapist can be a really effective way to find help with these kinds of challenges.

So I hope this has helped you see that while foreplay can be an important thing to get right, you need to see it as just one piece of the puzzle. Your emotional connection, your individual preferences and joint communication are all vital for a fulfilling marriage and sex life. Working on your foreplay is great but make sure you’re getting those things right too.

References

[i] Hurlbert, Carol Apt Ph.D., and Ph.D, “Key Variables to Understanding Female Sexual Satisfaction.”

[ii] Gebhard, “Factors in Marital Orgasm.”

[iii] Mah and Binik, “The Nature of Human Orgasm: A Critical Review of Major Trends.”

[iv] Huey, Kline-Graber, and Graber, “Time Factors and Orgasmic Response.”

[v] Huey, Kline-Graber, and Graber.

[vi] Gebhard, “Factors in Marital Orgasm.”

[vii] Miller and Byers, “Actual and Desired Duration of Foreplay and Intercourse: Discordance and Misperceptions within Heterosexual Couples.”

[viii] Hoon and Hoon, “Styles of Sexual Expression in Women.”

[ix] Peterson, The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Sex Therapy.

[x] Witting et al., “Female Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Distress, and Compatibility with Partner.”

[xi] Miller and Byers, “Actual and Desired Duration of Foreplay and Intercourse: Discordance and Misperceptions within Heterosexual Couples.”

[xii] Peterson, The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Sex Therapy.

[xiii] Peterson.

[xiv] Mah and Binik, “The Nature of Human Orgasm: A Critical Review of Major Trends.”

The thought of disclosing an affair to your spouse can be quite terrifying. Many people experience intense fear when considering whether to reveal cheating or affairs, knowing it will cause a lot of distress—perhaps even profound distress—and also realizing they do not really have control over the outcome of their disclosure.

While no disclosure is ever going to be a positive experience, our experience working with couples over many years has shown that there are some helpful and some very unhelpful ways to disclose infidelity or cheating. We want to help you prepare as well as possible to disclose a betrayal to your spouse, whether it involves emotional infidelity, physical infidelity, or other forms of affairs. Affairs often serve as a way for individuals to cope with relationship pain or dissatisfaction, but they bring complex challenges for both partners. Affair recovery is a process that often follows disclosure and is important for healing and rebuilding trust.

Disclosure is Important

If you have broken a promise of faithfulness or fidelity to your spouse and have not told them, then you are facing the need to disclose this betrayal or infidelity. Infidelity can be a number of different things. It can be a purely emotional (and sometimes romantic) relationship with someone of the opposite sex, an online relationship (or relationships), viewing pornography, a one-time or ongoing sexual relationship outside the marriage, or a financial betrayal (e.g., hidden gambling debt or purchasing something significant without disclosing it). When considering disclosure, it is important to pursue full disclosure, which means revealing all relevant details and not keeping more secrets from your partner.

Although it is very difficult to disclose an affair, the research shows that individuals who do disclose acknowledge that in the end it was a challenging but correct decision to make.[1]

We do want to mention that if you are realizing that you are sex addicted and have an extensive double life to disclose to your spouse, there are professionals who specialize in helping prepare this kind of disclosure. In these cases, the full disclosure process is a structured approach guided by professionals to ensure all secrets are revealed safely and thoroughly. In this article, we’re mainly focused on the disclosure of an affair, although some of the principles will apply to other betrayals as well. We just want to note that for sex addiction, the process is much more deliberate and planned because of the extent of what must be disclosed and how traumatic that typically is for the betrayed spouse.

Understanding the Impact on the Betrayed Partner

Discovering infidelity can be one of the most painful experiences a betrayed partner will ever face. The initial shock of the disclosure process often triggers a cascade of intense emotions—ranging from anger and sadness to shame and self-doubt. Many betrayed partners find themselves questioning their own worth, wondering if they could have done something differently, or feeling a deep sense of insecurity about the relationship and their future.

It’s common for betrayed partners to feel compelled to know all the details of the affair, including the identity of the affair partner and the full extent of what happened. This urge is often rooted in a need for self-preservation and a desire to regain a sense of control after the chaos of discovering the betrayal. However, it’s important to recognize that while knowing certain facts can help make sense of the circumstances, obsessing over every single detail may not always aid the healing process. Sometimes, the search for all the details can prolong the pain rather than help the partner move forward.

Every betrayed partner’s feelings and reactions are valid, and there is no “right” way to respond to infidelity. The healing process is deeply personal and can be complicated by feelings of shame, guilt, or confusion. Seeking professional help—whether through individual therapy or couples therapy—can provide a safe space to process these emotions, understand the impact of the betrayal, and begin to move forward. With the right support, betrayed partners can start to rebuild their sense of self and find a path toward healing, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the infidelity.

Avoid These Things When Disclosing Infidelity

It is important to be fully honest. You definitely want to avoid lying while disclosing the truth. That may sound funny to say, but sometimes the unfaithful person thinks they can ease the blow by reducing the overall truthfulness of the disclosure. When those lies get discovered, even the truthful parts are called into question.

There are several things to avoid, but we’re assuming that you, as the reader, have the goal of becoming radically honest with your spouse as a result of engaging in this disclosure. Minimizing or hiding the truth can cause more harm in the long run, as betrayed partners have often felt deeper pain and distrust when honesty is lacking.

Avoid Excessive Detail

First of all, every spouse varies in how much they want to know about the infidelity. Some want to know very little. Others want to know what the infidelity was and who it was with, and others want to know all the details even down into the exact play-by-play intricacies of the extramarital sexual encounters. In some cases, betrayed partners have heard about the affair from friends, family, or other sources before any direct disclosure, which can add another layer of pain and confusion.

While it is important for your spouse to know the truth, it is also important not to give too much detail as this will greatly increase the traumatic blow of the disclosure. When too much is disclosed, we hear a lot of betrayed spouses talking about flashbacks and scenes playing like a movie in their mind even though they did not see the event.

We do recommend in cases of infidelity that the betrayed spouse know who the affair partner(s) was, where they met, when they met, and what happened (e.g., whether the trysts involved intimate conversations or if they involved sexual intercourse, etc.). Those facts help the betrayed spouse to understand the pattern and extent of the extra-marital behaviours so that they can be aware of future signs of the behavior reoccurring.

Now, if your spouse wants extensive detail (sexual positions, what she was wearing, your exact thoughts at different points, etc.) you have to be careful not to appear to be hiding or minimizing what happened. A thoughtful response is really important. We recommend that you tell your spouse you are not entirely opposed to sharing all of the details, nor do you wish to continue any form of hiding or dishonesty, but you are deeply concerned that the sharing of these details could cause extensive, unnecessary trauma. You could encourage them to carefully and thoughtfully review why they feel they need the extensive detail with a counselor who specializes in marriage counseling or in betrayal/infidelity recovery. Or if that’s not an avenue they wish to pursue, at least see if they will agree not to share all of the details until several weeks after disclosure. Often, obsessing over details is a stage that betrayed partners go through as a way of coping with the intense feelings of the betrayal. What they really need is to process and address those feelings rather than the details.

It may be helpful to consider a couple of personal accounts that speak to the issue of how much detail should be shared. Here’s one from Olsen et al. (2002): “You know, on my side I need to know every single detail. And now that I look back, that was wrong. He was willing to tell me every detail, but in the end, I didn’t need to know every detail. I mean I thought I did, but really didn’t.” Many women who have experienced infidelity share similar stories, emphasizing the emotional turmoil and the importance of honesty in recovery. When they first hear of their partner’s betrayal, a betrayed spouse may feel they will not be satisfied until they hear every detail. But in fact, this feeling sometimes goes away with time, and they realize that they really don’t need to know every detail to process their feelings.

Avoid Inconsiderate Timing

In our organization, we’ve had the occasional betrayed spouse share with us how they received disclosure at extremely inopportune moments (these examples are shared with permission). In one case, a husband disclosed when the wife had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Another wife shared that her husband disclosed just a few days before he died, just as he slipped into a coma. Other times spouses have disclosed on the way to a family Christmas holiday time.

While there is never a great time to receive a disclosure of betrayal, there are definitely some times that are much worse than others. If your spouse is already overwhelmed with pain or grief, it would be wise to wait. If they are going through something personally, such as battling a severe illness, disclosing an affair could actually compromise their immune system and their body’s natural healing abilities even more.

Disclosing via a long-distance phone call is also not recommended. This can leave your spouse to cope and pick up the pieces for a number of days on their own, which is also a bad idea. It is best if you speak with your spouse face to face if at all possible and make sure they are not left to deal with it alone afterward.

Having said all that, it is usually best if your disclosure is sooner rather than later. One thing that may be worse than an inopportune or mistimed disclosure is a forced disclosure or even a discovery. So, if there’s a possibility that your spouse may discover the betrayal through another source then you are probably better off with a poorly timed disclosure than you are with a discovery of the event. At least the disclosure itself is an honest gesture towards recovery, whereas a discovery always raises the question of whether you ever planned to stop the lies and betrayal that have covered the affair to the point of discovery.

Avoid Staggered Disclosure

This is something we see fairly commonly. Staggered disclosure is when you reveal the infidelity through a series of smaller disclosures. By doing this, you are essentially keeping a secret or even more secrets from your partner, rather than being fully transparent from the start. You keep back or hide information that could have been revealed at the first disclosure.

This is often done with a little bit of sincerity just in the sense that the betraying spouse realizes that disclosure is going to be very painful for the betrayed spouse. They want to protect their spouse from all that pain by bleeding the air out slowly rather than just popping the balloon in one loud, sharp blast.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work to stagger disclosure is that it quickly becomes apparent to your spouse that the hiding and covering up is continuing even if the infidelity or affair itself has stopped. This process is often referred to as ‘trickle truth,’ where the truth comes out in fragments, and it undermines trust even further. Remember that at this stage, the lying hurts worse than the betrayal. Holding back information from your spouse creates further feelings of mistrust. It is better to tell them the full extent of what you have done rather than reveal it in bits and pieces over time. Your spouse wants and needs to arrive at a point where they believe that they have seen and now know everything that has happened.

Avoid Blaming Your Spouse 

It’s really critical that you do not blame your spouse. There will come a time to look into what was happening in your marriage that made it vulnerable to infidelity. But that this stage, you do not want to get drawn into explaining the affair in any way that lays the blame at the feet of your spouse.

Even if your marriage was in bad shape prior to the affair (and that is a shared reality that will eventually have to be solved together), you are still the person who made the betrayal decision. At this point, that’s all that is relevant.

If you blame your spouse at this stage, it will only add a lot of fuel to the fire. You may need to explain your actions. Your spouse will likely ask you why you did what you did. You’re probably best off sticking to two key strategies:

1. Avoid excusing your actions. This is harder than you think. But any attempt to explain why you did what you did that makes you out to be a victim of circumstances or others is going to look like excuse-making. That is not going to fly with your spouse because what this means is that any time you find yourself in those circumstances again, you will repeat the betrayal. You should own the factors that contributed: I drank too much. I let my guard down with another woman. I allowed myself to be captivated by another man’s flirting. And so on. But don’t make excuses.
2. State the hard realities that are almost always the case in these kinds of situations: I was selfish. I wanted it, so I did it. I was not thinking of you, only of myself. I ignored everything that you mean to me, and all that we’ve built together, and all that we’ve done. I was so self-absorbed I was willing to risk everything for a moment of pleasure. 

These are tough realities and hard to admit. But those simple statements where you take responsibility without any excuse or fine print or disclaimers or minimizing: those are very, very honest things to say. They aren’t going to remove your spouse’s pain, but they will cause far less pain and trauma than if you deny, minimize, blame-shift and generally avoid responsibility.

The Role of Couples Therapy

After disclosure, couples therapy is a vital part of the recovery process for many relationships affected by infidelity. A skilled therapist creates a structured and supportive environment where both partners can safely express their feelings, fears, and hopes for the future. Through the therapeutic process, couples can begin to unpack the complex emotions that arise after an affair and start to address the underlying issues that may have contributed to the betrayal.

For the unfaithful partner, couples therapy offers an opportunity to take responsibility for their actions, be fully honest about all the details of the affair, and demonstrate a commitment to change. For the betrayed partner, therapy provides a space to voice their pain, ask questions, and begin to rebuild trust at their own pace. The therapist guides both partners through difficult conversations, helping them to communicate more effectively and to understand each other’s perspectives.

Importantly, couples therapy is not about assigning blame or punishing the unfaithful partner. Instead, it focuses on helping both partners heal, learn from the experience, and develop strategies to prevent future betrayals. The process of rebuilding trust and intimacy takes time, but with the guidance of an experienced therapist, couples can work together to restore their relationship and create a stronger, more resilient partnership.

Moving Forward and Rebuilding

Rebuilding a relationship after infidelity is a challenging journey that requires dedication, honesty, and patience from both partners. The unfaithful partner must be willing to be fully honest and transparent, disclosing all the details necessary for the betrayed partner to feel safe and respected. At the same time, the betrayed partner faces the difficult task of working through their feelings, rebuilding self esteem, and deciding whether and how to forgive.

The process of moving forward is not linear—there will be setbacks and difficult days. However, creating an environment of open communication and mutual support is essential for healing. Marriage counseling can provide couples with practical tools and strategies to address the pain of the affair, rebuild trust, and strengthen their relationship. Individual therapy can also be invaluable, helping each partner address personal challenges such as anxiety, depression, or low self esteem that may have been affected by the betrayal.

Ultimately, the path to recovery is about more than just disclosing the truth—it’s about committing to a new way of relating to each other, grounded in honesty, empathy, and accountability. By engaging in the therapeutic process, being fully honest, and supporting each other through the ups and downs, couples can move forward and create a relationship that is not only healed, but stronger and more connected than before.

References

[1] Andrew Walters and Burger, Brea, “‘I Love You, and I Cheated’: Investigating Disclosures of Infidelity to Primary Romantic Partners,” Sexuality and Culture, 17 (2012): 20–49, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9138-1.
[2] Michael M. Olson et al., “Emotional Processes Following Disclosure of an Extramarital Affair,” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 28, no. 4 (October 2002): 423–34.
[3] “How to Confess and Affair to Your Spouse,” Focus on the Family (blog), accessed January 18, 2020, https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/how-to-confess-an-affair-to-your-spouse/.
[4] {Citation}
[5] Olson et al., “Emotional Processes Following Disclosure of an Extramarital Affair.”
[6] Olson et al.
[7] Mark H. Butler, Julie A. Stout, and Brandt C. Gardner, “Prayer as a Conflict Resolution Ritual: Clinical Implications of Religious Couples’ Report of Relationship Softening, Healing Perspective, and Change Responsibility,” The American Journal of Family Therapy 30, no. 1 (January 2002): 19–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/019261802753455624.
[8] Deborah Corley and Jennifer Schneider, “Disclosing Secrets: Guidelines for Therapists Working with Sex Addicts and Co-Addicts,” 2002, https://www.jenniferschneider.com/articles/disclosing_secrets_5_02.html.

What do you do when your family and/or friends do not approve of your spouse? As it turns out, there are a number of strategies to help with this, but the most important is just doing a good job of taking care of your marriage, regardless of what others think.

It’s a tough situation to be in: you’re fully committed to your marriage and love your wife to bits, but her parent don’t think you’re good enough for her. Or your husband’s friends make it quite clear that they don’t like that you spend so much time together. Marriages don’t exist in a social vacuum: this kind of social disapproval is bound to have some kind of effect.

Social Disapproval and Marriage

When you’re faced with disapproving friends and family, does it draw you closer together as a couple or pull you apart? Popular culture often talks about a “Romeo and Juliet Effect” where family disapproval intensifies love. This is based on a famous study by Driscoll et al[i] in 1972, who found that feelings of love increase as levels of perceived interference from parents increase.

However, almost every subsequent study into this has found the opposite effect: interference or disapproval from family and friends has negative effects on relationships including lowering relationship satisfaction, reduced relationship stability, reduced commitment, lower feelings of love, higher levels of criticism and less positive appraisals of your spouse[ii][iii].

I was a little surprised by this research, to be honest. It has been my anecdotal observation—this is more watching dating relationships—that when parents disapprove it tends to bind the couple together more strongly. They not only have their newfound love but they also have a common enemy.

Then again, these studies are looking at long term relationships and when I think about that context, I lean more towards the reality that if you have a lot of negative info about your spouse coming from friends and family, that can easily shape your perception of your marriage.

If there’s an upside to this, it is that approval from your social network has positive effects such as improved perceptions of your spouse, greater feelings of love, and greater stability for the relationship. Overall, the positive effects of approval from the social circle are stronger and more consistently found than negative effects of disapproval[iv].

I do think there is a warning here for all of us: just to be careful about how we approach other struggling marriages. I think this research shows that when couples are struggling they really need our support, not our criticism. It is easy to stand outside the marriage and point out all the problems to the person you’re close to, but are you really helping the couple? You could do a lot more for their marriage by being there for them and showing that you believe in and support their marriage, rather than helping them pick it apart.

Why Does Approval Matter?

You might be wondering why these effects appear. Why should other people’s opinions matter?

Well, every opinion you hear from your friends and family has the potential to, in some way, influence your own thinking. Approval from your social circle helps create a stronger identity for you as a couple: when other people see you as a well-suited couple and approve of this role, this helps you form a joint sense of self and identity. Approval from others also reduces uncertainty about the relationship, while disapproval increases uncertainty. This uncertainty about whether you should really be together alters your perceptions of the relationship and your behavior changes accordingly[v].

Imagine this: you have a disagreement with your spouse about something minor. It would be fairly natural to want to discuss this with a close friend, or a family member. If that person already has a negative opinion of your spouse then that’s going to affect how they respond to your concerns, and the advice they give to you about it. Whether or not you choose to heed their advice, their opinion is now in your head. The more often you hear such opinions the harder it will be to ignore them.

Which Is More Influential: Parents or Social Circle?

A study from 2012[vi] found that for most couples disapproval from the social circle was more detrimental to the relationship than parental disapproval, in that it significantly influenced how much participants reported liking their partners.

However, parental disapproval was a strong predictor of relationship quality when the study participants were more reliant on their parent’s resources, such as their financial provision or their opinions.

So for younger couples who are still in some ways reliant on their parents, or couples who have very close relationships with their parents, the approval or disapproval from parents is more influential.

It’s All About Perception

Once again we come back to perception.

The research shows that the perception of approval is more important than actual levels of approval in determining relationship wellbeing and stability[vii].

This suggests that disapproving friends/family aren’t directly responsible for impacting your marriage- it’s the doubts and negative opinions they create in your own mind that do the damage.

That reinforces my earlier warning: be supportive if your sibling or child is struggling in their marriage. I know you might want to get your mama bear on if you see something you don’t like in the marriage, but try to be a voice of support and care rather than criticism.

What To Do When Family/Friends Disapprove

So we’ve seen how the opinions of those around you can impact your marriage. Now let’s look at what you can do in this situation.

Reduce the Impact Through Commitment

Commitment is very important in any marriage but becomes even more so in this situation. A study in 2008[viii] found that commitment to your spouse mediates the link between social disapproval and reduced relationship stability. So remaining very committed to your spouse and building on your intimacy and bond can reduce the impact of disapproving friends/family. This isn’t quite the same as the Romeo and Juliet effect where disapproval improves your relationship, but a strong bond and enduring love for each other can survive regardless of this social disapproval.

Watch What You Say

Disclosure influences others’ opinions.

Obviously, disclosures about your spouse to your parents or social circle can affect their opinions of the spouse (and your perceptions of their opinion). A study in 2014[ix] found that increased overall level of disclosure and increased positive disclosure (revealing good things about your spouse) have a positive impact on parent’s perceptions of your relationship (perceived and actual opinions), while increases in both positive and negative disclosures has a positive impact for friends.

Overall, then, telling your friends and family more about your spouse is a good thing: hopefully, they will start to get a better picture of him/her and come to see them the way you do. Sharing both the good and bad aspects of your relationship with your friends is good, but with parents, you might need to be a bit more selective. Parents are perhaps a so much more invested in wanting to look after you that any mention of your spouse’s negative traits will set them off.

Be Aware of How You Are Seen

Be aware of how you come across as a couple. A couple’s social circle will pick up on cues between the couple that give an indication as to how they are functioning as a couple, for example spotting “red flags” that indicate conflict or picking up on nonverbal cues that indicate tension. These then affect the observer’s opinion of the relationship[x].

I am a little torn on this suggestion, to be honest. I see where the researcher is going and we want to help couples reduce disapproval. At the same time, I am always asking folks to be authentic and show up in whatever situation and be real.

At the same time, I think that when your marriage needs work and you know it, then that is a situation where you guys as a couple also need all the support from your family and social network you can get. So do not give them a reason to become negative voices unnecessarily. Just be aware of how you come across and perhaps even promote disapproval in others at a time when approval would be more beneficial.

Remember too that if negative opinions are already in place, they are going to color how actions are seen. If people already disapprove of your spouse then they may be more likely to interpret things more negatively. Something that seems harmless to you may be interpreted very differently by an observer if they are already questioning the suitability of your spouse. So just be aware of how you might be seen by others who hold different views about your spouse then you do.

Side With Each Other

Here’s something you can do in the moment when there’s conflict arising between your spouse and your family. We touched on this sort of thing in our episodes about successful in-law relationships.

A study from 2010[xi] found that conflict between wives and mothers in law was a leading course of decreased marital satisfaction. But for the husband, taking the wife’s side in the conflict and using problem-solving strategies to reduce conflict mediated this link and buffered against problems caused by conflict. In the face of conflict, it’s really important to stay united.

Develop Autonomy

Being dependent on your parents or social circle for resources (and by resources I mean anything from financial and practical support to emotional guidance) exacerbates the effect of relationship disapproval. If you’re reliant on your parents for money or on your friends for approval then their opinions are going to have a much bigger impact on your marriage. Working on becoming more independent and less reliant on your parents/friends will make their opinions less of a determining factor in your relationship[xii].

Your desire and motivation to be independent and not to be influenced also plays a part in this: “The desire to be free of the influence of one’s social network… does in fact predict resistance to the disapproving opinions of friends and family.” So simply deciding not to let other people’s opinions sway you can have a positive impact.

Find Other Sources of Support

A nice simple one here. Having at least one other person in your network who does approve of and support your relationship mediates the negative effect of disapproval[xiii]. Even having just one or two friends in your life who are supportive of your marriage can make a huge difference.

Control Your Reaction

Now let’s think about how you react to shows of disapproval from your social circle. A study by Sinclair et al[xiv] identified two types of “reactance” to the threat of disapproval from family or friends:

1. 1. Defiant reactance: acting contrary to how your social circle would like and showing increased love and affection for your spouse in spite of what they think. Basically acting in the opposite way to how you feel others want you to.
   2. Independent reactance: acting independently of how your social circle want you to. Not letting their opinions influence you at all, rather than overtly acting against their wishes. This is a less confrontational response than defiant reactance.

Independent reactance, but not defiant reactance, buffers couples against the negative impact of social disapproval. In a healthy marriage “reactive responses to network opinions were not about doing the opposite of what one’s parents or friends were advocating, but instead a matter of continuing to love one’s partner regardless of social opinion.[xv]” So acting independently of social disapproval and not letting it influence you is better for your marriage than directly confronting people’s wishes.

If you try to act in defiance of what other people expect or want, you’re still letting their opinions influence you. Simply acting how you want to and holding your course as a married couple is much better in the long run.

Disapproval Impacts Perception

Finally, let’s go back to the issue of perception. Disapproval from family and especially from friends can have negative impacts on a relationship. But these issues are mostly caused by your perception of disapproval, which leads to uncertainty about your relationship and may cause you to internalize some of the attitudes about your spouse that others show. Choosing to act independently of this disapproval (rather than fighting against it), while also being proactive about managing conflict, eliminates most of the negative outcomes.

A healthy and well-connected marriage can survive any amount of disapproval. A study in 2012[xvi] found that the link between support/disapproval for your marriage and negative outcomes is “fully mediated” by relationship wellbeing. For happy, well-adjusted couples, the strength of the marriage meant that social disapproval wasn’t influencing things at all.

So even if your mother in law thinks your marriage is doomed, at the end of the day, her opinion does not count. What matters is what you guys choose to do with your marriage and how much you are willing to invest and to build up and strengthen your marriage.

References:

[i] Driscoll, Davis, and Lipetz, “Parental Interference and Romantic Love.”

[ii] Sinclair et al., Don’t Tell Me Who I Can’t Love: A Multimethod Investigation of Social Network and Reactance Effects on Romantic Relationships.

[iii] Sprecher and Felmlee, “The Influence of Parents and Friends on the Quality and Stability of Romantic Relationships.”

[iv] Sinclair et al., Don’t Tell Me Who I Can’t Love: A Multimethod Investigation of Social Network and Reactance Effects on Romantic Relationships.

[v] Etcheverry, Le, and Charania, Perceived versus Reported Social Referent Approval and Romantic Relationship Commitment and Persistence.

[vi] Wright and Sinclair, “Pulling the Strings.”

[vii] Etcheverry, Le, and Charania, Perceived versus Reported Social Referent Approval and Romantic Relationship Commitment and Persistence.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Agnew, Social Influences on Romantic Relationships.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Wu et al., “Conflict With Mothers-in-Law and Taiwanese Women’s Marital Satisfaction.”

[xii] Sinclair et al., Don’t Tell Me Who I Can’t Love: A Multimethod Investigation of Social Network and Reactance Effects on Romantic Relationships.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Blair, Perceived Social Support for Relationships as a Predictor of Relationship Well-Being and Mental and Physical Health in Same-Sex and Mixed-Sex Relationships: A Longitudinal Investigation.

Does your marriage involve one spouse working away from home? Or travelling a lot? Maybe you are a military family or you commute to another city for work or do camp work. Let’s talk about some of the challenges and also some ideas to make the most of this situation!

It can be tough being separated from your spouse for long periods of time. And when this happens regularly, due to work or some other circumstance, your marriage is bound to be affected in some way. But that change doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, and with the help of our list of do’s and don’ts you can make sure you stay connected to your spouse no matter the physical distance between you.

What is a Long Distance Marriage?

Who knew, but long distance couples account for over 1 million couples in the USA[i] and this number is continuing to grow. There are a few flavours of this:

Couples where one spouse goes away for weeks or months at a time for work. Military couples would be an example of this. In Canada we see a lot of this related to the oil industry where camps are set up in northern areas, and husbands go North to work like 3 weeks in one week out kind of thing

There are also dual-commuter couples where both spouses travel away for work or education

And there are couples who live in different geographical locations on a semi-permanent basis due to work or other factors

If you don’t fit into any of those groups, another definition of a long distance relationship (LDR) is simply that the couple are “unable to see each other as often as they like, due to time or distance constraints[ii]“.

So how does being in a LDR affect your marriage? There are mixed results from the research on this one, but most find that there are no concrete differences in terms of satisfaction or commitment between long-distance and close-distance relationships[iii]. This means that spending long periods of time apart doesn’t automatically spell doom for your marriage, and making the relationship work is largely up to the individual couple.

So let’s get into the do’s and don’ts of long distance relationships.

Do’s and Don’ts Don’ts Do Not Have Unrealistic Expectations

If you are in this situation you are probably already aware of some of the common challenges faced in long distance relationships. These include:

Increased financial strain from travelling

Difficulty forming new relationships and friendships in your separate locations and balancing these with your marriage

Difficulty assessing each other’s emotional state or the state of the relationship

Try to be aware of these challenges and other issues like loneliness: it then becomes a conversation about something you both experience. Can you discuss this without feeling guilty? Have you chosen to see this as something that gets between you, or can you share the burden together?

Those are expectations that come into play when you are apart. What about when you are together? Avoid putting too high expectations on the time you do spend together: couples often expect their limited time together to be perfect: intimate and romantic and all these wonderful things and can be distressed when this doesn’t turn out to be the case.

Do Not Be Negative

Those expectations can easily lead to negativity in thought or emotion.

A study from 2007[iv] found that negative affectivity (displays of negative emotions) were linked to relationship instability. This effect was stronger for men than women, and also stronger for long distance couples than for geographically close couples.

Being far apart makes those negative comments much more of an issue, because it could be days or weeks before you get to speak to each other again, so you’ll have all that time to stew over every word. Obviously arguments and disagreements will happen in an LDR, like in any marriage, but just be careful that they don’t sour your entire experience of time together. If you fight, make sure you make up quickly to stop it having a lingering effect.

Commitment is of course essential in a long distance marriage, but a stressful or dysfunctional LDR can create a negative sense of commitment or “moral burden”. This is where couples stay together out of obligation but gain no satisfaction or joy from the marriage[v].

So working on sources of stress and conflict is especially important in LDRs to avoid this state of seeing the marriage as a burden.

You can see that perspective and perception become very important in a LDR right?

Do Not Idealize the Relationship

Would you say that a long-distance relationship is more, or less, likely to break up than one where the couple see each other every day? Interestingly, some research shows that LDRs are actually more stable than geographically close relationships (GCRs)[vi].

Part of this is because distant couples tend to idealize each other and their relationship: they see each other/the relationship in unrealistically positive terms. This includes characteristics like reminiscing on past positives and having an over-inflated view of how much you agree and share values.

One one hand, this can be a good thing, as it promotes stability while you’re away from each other. The geographically distant spouse may idealize his or her spouse because it protects from feeling uncertain about the marriage. Holding the marriage in very high regard, perhaps even unrealistically so, motivates you to stay in it and guards against infidelity.

However, this over-inflated view of your spouse can make things harder when you reunite as you suddenly realize that the relationship isn’t as good as you thought. Because of this effect of having your bubble burst when you reunite, LDRs often become less stable when they come back into close proximity[vii]. Suddenly you’re reminded of all the little flaws in your spouse that you didn’t come into contact with while you were away, and it’s easy to start wondering whether your marriage is really as good as you were imagining.

Some level of focusing on the positives and reminiscing about good times may be healthy and ensure a stable, faithful relationship. But too much can lead to disillusionment when you are reunited. So balance is important.

Do’s Reduce Uncertainty

I love reducing uncertainty in relationships. It solves so many things.

Physical distance is just one thing that can create uncertainty about the future or stability of your marriage. Now, if you both have chosen to do this long distance thing then you cannot change that at the moment.

Here’s what you need to know: uncertainty leads to higher levels of jealousy and lower levels of trust.

Other factors influencing uncertainty include emotional distance (how willing you are to open up), levels of conflict, perception of rival partners, and frequency/quality of sex. So when physical distance is high you can reduce uncertainty with the relationship by compensating in the other areas[viii].

I mean by discussing these things together and by engaging in maintenance behaviors (which are positive actions to strengthen the relationship) in order to reduce uncertainty. Those behaviors are critical to the success of your marriage in this situation and that is why we carefully go through them in the bonus guide that we have made available to our Patreon supporters.

Focus on Positive Aspects

For example, planning your next visit home to give yourselves something to look forward to, or even using the increased sense of autonomy for personal growth[ix]. You may have more spare time: how can you see that as an opportunity to leverage so that you bring an even better version of yourself to the marriage?

Plan time Together Effectively

Make your time together count. Plan your weekends or visits together so that you get maximum enjoyment out of them, and allow space for showing affection and reaffirming your bond[x].

Talk About the Little Things

We looked at creating purpose and meaning in marriage in a recent episode, where couples find their joint sense of identity and meaning in life through the way they relate to each other and their shared history. Couples often find their sense of joint meaning through regular interaction about the day to day details of life[xi]. So long distance couples should talk to each other about the mundane stuff as well as the big important matters. This helps you stay connected at the ground level: you’re still apart of each other’s lives from the little details all the way up to the big decisions.

Keeping in touch about day to day things also helps maintain a more grounded view of the relationship and prevents over-idealization. It also lets your spouse really see into your daily life and brings them into your world. This helps them feel safer and more secure in the relationship too. Who knew that talking about your daily life was such a powerful force in your marriage?

Face to Face Communication

I thought this was really cool. A study in 2001[xii] examined 311 individuals in close and long-distance relationships. They found that long-distance couples who were in regular face to face contact (eg though Skye or by periodically returning home) were significantly less uncertain about the future of their relationship, significantly more trusting and were better at using positive maintenance behaviors like reassuring each other and sharing out tasks.

Face to face contact while separate also predicts stability once the couple is reunited[xiii]. So this really is something you need to be making time for.

Continue to Find Meaning

A fascinating study from 1997[xiv] identified two types of commitment found in LDRs: enthusiastic commitment (levels of satisfaction and happiness with the relationship) and moral commitment (investing in the meaning of the relationship and believing it ought to continue). One is the day to day level of happiness the relationship brings you; the other is about a much deeper sense of purpose.

Only moral commitment was linked to the stability of the relationship. So finding meaning in your relationship before and during long-distance periods increases moral commitment, increasing long term stability.

That is no surprise: we had a really good discussion about the centrality of commitment in episode 82.

Reuniting

We have looked at do’s and don’ts but I think there is a third really important piece to the long-distance puzzle and that is reuniting. How does it work when you come back home? if you have children often your wife and children are functioning without the husband: he is not part of the daily system. When he comes home, that system has to adjust and accommodate, knowing that he is going to leave again. Getting back into the routine of life together can be a challenge.

Reuniting after long periods of absence creates a state of relational turbulence. This is the concept we examined in our previous episode about empty nest syndrome, where uncertainty and stress make spouses much more reactive to both positive and negative interactions[xv].

So if it has been positive when apart it is more likely to be positive together, and if things were hard apart it will be harder to make your time together positive. During the days and weeks after you reunite you’ll both be very reactive to both the good and the bad. This means that the little loving acts and behaviors you show to each other will be extra beneficial during this time, but also means that any unhelpful or unpleasant things you do or say will have extra impact.

Also when you come back together you have to remember that the stay at home spouse has had sole responsibility for household management. So re-negotiating roles and establishing normal routines together has the potential to create tension. And what if one spouse has changed significantly, even in habit? Say you guys always ate at 5:30 and then had your evening. You arrive home to find out that your spouse has full evenings and then eats at 8:30 pm? Are they allowed to change that? If you are not home, why should s/he do it the way you prefer? What if you didn’t know this change had happened?

Returning home can, therefore, be a difficult time for both spouses, but can also be a source of many positives. Remember that both of you will be more reactive to both positive and negative behaviors. You can leverage this to the advantage of your marriage. Small acts of kindness or love will have a bigger impact during this period so these can be used to help ease the transition[xvi]. So when you’ve reunited after a long time apart, this is the perfect time to create new, positive routines that will strengthen your marriage and your love for each other.

References:

[i] Canary and Dainton, Maintaining Relationships Through Communication.

[ii] Maguire and Kinney, “When Distance Is Problematic.”

[iii] Canary and Dainton, Maintaining Relationships Through Communication.

[iv] Cameron and Ross, “In Times of Uncertainty.”

[v] Lydon, Pierce, and O’Regan, Coping with Moral Commitment to Long-Distance Dating Relationships.

[vi] Stafford and Merolla, “Idealization, Reunions, and Stability in Long-Distance Dating Relationships.”

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Dainton and Aylor, “A Relational Uncertainty Analysis of Jealousy, Trust, and Maintenance in Long‐distance versus Geographically Close Relationships.”

[ix] Canary and Dainton, Maintaining Relationships Through Communication.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Stafford and Merolla, “Idealization, Reunions, and Stability in Long-Distance Dating Relationships.”

[xii] Dainton and Aylor, “A Relational Uncertainty Analysis of Jealousy, Trust, and Maintenance in Long‐distance versus Geographically Close Relationships.”

[xiii] Stafford and Merolla, “Idealization, Reunions, and Stability in Long-Distance Dating Relationships.”

[xiv] Lydon, Pierce, and O’Regan, Coping with Moral Commitment to Long-Distance Dating Relationships.

[xv] Knobloch and Theiss, “Experiences of U.S. Military Couples during the Post-Deployment Transition.”

[xvi] Ibid.

At that moment the final child leaves the family home, you and your spouse go through a transition from parenting to empty nesters. For some, perhaps wives more than husbands, this is almost like postpartum depression as you are confronted with the grief that comes from a loss of a major stage in your life.

So today we’re going to be talking about Empty Nest Syndrome: the impact, the causes and how to support your marriage through this transition.

What Is Empty Nest Syndrome?

It is more often associated with women but for both parents, ENS creates a transition in life and a change in roles and responsibilities[i]. This change can be challenging to go through. Sometimes there are feelings of loneliness, depression or distress that come when the final child leaves the family home[ii].

I remember seeing this when I came to pick Verlynda up to move from Vancouver Island, where she was living with her folks. She was the last child. And I was totally unprepared for the grief that I saw. I guess I was inconsiderate: it had not occurred to me that this would be difficult for Verlynda’s mom.

Empty Nest: Good or Bad for Happiness?

I would tend to think that if you have a good relationship with the last child leaving home, even if you are looking forward to the independence and no more making lunches and the freedom of having an open conversation with your spouse in your home and all that…there’s still some grief at the time of depart.

But, is it a positive or a negative for most people, overall?

Most research shows that for the majority of people, children leaving home is good for marital satisfaction and can also be good for overall life satisfaction.

A classic study from 1975[iii] reports that 71% of couples consider their post-parenting lives to be as good as or better than their lives with children in the house, with only 6% of women and no men reporting that their lives are universally worse.

A slightly more recent study by White & Edwards[iv] surveyed 402 parents and found that children leaving produced significant improvements for martial happiness regardless of the characteristics of the children or parents. Similarly, another study finds that children leaving the home improves psychological wellbeing for parents and Mitchell & Lovegreen (2009) found that only a minority of parents experience a negative “empty nest syndrome”[v].

Who knew, right? Do you think our 11 year old is ready to live on her own?

Popular wisdom paints the empty nest phase as one of the loneliest and hardest times in a parent’s life. But for a majority of parents, this clearly isn’t the case. So what are the benefits of the last child moving out?

The researchers found that children moving out allows for increased “alone time” as a couple, more intimacy and spontaneity, greater freedom, and improved financial conditions[vi]. The general picture here is that it gives you more time and resources to spend on each other, rather than on the kids. All of this can positively impact marital satisfaction.

However, contact with children is still important. While marital satisfaction may increase after children leave, overall life satisfaction only increases when the parents remain in frequent contact with the children[vii].

That’s a very interesting caveat. Your marriage may improve, but without the kids still in your life, the net gain to your overall life satisfaction isn’t much. This makes perfect sense because you’ve invested so much in your children. Staying in touch allows you to maintain the value of that connection you’ve created.

So the empty nest stage can, if you keep in regular contact with the children, be good for marriage. However, it is also possible that children leaving the home can be a crisis time for marriages due to the sudden changes in routine and identity this stage creates[viii]. Some research finds that the empty nest phase of marriage is often the least satisfying, and has the highest rates of divorce and conflict[ix].

Part of me wonders if, represented in that research, are the folks who hold the marriage together (consciously or unconsciously) for the sake of the children. Then the children leave. Then the motivation for civility is removed.

It’s worth noting that all changes to happiness (both positive and negative) were only found when the last child had been launched- when the house was truly “empty”[x].

Let’s go deeper on this and see what is really at the root. Why do these changes occur, and why do some people take the empty nest phase in their stride while it wrecks the marriage for others? And what about when kids leave but come back; the so called “boomerang effect”? How does that impact marriage?

What Causes Empty Nest Syndrome? Role transition.

Roles in marriage and in family are an important part of psychological wellbeing as they provide stability and a sense of meaning. Losing direct contact with children may affect the role of a parent, resulting in distress[xi]. If we draw a great deal of meaning from daily parenting, and then we’re suddenly not parenting every day…that is a big adjustment.

This would also explain why maintaining close contact with the children after they leave would reduce the distress caused by them leaving- it lessens the change in role and identity for the parent.

Inability to Function as a Couple.

Some couples may have focused for so long on being parents that they have forgotten how to function and be intimate as a couple[xii].

This can be especially true for women, who may have invested all their time and energy into raising the kids and end up without much of an identity outside of being a mother.

In a sense, a time of rebirth follows. There’s pain and joy in that process and the expansion of personality… that’s a lot going on.

Relationship to Children.

Parents who have “overgiven” of themselves and consistently placed their children’s needs above their own will often feel empty nest syndrome the hardest, as they will suddenly be faced with a void and have little idea how to meet their own needs.

Relational Turbulence.

Relational Turbulence Theory[xiii] states that any time of transition in a relationship, such as getting married, having your first children, children leaving home etc, creates “conditions ripe for upheaval, turmoil and tumult”.

During these stressful periods, couples experience higher levels of uncertainty about themselves, their relationship and the future. As they try to figure out this uncertainty and their new roles they may come into conflict. They become more susceptible and reactive to interpersonal issues that were already present in the marriage.

Meaning: if the relationship is going well before a big transition (like children leaving), they will be likely to make the transition successfully, help each other figure out new roles, and become happier as a result. But if things were going badly, the transition may exacerbate existing problems and partners may come into conflict over roles rather than helping each other.

So according to this theory, times of stress and change can bring out both the best and worst characteristics of a marriage. During these times you’ll be especially responsive to both the good and the bad.

Now another modern issue, especially with the price of housing in some parts, is the Boomerang Effect — Children returning home. How does this impact marriage?

Boomerang Effect- Children Returning Home

The numbers of young adults returning to their parent’s homes has increased in recent years[xiv].

They come home because of major events or turning points in their own lives, such as leaving higher education or losing a job. Or, the economic downturn in many western countries means that finding employment after graduation is not guaranteed, causing many young adults to have to go back to the family home[xv].

How does this impact marriages?

Overall the negative effects on the parents of children moving back in are fairly minor, provided certain conditions are met. A rather revealing study from 2002[xvi] found that children returning home did not produce any mood changes for the parents, but did reduce frequency of sex in the first year after the child returns. That would be a funny conversation to have. “You can move back in but this means your mother and I won’t be able to have sex on the couch anymore, you know.” That’s a good reason to make them pay rent, right? It’s gotta cost them something too!

Another study by Mitchell[xvii] found that such arrangements were not typically associated with distress and conflict but did stress a few key items that were necessary to make this dynamic work well:

1. Autonomy for the children,
2. Mutual exchanges of support
3. The children forming adult roles and responsibilities

Similarly, Aquilino & Sharpe[xviii] found that most parents were satisfied with their living arrangements when children returned home and described mostly positive relationships. However, the level of parent-child conflict was very strongly related to satisfaction for the parents. Level of conflict was, in turn, linked to the child’s unemployment and/or level of financial dependency.

The overall picture is that kids returning home doesn’t have to wreck your marriage (although it may knock your sex life a bit!) provided that the children understand they are expected to be fairly autonomous and start relating to you as adults. Perhaps you as the parents might need to be aware of this, too. I think it was good to have this research just to balance the picture. It may not all be rosy.

So the boomerang thing is an interesting sidebar. Let’s get back to empty nest syndrome, and what you can do about it.

Ways to fight the Empty Nest Syndrome

Before it occurs:

1. Devote time to intimacy in your marriage and to looking after yourself as well as your children, so that these practices are in place for when the children leave
2. Develop a role and a sense of purpose and who you are that is not dependent on your children
3. Work on having a healthy marriage generally, as this will guard against relational turbulence

During the empty nest phase:

1. Work on becoming more intimate with your spouse, and starting a new phase of life together
2. Enjoy the fact you can spend more time together and have greater freedom
3. Maintain close contact with the children to ease the transition
4. Work together to establish new roles and patterns in your marriage. Be explicit about this so as to avoid uncertainty about the future affecting your marriage

If the children return home:

1. Encourage autonomy and the transition into adulthood.
2. Develop a more adult relationship based on mutuality.

Now one last point for those of you that are in this but really struggling as a couple after going to the empty nest phase. Research shows that the negative effects of the empty nest syndrome are often small and not long-lasting[xix]. Often couples manage to transition into new roles and establish a new phase of life within 2 years of the nest emptying. So even if empty nest syndrome is affecting you badly, it won’t last.

So hang in there. And: if you need help, reach out. You don’t have to figure this out alone.

References:

[i] Nagy and Theiss, “Applying the Relational Turbulence Model to the Empty-Nest Transition.”

[ii] Mitchell and Lovegreen, “The Empty Nest Syndrome in Midlife Families.”

[iii] Glenn, “Psychological Well-Being in the Postparental Stage.”

[iv] White and Edwards, “Emptying the Nest and Parental Well-Being.”

[v] Mitchell and Lovegreen, “The Empty Nest Syndrome in Midlife Families.”

[vi] Nagy and Theiss, “Applying the Relational Turbulence Model to the Empty-Nest Transition.”

[vii] White and Edwards, “Emptying the Nest and Parental Well-Being.”

[viii] Borland, “A Cohort Analysis Approach to the Empty-Nest Syndrome among Three Ethnic Groups of Women: A Theoretical Position.”

[ix] Nagy and Theiss, “Applying the Relational Turbulence Model to the Empty-Nest Transition.”

[x] White and Edwards, “Emptying the Nest and Parental Well-Being.”

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Nagy and Theiss, “Applying the Relational Turbulence Model to the Empty-Nest Transition.”

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] South and Lei, “Failures-to-Launch and Boomerang Kids.”

[xv] Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham, “Gender, Turning Points, and Boomerangs.”

[xvi] Dennerstein, Dudley, and Guthrie, “Empty Nest or Revolving Door?”

[xvii] Mitchell, “Too Close for Comfort?”

[xviii] Aquilino and Supple, “Parent-Child Relations and Parent’s Satisfaction with Living Arrangements When Adult Children Live at Home.”

[xix] Nagy and Theiss, “Applying the Relational Turbulence Model to the Empty-Nest Transition.”

This is not a very well known term: trauma bonding. But if you are in an abusive relationship, or are supporting someone else who is in one, or if you experienced abuse as a young person then you will find this information to be a vital key in unlocking your recovery journey.

The issue of trauma bonding is a fascinating subject but also very difficult for those who are implicated in this kind of situation. Today we’re going to be looking at what it is, how it develops, how it can impact marriages and finally what you can do about it.

Trauma Bonding Explained

Trauma bonding is the formation of powerful emotional attachments in abusive relationships. These bonds are seen to develop in a range of situations including abusive marriages, and also in abusive families, in hostage situations and in cults.

It occurs where the abused or mistreated individual feels positive regard for their abuser[i], feels like they need the abuser or continually returns to the abuser despite the harm they do[ii].

It is often characterized by a sense of being unable to live with the abuser and being unable to live without them. It’s sometimes referred to as Stockholm Syndrome after a famous bank robbery in Sweden in 1973, in which the hostages began to develop feelings of trust and affection for their captors.

Given that the context of this website is marriage, we’re going to be talking about this in relation to abusive marriages. However, if you’re in a different kind of situation; maybe you experienced childhood sexual abuse, you will be able to better understand that from what you learn today.

So this is a very difficult subject. And in fact, relationships with trauma bonds often look like addictions. Just the idea of continuing to do something (being in the relationship) despite knowing the negative consequences, and sacrificing all other aspects of your life for the relationship, has close parallels with the behavior of drug or alcohol addicts[iii].

Like addictions, trauma bonds can therefore be a lifelong struggle as the abused person continues to fall into the same cycle over and over.

Bystanders such as a sibling who sees you in an abusive marriage can look into your situation and wonder why you don’t leave. Well, the research we look at today should help give some understanding as to why leaving is so difficult.

Why Do Trauma Bonds Form?

Abusive relationships are formed though a kind of “social trap” where the trauma bond makes it hard for the abused partner to leave the relationship.

Here’s an example of how it may go. The first instance of abuse in a relationship is seen as an isolated incident and the abuser’s attempts to reconcile and make amends end up strengthening the relationship bond. They are usually really good at winning the abused spouse back, at convincing them it was an isolated incident, often even convincing them it was their fault for inciting the anger that was involved.

And this works. The repeated incidents of abuse shift the abused spouse’s beliefs towards thinking that it must in some way be their own fault for causing or allowing the abuse. Here’s a quote: “By the time the woman realizes that the abuse is inescapable, the traumatically produced emotional bond is quite strong.[iv]”

Factors Contributing to Trauma Bonds

From the research, we identified five factors that contribute to trauma bonding in abusive relationships[v]:

Power Imbalance

A power imbalance in a relationship can produce negative self-beliefs and low self-esteem in the subjugated individual. In the oppressed or abused spouse.

This power imbalance makes them feel like they “need” the more powerful spouse because they are not capable or strong enough to live without them. They come to internalize the more powerful individual’s view of them as being weak, and the abuser therefore comes to see themselves as even more powerful, which increases the imbalance of power, forming a cycle of dependency. The sense that you need the more powerful spouse strengthens the attachment bond you have with them.

So the power dynamic is key to understanding this. The abused spouse sees him or herself through the abuser’s viewpoint: as needy and dependent. This feeds the power imbalance and perpetuates the problem.

Intermittent Abuse

In cases of trauma bonding abuse occurs intermittently, not all the time. Instances of abuse are separated by periods of positive behaviour sometimes called the “contrition” phase or the honeymoon phase, where the abuser promises to change and reaffirms their love. They often treat the abused spouse like royalty during this phase.

Over time the abused spouse is repeatedly subjected to abuse and then reconciliation and relief when it stops.

This cycle of building tension, then abuse, and then calm, loving reconciliation strengthens the bond for both abuser and abused. The reconciliation or contrition phase makes the abused partner more likely to stay in the relationship, as during this time the abuser is often especially loving and kind in order to make up for their abuse. This can start to play tricks on the abused spouse’s mind, distort their perception of their abusive spouse and even alter the abused spouse’s memory of the abusive instances and reduce the perceived likelihood of abuse happening again. “He’s such a loving husband, how could he ever hurt me? Was it really as a bad as I thought at the time? Maybe I brought it on myself in some way.” And so on.

A study from 1993[vi] investigated this, interviewing 75 women who had left physically and emotionally abusive relationships. They found that attachment to the abusive husband, lowered self esteem and levels of trauma experienced were all strongly inter-connected. Attachment was strongly predicted by the level of intermittent abuse and the level of power imbalance in the relationship prior to leaving. So both the power imbalance and this cycle of intermittent abuse and reconciliation were strongly connected to a sense of attachment to the abusive spouse.

This attachment bond was weaker but still present 6 months after leaving the relationship, showing that the trauma bonding effect can be long lasting and hinting at why many abused women return to their abusive husbands.

So this trauma bond is very real. It is measurable.

Core Cognitions

Another study[vii] identified 3 additional factors that contribute to trauma bonding:

“Core” cognitive components are these core beliefs or ways of thinking about the abuse that are so typical of an abusive marriage. They are:

1. 1. blaming yourself for the abuse
   2. rationalizing or justifying the abuser’s behavior
   3. minimizing its significance

You can see how those thoughts keep you invested in that trauma bond rather than help you see it for what it is and choose to move away.

Psychological Damage

There’s also psychological damage occurring in a relationship like this. Consider the depression often involved, the lowering of self-esteem and the interpersonal difficulties that come.

These psychological effects of the abuse create a sense of helplessness that can contribute to the abused spouse feeling dependent on their abusive spouse. That’s the “I can’t survive without you” part.

Love Dependency

This is the belief that your very survival is dependent on your partner’s love and support. So you have to work hard, you have to invest into the relationship to earn this. Now you’re really buying into the trauma bond.

These 3 factors are separate but interlinked, and can reliably predict levels of abuse in relationships. Taking this one study, the more you have of these core cognitions, the psychological damage and the love dependency, the higher the level of abuse. And of course, the intermittent abuse and the power imbalance identified in the previous study also contribute to the issue.

So that’s what a trauma bond is and how it can look in an abusive marriage. Now we need to look at what to do about it.

As an aside, we go into much more detail on abusive marriages and how to safely find recovery in that situation in our episodes on this subject:

1. 1. Is My Husband Abusive? [1 Of 3]
   2. Can Abusive Husbands Change? [2 Of 3]
   3. When To Leave (Or Stay In) An Abusive Marriage [3 Of 3]

Definitely check those out.

For this post, we’re really going to focus in on the trauma bonding itself and what to do about that, and not so much on what to do about an abusive marriage in its larger context and implications.

What to do About Trauma Bonding

Four things.

Understanding the Issue

For women with abusive husbands (or any other form of abusive relationship) who want to leave the relationship, this bond may make it difficult. If you want to stay, it could make achieving change difficult. Because after the initial fear and danger of an abusive attack have subsided your feelings of attachment will typically resurface and cause you to downplay the severity of the abuse. As we saw before, this is such a powerful effect that it can even cause you to reinterpret your memories and give justification to your abuser’s actions.

At this point when the attachment has resurfaced you’re going to want to remain with the abuser or return to him and it makes you less likely seek help or independence or safety.

Understanding how this bond forms and understanding how it is maintained may therefore help you know what to expect. You can expect to feel the attachment come back to the forefront once you get back to the honeymoon phase.

But knowing how this all works should move you towards a more realistic view of the relationship. And from that vantage point where you are more informed you will be better equipped if and when you make a decision to leave for your own safety.

For those that are helping abused spouses make a decision like this, Dutton & Painter (1993)[viii] recommend repeatedly providing factual reminders of the severity of the abuse to prevent the trauma bond biasing the abused spouse’s memory of the relationship.

And if you’re the one who is in it: you can remind yourself of the factual realities of what has been going on. You can confront a rekindling of the traumatic attachment bond with these facts to help you maintain perspective on what is happening.

Attachment Style

Attachment style should also be considered. Remember this is the nature of how you bond with your significant other. This style is most informed by the kind of care you received as a baby from your primary caregiver.

Traumas bonds are similar to an anxious-avoidant attachment style. In this style, security and safety are intermittently provided and the individual is unsure if their need for intimacy will be met with kindness or hostility. An insecure attachment, either as a child or as an adult, can be risk factor in the onset of abuse in relationships[ix].

So really considering what happened in your family of origin is going to give you some insight as to why trauma bonding is a reality in your life today.

The good news is that attachment style can be changed, and we looked at how in our episode Is Fear Wrecking Your Marriage. Changing from an insecure to a secure attachment style can be achieved through improving your self confidence and social skills, and enhancing your ability to cope with stress and conflict[x], and this may help alter the relationship to reduce the impact of a trauma bond.

It makes sense: if you see yourself as more capable, more independent, as having your own social network then you will not see yourself as needy. So you will lower the power imbalance in the relationship.

Bear in mind: this could be dangerous if your spouse is unlikely to accept the shift in power. You should only do this in the relationship if you believe it is safe to do so; if not, again, it is probably wise to seek safety and then work on your attachment style.

Addressing the Power Imbalance

As I just mentioned, the above factors of self-confidence, social skills etc, would also help address the imbalance of power, which is one of the central aspects of a trauma bond.

Let’s go over this dynamic again to illustrate what I mean.

When there is a trauma bond the abused spouse feels powerless and dependent. But understand the abuser needs you to feel like this in order to have any power. So changing the balance of power in the relationship helps stop the abusive cycle for both the abuser and abused.

For the abused spouse, taking control through setting limits on the spouse’s behaviour, renegotiating the relationship or physically separating yourself from them for a time — all the strategies we looked at in detail in our series of episodes on abuse — can restore the power balance and heal the trauma bond[xi].

Again, you need to understand and accurately assess your safety before trying this. Remember that even this podcast and website are just self-help tools and do not replace working with a professional counsellor. If you’re not sure, reach out to me for help or find a local counsellor or call a safety hotline. There are many resources for folks in this situation: you don’t have to figure this out alone.

Breaking Old Habits

Finally: you want to break old habits. Since trauma bonding is often influenced by your early experiences and attachment style it can become a long-standing pattern that you just fall into without deliberate thought. You can automatically slip back into this dynamic even if you want to change.

To counter this natural tendency to go back to the trauma you can develop habits to center yourself and act based on your current intentions rather than old cycles. Strategies include journaling and reflection, meditation and relaxation, setting boundaries for yourself, or therapy to help you process the trauma and develop the skills to separate yourself from it[xii].

These are all ways to bring you into the present, to help you face and accurately assess your current situation, and choose to respond in a way that is self-respecting and safe for you and, if necessary, your little ones.

So: that is trauma bonding. A terrible situation to be in, but not a hopeless one. Again: I have helped women in this situation in my practice so if I can help you please reach out to me through our website.

References:

[i] Dutton and Painter, “Emotional Attachments in Abusive Relationships.”

[ii] Carnes, The Betrayal Bond.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Dutton and Painter, “Emotional Attachments in Abusive Relationships.”

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] George, “Traumatic Bonding and Intimate Partner Violence.”

[viii] Dutton and Painter, “Emotional Attachments in Abusive Relationships.”

[ix] George, “Traumatic Bonding and Intimate Partner Violence.”

[x] Corcoran and Mallinckrodt, “Adult Attachment, Self-Efficacy, Perspective Taking, and Conflict Resolution.”

[xi] Wuest and Merritt-gray, “A Theoretical Understanding of Abusive Intimate Partner Relationships That Become Non-Violent.”

[xii] Carnes, The Betrayal Bond.

I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s easy to fall into the “if…then” trap when it comes to money. If we had an extra 400 dollars a month, then dot dot dot. Or, If we had a 5 bedroom home instead of a 3 bedroom home then dot dot dot. And when we start doing this if…then thing, it begins to impact our marriage.

Money is definitely top of the worry list for a lot of couples around the world. I know how hopeless it can feel about changing your financial situation, so I want to encourage you that we have some good news. The great news is not some get-rich-quick scheme. No, it’s that you can shift your marriage so that you can move away from that hopeless feeling, regardless of your financial situation. So let’s jump in.

How Financial Issues Impact Marriage

Before we get to the solution we need to spell the problem out. Not surprisingly, research finds that financial strain does impact marriage by reducing marriage quality and also reducing the stability of the marriage[i].

What’s fascinating is you can actually put a number to this. The direct link between financial strain and reduced marital satisfaction accounts for up to 15% of the total variation in marital satisfaction[ii].

If you are struggling financially or unhappy with your financial situation, you are far more likely to see your entire marriage as not working. I think this is good to point out because in this situation you have a pretty specific issue but you’re extrapolating it to a much larger one.

For me, that’s a checkpoint. As in: stop and think about it. Because what we just identified is that you may only have a money issue. But you’ve made that into a marriage issue. I think it begs the question, is that necessary? Yes — financial strains impacts marriage. But how much power have you given to that issue?

So money can be made into a bigger issue than it really is. But: just to continue the thought of how marriage is impacted by finances: financial issues also impact marriage indirectly through the way they change how you act. Financial strain due to unemployment, debt, low income or other issues increases stress and depressive symptoms for both spouses. This, in turn, reduces the amount of social support, warmth & affection which the spouses show to each other and increases the level of negative communication: things like anger, criticism or dislike. This behavior reduces marital satisfaction, and this reduced satisfaction increases depressive symptoms, creating a destructive cycle[iii]. So the way money makes you think and talk to each other ends up having a worse impact on your marriage than the money problem itself.

Other research supports this: A study from 2008[iv] entitled “Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness, but it Helps” compared low income and medium income couples. Low-income couples had higher levels of psychological distress and also scored lower on measures of marital adjustment.

And as we all know, financial difficulties are also one of the main reasons couples give after divorcing for why their marriage broke down[v].

Conversely, high income is directly linked to high marital satisfaction, and also indirectly influences it by reducing pressure and stress within the marriage[vi].

Now I know at this point it sounds like we have a simple formula: increase the moolah, increase the marriage mojo. But just stay with me for a bit longer.

Financial Satisfaction

I’d like to look at financial satisfaction. Financial satisfaction is not about having more money. It’s about being satisfied with the money you have.

Now financial satisfaction is strongly linked to marital satisfaction[vii]. As I mentioned, financial satisfaction is not the same as simply having lots of money, although it is negatively correlated with financial strain. There are other factors which influence financial satisfaction in marriage, including:

1. 1. The perception that you have enough money and are coping.
   2. Smart financial decisions: families and couples who pay bills on time, live within their income and avoided unnecessary debt have a higher sense of self-worth, respect for each other and the family, and have less tension in the marriage[viii].
   3. Feeling in control of your finances and being self-sufficient (as a couple) is linked to a higher quality of life[ix].

So being smart with your finances, making the best use out of what you have and believing that you have enough are all good for your marriage irrespective of your actual account balance.

Having control over spending and financial decisions is another important factor in financial satisfaction. While most married couples have joint accounts and pool their finances, in most marriages, the reality is that one spouse is more likely to control the pool of money more than the other[x]. Only 1 in 5 marriages had truly equal control of money and spending between spouses[xi].

Equal sharing of finances is strongly correlated with financial and marital satisfaction[xii]. This is especially true for low-income couples. Independent finances or a lack of financial control reduces intimacy, hinders conflict resolution and overall lowers marital satisfaction, especially for women. Women married to men who withhold control of finances or keep some of the money to themselves often become suspicious that their husbands are not fully committed to supporting the family, or are possibly being unfaithful[xiii].

So it’s possible that one of you may be successfully handling the money, but because of the control aspect, it may reduce marital satisfaction. This is bound to work differently for different couples but a marriage where one spouse has sole say over money matters doesn’t sound like an intimate, trusting relationship to me.

It’s great to note that there are ways of handling money so that, even if you have a low income, you can still find satisfaction in your marriage. In other words, you don’t have to make more to be happier. Rather, you can change how you relate to what you already have.

Ways to Prevent Finances Negatively Impacting Marriage

So satisfaction with your money and being sensible with it does more for your marriage than actually having lots of disposable income. That being said, the challenges of money on a lot of managers are very real. So here are some ways to reduce the strain finances can have on your marriage.

Communication

One of the main ways that financial difficulty impacts marriage is by creating stress and depressive symptoms, which lead to dysfunctional communication[xiv]. We touched on that earlier. So by learning and practicing communication skills, you can mediate the effect financial strain is having on your marriage.

I think this is a good point to consider because at the end of the day not all of your stress is just about the finances. It’s also about how you relate to each other in the midst of those financial issues. So a good part of what you’re facing may not even be financial issues as much as a communication style problem.

And again: while the financial issues may seem large and insurmountable, learning communication skills is something you can start on right away so that you can figure out how to navigate through that financial issue together rather than as opponents.

Equality

I recommend you adopt a system of equal access and decision making regarding finances. Why? This increases intimacy and reduces problems with trust and conflict in your marriage[xv]. If you’re the spouse that’s been holding onto finances — is it time to take a step back and say, “Sorry, my bad, I’ve been too controlling. I would rather have you as my ally than as a sparring partner. Can you help me find a way to do this together?”

Spending Time Together

Several studies found that quality time together is another mediating factor between financial strain and marital strain. As in, finances only harm your marriage because they reduce the amount of time you can spend together. Interesting hey? One study from 2007[xvi] surveyed 497 couples and found that financial pressure creates an increase in negative behaviors as a couple (such as conflict) and reduces positive behaviors such as quality time together.

So actively working against this and making time for each other can reduce the strain finances place on your marriage. The basic idea here is that you know you have a stress point in one area of your marriage — and that point is not going to go away right away — so you’re going to compensate for that by strengthening another area of your marriage.

Along these same lines, a separate study by Dew in 2008[xvii] examined levels of debt in newlywed couples and found no direct link between debt and marital satisfaction. Instead, debt negatively impacted marriage because it interfered with the couple’s expectations of what marriage would be like, in that it increased arguments and reduced time spent together. Does that make sense? Debt is not the marriage killer…it’s the way you’ve handled it that may be putting all that strain on your marriage.

So again, working on good conflict skills and spending time together would reduce the negative impact of debt (and presumably other forms of financial strain) on marriage.

Financial Management Skills

Formal financial management strategies such as goal setting, budgeting, saving and record keeping help reduce financial strain, while also reducing arguments about finances. Much of the conflict around money comes from couples having different ideas on how to spend or manage their money, so as one researcher put it “Financial management skills may reduce the chance for marital disagreements, while the lack of such skills may actually create crisis situations.[xviii]“.

In other words, your mishandling of money, just due to a lack of education in these areas, could be a source of conflict. Again: the answer is not winning the lottery or some unattainable goal (waiting for your rich, heirless aunt to die) but taking some easily accessible steps forward in learning new skills.

Research shows that the use of good financial management skills and the perception that you are managing finances well were both linked to marital satisfaction[xix][xx]. So these skills don’t just help you get a handle on your finances but they actively work to improve your marriage.

There are plenty of great options for money management courses out there. If you’re listening from here in Canada, or from Australia, New Zealand or the UK we recommend getting in touch with Christians Against Poverty, a fantastic charity who offer debt advice and money skills courses with a Christian worldview. But wherever you are in the world there’s plenty of help available if you do a little research.

Increasing your available finances through better money management, or changes in circumstances/employment is linked to increased marital satisfaction in itself and helps couples feel like they are achieving something together[xxi]. So if you take these skills and manage to turn your financial situation around it gives you a joint sense of accomplishment as a couple, and that’s a powerful positive force in your marriage.

I think that is so cool because now you’re taking something that has been a drain on your marriage and you are both rallying around it together, and now it becomes something that helps form your sense of ‘us’ rather than something between you.

Again, research supports this skills piece. One study from 2015[xxii] found that attending a course on financial management, communication and coping skills as a couple improved financial coping and marital satisfaction 3 months later.

So if this is an issue, get some training, get help, read a few good books. And also be sure to check out our past episodes too. We did a mini-series on finances in episodes 59 to 63. Those are free and a great place to start. You might not always find yourself in a situation where you have as much money as you’d like, but you can certainly take steps to get there, and also to stop financial hardship impacting your marriage. So start informing yourself and start developing a marriage and a mindset that thrive no matter your financial situation.

References:

[i] Vinokur, Price, and Caplan, “Hard Times and Hurtful Partners.”

[ii] Kerkmann, “Financial Management and Financial Problems As They Relate to Marital Satisfaction in Early Marriage.”

[iii] Vinokur, Price, and Caplan, “Hard Times and Hurtful Partners.”

[iv] Dakin and Wampler, “Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness, but It Helps.”

[v] Kerkmann, “Financial Management and Financial Problems As They Relate to Marital Satisfaction in Early Marriage.”

[vi] Conger, Conger, and Martin, “Socioeconomic Status, Family Processes, and Individual Development.”

[vii] Copur, The Relationship between Financial Issues and Marital Relationship.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Vogler and Pahl, “Money, Power and Inequality within Marriage.”

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Addo and Sassler, “Financial Arrangements and Relationship Quality in Low-Income Couples.”

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Vinokur, Price, and Caplan, “Hard Times and Hurtful Partners.”

[xv] Addo and Sassler, “Financial Arrangements and Relationship Quality in Low-Income Couples.”

[xvi] Gudmunson et al., “Linking Financial Strain to Marital Instability.”

[xvii] Dew, “Debt Change and Marital Satisfaction Change in Recently Married Couples*.”

[xviii] Kerkmann, “Financial Management and Financial Problems As They Relate to Marital Satisfaction in Early Marriage.”

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Copur, The Relationship between Financial Issues and Marital Relationship.

[xxi] Conger, Conger, and Martin, “Socioeconomic Status, Family Processes, and Individual Development.”

[xxii] Falconier, “TOGETHER – A Couples’ Program to Improve Communication, Coping, and Financial Management Skills.”

What if you’ve been doing things in your marriage for years that you now realize have really left you disconnected? And yet both of you want to rebuild and recover what you have? Where do you start? What if you’ve been doing things in your marriage for years that you now realize have really left you disconnected? And yet both of you want to rebuild and recover what you have? Where do you start?

Today we’re taking two questions from our wonderful podcast listeners relating to important issues of trust and intimacy. Here’s the first from Mac:

Early on in our ten-year marriage, I would shut my husband’s feelings down. God has since convicted me about my steamrolling of his feelings and shown me how I was disrespectful and inconsiderate to his side of our marriage. I was so concerned with not being walked on that I actually walked on him. Now I think he’s afraid to open up because he avoids negativity of any kind between us. And we are coming out of him seeking emotional approval from outside parties (not a sexual or explicit relationship) but just seeking affirmation from work performance above our relationship and being open in general to anyone willing to build up his ego. He has expressed his commitment to our marriage and wants to get back on the same page but we seem to have a problem of figuring out where to start. And while he says everything I want to hear, he lacks follow through. Simultaneously, there is a temptation for him to find his identity in his work because he works in a very highly respected field. How can I compete with the meaning he finds in his career? And beyond that how can I compete with the numerous women willing to fall all over him because of his career?

And here’s question number two, which relates to shared leisure activities, a topic we recently went over in detail. This question is from JM:

My wife and I need to develop a hobby together but our interests are pretty different. We do a lot of family activities like camping, hiking, and biking but since the kids are little we can’t really do those regularly on our own. We end up doing house tasks after the kids go to sleep or watching TV or working on work together. We both feel a need to have a shared activity that is just us. My ideas are more: sports, working out, games (banana grams etc.) and hers are: reading, history, cooking, learning something new, art. If we didn’t have to find childcare we’d both like to go biking together. We are struggling to agree on a shared activity that we will both find fun. Of course, either one of us would be willing to do the desired activity of the other but our goal is to really both have fun? Any ideas for how to get started?

 

Listen to the podcast for Caleb’s answer to both questions!

So what if you’re good friends with another couple and the wife there is a little too attentive to your husband? Or, another patron is asking: what if both my spouse and I are experiencing PISD (post infidelity stress disorder)?

Today we’re going to be handling two questions from our much-valued listeners of our podcast. This first question from Chewy relates to boundaries with other married couples. Here’s the full question:

Can you talk about boundaries with other married couples? My best friend began to make jokes that were borderline sexually inappropriate. Pun on words type humor that I don’t necessarily find humorous but a few times my husband would join in and banter. He is very word-y and so I felt like this was a threat to our relationship.

At times I’ve felt that my friend envied our relationship and especially my husband’s attention to me and his financial provision for our family. I have also felt that my husband has appreciated her attentiveness and appreciation of his actions. I feel that she is just more immature in her faith and Christian walk but have begun to wonder how often we should be in community with her and her husband. I have also seen her be more attentive to another mutual married guy friend. I feel for her because I think her actions come from a hurting place.

My husband seems to be vulnerable to words of affirmation in general because that tends to be his love language and I am more practical. I don’t praise as often because I’m busting my butt just as much as he is! Working full-time and managing a lot of household tasks like schooling and budgeting. I want to be more vocal in my appreciation because I think he needs it but I can’t manage to do so without feeling fake. I say things like “Thank you” “I really appreciate your help” “I love that you can XYZ to help me” but I feel like he wants more praise in the way of “You are my hero” “I don’t know how you can xyz” or more over the top type comments that I can’t seem to say without feeling like I’m worshiping him.

My husband and I experienced a difficult few years due to other circumstances (I talked to an old boyfriend via Instagram and it was clear this old flame still felt attentive towards me – my husband went on a revenge track to show me he was attractive too we have since with the help of your podcast worked through this phase) and feel that he may have been vulnerable to her attention more than he normally would.

We have talked these instances through multiple times but now I’m wondering how do we balance a healthy mix of time for just him and I to rebuild our bond and strengthen our marriage with time for our two families to be together. We both have small children and are in very similar phases of life but their family has a dysfunctional marriage at least more so than ours or maybe just different. I’ve tried encouraging and it seems to help but I can’t help but feel that I’m just not sure what healthy in this case should look like. Our kids very much enjoy being together and our families have fun when hanging out.

How can I tell if we have crossed into dangerous territory or if I’m just being over sensitive? I will say that my husband is more passive and isn’t necessarily the one instigating shared time, it more comes from my friend and her husband seems to go along with it. We are all Christians and looking to raise our kids with good examples. I have felt a tension between feeling like I need to limit shared time and also being a good friend. I am more of a homebody and prefer to just hang with my husband who also would be okay doing the same but I know we need community time as well. Help!

And here’s question number 2, from MarkyMark, in relation to Post Infidelity Stress Disorder, which we devoted a full episode to back in March:

Can you please discuss how to proceed if both partners are experiencing PISD simultaneously?

Listen to the podcast for Caleb’s answer to these two questions!

This is a question that comes up more often than I would have expected. We’ll address this issue of shared interests but at the end of the post I am going to go a whole layer deeper and tell you what really matters for couples that are focusing on this issue.

Some couples seem to spend all their time together and have exactly the same interests. Others seem to have nothing in common and their leisure time is a constant battle between their individual preferences. If you’re in the latter group you may be wondering to what extent you are expected to join in with your spouse’s interests and hobbies. So we’re going to examine this issue and how it can impact marriages.

Clarifying Shared Leisure or Interests

Whether we’re talking hobbies or shared leisure or shared interests, it’s helpful to clarify that in order for something to truly fall into this category the activities need to be[i]

1. 1. Expected to be enjoyable by BOTH spouses
   2. Freely chosen by BOTH spouses

That might sound obvious but often the contention comes in right here because either one person is not enjoying it, or one person does not feel like they were part of the decision. This is a challenge for being honest with each other and with ourselves: don’t call it shared if it’s not.

It’s OK if you’re happy to do something with your spouse because he or she enjoys it and you just enjoy being with them. Just make sure it is fair: so that somehow that imbalance is reciprocated even in other ways.

I think it’s also good to point out that shared activities can be joint or parallel. Joint are interactive and undertaken together. Parallel are undertaken together but not interactive. For example, going to a swimming club: you’ll change separately, you won’t interact while swimming etc. But it’s still a joint activity.

I think this is helpful to note because it begs the question: are you wanting more activities together or more interaction? If you only want the latter, it may be that you’re focusing on the wrong problem. More on that later.

Shared Interests and Marriage Satisfaction

Spending free time together and having shared interests is linked to increased marital satisfaction[ii].

Having shared interests is a sign of high levels of intimacy as it shows that the couples are choosing to spend their free time together. Shared leisure also predicts higher self-reported feelings of love for your spouse and less conflict in the marriage[iii]. So, at least initially, this seems to be a good thing, right?

However, it’s slightly more complicated than just shared free time equals marital satisfaction. For starters, the interests really do have to be shared: a study from 2002[iv] studied couples over 10 years for changes in shared leisure and its effects on marriage. They found that involvement in interests that the husband liked but the wife disliked was “both a cause and a consequence of wives’ dissatisfaction”. Forcing or expecting your spouse to care about the same things as you isn’t going to be good for your marriage.

There are a whole range of other factors that play into this other than simply how long you spend on what activity, and who enjoys it. Here are some of them[v]:

1. 1. Satisfaction with the leisure time (both of you finding it enjoyable) is correlated with marital satisfaction. This satisfaction with the joint leisure time is a more important predictor of marital satisfaction than the amount of time spent in such activities.
   2. Marital satisfaction is linked to the percentage of free time spouses chose to spend with each other, rather than the total number of hours. That’s a very nuanced but interesting detail. It’s saying this: if you have 2 free hours a week, and you spend one of that with your spouse, that’s 50%. If you have 8 free hours a week and you spend 2 of those with your spouse, that’s 25%. Spouse’s with the 50% ratio will be more satisfied with their marriage than the 25% spouse who is getting double the time. So even when couples are busy, spending their limited free time together is good for the marriage.
   3. Satisfaction with amount of leisure time: the extent to which both spouses are happy with the amount of time spent in joint leisure is linked to marital satisfaction. So couples who spend little time in leisure together may still be happily married as long as they are both happy with the amount of joint leisure. This is more about meeting expectations or wants: are you getting enough of what you want.
   4. Similarity of interests was linked to higher marital satisfaction. Having similar interests makes it easier to find activities you’ll both enjoy, motivates you to do things together and means you are still likely to enjoy activities that your spouse chooses.
   5. Interaction: the rate to which couples interact during their shared leisure was linked to marital satisfaction. So taking part in activities that allow direct interaction with the spouse was good for the marriage. Activities that encourage lots of communication between spouses were also linked to marital satisfaction.
   6. Decision making: a link was found between marital satisfaction and the extent to which the individual spouse was involved in choosing the joint leisure activities. But here’s the problem: individual spouses had the highest rates of satisfaction when they had the most control over choice of activities. They did NOT report that equal decision making was the best: both spouses want to have the most control. So obviously for this to work in marriage there needs to be some give-and-take.

So there are some of the issues that you need to think about. Are you happy with the amount of time, and the amount of interaction you get during your leisure time? Do you feel like you get enough of a say in choosing what you do? Interestingly, no gender differences were found for any of the above effects: they’re all important for both men and women.

Interracial Couples

Let’s look at an interesting side note here. Shared leisure was uniquely important for cross-cultural couples who often face additional challenges from language and communication differences and lack of shared culture.

Shared leisure time allowed these couples to positively work on communication and actively establish shared interests and form a shared identity[vi]. We’ve looked in detail at cross-cultural marriages previously and this just adds a little extra bit of info you can use. So you could consider this like an intervention on your marriage: specifically for strengthening your shared identity and communication.

So we’ve seen how shared interests can be good for your marriage if done right. Now let’s think about the activities themselves more. Just to help give a deeper understanding of how the nature of the activity impacts marriage. And then, as promised, I want to show you that deeper part, the thing that really matters and what quite possibly may be the real issue that you’re stuck on as a couple if you can’t come to an agreement in this area.

Types of Shared Leisure

There’s a helpful distinction highlighted in research done by Dayley in 2015[vii] which distinguishes between what they call core and balance activities.

Core vs. Balanced Activities

Core activities are the day to day leisure activities couples take part in that don’t have much of a cost in terms of time or effort and are usually based in the home.

Balance activities are the ones that are more out of the ordinary and require more investment of time and resources: things like skiing, camping etc.

Here’s what this researcher noted:

Core activities lead to closeness and familiarity, help facilitate communication and lead to the development of roles within the couple. Enjoying core activities together is a prerequisite of enjoying balance activities.

Balance activities promote development as a couple and improve negotiation skills and flexibility. This relates to the idea of shared experiences, and how trying new things together can strengthen you as a couple, which we looked at in our recent episode on learning to date your spouse.

Both kinds of activities are important for marital satisfaction. Today’s bonus guide will help you make sure you have a good balance of both.

Competitive Activities

This might be a contentious one. In sports and other competitive leisure activities the relative skill levels of each spouse become important.

Both spouses need to be of a similar skill level in order to make the competition rewarding and engaging[viii]. Common sense right? If tennis is our shared activity and twice a week you get out there and crush me, how long is that gonna last?

There’s some funky gender bias here too. Tell me what you think about this…In a study of 657 couples, marital satisfaction was highest for couples who were of similar skill levels in their chosen activities and couples where the husband had a higher skill level: couples, where the wife had a higher skill level, were significantly less satisfied[ix].

However, spouses who were less skilled than their spouse but still reported enjoying their joint leisure scored very high on marriage satisfaction scales. Suggesting that being happy spending leisure time with your spouse even though you always lose is indicative of a strong marriage. I’m not sure I agree with that conclusion. I wonder if in this case you are simply deriving more enjoyment from the time together and winning or losing doesn’t mean as much to you.

Shared Leisure at Different Life Stages

Not surprisingly, couples experience a decline in the amount of joint leisure time during the transition to parenthood, followed by a gradual increase after the wife’s return to work. This decline did not impact marital satisfaction[x].

However, shared leisure before parenthood was predictive of higher levels of love and lower levels of conflict 1 year later. So it’s good having this in place heading into parenthood, even though it’s not going to remain consistent. And the ability to adjust your leisure patterns to fit with changes in the family life cycle, such as childbirth, is an important factor in marital satisfaction[xi].

What’s the Real Issue?

I told you that I’d get down to brass tacks and tell you what really matters or what might really be going on for you.

So: if you guys can create shared leisure and/or hobbies and that works great for your marriage, then go for it.

But I want to talk to couples who are stuck on this.

You maybe showed up at this episode thinking this was going to solve your problem but you keep coming back to the same issue: you cannot meet on any particular activity that really grabs you both. Or at least is a 6 or 7 out of 10. Know what I mean? So you’re stuck.

I think the deeper issue is that you want to connect with each other. You’re missing each other. You want to have a felt sense of team, of “us”, of togetherness. But you maybe don’t know how to put words to that or how to ask your spouse to work with you to get there and so you’ve chosen a safer, maybe more neutral subject like finding a mutual hobby or activity.

The real issue is: you want a deeper connection with your spouse. You want more interaction at an intimate level. So when it really comes down to it, it’s not about finding the exactly perfect activity for you guys as a couple so much as creating real intimacy and connection.

Now: intimacy comes through deeper knowledge and understanding, through curiosity, and through positive emotions and events. So shared activities can certainly help. But it certainly isn’t the whole story. I want to refer our listeners back to episode 108, How to Create More Intimacy In Your Marriage. To me, that’s the deeper issue.

References:

[i] Knowles, “Marital satisfaction, shared leisure, and leisure satisfaction in married couples with adolescents.”

[ii] Voorpostel, van der Lippe, and Gershuny, “Spending Time Together–Changes Over Four Decades in Leisure Time Spent with a Spouse.”

[iii] Claxton and Perry-Jenkins, “No Fun Anymore.”

[iv] Crawford et al., “Compatibility, Leisure, and Satisfaction in Marital Relationships.”

[v] Knowles, “Marital satisfaction, shared leisure, and leisure satisfaction in married couples with adolescents.”

[vi] Sharaievska, Kim, and Stodolska, “Leisure and Marital Satisfaction in Intercultural Marriages.”

[vii] Dayley, “Marital Leisure Satisfaction.”

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Claxton and Perry-Jenkins, “No Fun Anymore.”

[xi] Sharaievska, Kim, and Stodolska, “Leisure and Marital Satisfaction in Intercultural Marriages.”

What about age difference in marriage? If you marry someone who is quite a bit older than you, does this make your marriage experience different from the experience of couples who are similar in age? Let’s find out!

If you’re struggling with your marriage and may be wondering if the age difference— which is not something you can change — is an issue, the things we go over today should be useful and above all hopeful. Because while the research does identify some challenges faced by couples with large age differences, overall he message is a positive one.

Age Gap Statistics

Let’s start with some facts and stats about age-heterogeneous couples, or those with a bigger than normal age gap. About 10% of marriages have an age difference of more than 10 years[i] and there are more of these kinds of marriages now than in 1980. So these marriages are not uncommon and are on the rise.

As you might imagine, men are more likely to be married to a younger spouse than women[ii] and this percentage increases with age: the percentage of men marrying younger spouses is lowest in the 20-24 age range at 35% and then rises to 67% by age 40 and 73% by age 70.

Interestingly, these effects are observed across all western cultures and most non-western cultures, with a few exceptions, such as The Philippines and Costa Rica, where women marrying younger men is more common[iii]

This pattern of men marrying younger women being the norm has remained stable over the past few decades although the rates of women marrying younger men are increasing. For second marriages and marriages later in life (at age 50+) there is more diversity in age gaps between spouses than in younger couples[iv].

Age-heterogeneous couples are more common in black marriages and in those with lower socioeconomic status[v].

So the statistics are interesting, both for those of us not experiencing such an age gap — Verlynda and I are just over two years apart in age (she’s younger) — and for those who are in a marriage that has a larger age difference. But the real question is, how does age difference impact marital satisfaction?

Age Differences and Marital Satisfaction

Turns out that’s a hard question to answer! Results on the effect of age difference on marriage are very mixed, but overall age-dissimilar marriages are “more alike than dissimilar to coeval marriages[vi]“. “Coeval” just means of the same age.

So this researcher is noting that typically a marriage with an age gap doesn’t look much different than a marriage between couples of similar age. But: other research does note some issues. So let’s just go through all this and look at the different conclusions to see what we can learn.

Older research[vii] often finds that marriages with large age gaps have lower marital quality and satisfaction, and are less stable than couples who are of similar ages.

Being similar is normally considered a good thing and predictive of marital satisfaction: particularly similarity in values, upbringing, and socioeconomic status. Values and norms in society change as time goes on, so couples of significantly different ages may have different values, which could lead to lower agreement and lower overall satisfaction[viii]. So this dissimilarity in upbringing and worldview may lead to conflict and communication, although it’s worth noting that, as we saw in our episode on whether opposites attract, the situation is not as black and white as saying that dissimilarity is bad.

Age differences could also lead to a power imbalance, which can increase tension and conflict. This is based on Resource Theory, a theory of relationships which states that whichever spouse brings more resources to the marriage will exhibit greater control.

The older spouse is likely to be in a better job and have more life experience etc., and so by “bringing more to the marriage” they naturally tend to make more of the decisions. However, it can also work the other way if youth and attractiveness are seen as the “resource”- with the more youthful — and therefore more attractive or desirable — spouse being able to attract and hold sway over an older spouse[ix].

Other research does not support this. A study by Vera et al[x] tested couples on marital satisfaction and conflict frequency and found no effect of age difference for either. A case study by Pyke & Adams in 2010[xi] looked at 8 successful marriages where the husband was 10+ years older than his wife. Common features of these marriages include:

1. Sharing of household tasks
2. Shared interests & leisure time
3. Shifts in responsibilities, work, and childcare during different life stages
4. Similar faith & values

Some of these couples were re-married and had previously been in unhappy marriages where gender roles were highly enforced. And in reaction to that their new marriages were far more gender-neutral in terms of sharing of housework, paid employment and balance of power, despite the husband being much older.

Often this was a process of “discovering” that the traditional gender roles don’t have to apply. These couples had maybe seen or been in traditional but unhappy marriages and now felt free to pursue a marriage that didn’t fit with these norms.

One of the couples studied had a strong Christian faith and so were happy with the husband being the head of the relationship. But this couple still allowed the wife to make her own decisions and control some aspects of the relationship, such as the finances. And both husband and wife were happy with that because it worked for them.

But gender role seems to be where a lot of the discussion does come back to. Gender roles are often assigned and performed unconsciously or automatically. You sort of naturally ft into these different roles if you aren’t consciously trying not to.

Having a much older husband may cause couples to become more consciously aware of the possibility of a power imbalance and so actively work against it. Making the power imbalance more obvious through the age/resource gap allows couples to acknowledge it and then create a dynamic they are both happy with. As the researchers noted, “it does not appear that people are simply a product of the era into which they were born but can change radically in their lives.[xii]” Older spouses might not be as “set in their ways” as you’d think and having a younger spouse may actually encourage and help them to adapt to new modes of life.

Also, some of these couples reported being at similar “life stages” despite their age differences. Here’s one quote from a 43-year-old woman married to a 59-year-old husband: “We’re more at a sort of life stage together. Most men in their 30s are terribly ambitious. Well, he’s really past all that and that was attractive to me. He was just more into enjoying himself.”

I think what we’re seeing in this is that the usual aspects of successful marriage can make the age gap work, too. Things like communication and negotiating roles, commitment, trust and establishing a sense of fairness and equality…all these are required in an age gap marriage too.

So how does the age gap impact marriage? I think the bottom line is that your age difference could be a recognized feature of distress: but it doesn’t need to be. And I’m just putting myself here into the shoes of a spouse in a marriage where age difference seems to be an issue. And I hope this gives you hope: because you can’t fix age difference, right? And maybe that’s what you guys have focused on and that issue gets the blame and so it seems quite hopeless. Because your age is what it is.

But, what if: instead of focussing on changing the impossible — which really only leads you to wonder if divorce is your best option — what if, instead, you focus on the classic issues that can come into any marriage? Issues of power, fairness, conflict, communication, trust, commitment. Those things are all items that you can influence regardless of your respective ages.

Specific Effects of Age Difference

Having said that, let’s not live in denial. There are some specific effects of age difference that we should look at. These may impact you in ways that coeval marriages are not impacted. But remember: it’s the same skills and understanding required to solve these that you would need to have in any marriage.

Age Difference and Fertility

Here’s an obvious one. The age gap between spouses can impact fertility and chances of successfully having children. There are three possible factors:

1. Male fertility reduces (slightly) with age. So being married to an older husband reduces the wife’s chances of becoming pregnant irrespective of her own fertility[xiii].
2. Male mortality rises with age such that the husband may die before the end of the wife’s reproductive years.
3. If age difference does translate into lower marital satisfaction, as some of the research suggests, and you don’t take steps to mitigate this, you may also find yourself choosing not to have children due to marital distress.

Mortality

This is interesting. I had to read this twice to catch it: having an older spouse increases mortality for the younger spouse. This is possibly due to the stress of caring for your older spouse in later life. And, having a younger spouse increases life expectancy for men, but not women[xiv]. So that’s one more reason to work on good conflict and communication skills, right? You may be literally extending your life!

Social Effects

Because marriages with a large age gap are in a minority and go against social norms, popular culture and scientific research often see them as abnormal and look for rationalizations as to why such unusual couples exist.

This leads to stereotypes of men who marry “mother substitutes” or who want to be “in charge” of or “fatherly” towards younger wives rather than being equal with them.

Women who marry much older men can likewise be portrayed as “marrying him for his money” rather than out of love.

People see these unusual couples and assume there must be something wrong with them[xv]. Such disapproval from the family and from society can negatively influence marital satisfaction[xvi]. This is probably less of an issue in 2017 than 20 or 30 years ago but is still something to be aware of.

This is just an awareness point. You can’t control what others think or the interpretations they provide. But you can choose to enjoy your spouse regardless of these external, extrinsic valuations. You can choose to evaluate your marriage on your own terms rather than on others’ terms.

Other differences

Having a big “gap” in other ways, such as a gap in education or socioeconomic status, can compound the effect of an age gap and create a further imbalance in power[xvii]. Again: it doesn’t need to be a problem. But if you’re contemplating marriage to an older or younger person it’s definitely worth discussing.

So those are some of the specific effects of age differences to be aware of.

But, let’s end on a positive note with some ways to make an age-gap marriage work well.

Summary of ways to make an age-gap marriage work:

1. Develop shared values and life stages (wanting the same things from life). It’s not about being in the same age stage but rather the same life stage. You’ll then want to actively work to change your values and perceptions of marriage so that you can align these stages if those perceptions differ.
2. Be aware of the possibility of social stigma and other effects such as fertility issues. Come to terms with these as a couple; don’t carry these concerns along.
3. Pursue shared interests and leisure time.
4. Engage in joint decision making and keep an eye on the balance of power and perceptions of fairness.
5. Create a dynamic that you are happy with, whether that is complementarian and gender-neutral or still somewhat traditional. It’s your marriage: shape it how you want it!

References:

[i] “What’s Age Got to Do With It? A Case Study Analysis of Power and Gender in Husband-Older MarriagesJournal of Family Issues – Karen Pyke, Michele Adams, 2010.”

[ii] Bytheway, “The Variation with Age of Age Differences in Marriage.”

[iii] Casterline, Williams, and McDonald, “The Age Difference Between Spouses.”

[iv] “What’s Age Got to Do With It? A Case Study Analysis of Power and Gender in Husband-Older MarriagesJournal of Family Issues – Karen Pyke, Michele Adams, 2010.”

[v] Vera, Berardo, and Berardo, “Age Heterogamy in Marriage.”

[vi] Berardo, Appel, and Berardo, “Age Dissimilar Marriages.”

[vii] Vera, Berardo, and Berardo, “Age Heterogamy in Marriage.”

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] “What’s Age Got to Do With It? A Case Study Analysis of Power and Gender in Husband-Older MarriagesJournal of Family Issues – Karen Pyke, Michele Adams, 2010.”

[x] Vera, Berardo, and Berardo, “Age Heterogamy in Marriage.”

[xi] “What’s Age Got to Do With It? A Case Study Analysis of Power and Gender in Husband-Older MarriagesJournal of Family Issues – Karen Pyke, Michele Adams, 2010.”

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Casterline, Williams, and McDonald, “The Age Difference Between Spouses.”

[xiv] DREFAHL, “HOW DOES THE AGE GAP BETWEEN PARTNERS AFFECT THEIR SURVIVAL?”

[xv] Vera, Berardo, and Berardo, “Age Heterogamy in Marriage.”

[xvi] Sinclair, Hood, and Wright, “Revisiting the Romeo and Juliet Effect (Driscoll, Davis, &amp; Lipetz, 1972).”

[xvii] “What’s Age Got to Do With It? A Case Study Analysis of Power and Gender in Husband-Older MarriagesJournal of Family Issues – Karen Pyke, Michele Adams, 2010.”

If you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed during conflict, then this article is for you. We describe the psychological experience of flooding: when you white out or shut down or get hijacked by your own emotions. Usually, this happens during a fight with your spouse and it never helps resolve the issue you’re facing. In this article, we talk about what flooding is and how you can calm yourself down in order to navigate through conflict more successfully. 

What is Flooding?

This is a problem that marriage researchers have been paying attention to since the 1990’s when Dr. Gottman first began describing it. It’s a common experience — typically for the withdrawer in marriage, and, since the husband is most commonly the withdrawer in a pursue-withdraw cycle, it happens the most to men. Of course, there are some wives who experience it too.

Gottman defines flooding as “the subjective sense of being overwhelmed by the partner’s negative affect, finding it to be unexpected and intense, and feeling as though one’s information processing is impaired.”[1] In other words, in the face of your intense anger or upset I get overwhelmed and shut down. Flooding is not an emotion in itself. It’s just the experience of becoming overwhelmed and feeling like your thoughts are disorganized and you don’t know how to respond.[2]

How to Recognize Flooding

The more obvious signs of flooding to watch for are just that sense of being overstimulated, feeling that you are overwhelmed, and mentally disorganized.[3] It will typically prompt a fight or flight response in you so that you will want to either respond with anger or withdraw from the situation. About 80% of husbands will stonewall in this situation[4] which looks like emotional withdrawal (shutting down) and sometimes physical withdrawal (e.g., heading to the garage) as well.

The less obvious signs of flooding are much like an intense stress response. These signs may include: increased respiration, an increased heart rate, an increase in blood pressure and perspiration. At the same time, you may notice yourself starting to have very negative or catastrophic thoughts about the relationship, for example thinking that “this is never going to work” or feeling very hopeless.

Impact of Flooding

It’s also important to notice that flooding may really compel you to want to put a stop to the situation that caused or prompted the flooding. In other words, you’ll want to shut down the argument or end the conflict, almost at any cost. It’s like you are driven to escape the situation.[5]

The really difficult thing about flooding is that while it is something that happens to you during conflict (nobody does this intentionally to themselves) it is almost universally interpreted as you doing something to or against them! So, the more withdrawn you get as you feel overwhelmed, the more your spouse is likely to turn up the volume. In actual fact, as a result of the flooding, you may even be unable to hear what your spouse is saying.[6]

This inability to hear your spouse is a key part of the cycle that we unpack and unravel with our marriage counseling clients as we help them find new ways to navigate conflict. In this article, we are going to talk about why this happens and how to calm yourself down.

Why Do I Flood?

You may be wondering, why does this happen to me? Or perhaps it is your spouse that gets flooded and you’re asking yourself, “Why does he do that?” It’s important to be aware of this because as the intensity of conflict increases, you will reach a point where your thinking brain is shut out. The thinking part is the piece that can examine the complexities — the gray areas — of an issue and help you sort it out by considering your spouse’s point of view (the facts at hand, your own emotional state, etc.). You do really have to be on top of your mental and emotional game to navigate some marital conflict. But when you are flooded: you don’t have access to those parts of your brain which makes navigating the conflict effectively impossible.

So why does it happen to you? Here are some possible contributing factors:

1. You may be more emotionally sensitive than you realize. While you are probably accused of insensitivity when flooded, it may actually be that you are more sensitive to your spouse’s emotions and so you very easily experience them as threatening or overwhelming.[7]
2. A history of intense anger. If your history includes experiencing intense anger from your spouse or in your family of origin, you may be more vulnerable to flooding.
3. It’s possible that you if you grew up in a family with little to no conflict and your spouse has a volatile or assertive conflict style that this could be overwhelming for you. a history of not experiencing direct anger could be a contributing factor too getting flooded when your partner expresses anger.
4. If your attachment style includes a strong fear of rejection or abandonment, you are more likely to experience flooding.[8]

The point here, again, is that flooding is not something you are doing to your spouse. Undoubtedly, it is frustrating for your spouse. And walking away from your spouse with no explanation or suggestion to reconnect is definitely not something that will help your marriage. At the same time, some severely flooded spouses will walk away because they feel if they can just leave and the situation and calm down then the marriage will be OK. That is very sincere, and may not have any negative intentions involved, but ultimately, it’s not going to work either.

You will need to find a way to calm yourself, stay engaged, and see the issue through. At the same time, your spouse will need to learn to ask for what they need in ways that do not trigger you and make you feel overwhelmed. It has to be a cooperative effort with shared responsibility.

How to Calm Down During Flooding

Once you understand what is going on when you experience flooding, the next step is to look at what you can do to help yourself calm down when you experience it.

The first thing to do is just to become aware of when you are flooded. Self-awareness is a critical first step because you cannot respond to what you are not aware of.

Observe what is happening inside you. You will want to create some distance between yourself and the storm of thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. Even just noting to yourself that you have gotten activated and your body is starting to react is helpful.[9]

One good strategy is to prepare ahead of time and mentally store an image of your spouse at his or her best. Picture a moment in time — a snapshot that you can wrap a frame around to keep other negative experiences out of — when you experienced your spouse as loving, generous and well-meaning.[10] When you get flooded and if you need to take a break, you can recall this image to remind yourself of your spouse’s good will towards you.

Another image that may be useful is one you can use in the moment when you recognize you are flooded. Just picturing a large complex wheel that is spinning furiously and then you just slowly imagine slowing and slowing that wheel down. As it slows down, remind yourself to be grounded. Feel the chair you’re in, notice the comforts in the room around you of furniture or a blanket you have or a pet, and just observe and let go of some of that fear that has built up inside you as you slow that wheel down. That can be a helpful grounding technique.

How To Take A Break

Finally, it’s important to give yourself time to calm down. There are helpful and unhelpful ways of taking a break so we want to describe how to do so in a way that is helpful. 

If you are in conflict with your spouse you may need a 10 to 30 minute break. During the break, try not to think about the fight or what to say to your spouse: if you keep thinking over things you will stay escalated. 

Remember to do the following things before take a break:

1. Before you separate, be sure to tell your spouse when you are coming back so that they do not feel abandoned or that you are just walking away. They need to know you are committed to resolving the issue with them.
2. During the break, read a book or magazine or do something self-soothing. Exercise can be helpful too: a walk or run or yoga.
3. Take your mind off what is happening so that when you come back to the disagreement you can have a fresh start to the conversation. Hopefully, you can also begin with a softer start to the conversation. This is a great antidote to flooding.[11]

For the Other Spouse

As a final note for the spouse of the person who gets flooded, it’s really important to recognize that this is not something your spouse is doing to you. It may be difficult to do this if you’ve had to try hard to figure out why it happens and try to make sense of their flooding. If it has frequently felt like you were being shut out, it’s hard to not to take it personally. And it is very hard to get past that feeling of rejection.

The flooding really is something that’s happening to them. It is true that you most likely have a part to play in it too. You may not fully realize how intimidating your anger is to your spouse or how much they are afraid of losing you. Perhaps they have coupled their flooding with some bad habits or reactions that are not appropriate or acceptable for conflict. But all of these things are part of the dynamic that happens between you during conflict.

The solution does not lie in you preventing or fixing their flooding problem. It lies in changing the entire dynamic between you so that you solve issues as a team, facing the dragon of your negative cycle rather than as opponents in an arena facing one another.
This is the work we do with couples in our online counseling agency. We deliver proven, well-established approaches to couples counseling over secure video call. If you’d like more information just head on over to our website at https://therapevo.com/.

References

[1] Heather Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale,” 2017, https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/doi/pdf/10.1177/1073191118755911.
[2] Foran et al., 20.
[3] Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale.”
[4] Julie Gottman, Julie Gottman on When Partners Get Flooded, 2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0pCpvMs6oM.
[5] Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale.”
[6] Stephanie Manes, “Making Sure Emotional Flooding Doesn’t Capsize Your Relationship,” The Gottman Institute (blog), 2013, https://www.gottman.com/blog/making-sure-emotional-flooding-doesnt-capsize-your-relationship/.
[7] Alina Sotskova, Erica Woodin, and Lisa Gou, “Hostility, Flooding, and Relationship Satisfaction: Predicting Trajectories of Psychological Aggression Across the Transition to Parenthood,” Aggressive Behavior 41 (2014): 134–48.
[8] Amy Hooper et al., “Revisiting the Basics: Understanding Potential Demographic Differences With John Gottman’s Four Horsemen and Emotional Flooding,” The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families 25, no. 3 (2017): 224–29, https://doi-org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1177%2F1066480717710650.
[9] Manes, “Making Sure Emotional Flooding Doesn’t Capsize Your Relationship.”
[10] Manes.
[11] Gottman, Julie Gottman on When Partners Get Flooded.

Purpose and meaning. This is that deeper layer in marriage where you get to explore the meaning of having been brought together as a couple. And, how you want to impact the world. How you want to create a legacy: the value that you leave behind as your life comes to a close.

Everyone wants to feel like their life has meaning, and marriage creates a special kind of meaning for couples: shared identity and sense of purpose, and a partner with whom you can impact the world.

Shared purpose starts with finding meaning. Meaning-making is drawn from our individual identities, shaped by nature and nurture. Once we are married and begin to have repeated interactions with our spouse, the interaction formulates a more stable sense of self (of who I am, who you are).

So my relationship to Verlynda, as my spouse, modifies my identity. And then we create this common world together based on our interactions and on the common front we present to the world[i].

Meaning Starts With Your Shared Story

Every couple creates a shared story of their relationship: how they have interpreted the events that led to them coming together and a joint vision for the future. I see this in our lives. Just over a year ago we were preparing to leave on a year-long trip in our travel trailer. Having to create this vision ourselves and then explain it to others confronted us with the need to make meaning or have some sense of shared purpose. Having to explain yourself and rationalize what you’re doing prompts this process.

I think any major life transition for a couple is going to result in this process of creating a vision for yourselves and for others to grab hold of.

But I think particularly at the start of a marriage, in its early stages, couples have to create this shared sense of identity and create a sense of meaning to their relationship. They’re bringing their individuality together, but they are also creating a new, jointly developed meaning. And this helps the couples make sense of their relationship and also it makes the future seem more stable and certain[ii].

So a study my researcher provided looked at the stories that newlywed couples told about how they met and about their experiences dating. The content of these stories and the shared meaning they represented was a strong predictor of marital wellbeing[iii]. Here’s some specific points of interest from this research:

Storytelling Process. Telling the stories in a collaborative way, with high agreement over the details, predicts marital wellbeing as it suggests a strongly held sense of shared meaning to the relationship. Disagreement over the details or conflict during storytelling suggests couples have not formed a strong sense of meaning. This is where we start to see purpose being defined: the couple has a shared, synchronous sense of having been brought together.

Storytelling Style. Telling the story as a narrative, rather than just a list of events, and telling it with a sense of drama are both linked to marital wellbeing as they show that the couple are very invested in their shared history. This animated interest reflects some of the value they place on the process of uniting their lives together.

Story Content: what the couples actually chose to tell in their stories was also significant:

1. • Attributing tensions or difficulties to factors outside the couple, rather than to yourself or your partner, indicates that the couple have a strong sense of cohesion and was linked to high wellbeing
   • Framing the story as a conflict or focusing on barriers that were overcome, such as overcoming past relationships or dealing with disapproval from parents, was linked to lower satisfaction. If the whole “story” of your relationship is defined as one of conflict and turmoil then it will naturally become less stable.

What I take from this is that couples who have some deep sense of destiny or providence or God’s will in bringing them together have a more meaningful story behind why they exist as a couple.

This core identity piece then becomes a platform for how they as a couple now begin to explore how they are going to impact the world together.

So the shared story is a key piece.

Other Factors Affecting Shared Identity

So that’s a key piece but there are also four other factors that we’ll cover briefly.

Family. The extent to which your pre-marriage family is still involved in your married life is linked to marital satisfaction. This means that even as you develop shared meaning in your marriage it is important to remain in touch with your individual identity and history[iv].

What becomes especially critical is having a shared understanding of this. As in, both spouses need to understand the importance of these relationships. I’m not advocating for enmeshment, but rather the healthy and balanced, marriage-cantered approach to family of origin relationships.

Flexibility. Everyone has their own identity and sense of purpose and meaning, as well as expectations about what they want the meaning of their marriage to be. Levels of flexibility are therefore a strong factor in a couple’s ability to create a successfully shared sense of identity[v]. Again, this makes sense: developing this identity has to be collaborative.

Romantic vs Companionate love. Couples whose shared meaning (measured using the stories they tell about each other) were based mostly on positive relationship qualities such as intimacy, satisfaction and commitment were more likely to have satisfying and stable marriages.

This was not true for couples whose identity was based mostly on passion and romance[vi]. Passion alone isn’t enough to create a long-term joint sense of purpose. This is possible because romantic love typically doesn’t last the whole length of the relationship, whereas commitment and intimacy do. Although as we saw in our episode on the neuroscience of love, this doesn’t always have to be the case.

Positive and Negative meanings. Newlywed couples are influenced by each other’s negative views of marriage (things they believe would make a marriage bad), but were not influenced by each other’s positive views[vii].

This suggests that couples come into a marriage with a clear idea of what a shared marriage identity should not be like, but that working out what their shared meaning SHOULD be taking a little longer.

Impacting the World Together

We’ve seen some of the factors that can influence a joint sense of purpose. Now we’re going to turn to creating this sense of purpose for yourself and your marriage. One of the more prominent ways that we see couples living out shared purpose is through joint ventures. This podcast is one example of a joint venture like that.

Joint Ventures

When it is business based, research reports that the love bond between couples grows stronger over time as they are involved in joint business ventures[viii]. For these co-entrepreneurial couples, part of the basis of this is that they are creating shared experiences, which increases intimacy. There may be complex combinations of work and family roles and dynamics[ix] involved, as the couple find their own way of balancing work and family life, but these couples typically show the following qualities:

1. Strong family values
2. High levels of mutual trust and confidence in each other’s abilities
3. Strong commitment to equality in the marriage[x]

Of course, the ‘joint’ part of the venture doesn’t need to look like each spouse taking on half of the business responsibilities. Sometimes one spouse is running the business and the other is contributing in other ways such as household management, network or making connections for the business, or providing spousal leadership for the business, acting in an advisory role or keeping the other spouse grounded[xi].

Of course, this isn’t the only way to create purpose in your marriage but it is one way that you can. I typically see this type of joint venture as either having meaning intrinsically: it is helping the couple create the lifestyle they want for themselves and their family, and/or extrinsically as a venture that has a social impact on the world around. Our podcast would fit into the latter category in helping thousands of marriage every week.

But I would also challenge couples who are listening today to think about joint ventures that do not have a commercial side, even.

This could look like involvement in your local church and serving the church itself or the community through the church. It could be a direct involvement in community activities. It can also be just being involved in local community boards, like a school committee or involved in 4H where you’re having a positive influence on the lives of others. There are so many possibilities.

Sometimes that joint purpose is going to look like you both sharing equally in the activity. Other times it’s going to look like one spouse taking care of the home/kids once a week so that he can free his wife up to do something purposeful. Even though they are going to be separated that evening, that is still an activity with shared purpose and meaning because they are both investing in it.

Parenting

For those who are able to have children, raising a family is one of the most significant ways a couple can find meaning together and leave a lasting impact on the world.

As we have seen in earlier episodes on parenting, raising a family has both positive and negative effects on life satisfaction[xii]. Parenting can actually decrease day-to-day satisfaction, especially when children are young, due to restrictions on freedom and increased pressures and demands.

However, levels of life-meaning, that more long-term sense that your life is making an impact, are much higher for those with children than those without. And couples with grown-up children living away from home have both high day to day satisfaction and high life-meaning. Obviously raising kids is tough, but I’m sure most parents would agree there are few things more meaningful you can undertake.

Marriage Quality

Marriage itself also helps people feel more like their life has meaning generally, as well as offering ways of finding shared meaning. Levels of intimacy are often found to be the highest predictor of satisfaction and life meaning[xiii].

Marriages are a source of intimacy, passion and contentment, and these forms of positive affect all cause people to rate the meaning of their lives more highly on a day to day basis[xiv].

So a happy marriage helps you feel like your life has purpose and meaning, and can also help you feel like your actions have meaning even when things are difficult, like when caring for young children[xv].

This really goes a long way towards reinforcing the importance of investing in one’s marriage. When you create a safe, secure, loving relationship this becomes a safe harbor from which you can explore different ways of making meaning and purpose in the world around you.

On the other hand, when things in your marriage are not going well, you have so much energy directed toward this that it is much more difficult to create a legacy around you. Although, in some cases, the pursuit of outside ventures can serve as a distraction from the realities of what is not going well in your marriage. But even in this situation, think of how much more impactful you could be on the world around you if your marriage was a safe, secure place.

References:

[i] Lopata, “Self-Identity in Marriage and Widowhood.”

[ii] Orbuch, Veroff, and Holmberg, “Becoming a Married Couple.”

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Wamboldt and Reiss, “Defining a Family Heritage and a New Relationship Identity.”

[v] Levine and Busby, “Co-Creating Shared Realities with Couples.”

[vi] Timmer and Orbuch, “The Links Between Premarital Parenthood, Meanings of Marriage, and Marital Outcomes*.”

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Marshack, “Coentrepreneurial Couples.”

[ix] John Blenkinsopp and Gill Owens, “At the Heart of Things.”

[x] Marshack, “Coentrepreneurial Couples.”

[xi] John Blenkinsopp and Gill Owens, “At the Heart of Things.”

[xii] UMBERSON and GOVE, “Parenthood and Psychological Well-Being.”

[xiii] Cummins, “The Domains of Life Satisfaction.”

[xiv] King et al., “Positive Affect and the Experience of Meaning in Life.”

[xv] Pines et al., “Job Burnout and Couple Burnout in Dual-Earner Couples in the Sandwiched Generation.”

Remarriage after bereavement. Maybe I get a little selfish and hope that I’ll never have to face the loss of a spouse. When I’m feeling more noble and altruistic, I hope my spouse will never have to face it. But regardless, nearly 100% of couples face the loss of their significant other during their lifetime. And so if this reality is so common, it’s worth talking about.

Losing your spouse is one of the hardest things any person can go through. Amidst the grief and sadness, you have the question of remarriage: when is it ok to remarry? How will my new marriage compare to my old one? Should I even be comparing them? Today we’re going to be looking at this topic and hopefully offering some hope to those of you in this situation.

Background Info about Remarriage

We’re just talking about remarriage after bereavement today. Not remarriage after divorce- that’s a rather separate issue. But for both of us here at OYF: this is our first marriage. We don’t actually have any close connections in our peer group who have remarried after bereavement. And both sets of our parents are still living. So we’re definitely abstracted from this in terms of experience.

But we do have some research to help frame the issue of remarriage. Here are some stats to get us started:

• Men are more likely to remarry across all age groups.
• Remarriage rates decline with age for both men and women. Women’s likelihood of remarrying declines more sharply with age than it does for men[i]. As they get older they become less likely to remarry.
• These patterns are true across cultures.

Remarriage rates decline with age for both genders. This could be due to a lack of availability of potential partners, or may also reflect a reduced interest in remarrying.

Older widows often cite freedom from having to care for their spouse as a reason not to remarry in later life[ii]. Which makes sense — if you see someone caring for a spouse with a long, protracted terminal illness: they are not only learning to become more independent as the illness progresses, but they are also carrying a huge burden of care. And I could definitely see someone coming through that being more reluctant to remarry.

When do people tend to remarry? Rates of remarriage drop just after bereavement and then rise. This is different from the remarriage rates for divorce, where people often remarry quickly.

Clearly, a time of mourning is needed before remarriage after the death of your spouse, but perhaps this finding is also hinting at a social norm or taboo stating that it is inappropriate to remarry too quickly after being widowed[iii].

12 months is sometimes considered the acceptable time to wait before re-marriage, and there is actually a large increase in marriages among bereaved men and women in the 13th month after the bereavement[iv]. This suggests that a good percentage of the bereaved consider a year an appropriate time to wait before moving on with a new partner.

I think if you’re recently bereaved then that alone should offer some hope: right now you may feel like you’ll never recover, but perhaps it’s comforting to know that for some people the healing process moves along to a point they feel ok remarrying after just a year.

Of course, it doesn’t always go that way, and every circumstance is different. Overall rates of remarriage are much lower after bereavement than divorce: 5% of women and 12% of bereaved men remarry, compared to 69% and 78% of divorced women and men, respectively[v].

Interestingly, widowed people often marry other widows, with 45% or bereaved men and 42% of bereaved women doing so[vi]. Perhaps the shared experience of having gone through such a terrible loss makes them uniquely able to comfort and support each other.

Issues Affecting Remarriage

We’re going to cover some interesting factoids here, talking about the influences that come into play.

In a general sense: either post-divorce or post-bereavement, it’s my understanding that the divorce rates for second marriages are higher than the divorce rates for first marriages. I think the takeaway from this is to note that it is probably harder to make that second marriage work well and we’re going to see how many different factors play into this.

I’m not mentioning this because I have an agenda to discourage second marriages, but rather to make sure that folks listening to this are better prepared and better educated so that they can come to their second marriage more informed and prepared. And, consequently, have a greater likelihood of real enjoyment of that second marriage.

Availability of Partners: Availability of potential partners is lower the older you get, especially for women since older unmarried women greatly outnumber older unmarried men. This is mostly down to the simple fact that women live longer than men on average.

Widows/widowers living in big urban areas have lower rates of remarriage than those living in less urban areas, possibly due to having less of an established social circle[vii].

Social Support: Levels of social support can affect the availability of partners but also the desire to remarry. Bereaved men who had higher levels of social support from friends and family reported less desire for future romantic relationships at 6 and 18 months after the bereavement[viii]. Having a supportive network around you may help ease the loneliness and make remarrying less of a priority.

Women tend to have larger social networks and trusted confidants than men, and also typically receive more support from their children after bereavement. So men’s generally higher desire to remarry may be partially due to a lack of alternative social support. In fact when bereaved men report having high levels of social support their desire to remarry is no higher than that of women[ix].

Economic factors: Remarrying is often seen as economically advantageous over staying single. Especially for women, who typically tend to have lower incomes or work fewer hours[x].

This effect gets less pronounced in later adulthood as traditional gender roles become less important: couples are no longer looking after children, are potentially not in employment anymore and so on. So the advantage of remarrying may be less in later life. But for many bereaved individuals, it makes sense to remarry on a practical, economic level as well as an emotional one.

Social norms: as we noted above, there may be a perception that remarrying quickly after bereavement is inappropriate and that there is an acceptable way to grieve. Time clearly plays a factor in this. In one study bereaved men and women both report desire to “remarry someday” at 6 months from the bereavement and a desire to “start dating now” at 18 months[xi].

Quality of the marriage: couples who had high levels of conflict were more likely to want to start dating again more quickly[xii]. I guess it’s important to remember that no marriage is perfect and just because a spouse passed away that unfortunately doesn’t always mean that the marriage was free from problems. And that’s bound to have an impact on the surviving spouse.

So these are some of the factors that come into play. Now we’re going to take a look at some of the benefits of remarriage but I also want to mention that we have created a bonus guide for our much-appreciated patrons.

Benefits of Remarrying

The research shows that remarriage is almost universally a good thing when undertaken in the right way.

First, remarried men and women have lower symptoms of depression. Research suggests that remarriage then is not a reaction to loneliness and lack of coping, but in fact, signals coming to terms with the loss and moving on[xiii]. I take it from this that the remarriage can act as a catalyst for grieving through all the stages, finding closure, and looking for creating the next part of your story.

Perhaps there’s also a cautionary note here: are you ready to move on, or are you looking for someone to help you through the grieving process? The former is a great reason to remarry; the latter is not a foundation for a fulfilling marriage.

The next research observation is more just a correlation, not necessarily a causation. But widows who remarried had higher household incomes and worried less about finances than those who did not remarry[xiv]. Obviously, nobody thinks it’s a worthwhile idea to remarry just for money, but financial considerations are real.

Another research study noted that widows/widowers dating or being remarried 25 months after the bereavement was highly correlated with greater overall psychological wellbeing[xv] . Again, yet another study noted that over time, remarried individuals showed improvements over non-remarried individuals in life satisfaction, resolution of grief, self-perceived coping, stress levels, self-esteem, physical health and levels of social support[xvi].

If you’re bereaved today and considering remarriage I hope that this can give you some factors to consider and that these findings are also an encouragement to you as well.

Attachment Ties

And now we come back to attachment. This is a concept we’ve addressed in previous episodes, such as our examination of the neuroscience of love and dating. Attachment refers to the love bond that exists between a couple. Now when you form that over 10, 25 or 40+ years and then one spouse passes away, this is a huge disruption in that bond. But you’re still left with your part of the bond.

Remarrying allows you the opportunity to form a new attachment bond, not plug the old one into someone else. That old bond still lingers and will continue to affect you as the bereaved spouse. To quote one researcher, “Human attachment bonds are established and maintained at emotional levels so deep that the mere fact of the physical death cannot disrupt these bonds.[xvii]” So then remarrying becomes a process of both letting go and holding on.

This holding on part surprised me, to be honest. But these same researchers noted that holding on to the previous bond can help strengthen the bereaved spouse and add to their mental “resources” and sense of purpose. This is done through:

• Caring about the deceased after their death, eg “I’m glad he didn’t have to see X”, or “I’m glad she’s at peace now”
• Maintaining intimacy, for example by thinking about how the deceased spouse would’ve reacted or acting in a way that they would’ve liked
• Staying in touch with the deceased spouse’s family and still seeing yourself as a part of that group. “The original sense of family in which the deceased was a central figure persists with an elasticity that allows it to be restored again and again.[xviii]“
• Reaffirming the significant part the deceased spouse played in shaping your “self”. Your spouse was instrumental in forming who you are as a person, so continuing to act in accordance with this helps keep your sense of self intact and can have a positive impact on your self-esteem.

So forming a new bond and sense of self is possible by building on the old one. Commitment to the new spouse does not necessarily replace commitment to the old.

Of course, you have to watch the comparisons. Comparisons to the old spouse are inevitable but can be harmful if made explicit or brought up in a negative way. Bereaved and remarried couples may want to make an implicit agreement not to talk about the old spouse, or the bereaved spouse may wish to talk about their lost spouse but only with people other than the new spouse.

So the processing and thoughts are going to happen but the question becomes, how can you find a thoughtful and respectful way of allowing that processing to occur without it being a threat to the formation of your new marriage bond?

Another hiccup to watch for is: what if your second marriage is better? Remarried couples may also experience a level of guilt if the new marriage goes well or if certain aspects of it are “better” than the original marriage. You may feel like you’re betraying your deceased spouse.

But back on the positive side — and I think this is pretty cool — your sense of self can expand in the new marriage. No two marriages are the same and the bereaved spouse can learn more about them self by how they relate to their new spouse[xix]. Your marriage to your deceased spouse helped shape who you are and enabled you to grow, and the same can be true of your new marriage.

This process of self-expansion increases the intimacy you feel with the new spouse, as we saw in our recent episode on increasing your romantic passion and learning to date your spouse again. In this sense, the new marriage does not replace the old one but “goes beyond” it. “There’s no subtraction, only addition[xx]“.

I think I saw this in a couple we met on our trip — his first wife passed away. Before she did, she told him that he must remarry and he should know that she was going to be insanely jealous but he had to do it anyways.

He told me this through tears — she was an incredible lady in her own rights and he still misses her. Now, a third party told me that his second wife is nothing like his first wife. We only knew his second wife, who is a dynamic, outspoken, entrepreneurial, creative lady. If you’re in the room with her, you know she’s there. And I can totally see how being in this second marriage is absolutely expanding his sense of self and going beyond what he came to learn of himself in his first marriage.

So there is this expansion of personhood that is likely to come with a second marriage as well. I think that can be positive to help offset some of the ongoing sense of loss from the ending of that first attachment bond.

So I hope this has been encouraging for those of you who have been bereaved and are considering remarriage. And also for those who are remarried to normalize some of your experience and possibly open up possibilities for how you can continue to grow and expand as a person as well.

References:

[i] Smith, Zick, and Duncan, “Remarriage Patterns Among Recent Widows and Widowers.”

[ii] Sweeney, “Remarriage and Stepfamilies.”

[iii] Smith, Zick, and Duncan, “Remarriage Patterns Among Recent Widows and Widowers.”

[iv] Klass, Silverman, and Nickman, Continuing Bonds.

[v] Sweeney, “Remarriage and Stepfamilies.”

[vi] Klass, Silverman, and Nickman, Continuing Bonds.

[vii] Smith, Zick, and Duncan, “Remarriage Patterns Among Recent Widows and Widowers.”

[viii] Carr, “The Desire to Date and Remarry among Older Widows and Widowers.”

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Moorman, Booth, and Fingerman, “Women’s Romantic Relationships After Widowhood.”

[xv] Schneider et al., “Dating and Remarriage over the First Two Years of Widowhood.”

[xvi] Burks et al., “Bereavement and Remarriage for Older Adults.”

[xvii] Klass, Silverman, and Nickman, Continuing Bonds.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Ibid.

Perfectionism is not too far from any of our hearts. Certainly, anyone who is on Facebook or Instagram knows that we, just like everybody else, tend to present the perfect image of ourselves on these channels. But: we want to ask the question, how does this affect our marriage?

The topic of perfectionism was suggested by one of our readers, and it’s certainly an interesting one. What is perfectionism? Is it a good thing? How can it impact marriage when one spouse is only satisfied with perfection and the other finds it hard to live up to their standards?

What is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism usually comes in one of three flavors[i]:

1. 1. Self-oriented perfectionism: requiring yourself to be perfect
   2. Other-oriented perfectionism: requiring other people to be perfect
   3. Socially prescribed perfectionism: belief that others hold unrealistic expectations about you: believing that others require you to be perfect.

A related concept is perfectionistic self-presentation, which is the desire to be seen as perfect by others[ii]. This includes actions such as self-promotion, desire to hide imperfections, and reluctance to talk about your own imperfections. Obviously needing to be seen as perfect is going to impact a marriage in quite a big way, especially if you’re afraid to be vulnerable around your spouse.

I think it’s helpful to take a step back from the role that perfectionism plays in your marriage and ask, “What kind of perfectionism do we each struggle with?” You’ll want to nuance your response based on whether it is self or other-oriented, or if it socially prescribed.

Is Perfectionism a Good Thing?

There are mixed thoughts on this.

When you have these perfectionistic traits, it is inevitable that you would feel unsatisfied or stressed if you do not meet the standards set on you (by yourself or by perceived others).

Some may argue that it is useful or essential for a high-achieving life while others argue that it is unhelpful or detrimental to your wellbeing.

Some researchers have differentiated between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, in which adaptive perfectionism is seen as a form of motivation and hard-working attitude, and so is linked to positive outcomes.

Adaptive perfectionism is correlated with higher achievement but neither perfectionism nor achievement are correlated with life satisfaction[iii]. However, both adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism are linked to highly negative outcomes such as anxiety, depression and low self-esteem, as well as a variety of interpersonal problems, which we’ll get to in just a moment[iv]. So even if perfectionism helps drive you to succeed it comes at a steep cost.

So the bottom line is it may help you achieve more but it will cost you. For me, I think perfectionism is contrary to the gospel. Those of us who are born again are all valuable, fallible children of God. So our worth is something instilled in us and given to us but we also acknowledge that we have an innate, undeniable potential to fail.

Perfectionism is incapable of helping with either point, although it attempts to. It cannot provide worth because when is perfect ever perfect enough? And it cannot preserve us from proving that we have a fallen nature: that we sin, we act in ways that are not congruent with our values or with God’s values, we let our spouses down from time to time.

So in my mind, perfectionism just becomes a breeding ground for shame. For that reason, it is unhelpful.

The Effect of Perfectionism on Marriage

So let’s look at how this touches marriage specifically.

The reality is that perfectionism in marriage is more likely to help us get our ugly on than anything else. Let’s break this down according to the three kinds of perfectionism: self-oriented, other-oriented and socially prescribed.

Self-Oriented Effects

The fear of being seen as imperfect may prompt you to hide parts of yourself from your spouse. Physically, yes, but I’m thinking mainly in terms of psychologically. This really then becomes a fear of intimacy: you can’t present a perfect version of yourself, so now you must conceal parts of yourself[v].

In so doing you create a barrier towards getting to know each other more deeply. But more importantly, you also miss out on the opportunity of disarming the perfectionism. If your spouse is a safe person, it is a profound experience to let someone see parts of you that you are ashamed about and to have them still accept and love and embrace you.

Also this touches your sex life. The belief that you have to be the perfect sexual partner (one expression of self-oriented perfectionism) is significantly related to marital distress and sexual dysfunction, particularly for men but also for wives[vi].

So this kind of perfectionism really can hold you back from experiencing deeper intimacy. And intimacy is the key to so much of marriage, from better sex to reigniting the passion.

Other-Oriented Effects

Requiring other people to be perfect leads to a variety of unhelpful interpersonal behaviors. That’s a nice way of saying that it can make you nasty. These behaviors can include authoritarian, exploitative and dominant actions towards other people, as well as the increased likeliness of blaming other people for problems rather than blaming yourself[vii].

What you’re likely to see is more conflict or more avoidance, and you’re likely to see wives taking on more self-blame or more likely to act out of self-interest than for the benefit of the marriage. And you’re likely to see husbands launching into conflict more readily.

As with self-oriented perfectionism, it’s going to impact your sex life too. As a wife if you have a high level of other-oriented perfectionism towards your husband the research shows that the higher that level of perfectionism, the lower your husband’s sexual satisfaction is likely to be and also the lower your own sexual satisfaction[viii].

The issue here is that other-oriented perfectionism creates very high expectations which make it harder to adjust to being happily married.

Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism

This is also linked to bad behavior. This kind of perfectionism is often linked to hostile and dominant behaviors as well as higher levels of blame and outwardly directed anger. It’s also linked to acting in an overly controlling way in intimate relationships and not letting your guard down[ix] . If you think everyone around you is expecting perfection from you it’s going to be hard to open up, even to your spouse.

As researchers studied 76 couples with regards to this kind of perfectionism, they found that it was strongly linked to lower marital satisfaction for both the self and the spouse. So this kind of perfectionism reduced happiness for both spouses in the marriage.

Socially prescribed perfectionism can lead to biases in how spouses behavior is interpreted, eg the perfectionist spouse may see simple requests like “Could you help tidy the living room?” as threats or attacks along the lines of “you are not doing enough to tidy the house”[x]

Couples (both men and women) with high levels of this trait showed more blaming, sarcasm and demands for change. If you think about it, we all tend to react with hostility when we feel perfectionistic standards are being imposed on us.

Husbands and wives both experienced reduced sexual satisfaction when they though their spouse required them to be perfect. And that’s a key point. It’s the expression of those beliefs that’s more impactful than actually having them.

Bottom line: perfectionism probably is not helping your marriage at all.

How to Deal with Perfectionism

We’ve seen so far that perfectionism comes in three flavors, none of which are particularly conducive to a healthy, trusting marriage. So what can you do about it?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one great option and has been shown to be highly effective[xi] . The goal with this kind of work is to increase self-compassion and change unhelpful beliefs. The exercise for today’s episode uses these principles.

Avoidance

One way to challenge yourself is around avoidance.

Believing that you have to do things perfectly can often cause you to avoid doing them altogether, thinking it’s better not to try and complete a specific task than to try, and end up failing[xii]. This pattern of behavior means that your beliefs about the negative consequences of being imperfect are never disproved. You’re always avoiding things for fear of doing them imperfectly, so you never get to see that doing them imperfectly actually doesn’t have as many bad consequences as you’re imagining.

So exposing yourself to situations where you perform imperfectly allows you to see that nothing bad comes of it, removing the belief that you have to be perfect. So: that went imperfectly and I’m still OK. Seeing that helps undermine the belief that I have to do it perfectly in order to be OK.

Communication and Conflict

But I’d like to help with communication and conflict as this is how it often becomes a struggle in marriage.

Now if you are perfectionistic your challenge is that being in that frame of mind makes it really hard to hear how you’re impacting yourself or your marriage. So I want to be gentle here. But the research does show that self-oriented perfectionism leads to depression because it creates conflict and interpersonal problems, both of which lead to isolation[xiii].

And other-oriented perfectionism is linked to low relationship quality for both the perfectionist and the non-perfectionist[xiv]. We saw earlier how socially-prescribed perfectionism is also an issue.

On the upside, you can not only choose to address the perfectionism, but you can also mitigate its effects by developing new communication and new conflict skills.

Let’s talk about this first for the non-perfectionist spouse and then for the perfectionist spouse.

For the non-perfectionist spouse

• Conflict often arises when perfectionist views or standards are imposed upon you. Learning to respond to this without resorting to conflict will improve relationship quality[xv]. Can you find another way to respond that results in a better outcome for your marriage?
• Be aware of how you speak to your spouse. Make it clear that you love and value your spouse irrespective of how well they achieve. Perfectionism is often caused by expectations placed on a person by family members or friends. So it may not have been caused by you but you actions can still contribute[xvi]. It may be that you are unwittingly — even innocently — reinforcing those perfectionistic beliefs.
• Provide the motivation to change. Many perfectionists won’t see that they have a problem, thinking that everyone else just fails to meet their standards[xvii]. So try to help them see how their attitudes are affecting you.
• Also, make sure you look after your own self-esteem. Understand that the constant criticism you receive from your spouse is not a reflection on you, it’s a problem with your spouse and how they see things[xviii]. This is differentiation.
• When dealing with socially prescribed perfectionism, learn to interpret your spouse’s requests and actions in a less absolute way: try to stop seeing them as unreasonable or demanding perfection so as not to become distressed or angered by them[xix]. Learn to engage with your spouse more positively, rather than avoiding them or arguing whenever you perceive them as demanding perfection from you.
• Finally, stand your ground: trying to play a game of give and take with a very critical perfectionist doesn’t work because they want things 100% their way and aren’t satisfied with anything else. So if you come into conflict on issues that are important to you then you may need to stand your ground and let them know you aren’t going to give in, without being unpleasant about it[xx].

For the perfectionist spouse

• Learn to express yourself in a way that does not lead to conflict when you feel your spouse has fallen short of your expectations. Just be aware of how easily what you say can come across as criticism.
• Learn to accept your spouse falling short of expectations. Especially to do with sex, because their belief that they are falling short of your expectations is going to be very bad for their self-esteem, sexual enjoyment/ability, and for the marriage as a whole[xxi]. It’s easy to focus on the disappointments — and I’m not asking you to be blind — but if you’re not enjoying all of the good things your spouse brings to your marriage you’re really robbing yourself of so much joy, and think about how that impacts your spouse too.
• Try to avoid falling into demand-withdraw cycles when you feel criticized or that you are falling short.

I hope that as you go through this, from either perspective, you are able to move towards a more gracious, compassionate view of yourself and others. This can only bring more rest and joy to your experience of marriage and life. And as always, feel free to reach out if we can be of more help.

References:

[i] Haring, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism, Coping, and Quality of Intimate Relationships.”

[ii] Habke, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism and Sexual Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships.”

[iii] Stoeber and Becker, “Perfectionism, Achievement Motives, and Attribution of Success and Failure in Female Soccer Players.”

[iv] Blasberg, “Perfectionism and Positive and Negative Outcomes.”

[v] Martin and Ashby, “Perfectionism and Fear of Intimacy.”

[vi] Habke, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism and Sexual Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships.”

[vii] Haring, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism, Coping, and Quality of Intimate Relationships.”

[viii] Habke, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism and Sexual Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships.”

[ix] Haring, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism, Coping, and Quality of Intimate Relationships.”

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Steele et al., “Psycho-Education and Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Clinical Perfectionism.”

[xii] Shafran, Egan, and Wade, Overcoming Perfectionism.

[xiii] Mackinnon et al., “Caught in a Bad Romance.”

[xiv] Arcuri, “Dyadic Perfectionism, Communication Patterns and Relationship Quality in Couples.”

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Shafran, Egan, and Wade, Overcoming Perfectionism.

[xvii] Lavender and Cavaiola, Impossible to Please.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Haring, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism, Coping, and Quality of Intimate Relationships.”

[xx] Lavender and Cavaiola, Impossible to Please.

[xxi] Habke, Hewitt, and Flett, “Perfectionism and Sexual Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships.”

A while back, I completed 4 and a half days of training on the assessment and treatment of sex addiction. You might be thinking “I’m not a sex addict so this isn’t relevant”, but I’d encourage you to listen to this week’s podcast regardless because we’ll also talk a lot about what healthy sexuality looks like in this show. There’ll be plenty of food for thought whether this is an issue in your marriage or not.

What Sex Addiction Is and Is Not

To begin with, let’s clarify what we’re talking about with “sex addiction”. It is not:

1. A high desire or couples that enjoy a lot of sex. We need to differentiate compulsive vs. healthy sex:
   1. Compulsive: using genitals to avoid feelings. Intimacy: closeness and affection are enhanced through sex
   2. Compulsive relationships are marked by loneliness, possessiveness, jealousy, anger, and alienation. Healthy intimacy affects the growth of both individuals
   3. Healthy courting and bonding is an honest, slow process. There’s no ‘game’ in the courting process.
   4. I’ve never heard mention of a couple who are sexually addicted to each other
2. Sex addiction is not necessarily porn addiction.
3. Sex addiction is not necessarily sex offending — although a lot of sex offenders are also sex addicts.

So what IS sex addiction? There are 10 criteria:

1. 1. 1. Loss of control over your actions
      2. Compulsive behavior
      3. Efforts to stop
      4. Loss of time to your addiction
      5. Preoccupation with sex and sexual thoughts
      6. Inability to fulfill obligations due to your addiction
      7. Continuation in the addiction despite negative consequences
      8. Escalation- behavior continually getting more extreme to satisfy cravings
      9. Losses due to the negative consequences of addiction
      10. Withdrawal

Differences between Addictive and Healthy Sexuality Addictive Sexuality Healthy Sexuality Feels shameful Fosters positive self-worth Is illicit, stolen or exploitative Has no victims Compromises values Operates within a value system Draws on fear for excitement Uses intimacy for excitement Reenacts childhood abuse Cultivates a sense of being an adult Disconnects from oneself Fosters a sense of self Creates a world of unreality Expands reality through being in touch with the present Is self-destructive and dangerous Relies on safety Uses conquest or power Is mutual, consensual, and equal Serves to medicate and kill pain Fosters self-regulation of emotions Is dishonest or requires a double life Originates in integrity and authenticity Becomes routine, grim or joyless Is spontaneous, fun and playful Demands perfection Accepts the imperfect Suffocating, demanding, clinging or disengaged Is respectful of boundaries, accepting and intimate Causes of Sex Addiction

1. Family backgrounds:
   1. Families of origin for sex addicts are characteristically rigid (77% of addicts) and disengaged (87%)
   2. Addicts in the family (87%)
2. Childhood issues
   1. Emotional abuse: 97%
   2. Sexual abuse: 81%
   3. Physical abuse: 72%

So the family and upbringing play a huge part in almost all cases. A lot of the recovery work involves addressing childhood trauma.

1. Pornography is a catalyst or portal to amplify sex addiction.
2. I like to see it as a very broken way of coping with pain from trauma, abuse, neglect, etc. The addict absolutely must take responsibility for all of their choices — but there are significant, tragic things that have happened in their lives that have made them vulnerable to these choices in a way that those of use without those experiences are not going to be nearly as vulnerable.

Treatment for Sex Addiction

• Is there hope for sex addicts?

Yup. It’s amazing to hear stories of very broken lives and marriages. So much destruction and pain. Now they are whole and their lives are manageable and they are pursuing healthy courtship and healthy intimacy.

• What about their spouses?

Coping with a spouse who is addicted to sex can be very challenging. Dealing with these issues can be similar to dealing with trauma and Post Infidelity Stress Disorder, both of which we have looked at in previous episodes. Disclosure should be professionally guided if there is a lot of addictive behavior to deal with.

• What does treatment look like?

It depends on the severity but where you have total unmanageability and basic counseling hasn’t helped it’s time to consider an inpatient program lasting several weeks. Then follow up work. I’m hearing of recovery treatment lasting 3-5 years and then after that, there is a lifetime of maintenance behaviors and habits, including being part of a SA group of some sort.

Listen to the podcast for the full discussion.

In our previous show, we talked about the neuroscience of romantic love. Today we’re going to address the behavioral side of things to help you rekindle the passion in your marriage.

Dating can be one of the most exciting times in any relationship: it’s when you’re constantly thinking about each other, finding out so much about each other and forming that deep connection. But what makes dating so awesome? How do men and women come at it differently? And how can a married couple make this come alive in their marriage again?

What Makes Dating & the Early Stages of Love so Enjoyable?

Last time we looked at our brains and how there are pleasure and reward systems built right into them. You’ll recall we talked about romantic love (which is out front during the courtship or dating phase of a relationship) and partner attachment (which is the steady, committed love of lasting marriages)

Romantic love is linked to systems in the brain which “reward” you with strong feelings of pleasure whenever you think about or spend time with your spouse[i]. This motivates you to want to spend time with your spouse or girl/boyfriend at the start of a relationship. Typically this phase of love lasts 12-18 months[ii], but can last an entire lifetime[iii]. We talked about extending that last time.

Self-expansion theory, developed by husband and wife researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron, speaks to this situation[iv]. In their view, romantic love is a period of rapid self-expansion by including the beloved in your sense of who you are.

During the very early stages of the relationship, you learn a lot about your beloved and get to grow as a person and experience new things by integrating aspects of your spouse into your own life. The rate at which you can do this declines after the initial period of the relationship: you start to run out of new things to learn about your spouse.

So dating is the most exciting phase of a relationship because you’re getting to grow as a person by getting to know your spouse, and this inevitably starts to taper off the longer a relationship lasts. The other side of the coin is the concept of habituation: the longer you do something/spend time with someone, the more you get used to it/them, and the less rewarding the time becomes[v]. Sniff.

Intimacy and sex then play into these early stages of love and then marriage. For those that are new to our podcast, we speak out of a Christian worldview and we practice and hold the value that extramarital sex is not only wrong, but it’s also unhelpful. On the ‘unhelpful’ point, we’ve noted before that the best sex is happening inside of marriage so we not only have moral reasons for asserting this value, but research-based evidence to support the benefits as well.

Back to our point. Let’s talk about how intimacy works. Remember that when we look at intimacy, we mean the whole enchilada, not just sex.

This is interesting. According to a study by Baumeister et al in 1999[vi], passion is a function of changes in intimacy.

So when intimacy is stable (either low or high), passion is low. But when intimacy is increasing, passion is high.

Intimacy is often increasing fastest at the start of the relationship, as you become more comfortable disclosing information about yourself and generally become closer. “As relationship partners gain an understanding of each other’s innermost thoughts and feelings, the rate of intimacy growth may taper off over time as they have less to learn about each other and the rate of engagement in novel relationship activities diminishes[vii].”

This intimacy growth during dating makes the start of a relationship a lot of fun. But sex comes into the equation once we get married too.

The frequency of sex (although not necessarily the quality of sex) is highest at the start of the relationship. In later years it becomes less frequent, and as the research, this points out this is often due to less interest, higher rates of dysfunction and difficulty, and major life events like having children[viii].

Sounds like a gloomy picture. But just stay with me. And let me say too, that having less sex is not necessarily a bad thing if you are both satisfied with the quality and quantity.

We’re going to look at how to get the excitement back into your marriage but first let’s just look at some gender differences. Just so we’re managing expectations.

Gender Differences in Romance and Dating

Men tend to fall in love more easily, and report higher scores on measures of romantic love than women in the early stages (first few months) of relationships[ix]. Later on, the scores balanced out. Men are also more likely to say “I love you” first in a relationship[x].

Men have more traditionally romantic beliefs: they are more likely to think that you fall in love at first sight and that love overcomes all boundaries like race, social class etc. That surprised me because  — pardon the stereotype — I thought women would be more prone to this from reading romance novels.

Men place a higher emphasis on sex in the early stages of relationships, but this was at least partly because they were “less aware of the emotional aspects of their relationship[xi]”. Very interesting. I would add (and here are my values coming through again) that this is another feather in the cap of waiting for sex until you’re married because it compels men to become more emotionally engaged to fill their intimacy needs.

Both men and women experience similarly high levels of passion at the start of the relationship, but this declines particularly strongly for women as the relationship goes on[xii].

What about our perceptions and our definitions of love? Perceptions of what love is were actually similar between men and women. Both placed importance on the value of companionate love, but men placed a higher value on passionate love[xiii].

So we have these dynamics going on and we are seeing some gender differences and some similarities. I don’t know how many we are socialized for vs. biologically programmed for, but there you have it.

How to Get the Excitement Back

Many of the things that make the start of a relationship so passionate and enjoyable can naturally decline as the relationship progresses, but they don’t have to.

So we want to talk about several areas that you can work on in order to keep your marriage spicy or else bring back some heat. Again, we go deep on this in our bonus guide for the patrons of our show.

New Experiences

Such as joint leisure of professional activities, jointly supporting a cause, travels, etc. Gaining new experiences as a couple allows spouses to learn more about each other, increasing intimacy and self-expansion, both of which increase passion[xiv].

Doing novel and exciting things together also activates the same reward-pleasure systems in the brain as romantic love, so can boost romantic love by associating these feelings with the partner. It also counteracts the effects of habituation/boredom. So, shake it up a little. Try doing something you haven’t done before: together. It doesn’t especially matter what it is but aim for something that has elements of excitement and/or novelty.

Researchers have studied this. Aron et al[xv] surveyed couples for relationship satisfaction before and after completing an assault-course while tied together at the ankle. More exciting than your standard psychological test! Taking part in this exciting and novel activity increased reported relationship satisfaction compared to doing a more mundane physical activity.

Sex

Increasing the frequency of sex increases intimacy and passion[xvi]. It also activates the same brain areas as romantic love[xvii]. In a previous post, we looked at how emotional intimacy is the key to the best sex, but the link goes both ways. I was thinking Verlynda and I should set up a sex challenge for our readers, … after we try it first, of course.

Intimacy

If passion is caused by changes in intimacy[xviii] then increasing intimacy will increase passion. A study in 2011[xix] tested this on a day-to-day level by asking 67 couples to keep daily dairies and reports on intimacy. Daily changes in intimacy predicted relationship passion, sexual frequency and sexual satisfaction for both men and women.

Intimacy can be increased through self-disclosure and shared experiences. But it is also to do with how the partner responds when you self-disclose: responding with sympathy and making the partner feel validated increases intimacy and makes you more likely to want to self-disclose in the future[xx].

Share something with your spouse. Maybe there’s something from your childhood or youth that you haven’t shared yet. Something personal. Or just something you’ve been worried about that’s going on right now that maybe you need to bring your spouse in on.

Self Esteem

Higher rates of self-confidence and self-esteem are moderately linked to higher rates of romantic love in long-term relationships as they allow “an intense, exclusive focus on a partner but not possessiveness or jealousy”. Being confident in yourself lets you feel love more strongly, without any element of fear or unworthiness.

This is also supported by the fact that romantic love in older couples does not have the obsessive or insecure components that can characterize love in younger couples[xxi]. Maybe choosing some self-esteem building activities or lifestyle changes would be helpful for you.

Motivation

This one is to do with your whole orientation when it comes to what motivates your actions. There are two motivation systems for behavior in relationships:

• Approach: the desire for positive outcomes like fun, intimacy, and growth
• Avoidance: desire to avoid negative outcomes like conflict.

Think about this in terms of your posture in your relationship. Are you all about chasing the good things or is your mindset focused on just avoiding the bad? Maybe you’ve defaulted to avoiding for a while and it’s time to switch to approach tactics.

Adopting positive or “approach” based goals within the relationship, taking actions to improve the quality of the relationship by increasing fun, intimacy and personal growth increases passion and sexual desire on a day-to-day basis and buffers against reductions in sexual desire long-term[xxii].

I see this in the couples I work with — we do a lot to de-escalate the conflict and they are very successful. And I really believe in letting couples find their way into this but sometimes it’s like that kick-them-out-of-the-nest feeling where I’m thinking “OK, you have this! Start having fun with each other again!”

This effect was especially strong for women, suggesting that actively pursuing a better relationship is more directly linked to passion and sexual quality for women[xxiii]. So think about how you can add more approach tactic back into your marriage too!

So, there are lots of great ideas for maintaining or restarting the fun and passion in your marriage. Again don’t forget to become a patron to get the additional guide. The old stereotype that marriage becomes dull and passionless after a few years doesn’t have to be true at all. Start working on it today and soon you’ll find that you can re-capture all the excitement and sense of adventure from when you were first dating.

References:

[i] A. Aron, ‘Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love’, Journal of Neurophysiology, 94.1 (2005), 327–37 <https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00838.2004>.

[ii] Helen E. Fisher, Arthur Aron, and Lucy L. Brown, ‘Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice’, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 361.1476 (2006), 2173–86.

[iii] Bianca P. Acevedo and others, ‘Neural Correlates of Long-Term Intense Romantic Love’, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7.2 (2012), 145–59 <https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq092>.

[iv] Arthur Aron and Elaine N. Aron, Love and the Expansion of Self: Understanding Attraction and Satisfaction (New York, NY, US: Hemisphere Publishing Corp/Harper & Row Publishers, 1986), x.

[v] Susan Sprecher and Susan S. Hendrick, ‘Self-Disclosure in Intimate Relationships: Associations with Individual and Relationship Characteristics Over Time’, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23.6 (2004), 857–77.

[vi] Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky, ‘Passion, Intimacy, and Time: Passionate Love as a Function of Change in Intimacy’, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3.1 (1999), 49–67 <https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0301_3>.

[vii] Harris Rubin and Lorne Campbell, ‘Day-to-Day Changes in Intimacy Predict Heightened Relationship Passion, Sexual Occurrence, and Sexual Satisfaction: A Dyadic Diary Analysis’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3.2 (2012), 224–31 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611416520>.

[viii] Rubin and Campbell.

[ix] Zick Rubin, Letitia Anne Peplau, and Charles T. Hill, ‘Loving and Leaving: Sex Differences in Romantic Attachments’, Sex Roles, 7.8 (1981), 821–35 <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287767>.

[x] Angel Brantley, David Knox, and Marty E. Zusman, ‘When and Why Gender Differences in Saying “I Love You” among College Students’, College Student Journal, 36.4 (2002), 614.

[xi] Patricia A. Frazier and Ellen Esterly, ‘Correlates of Relationship Beliefs: Gender, Relationship Experience and Relationship Satisfaction’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7.3 (1990), 331–52 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407590073003>.

[xii] Michele Acker and Mark H. Davis, ‘Intimacy, Passion and Commitment in Adult Romantic Relationships: A Test of the Triangular Theory of Love’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9.1 (1992), 21–50 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407592091002>.

[xiii] Beverley Fehr and Ross Broughton, ‘Gender and Personality Differences in Conceptions of Love: An Interpersonal Theory Analysis’, Personal Relationships, 8.2 (2001), 115–36 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2001.tb00031.x>.

[xiv] Acevedo and others.

[xv] A. Aron and others, ‘Couples’ Shared Participation in Novel and Arousing Activities and Experienced Relationship Quality’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78.2 (2000), 273–84.

[xvi] Rubin and Campbell.

[xvii] Fisher, Aron, and Brown.

[xviii] Baumeister and Bratslavsky.

[xix] Rubin and Campbell.

[xx] Rubin and Campbell.

[xxi] Acevedo and others.

[xxii] Emily A. Impett and others, ‘Maintaining Sexual Desire in Intimate Relationships: The Importance of Approach Goals’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94.5 (2008), 808.

[xxiii] Impett and others.

Who knew your brain was doing so much when you were falling in love? Well, we want to help you fall in love again (or, more deeply) by helping you get those brain circuits working in support of keeping the romance in your marriage!

When most people talk about love over the course of a lifetime they say that it begins with a fiery, passionate love at the start of a relationship, which slowly dwindles to be replaced by a more stable, less exciting, companionate sort of love. This is actually mirrored in the different brain systems involved in love, but as we look through the research we’ll see that a loss in passion over time is far from inevitable.

The Neuroscience of Love & Relationships

There are 3 distinct brain systems involved in intimate relationships[i]:

1. 1. Sex drive
   2. Courtship attraction, aka romantic love
   3. Partner attachment

Each has a separate set of associated emotions, behaviours and brain systems. What we’re going to do is look at courtship attraction (or, romantic love) and then partner attachment. And then we’re going to look at the changes in romantic love over time to see if we can actually keep some of that heat going in marriage.

Romantic Love

Romantic love is observed in all cultures worldwide and can be felt even at a young age before puberty & sex drive develop[ii]. For example, your kindergarten teacher crush.

When you begin a romantic relationship as an adult, intensely romantic love typically lasts up to 18 months[iii], after which partner attachment becomes the main driving force of the relationship. One way to describe this is you have a lot of heat at the start of your relationship, then as you’re married and settle in for the long haul, your brain chemistry changes to support a steady burn which is more sustainable.

So romantic love, therefore, provides motivation to find a single long-term spouse, and attachment provides to motivation to stay together over the years. You need both.

Romantic Love in the Brain

How does romantic love affect the brain? A study by A. Aron from 2005[iv] used fMRI scans to monitor brain activity in 17 people who had been “intensely in love” for a short period of time (1-17 months) when looking at a photo of their beloved.

The areas of the brain that were activated were linked to the dopamine “reward system”, associated with pleasure (through the release of dopamine), general arousal, focused attention and motivation to pursue and acquire rewards. Romantic love is therefore considered a motivational force as well as just a feeling: you feel motivated to spend time together by the pleasure and arousal you experience. Think of love as driving the couple together with a very specific focus on one another.

As a sidebar: this system is separate from the sex drive, although they are correlated and often activated together since dopamine is also linked to sexual arousal. So, speaking from a Biblical values perspective you don’t need to have sex before marriage to really create a strong basis for marriage. By refraining from pre-marital sex you’re not taking anything away from the future of your marriage; contrary to the idea that you need to be sexually intimate before marriage as part of testing things out, research shows that the best sex happens inside marriage.

Higher levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine are also linked to feelings of love in that it creates a sense of alertness and attention as well as the increased heart rate, blushing and trembling often experienced in the early stages of love[v]. These bodily sensations are reflective of a ‘love storm’ going on in your brain!

And here’s another fascinating piece: the early stages of romantic love shows a similar brain pattern to obsessive-compulsive disorder: both show significantly higher levels of the serotonin transporter 5-HT. This is thought to produce the obsessive thoughts and tendency to place a very high value on a specific thing/person that is found in both romantic love and OCD. Levels of this transporter had returned to normal 12-18 months after the couples reported falling in love[vi]. So there may be some truth to sayings like “crazy for you” or “madly n love” after all.

Partner Attachment

What is partner attachment? It is “companionate love…a feeling of happy togetherness with someone whose life has become deeply entwined with yours[vii]“. This partner attachment or long-term love is neurologically distinct from romantic love but closely linked.

Attachment serves a different purpose than romantic love: where romantic love is about motivating you to form a highly intimate long-term bond with your partner, attachment kicks in once that bond is already formed and helps keep the relationship stable.

Attachment motivates long-term commitment and the sharing of work and parental duties and is characterized by shared interests, companionship, shared laughter and so on. What you’re not seeing here is infatuation or obsession, but something deeper and more abiding. Looking at it from the other side, forming this attachment is what causes such deep rending of the heart when a marriage breaks up. This is deep, powerful bonding. Not fireworks. More like lava.

And how did this work on the neurological side? A study in 2000 tested 17 men and women who had been in love for an average of 28 months, using the same measurements as in A. Aron [viii]’s study with newly in love couples. The brain activity in the couples who were together longer showed activation in the same areas relating to reward and motivation, although their feelings of love were described as being “less intense”.

These couples also showed brain activation in areas the others didn’t, such as systems involving the hormone oxytocin, which is linked to stronger bonds between couples. The expression of oxytocin is prompted by behaviors that affirm this bond.

So partner attachment is distinct from both romantic love and sex drive on a neural level, but again they are interlinked. Having sex stimulates the release of both dopamine and oxytocin, thereby reinforcing both romantic love and partner attachment.

The reason why I wanted to look at this is that we ourselves are in the stage of raising kids. We’re very busy with family and church activities and with OnlyYouForever. We’re thankful for a solid partner attachment. But I think the cautionary note is that it’s easy to think that romantic love is just puppy love. What we’re going to see after the break is that it is not necessary to have an either/or situation. What if you could have both? How awesome would that be?

Changes in Romantic Love Over Time

It is a general perception across cultures that the initial romantic love declines over time, or that it is replaced with companionship and attachment. This is not just a North American construct. Here’s a quote from Nisa, a bushwoman from the Kalahari desert: “when two people are first together, their hearts are on fire and their passion is very great. After a while, the fire cools and that’s how it stays. They continue to love each other, but it’s in a different way- warm and dependable.[ix]“.

Research often supports this. A meta-review of studies measuring love found that an overall general sense of love is positively correlated with relationship length, but that passionate, obsessive love is negatively correlated with relationship length[x].

I don’t want to contradict myself here but rather point out there is the possibility of both-and rather than either-or. So it’s OK if you’re past the romantic love stage. You need a partner attachment. But what if you could have both?

You see, romantic love doesn’t always decrease over time. Some couples who had been married for an average of 21 years still reported feeling romantic love of the same intensity as newlyweds[xi]. These couples showed similar brain activity to the young couples when viewing pictures of their spouses (same procedure as Aron et al): same level of activation in the pleasure/reward areas of the brain.

Which is really cool. But the researcher noted that the older and younger couples weren’t using their brains exactly the same way.

While younger couples show brain activity linked to “mania, obsession, and anxiety”, the older couples showed higher levels of activation in brain areas controlling calmness. They also had increased activity in brain areas relating to attachment and partnership[xii]. So you can see the partner attachment is going strong and there is also a modulating factor around calmness.

Romantic love based on the pleasure/reward brain system can be sustained long term, but also benefits from the increased companionship of the attachment style of love. So you can have the best of both.

What is the benefit of having both? Well, high levels of brain activity for both romantic and attachment love were correlated with:

1. 1. Higher sexual frequency
   2. Increased friendship-based love
   3. Including your spouse in your sense of “self”

I think that’s really cool. So while romantic love has a tendency to decrease the longer into a relationship you go, the important thing is that it doesn’t have to. You can still feel just as passionate and lovey-dovey as you did when you were newlyweds, but with the added bonus of years of shared experiences and companionship to make your bond even stronger.

References:

[i] Helen E. Fisher, Arthur Aron, and Lucy L. Brown, ‘Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice’, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 361.1476 (2006), 2173–86.

[ii] Elaine Hatfield and others, ‘Passionate Love’, Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 1 (1988), 35–51 <https://doi.org/10.1300/J056v01n01_04>.

[iii] Fisher, Aron, and Brown.

[iv] A. Aron, ‘Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love’, Journal of Neurophysiology, 94.1 (2005), 327–37 <https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00838.2004>.

[v] Fisher, Aron, and Brown.

[vi] D. Marazziti and others, ‘Alteration of the Platelet Serotonin Transporter in Romantic Love’, Psychological Medicine, 29.3 (1999), 741–45.

[vii] Hatfield and others.

[viii] Aron.

[ix] Fisher, Aron, and Brown.

[x] James M. Graham, ‘Measuring Love in Romantic Relationships: A Meta-Analysis’, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 28.6 (2011), 748–71 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407510389126>.

[xi] Bianca P. Acevedo and others, ‘Neural Correlates of Long-Term Intense Romantic Love’, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7.2 (2012), 145–59 <https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq092>.

[xii] Acevedo and others.

Fear is a frightening thing. In marriage, it is usually an invisible force. Like the winds of a storm: invisible itself but threatening and destructive. However, fear is always extinguished by the steady flame of committed love.

I think we all carry some fear in our hearts, at some level. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more confidence you see in a person, the more likely they have fear issues. So this episode may be particularly relevant to those of us who feel that we really don’t need to hear it. I may just burst your bubble gently. Often confidence is a protective coping stance against the insecurity and fear that deeply troubles us. And nowhere are you more vulnerable to the effects of these fears than in your most intimate relationship: your marriage.

Fears About Me or Fears About You?

Most of us carry one or two kinds of fear. Either we have some level of fear that is really about ourselves: fear of rejection or fear of abandonment or fear of not being good enough, or fear of being unworthy of love and affection. These point at concerns within me and about me.

The other kind is fear about our spouse or significant people in our lives: fears of intimacy (afraid of letting people get too close to you) or fear of dependency (afraid to trust or afraid to count on other people). These are also fears that we carry within ourselves, but they are different from the previous in that they are indicative of our models of others.

So we all carry these models of self and models of others. Those are basic, nearly instinctive ways of relating to the humans around us based either on how we see ourselves or how we see other people. On the ‘other people’ part it’s about: are others reliable, are they trustworthy, can I depend on them. On the ‘self’ side it’s about am I worthy, am I lovable.

These are very deep but often when folks talk about them they use very simple language. For example, for me, I struggle most with the part of myself that asks the question: “if you saw me for who I am, would you still accept me?” The language is simple but the impact of that question touches the way I present myself in every social context of my life.

Another person may just say “I cannot trust others” or “people are just going to let me down”. Again: simple language, but this touches all of their social contexts and all their relationships too. We’ve looked before at issues of trust and why people may be unable to trust their spouse, and this attachment issue is often at the heart of it.

These deep fear constructs are indicators of our attachment style. Our attachment style is the way that we have learned to relate to the significant others in our life. Primarily our spouse, but it also impacts our children, our closest friends, and then to a lesser degree, our social network as well.

About half of the people are securely attached. That means they are secure in both themselves and their spouse: they believe themselves to be worthy of love and believe they can count on their spouse to love them and be there for them when they are needed.

The rest fall into three categories but we’re going to focus mainly on what we call avoidant attachment.

Those with avoidant attachment are insecure about the intentions of their spouse and they prefer to keep emotional distance in order to keep themselves safe. Often this comes across as coolness or distance or can even be interpreted as rejection. Usually, where one spouse is avoidant in their attachment style you’re going to see lower levels of intimacy[i]. If you aren’t sure your spouse is going to respond well to you, better to keep the really deep emotional stuff to yourself. See how this attachment style is about your view of yourself?

There’s also anxious-ambivalent attachment style which is more now about your view of your spouse — whether your spouse is actually like that or not. In this case, because of your view of others, you are not sure how your spouse will respond to you. You probably feel a strong desire for intimacy but fear rejection — if you struggle with low self-esteem and the negative self-image you may discover that this anxious-ambivalent is your attachment style.

On the other side, those with secure attachment know that their spouses are not perfect but they are confident that their spouse is available and there to support them in times of need. They understand that their spouse is not only accessible and available but will generally respond appropriately. Consequently, people with secure attachment are very comfortable with both closeness and doing things apart from each other.

Fear and Relationship Satisfaction

Now, if you’re both securely attached, your marriage is likely to be more stable, warm and satisfying and likely to exhibit higher levels of self-disclosure, trust, positive conflict solving skills and social support[ii].

Avoidant relationships (that’s fear about your spouse) tend to be more distant and filled with worry about the security of the bond between you. So you can see fretting over the connection, although that may look more like nagging or jealousy or just kind of being needy.

There may also be greater control or suppression of your own emotions — because you’re not sure, you don’t want yourself to be fully seen. There may be reduced frequency and intensity of positive emotions because you cannot allow yourself to fully enjoy your spouse in order to protect you from the disappointment that you expect will come. There are also more frequent and more intense negative emotions usually[iii]. So your fears relating to your spouse and your attachment to them affects not only your relationship but even the emotions you feel day to day.

The reason why this attachment issue is important is that attachment style is a stronger and more accurate predictor of relationship quality than personality[iv]. So when I am doing marriage counselling I am not working on making personalities get along; I’m just working on shifting attachment in the relationship. It’s a far more successful approach because it’s addressing the core ability of the couple to create and maintain an enjoyable, secure bond between them.

By this point, you’re probably like “oh boy I have some work to do. My attachment style is getting in the way of creating the kind of marriage I want”.

The second thing I suggest is that you consider marriage counselling with me because I can help you create that deep, secure enjoyable bond in your marriage that you’ve really been looking for. If you’d like to learn more about marriage counseling just head over to Therapevo and click the counseling link at the top of the page.

Now I want to focus in on three areas of marriage: communication, perceptions, and conflict. How does fear impact these?

Fear and Communication

Just a brief point here from a study in 1994[v] which looked at 261 married couples and, not surprisingly, found that secure attachment was predictive of relationship satisfaction. What was noted with regards to communication was very important: the link between attachment and relationship satisfaction was largely mediated by communication style, especially for women.

This means that how you communicate is very influential. Think about it this way. Attachment styles are deeply embedded in our psyche. They can shift and heal, which is great. But that’s turning the freighter around: give yourself time and space and compassion to do so.

What can help you continue to grow your marriage as you make that deeper shift is communication. In a simpler way, you can compensate for the attachment challenges by really just working on those communication skills. And anybody can learn those. So just take that as encouragement because I know this deeper stuff can be challenging, especially as we address a couple more complications shortly.

Fear and Perceptions

Because highly anxious people have a strong fear of being abandoned or rejected they show “hypervigilance” towards any perceived threats to their relationship. This means they tend to notice far more things which could be perceived as a threat, and show a bias towards interpreting their spouses’ actions negatively. As such even minor issues are seen as a threat to the entire relationship[vi]. You’re constantly on the looking for warnings signs and primed to interpret anything and everything as a threat to your relationship. So you’re bound to end up finding these threats and reasons to get worried, whether they’re really there or not.

For those of you with anxiously attached spouses, this may help you to understand how things appear to get blown out of proportion quickly — in your mind.

But put yourself in the shoes of your spouse who was raised in a family where security and safety and accessibility to a comforting parent were very unpredictable and that, I hope, will start to give you some compassion.

What makes this even more challenging is that the anxious spouse will crave comfort and support from you. However, because they carry the insecurity internally, they tend to be unhappy with the amount of support available from significant others[vii] and can perceive attempts at support as having hurtful intent. Anxious individuals also believe that their own attempts to support and comfort their spouses’ are less effective.

Now you start to see how fear can really impact your perception about your marriage, at so many different levels.

What I like to do here, for anxious spouses, is to ask them to consider if their fearful part is doing the interpreting or if their wise part is. Or, maybe put another way, are you seeing your spouse through the lens of fear or seeing your spouse through a lens that is wisely choosing to trust and to hold onto yourself at the same time?

Fear and Conflict

Note the gender differences here. As you can imagine, fearful relationships cause women to react to conflict with more stress, anxiety, and destructive behaviors, while causing men to display less warmth and support[viii]. You can see how fear could cause you to spiral into conflict! By the way — this is just off the cuff — next time you and your spouse are fighting, try this near the start. Ask: are we fighting because we’re truly mad or because one or both of us are just afraid?

Let me refer to a study that shows how fear really comes into conflict. It’s going to sound doom-and-gloom at the start, but I also am going to give you a way to counteract this challenge.

This is a study by Campbell et al in 2005[ix]. Couples were asked to keep diaries for 14 days, and then videotaped discussing an area of conflict that arose during the 14 days. More anxious individuals and those with anxious attachments perceived higher rates of conflict and a higher tendency for conflict to escalate in severity.

This negative perception of conflict went on to negatively influence relationship quality. Observers rated anxious individuals as more distressed during arguments and more likely to escalate arguments. Anxious individuals also perceive conflict as leading to more negative long-term consequences in the relationship.

However, highly anxious people responded to support from their spouse well: perceiving high levels of support as being predictive of long-term relationship satisfaction and feeling marginally more satisfied with their relationship than non-anxious people on days when they received high levels of support from their spouse[x].

Because anxious people are naturally less certain that the relationship will last, they are more reliant on and more receptive to, day-to-day signs of love and support. So that is how you want to carry your spouse through conflict if they are highly anxious. And as they perceive your unflinching commitment over time this will begin to shift their attachment from anxious to secure. Which is what we’re going to wrap up with.

Can Attachment Style Change from Fearful to Secure?

Attachment is formed based on early childhood interactions and friendships, especially with the mother/primary caregiver, which then go on to form “working models” of how relationships are supposed to work, which influence adult relationships[xi].

BUT they can be changed by the influence of new attachment relationships, such as marriage, and by being able to “reflect on and reinterpret the meaning of past and present experiences” —largely a reference to psychotherapy[xii]. In marriage, couples can co-create a new working model of attachment and relationships, which can help individuals to recover from the effects of negative relationships in childhood. So past experiences and hurts don’t have to define your current relationship, and you can break free of the effect of old fears. We’ve seen in a recent episode that bringing up past hurts can be painful, but it’s often the only way to overcome them.

Changes in attachment style were linked to changes in self-confidence and ability to cope with problems[xiii]. So improving your self-confidence and ability to cope with difficulties is linked to creating a less fearful, more secure view of yourself and your relationship. Enhancing your social skills such as perspective taking, self-efficacy (belief in your ability to succeed) and the ability to mutually resolve conflict can also improve the security of your relationship[xiv].

In some ways, I would think this would be a very difficult episode to listen to for many of our listeners. But I want to encourage you: you’re probably listening because you’re in your marriage for the long haul. Well, we all come to marriage messed up. This just happens to be your particular set of challenges. Where marriage is a beautiful thing is when both spouses see the relationship as a garden for cultivating growth and the development of beauty. It’s a delightful thing that in a marriage with this goal, as our bodies age, our souls become more beautiful.

So be encouraged. Keep at it.

References:

[i] M. Mikulincer, ‘Adult Attachment Style and Individual Differences in Functional versus Dysfunctional Experiences of Anger’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74.2 (1998), 513–24.

[ii] Mikulincer.

[iii] Judith A. Feeney, ‘Adult Attachment, Emotional Control, and Marital Satisfaction’, Personal Relationships, 6.2 (1999), 169–85 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1999.tb00185.x>.

[iv] Erik E. Noftle and Phillip R. Shaver, ‘Attachment Dimensions and the Big Five Personality Traits: Associations and Comparative Ability to Predict Relationship Quality’, Journal of Research in Personality, 40.2 (2006), 179–208 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.11.003>.

[v] Judith A. Feeney, ‘Attachment Style, Communication Patterns, and Satisfaction across the Life Cycle of Marriage’, Personal Relationships, 1.4 (1994), 333–48 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1994.tb00069.x>.

[vi] Lorne Campbell and others, ‘Perceptions of Conflict and Support in Romantic Relationships: The Role of Attachment Anxiety.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88.3 (2005), 510–31 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.3.510>.

[vii] Campbell and others.

[viii] Jeffry A. Simpson, W. Steven Rholes, and Dede Phillips, ‘Conflict in Close Relationships: An Attachment Perspective.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71.5 (1996), 899–914 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.5.899>.

[ix] Campbell and others.

[x] Campbell and others.

[xi] Judith A. Crowell, R. Chris, and Phillip R. Shaver, ‘Measurement of Individual Differences in Adolescent and Adult Attachment’, in Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications, 2nd Ed, ed. by J. Cassidy and P. R. Shaver (New York, NY, US: Guilford Press, 2008), pp. 599–634.

[xii] Crowell, Chris, and Shaver.

[xiii] Frederick G. Lopez and Barbara Gormley, ‘Stability and Change in Adult Attachment Style over the First-Year College Transition: Relations to Self-Confidence, Coping, and Distress Patterns.’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49.3 (2002), 355–64 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.49.3.355>.

[xiv] Kathleen O’Connell Corcoran and Brent Mallinckrodt, ‘Adult Attachment, Self-Efficacy, Perspective Taking, and Conflict Resolution’, Journal of Counseling & Development, 78.4 (2000), 473–83 <https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb01931.x>.

This one should be fun to look at as Verlynda and I personally sit on opposite sides of the field on this issue! But, as it turns out, there may even be some hope for folks like us!

It’s a classic scenario: you’ve got a free evening and one of you wants to go and hang out with friends and the other would rather curl up on the couch and watch Netflix. Or one of you is having the time of their life at a party and the other is secretly gritting their teeth through the entire thing.

When you have a marriage where one of you is introverted and one of you is extroverted it can seem like you’re on opposite wavelengths when it comes to how you spend your time, where your energy comes from, and how you make decisions and talk about important issues. If this is you, you may well be wondering if your differences along this dimension are going to impact your marriage.

Can Introverts and Extroverts Get Along?

I’m happy to say: yes! We can.

What I loved about the research on this episode is that it confirms what we suspected but it also has some very useful insights both for those who marry similar personality types AND those who marry other personality types.

A 2007 study[i] showed that similarity in the big 5 personality traits— those are the 5 traits researchers have identified as being the most fundamental part of our personalities, of which introversion/extroversion is one— predicted higher relationship quality. However, emotional similarity, which means experiencing and expressing similar emotions, was a strong mediating variable in this link.

So even if couples differ in personality, for example one is introverted and one is extroverted, they can still function well as a couple by being similar on an emotional level. This emotional similarity helps partners react to events in similar ways and feel understood by their spouse. That emotional connection is a deeper and more important predictor of happiness than similarity on a personality level.

So are introvert-extrovert marriages common? Generally, folks do not choose spouses with similar personality types. If you look at the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator (in which introversion-extroversion is one of the four dimensions), it is most common for couples to share two of the four parts and differ on the other two[ii]. We’ve looked before at whether opposites attract, and while it’s not a simple yes or no answer, there’s certainly plenty of evidence that very different people can have thriving, passionate marriage.

A small study based around that idea showed that differences in personality types were not linked to marital difficulty, and being opposites on introversion/extroversion specifically, did not predict any specific problems in marriage. Another study[iii] supported this finding — differences along the introversion/extroversion scale don’t negatively impact marriage quality in any noticeable way.

So it does look like introverts and extroverts can get along just fine. However, there was one interesting caveat. Moffit & Eisen[iv] found that levels of neuroticism and emotional instability for wives — but not husbands — were significantly linked to the degree to which the couple was apart on an introversion/extroversion scale.

So having one spouse who is highly introverted and one who is highly extroverted could lead to emotional instability for the wife. The mediating factor in this effect is thought to be communication: highly divergent couples showed lower rates of intimate communication and agreement, which may be the cause of the emotional strain the wives were experiencing.

Again: even if there is a big difference, it’s not a death blow to the marriage. Rather, it just requires that you step up your communication game.

What Makes for A Happy Introvert-Extrovert Marriage?

So here’s an interesting study[v] of 365 couples who reported they had happy marriages. They looked at the common characteristics of marriages where one spouse was extroverted and the other introverted, and then marriages where they were the same.

Characteristics of households where the one spouse was extroverted and the other was introverted, included:

1. 1. A close, intimate relationship with each other and family members
   2. Separate friends
   3. Conflict solved through negotiation as and when the issue arises
   4. Fewer common leisure activities
   5. Moderate levels of expression of love
   6. Joint decision making, but the extroverted spouse was responsible for economic management

And here are the characteristics of households where couples were similar on introversion/extroversion:

1. 1. A close, intimate relationship with each other and family members
   2. Joint friends
   3. Same conflict resolution style as above
   4. Many shared leisure activities
   5. Frequent expressions of love
   6. Shared all decision making and money management

So there were a couple of differences between similar and divergent couples: the introvert/extrovert couples had fewer shared activities, less expression of love, and some separate responsibilities, particularly money management.

Now that might seem like a bad thing — and maybe it’s something for these couples to work on — but remember that these were all couples who described their marriages as happy. So how they handled these issues was clearly working for them. And if you have a way of making it work for you, then that’s great, whether or not it looks like what we’ve described here.

While we’re on this topic, let me give you some tips for success in marriages where you’re paired introvert/extrovert[vi]:

1. Accept and appreciate your differences. “Although these differences provide fertile ground for increased conflicts, they also provide balance and potential for growth”. You can choose how you see those differences: something to appreciate as variety? Or be dissatisfied with?
2. Understand your own, and your spouse’s personality, and factors which affect it. Some people’s levels of introversion/extroversion are influenced by their energy levels or the specific situation they are in. These aren’t fixed traits that apply universally, so learning to see how they are nuanced for you individually can help you navigate them.
3. Commit to personally develop and grow. Couples who are different along this dimension can learn a lot from each other. Introverts can aim to expand their social world and gain new experiences from the outside world, while extroverts can “find themselves building a richer inner world”.
4. “Understand the importance of give and take”. In terms of socializing, time together, decision making etc. You’re going to have different preferences and ways of handling certain situations, and you’ll need to accommodate both.
5. Combine and play to your strengths: if one of you is better at dealing with certain social situations, or if one of you is more thoughtful and takes longer to reach a decision on something, then acknowledge and utilize those strengths in your marriage.

Introversion/Extroversion Changes Over Time

We often see personality as fixed — especially in others and especially when we are frustrated with them. But these traits can change over time. A study from 2006[vii]: studied 1,130 participants over 8 years and found that increases in extroversion increased relationship satisfaction.

To me, that seems to show that the introvert is learning to be more social. However, as an introvert myself, I don’t want to imply that there’s something wrong with introversion and that extroversion is the gold standard. Mind you, I adore my extroverted wife (you are the gold standard for me :-p) but you get my point, right?

It’s also interesting to note a phenomenon called personality convergence: spouses generally become more similar in terms of personality over time[viii]. Becoming more similar in personality traits such as extroversion/introversion increases relationship satisfaction while becoming less similar led to “steep drops in marital satisfaction”.

So if major differences in extroversion/introversion are affecting your marriage, those traits can change. Again: let’s not get into a fight over who should change, but let’s help each other grow! So we need to think about these things in a healthy way.

Social Support

Of course, since the whole extrovert/introvert thing relates mostly to how we interact in social situations we have to consider this in light of the marriage too.

It’s a well-established fact that social and emotional support is one of the most important factors in a happy marriage[ix].

Look at this: extroverts offer more social support and perceive themselves as having more support than introverts[x]. The same study also found a positive correlation between extroversion and stress. Perceived availability of support, particularly feelings of belonging, mediate the relationship between extroversion and stress.

So perhaps for introverts married to extroverts, it is important to make them aware you are there for support, in order to buffer your spouse against stress. This might not come as naturally to you as it does to your extroverted spouse, but sometimes you need to remind them that they do belong, that they are appreciated, and that they matter not just to you but to a host of people. I think this is necessary because extroverts are more likely to draw energy from their social network.

Conflict Style

Finally, we should mention differences in conflict style between the two.

In a study in 1998[xi], 461 participants were measured for personality types and conflict style. They found that:

1. Extroversion is correlated with the integrating style of conflict
2. Extroversion is negatively correlated with avoidant conflict style
3. Extroversion is positively correlated with a “dominating” conflict style

So extroversion is linked to an integrative/collaborative conflict style and makes you less likely to avoid conflict. Which is good. But it was also linked to dominating conflict style, so in introvert/extrovert couples the extrovert may come to dominate the introvert in terms of conflict resolution.

I’d love to tut-tut over this for a while, but I think the point here is just to be aware of this dynamic and, again, seek to be both respectful of the difference as well as be willing to be challenged yourself. As an introvert or extrovert. We have plenty of material relating to conflict for you to go back over that’ll definitely help you figure out a helpful conflict style regardless of whether you’re introverted or extroverted.

I am not asking extroverts to avoid conflict, but to pursue being collaborative and to just be more self-aware about needing to come out on top in conflict. That need to be right or have the last word can get frustrating for your introverted spouse.

So I hope the message you’ve got from this is that there’s no reason introvert/extrovert marriages can’t be happy, intimate and supportive. There are a few potential differences to navigate but these can also be seen as ways you can complement each other and grow as a couple. With introversion and extroversion, it’s not that one is right and one is wrong. It’s just about knowing your own and your spouse’s natural way of thinking and being willing to step outside of that for the good of the marriage.

References:

[i] Gian C. Gonzaga, Belinda Campos, and Thomas Bradbury, ‘Similarity, Convergence, and Relationship Satisfaction in Dating and Married Couples.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93.1 (2007), 34–48 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.34>.

[ii] Frazier M. Douglass and Robin Douglass, ‘The Validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for Predicting Expressed Marital Problems’, Family Relations, 42.4 (1993), 422 <https://doi.org/10.2307/585343>.

[iii] Stephanie Nemechek and Kenneth R. Olson, ‘FIVE-FACTOR PERSONALITY SIMILARITY AND MARITAL ADJUSTMENT’, Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 27.3 (1999), 309–17 <https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1999.27.3.309>.

[iv] Paul F. Moffitt and Peter Eisen, ‘Factors Correlated with Neuroticism Scores for Married Women’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 44.2 (1982), 491 <https://doi.org/10.2307/351557>.

[v] Manijeh Daneshpour and others, ‘Self Described Happy Couples and Factors of Successful Marriage in Iran’, Journal of Systemic Therapies, 30.2 (2011), 43–64 <https://doi.org/10.1521/jsyt.2011.30.2.43>.

[vi] Marti Olsen Laney and Michael L. Laney, The Introvert and Extrovert in Love: Making It Work When Opposites Attract (New Harbinger Publications, 2007).

[vii] Christie Napa Scollon and Ed Diener, ‘Love, Work, and Changes in Extraversion and Neuroticism over Time.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91.6 (2006), 1152–65 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1152>.

[viii] Gonzaga, Campos, and Bradbury.

[ix] Michael Argyle, ‘Causes and Correlates of Happiness’, in Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, ed. by D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (New York, NY, US: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 353–73.

[x] Rhonda J Swickert and others, ‘Extraversion, Social Support Processes, and Stress’, Personality and Individual Differences, 32.5 (2002), 877–91 <https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00093-9>.

[xi] David Antonioni, ‘RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY FACTORS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLES’, International Journal of Conflict Management, 9.4 (1998), 336–55 <https://doi.org/10.1108/eb022814>.

Now menopause isn’t something that I’m likely to experience but it is something that half of you are going to go through, or have gone through, and the other half will observe. And since it’s going to impact your marriage, we might as well be smart people and make sure we’re prepared for it!

Menopause can be a tricky time for marriages. Wives have to come to terms with changes in their body while dealing with all the hot flushes and night sweats life can throw at them. And husbands can often feel like they’re walking on eggshells trying to support their wives through unpredictable mood changes and other unpleasant side-effects.

The research shows that menopause can impact marriage in some surprising ways, but the overall picture is more nuanced, and overall more positive, than the simple perception that menopause = BAD.

Menopause and Marital Satisfaction

A survey of 326 midlife women[i] showed a significant negative correlation between marital satisfaction and menopause symptoms: as symptoms went up, satisfaction went down.

They also noted a correlation between menopause symptoms and feelings of anger and depression. As symptoms went up, anger and depressive symptoms increased too. However, they did note that married women reported fewer feelings of depression than non-married, suggesting that marriage guards against these feelings of depression. That fits with other research we’ve covered that shows that good marriages offer resilience against the challenges of life.

But the quality of your marriage is key: so if you’re listening today and not yet menopausal, this is another reason to work on your marriage! Check out what these researchers said: “Women in dissatisfying marriages, characterized by less social support, less depth, and higher conflict, reported increased stress and more menopausal symptomatology (symptoms such as sleep disturbance and vasomotor or blood circulation problems) than did women in satisfying marriages.[ii]”

So this is fascinating because now your marriage is impacting your menopausal symptoms. A supportive, stress-free marriage reduces the strain of menopause and makes the symptoms less severe and easier to deal with.

But menopause also affects one’s sex life.

Menopause and Sex Life Satisfaction

Menopause produces changes in a woman’s body, which may also decrease the enjoyment of sex: issues such as reduced libido, difficult orgasming and dryness in the vagina[iii]. However, these do not necessarily have to lower sexual satisfaction or the quality of your sex life. This merely becomes another life transition that couples go through and can learn to successfully navigate.

Follow me here.

A study by Deeks & McCabe in 2001[iv] interviewed 304 women aged 35-65. Menopause predicted higher rates of sexual dysfunction (inability to orgasm, reduced desire etc), but sexual satisfaction and frequency were better predicted by age than by menopause status.

Meaning that yes, complications came in, but it didn’t necessarily derail sexual satisfaction and enjoyment — for some it was getting better as they got older.

To understand this, we have to look at how couples going through this phase of life are facing the potential challenges of menopause. A study in 2003[v] interviewed 30 women about their sex lives post-menopause and found that “few women focused on menopausal changes when they discussed their sex lives”.

Issues like relationship quality, communication and willingness to change sexual activities were more important. Many women with lower sexual satisfaction after menopause stated that this was due to their husband’s reaction- for example complaining about their wives’ vaginal dryness or getting frustrated when the woman doesn’t want to have sex because it is painful.

“These accounts suggest that some women continue to enjoy their active sex lives regardless of menopausal changes because they communicate openly with their partners and change the ways they have sex.[vi]” Focusing on activities other than intercourse, recognizing that it can take longer to orgasm, and using a lubricant to compensate for dryness are all strategies that post-menopausal couples used to still enjoy sex.

So we come back to the communication issue. You can either take these changes and take them personally or you can choose to face them with maturity and compassion and explore your way through this new phase of life. Menopause doesn’t have to spell the death of your sex life — it might create a couple of practical hurdles but these can certainly be overcome in the context of an open and supportive marriage.

One other thing to keep in mind is that our wives are also facing a change in perception of attractiveness as they age. Research from 2005[vii] found that women’s perception of their own attractiveness decreased with age (although it was not directly linked to menopausal status), and lower self-rated attractiveness predicted lower sexual satisfaction and less sexual activity. Higher perceived attractiveness was linked to increased sexual desire, higher rates of orgasm and greater frequency of sex.

We went in-depth on how your body image impacts sexual functioning in episode 88 — we don’t need to rehash that here — but the important point is that you are the determinant of your body image and that plays a key role in this part of life, too.

Menopause and Wellbeing

The other thing to keep in mind is that wellbeing also plays a role in menopause, and by extension, your marriage as well.

Rates of depression are high among midlife women. High levels of menopause symptoms can lead to decreased mental wellbeing and lower perceived quality of life[viii].

However, higher depression rates are not always due to biological changes from menopause but are most often predicted by having multiple roles and causes of worry such as holding a full-time job while looking after adolescent children, aging parents or physically ailing husbands.[ix] Managing different responsibilities or being sandwiched between caring for toddlers and aging parents can definitely create a strenuous stage of life, and this stress can often be more of an issue than anything relating to the menopause.

This is important because we can make menopause the whipping boy of these issues and fail to recognize the number of challenges that we can have on our plates at a time of life like this. I think when that happens we lose the ability to show healthy compassion for all that we do carry through this phase of life.

Fortunately, there are things we can do. As an example, Elavsky & McAuley[x] found that physical activities such as yoga and walking reduce the severity of menopausal symptoms and improved mood and psychological wellbeing.

Another study showed that remaining physically active can reduce the perceived severity of menopause symptoms and help retain good physical health[xi]. So we can respond well and choose self-care and choose to find ways to show compassion and care for ourselves in this part of life.

Stress is also a significant issue during menopause. And menopause increases the cardiovascular response to stress. And, menopausal symptoms are exacerbated by life stresses (including marriage stress, amidst others). Then menopause makes the stress worse. And now you have a cycle.

However: in the midst of this, marriage can also be a buffer against stress. Here’s a quote from some researchers:[xii] “supportive relationships in which couples demonstrated care and concern, affection, helpfulness, and sensitivity toward one another appeared to provide a buffer against emotional distress for each other.”

Menopause and Marriage

Overall: yes, there are biological consequences. There can be sexual difficulties that arise[xiii], as well as depressive feelings[xiv] and increased reactivity to stressful events[xv]. But relationship factors have a strong influence on all these variables. So create a thriving, passionate marriage — and know you can lean on that in times of change.

It’s just so important that we create a strong marriage so that we do have that in place for this time of life. Listen to this quote: “The less satisfying the marriage, the less perceived social support, and depth and more perceived conflict in the relationship, and the more distress related to self, husband, and family, the more menopausal symptomatology reported.[xvi]” So instead of worrying about how menopause may affect your marriage, take hold of the ways your marriage can improve your experience of menopause.

Maybe you’re going through menopause right now, or maybe it’s a long way off. Either way, I hope this is an encouragement to you to create that marriage that is thriving and resilient and strong, and that acts as a buffer against challenges such as menopause.

References:

[i] Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Megan Foley Nicpon, and Susan E. Maresh, ‘Mood, Marriage and Menopause.’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48.1 (2001), 77–84 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.48.1.77>.

[ii] Katherine Vaughn Fielder and Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, ‘Marriage, Stress and Menopause: Midlife Challenges and Joys’, Psicologia, 19.1–2 (2005), 87–106.

[iii] Julie A. Winterich, ‘Sex, Menopause, and Culture: Sexual Orientation and the Meaning of Menopause for Women’s Sex Lives’, Gender and Society, 17.4 (2003), 627–42.

[iv] Amanda A. Deeks and Marita P. McCabe, ‘Sexual Function and the Menopausal Woman: The Importance of Age and Partner’s Sexual Functioning’, The Journal of Sex Research, 38.3 (2001), 219–25.

[v] Winterich.

[vi] Winterich.

[vii] Patricia Barthalow Koch and others, ‘“Feeling Frumpy”: The Relationships between Body Image and Sexual Response Changes in Midlife Women’, The Journal of Sex Research, 42.3 (2005), 215–23.

[viii] Steriani Elavsky and Edward McAuley, ‘Physical Activity, Symptoms, Esteem, and Life Satisfaction during Menopause’, Maturitas, 52.3–4 (2005), 374–85 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2004.07.014>.

[ix] John B. McKinlay, Sonja M. McKinlay, and Donald Brambilla, ‘The Relative Contributions of Endocrine Changes and Social Circumstances to Depression in Mid-Aged Women’, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 28.4 (1987), 345 <https://doi.org/10.2307/2136789>.

[x] Steriani Elavsky and Edward McAuley, ‘Physical Activity and Mental Health Outcomes during Menopause: A Randomized Controlled Trial’, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 33.2 (2007), 132–42 <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02879894>.

[xi] Elavsky and McAuley, ‘Physical Activity, Symptoms, Esteem, and Life Satisfaction during Menopause’.

[xii] Fielder and Kurpius.

[xiii] Deeks and McCabe.

[xiv] Elavsky and McAuley, ‘Physical Activity, Symptoms, Esteem, and Life Satisfaction during Menopause’.

[xv] Fielder and Kurpius.

[xvi] Fielder and Kurpius.

Suggesting that it is possible to porn-proof your marriage may appear to be preposterous. Porn is so prevalent in our culture that it may be simply impossible to prevent yourself from seeing and coming into contact with pornography. However, what if you could build a marriage relationship and a shared worldview where pornography was not even attractive?

To begin with I want to clarify what we’re proposing, and who this is for.

You cannot walk through a mall, drive on a major highway, watch TV or use the Internet without being exposed to pornographic images. By ‘pornographic images’ I mean images capable of provoking sexual attraction, thoughts or fantasies. Such images are nearly impossible to avoid on a daily basis. That’s a sad but true commentary on our society’s sexualization of women in particular.

So when I talk about porn-proofing your marriage, I’m not necessarily talking about living a life where you don’t ever come into contact with these images: that would be pretty much impossible. Which is sad. But what I’m aiming at is creating a marriage and a shared worldview where pornography holds no traction (there’s no grip) and no attraction (there’s no real desire to pursue it).

I also want to point out who this post is for and not for.

Who it is for: If you’re currently in the grip of pornography addiction, I hope you will find this useful. If pornography is not a factor in your marriage and you want to keep it that way: this is for both of you. If one or both of you are recovered pornography addicts then I believe this will be helpful as well.

Who it is not for: If your spouse is in the grip of pornography addiction and you want to single-handedly shape your marriage in order to out-compete or even just eradicate pornography than you’re probably coming at this the wrong way. This post is not really for you until you fall into the previous category.

You see, it’s not your job to manage your spouse’s recovery.

Your job is to both confront and refrain from enabling, and I think you should even go so far as to refuse to take responsibility for your spouse’s recovery. It’s the addict’s job to own all aspects of his or her recovery, not yours. We do have a previous post on steps you can take when you’ve just discovered your husband’s porn addiction, so that may be helpful for people in this situation.

Having said that, it’s not fair for you to choose movies with pornographic scenes while also holding the conviction that pornography is wrong, and expecting your previously- or currently-addicted spouse not to be triggered by this. I mean, if you’re comfortable with some pornography, then you should be comfortable with your spouse viewing some pornography too, right?

Finally, we should mention for those who are new to our website and podcast that Verlynda and I speak from a born-again Christian worldview. It is our belief that pornography does not have anything to add to your marriage because the Bible and even secular research both support the notion that the best sex is happening inside marriage. We could go a lot further explaining our beliefs and the theological underpinnings but I think that is an adequate summary for now.

Pornography and Marriage Quality

Let me cite some research relevant to pornography and marriage quality. Stack et al[i] noted that high marriage quality was linked to lower porn use. Another researcher[ii] also observed that satisfaction with real-life sex is not linked to rates of porn use (i.e., porn use is not compensating for lower satisfaction with sex, and increasing porn use is not equal to increasing sexual satisfaction). In fact, Poulsen et al[iii] showed that high levels of porn use lead to lower sexual satisfaction for both men and women.

A Barna Group study called the Porn Phenomenon also reported a number of other potential impacts of pornography, including:

1. 1. A dramatic reduction in a spouse’s capacity to love their wife and children
   2. Difficulty achieving orgasm with your spouse
   3. Increased likelihood of having multiple sexual partners in both paid sex and extramarital sex
   4. Wives’ reporting their husbands’ sexual advances as conveying a message of objectification as opposed to a meaningful interaction
   5. Increase in sexless marriages

We could go on and on.

The point is that porn is not helping marriages — I really, truly believe that pornography has nothing to offer and nothing to add to creating a healthy, vibrant, enjoyable marriage — including sexual intimacy within that marriage.

Porn-Proofing Your Marriage

This is a multi-faceted issue so we’re going to touch on this at different levels, from behavioral all the way to examine our worldview.

Behavioral Safeguards

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. But I want to mention it because curiosity is a powerful thing. You can see something sexual that piques your interest and then it becomes a rabbit trail into pornography until you get lost in that world.

So I think there is value in doing whatever we can to protect ourselves even from accidental exposure to pornography. You might not be able to totally shield yourself from sexually provocative images, but you can certainly remove some of the temptation and make it harder for yourself to engage with overtly pornographic material, especially online.

It’s for that reason that our family uses a device called Circle, and we have Covenant Eyes accountability for adults and accountability and filtering for our kids, and we use Google Safe Search all the time. To be candid, we probably need more.

Social Circles that Resist Pornography

Now let’s look at how your friends and social circle can protect against porn use. Social control theory states that people may want to engage in deviant behavior (such as porn use) but their social bonds provide motivation not to[iv].

For example, things like bonds to society, to a particular religious or political view, or to the family may prevent a person from doing something that their society of family would deem unacceptable. You might want to look at porn but thinking about how your family or friends would react may influence your decision one way or the other.

A study from 2004[v] analyzed 531 surveys of internet users and found that three particular kinds of social bonds were related to cyberporn use:

1. 1. Church attendance negatively predicted cyberporn use
   2. Being happily married reduced likelihood of cyberporn use by 61%
   3. Political liberalism increased odds of porn use

I just thought it was really interesting to look at this. It challenges us to step back and examine our most influential social circles. Who do you choose to put in your circle?

Think about this in terms of your marriage: you want to have a circle of friends that you move among who uphold the sanctity of marriage. You may have Christian friends but have an unacknowledged contract between you that it’s OK to watch inappropriate movies, or maybe there’s the odd porn or sex joke that just communicates the idea — we all do it, what’s the big deal? Having this element of permissiveness in our social circles increased our vulnerability to pornography.

Religiosity and Pornography

This one is more interesting. Let me start with a poignant quote: “while religiosity is consistently negatively associated with an acceptance of pornography, these same attitudes do not always translate to a lack of use.[vi]”

People from Christian backgrounds often have negative attitudes to porn use but actual usage levels don’t always reflect this. For example, a study by Nelson et al in 2010[vii] interviewed 192 Christian men aged 18-27 and found that 100% of them thought porn use was unacceptable, but that 45% of them had still used porn at some point in the last 12 months.

This was lower than porn use rates in the general population for a similar age group (87%) but still shows that beliefs and actions don’t always tie together.

So just calling yourself a Christian, or even having closely held beliefs, doesn’t necessarily porn-proof your marriage.

However, there are some specific characteristics noted by Nelson et al.[viii] that were found to be linked to not using porn in Christian men: (keep in mind as we list these that this is from a research perspective, not a preaching-at-you perspective)

1. Higher levels of current and past involvement in religious practices (prayer, scripture reading, attending church etc).
   Regularly connecting with God and other Christians in this way was thought to serve as a reminder that porn use was unacceptable. “Even if an individual is taught that pornography is unacceptable, religious beliefs may not be enough to prevent pornography use without the regular, maybe even daily, participation in activities (praying, reading scriptures) that reinforce those religious beliefs.”
2. A stronger sense of identity and self-worth, particularly relating to family, dating, and faith. Having a stronger sense of who you are and what’s important to you strengthens you against the temptations of porn.
3. Stronger relationships with the family, particularly a stronger relationship with your mother, and higher involvement in religious activities as a family.
4. Lower levels of depression. For this one it’s unclear which direction the effect is: it could be that those who used porn felt guilty about it, leading to depression, or could be that depression causes weaker impulse control or the need to use porn to raise your mood. In either case, porn use is closely linked to depression, so if either of them affects you it’s important to seek help.

So a strong personal belief, supported by regular practice and a close family, can guard you against porn where simply having a faith does not. But there’s a flip side. There are also some risk factors associated with religiosity that can increase risk of porn use and addiction.

Having highly conservative Christian views or being raised in “rigid, authoritarian families” can produce a very high emphasis on sexual purity and the belief that sex is taboo and should not be talked about. This then means that someone who uses porn once would feel very isolated and too ashamed to come forward for help about it, leading to a “cycle of shame and guilt” that leads to addiction[ix].

So you have to shape your faith (in terms of church life, beliefs, and behavior) as a couple in order for this to become a resiliency factor against pornography. It’s not enough to assume that just because you’re church-going and Bible-toting people that you are porn-proof.

Deeper Issues

Finally, there are some deeper issues yet that I believe can help porn-proof a marriage.

Worldview: what goes through your mind or happens in your body when you see the full-scale images in the window of Victoria’s Secret in the mall? This is important: you need to see a person, not just a body. That’s somebody’s daughter. She has hopes, dreams, and aspirations. She has a story to her life. If she finds worth in the sale of her beauty to an advertising or modeling agency, that’s evidence of her brokenness.

She is not an object for lust or gratification. She is a human being. You should feel sadness for her. What was private and precious is now just being used as smut for the idle gaze of lustful passers-by who have no intention of appreciating the person — just the body. It’s your worldview that will change the perspective of everything from seductive images in a mall to what is clearly marketed as pornography. Are you in a world of people? Or bodies?

Intimacy: learn to open your emotions deeply to one another. There is no person you should feel more emotionally connected to than your spouse. If you’re not there — take action so that in 1-2 years from now you will be there. You don’t want intimacy voids left in your marriage that are going to be looking for opportunities to get filled up with pornography and the fantasy world that brings. One of the things that makes pornography such a powerful addiction is that it presents itself as a form of pseudo-intimacy. So creating a genuine, robust, healthy intimacy is a huge resiliency factor — then the fake alternative holds far less appeal.

Sexuality: challenge yourselves to grow as a couple in this area. Not to out-compete the online world — you don’t want to try to achieve what they have. That’s not your standard. But rather to create something between you that is at times some or all of these things: exciting, playful, adventurous, intimate, loving, passionate, exploratory, etc etc. Again: if your sexual experience inside your marriage is rich and fulfilling, then the cheap alternative that pornography offers won’t hold the same appeal.

More could be said but hopefully, this gets you started. Porn-proofing your marriage is about more than just knowing in your head that pornography is wrong and putting up behavioral fences that stop you acting on your urges. If you and your spouse create a worldview and a lifestyle that’s focused on honoring God and seeing people as people, not objects, then the very idea of pornography becomes abhorrent. And it’s when you see it in this light that your marriage becomes truly porn-proof.

References:

[i] Steven Stack, Ira Wasserman, and Roger Kern, ‘Adult Social Bonds and Use of Internet Pornography*’, Social Science Quarterly, 85.1 (2004), 75–88 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.08501006.x>.

[ii] Christian Laier, ‘Cybersex Addiction: Craving and Cognitive Processes’ (unpublished Wissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeiten » Dissertation, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Fakultät für Ingenieurwissenschaften » Informatik und Angewandte Kognitionswissenschaft, 2012) <https://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen.de/servlets/DocumentServlet?id=30007> [accessed 15 March 2017].

[iii] Franklin O. Poulsen, Dean M. Busby, and Adam M. Galovan, ‘Pornography Use: Who Uses It and How It Is Associated with Couple Outcomes’, Journal of Sex Research, 50 (2013), 72–83 <https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2011.648027>.

[iv] Stack, Wasserman, and Kern.

[v] Stack, Wasserman, and Kern.

[vi] John Sessoms, ‘The Cyber Pornography Use Inventory: Comparing a Religious and Secular Sample’, Senior Honors Theses, 2011 <https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/honors/247>.

[vii] Larry J. Nelson, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, and Jason S. Carroll, ‘“I Believe It Is Wrong but I Still Do It”: A Comparison of Religious Young Men Who Do versus Do Not Use Pornography.’, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2.3 (2010), 136–47 <https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019127>.

[viii] Nelson, Padilla-Walker, and Carroll.

[ix] Jeremy N. Thomas, ‘The Development and Deployment of the Idea of Pornography Addiction Within American Evangelicalism’, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 23 (2016), 182–95 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10720162.2016.1140603>.

We’re here to talk

If you are married, it’s more than likely that you’ve had a discussion with your spouse at some point about a friendship between one of you and someone outside your marriage. So, what about those opposite-sex friendships? Are they healthy or are they dangerous? Should we avoid them at all costs or take them on a case by case basis? How much friendliness with the opposite sex is too much and could land you in trouble? What if the person you’re friends with is 50 years older than you? These are all questions we explore in this article.

Recognize the Hazard

First of all, we don’t take a hard line on this issue in either direction. We neither tell you to back off and let your spouse be a grown-up and choose his or her friends or insist that there can be no friendships with the opposite sex for either of you.

This is a nuanced issue with lots of variables and we want to point you towards a thoughtful, nuanced, self-reflective review of this issue. Hopefully, you do this in a way that prioritizes the sanctity and value of being in a loyal, committed, thriving marriage.

It’s important to recognize that we all need to recognize there is a potential hazard in opposite sex friendships. This doesn’t just apply to flirtatious friends; it’s is really true with any friend. If someone is your friend, it is because you are attracted to them: to their personality or characteristics or physical appearance or what they have to offer or how they make you feel. The word “attraction” may make you nervous there: it doesn’t necessarily mean physical attraction or even attraction in a way that is unfaithful to your marriage. It’s natural that we like our friends. You may not be thinking in that direction today, but it is important to acknowledge this as a potential hazard. That doesn’t call us to paranoia or isolation: it should call us toward caution and self-reflection to make sure we keep things in a healthy place.

What to Watch For

The Potential for More

The first issue to be aware of is that there is often the potential for more than a friendship. There are conceivable circumstances under which a friendship could exist with absolutely no sexual attraction or sexual compatibility. In a case like this, having a friendship with someone of the opposite gender presents no problem at all.[1] An example of this is little old ladies from church. You can go to her house for the afternoon, chat, share personal stories, have a cup of tea, pet her cat, and nothing is ever going to happen.

At the same time, it’s important to realize that many opposite-sex friendships involve people who—if circumstances were different—might be potential romantic partners. It’s also worth noting that it is common for men to mainly befriend women that they have at least some degree of physical attraction to.[2] In light of this, it can be hard to know how best to handle opposite-sex relationships because another important task for married people is to stop considering alternatives. You don’t want to be moving through life considering potential alternatives to your spouse. But you also have to recognize that if someone is a potential alternative then that friendship has greater risks associated with it.

The key difference between these two thoughts is the element of fantasy. Fantasy says, “I wonder what it would be like to be married to him or her?” Or worse, “…To have sex with that person?” This is called considering alternatives, and it erodes your commitment, intimacy, and loyalty towards your spouse.

On the other hand, it is possible to realize that someone is attractive or kind or admirable in some way. You need to be conscious of recognizing that there is potential for more (without fantasy or thinking about what that potential might be) and just set a mental boundary for yourself.

Warning Sings

It’s important to pay attention to the warning signs and not to ignore them. Some warning signs might be:

1. If you find yourself consistently texting with someone of the opposite sex and it’s not strictly confined to necessary communication for work or other responsibilities.
2. If you try to arrange more meetings or “together time” than you need to (e.g., if the friendship started at work).
3. If the friendship is becoming intimate: emotionally or physically (e.g., sharing personal things you don’t usually share with the opposite sex or sitting close together or holding hands).[3]
4. If you find yourself thinking about the other person a lot, even to the point of being distracted when you are with your spouse (obsessing).
5. If you start getting together outside of the context of your initial or primary connection. For example, if you start having coffee with someone you met at the gym.
6. If you find yourself hiding the details of your communication or time spent with the other person from your spouse.
7. If the nature of your communication is becoming personal or intimate.

Healthy Boundaries for Friendships

According to family counselor Greg Smalley, “Friendships with people of the opposite sex should be casual  friendships: Your time together is infrequent and, when you do see each other, you are guided by strong boundaries that your spouse and you have previously agreed to.”[4]

How to Set Boundaries

The guiding principle in setting up boundaries is to prioritize your marriage.  You have to preserve your relationship with your spouse above all friendships. You want to protect your marriage but also to think specifically about protecting the trust between you.[5] The balance is key since we all need to have friends; our spouse cannot be the entire extent of our social network. And all of us will have some friends of the opposite sex whom we need to be friendly to. But we need to do that without putting our marriage at risk.

Here are some guidelines that you can discuss with your spouse:

1. Do not be friends with anyone your spouse does not feel comfortable with… no exceptions. And don’t continue fighting for that friendship once your spouse has waved the red flag. That only makes you look like you care more about this friend than your spouse.[6]
   1. Caveat: We are assuming here that there’s not a problem with jealousy in your marriage (see episode 113). It’s ideal if you can articulate the reason for the discomfort and both of you agree. There is the odd case where a spouse has an unaddressed and out of control jealousy problem, or even an abusive control issue and ends up isolating the other spouse on the basis of this otherwise useful and healthy principle. 
2. Your friendships with the opposite sex need to be completely out in the open. If you’re hiding a relationship with the opposite sex from your spouse or hiding how close you are to the other person, that should set off some serious alarm bells.[7]
3. Don’t share private details of your marriage with anyone of the opposite sex. Lean on a mentor, pastor, life coach, or a trusted friend of the same sex.[8]
4. There are different opinions on how much you should be a support to someone of the opposite sex. Some people say you should never be the shoulder for someone of the opposite sex to cry on. They’ll tell you to be kind, hand them a tissue and walk away. You might have healthy boundaries, but this person might not.[9] The part about boundaries is true. But there may also be a place for careful consideration of supporting someone, provided you have your spouse’s approval and awareness of the nature and extent of that support, and that you consider the potential for more that was discussed previously. 
5. Don’t be alone with a person of the opposite sex outside of work, unless you and your spouse agree ahead of time. This includes being alone in a messaging app: texting, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. Romantic relationships usually come out of recreational activities and intimate conversations, so if you’re spending time having fun or gaining familiarity with this friend, it can easily lead to something more.[10] It’s also worth being very deliberate about planning business trips with someone of the opposite sex in a way that protects your marriage as well as both of your reputations. 

It’s Not All About Prevention

While it can be helpful to follow a list of “do-not’s,” it is also good to think about things you can and should do for yourself and your marriage.

There are a few things you can do to strengthen your marriage:

First of all, cultivate a deep friendship with your spouse. Make that relationship your top priority: not just in principle but in practice. This doesn’t mean you need to exclude all other friendships, but this relationship ought to take precedence over all others.[11] You’ll be most protective of, and cultivating towards your most important friendship. Make that person your spouse.

Secondly, your closest, most rewarding friendships outside your marriage should be with people of the same sex.[12] These relationships are also healthy for your marriage. If you don’t have any then that is an indicator that this is a necessary growth area for you. Something is out of balance.

Thirdly, build shared social networks with your spouse.[13] Try to find people where you can be friends as a couple with another couple. So, the friendship and sharing of life and the companionship that develops exists between you as couples, and the strongest bonds or sense of connection is between the two guys and the two women in this context. 

Most of us need more friendships, not less. And more connection, not less. We just really want to encourage you to build that first of all with your spouse, then with same-sex friends. Thirdly, to do so carefully, thoughtfully and with boundaries towards members of the opposite sex.

References

[1] Debra MacLeod, “Why Opposite-Sex Friendships Will Destroy Your Marriage,” 2019,https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/debra-macleod/opposite-sex-friendship_b_6646482.html.[2] MacLeod.[3] Carter Zack, “1-on-1 Opposite Sex Friends: A Blind Spot Threat to Marriage,” 2017,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/clear-communication/201708/1-1-opposite-sex-friends-blind-spot-threat-marriage.[4] Greg Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?,” 2017,https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/the-billy-graham-rule-should-you-be-friends-with-someone-of-the-opposite-sex/.[5] Meygan Caston, “How to Keep Boundaries With the Opposite Sex,” 2017,https://www.marriage365.org/blog/how-to-keep-boundaries-with-the-opposite-sex.[6] Caston.[7] Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?”[8] Caston, “How to Keep Boundaries With the Opposite Sex.”[9] Caston.[10] Caston.[11] Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?”[12] Smalley.[13] Smalley.

Marriage can have some really, really tough times — maybe you’re in that mode right now — and have been for a while. You wonder: is this all there is? Does anyone really enjoy this? Or maybe your marriage is not horrible but it’s only just tolerable. Maybe steady but dull. You’re wondering if there’s more. Or perhaps you’re contemplating marriage but what you witnessed of your parents’ marriage leads you to continue to wonder: is it even possible to have a very happy marriage?

There is a mixed perception of marriage in western culture. On one hand, marriage is viewed as the “happily ever after” that everyone aspires to, on the other it is considered a restriction of freedom; being stuck with the same person for life and giving up on what you want in favor of what’s best for the marriage and the family. “These two competing visions of marriage- the wedding as a doorway to happiness and the wedding as an obstacle to individual growth- subsist side by side in contemporary American culture.[i]”

So we’re not all sold on this, right? We still wonder: does marriage actually make you happier?

Does Marriage Make You Happier?

I am very happy to say the answer is “Yes!”

Research almost universally shows that married people are happier than non-married, divorced or widowed[ii][iii][iv]. “Marriage has often been found to be one of the strongest correlates of happiness and wellbeing[v]”. One study[vi] of over 14,000 people over a ten year period found that marriage was one of the most important predictors of happiness.

Now before we get all giddy — we have to ask. Does marriage make you happier? Or is it that happier people are more likely to get married?

A study from 2006[vii] found that happier single people are more likely to opt for marriage. Uh-oh. However, in a 2014 study[viii] that controlled for pre-marital levels of happiness, it was still found that marriage will increase happiness over and above pre-marriage levels, suggesting a causal effect. So the evidence suggests that even if happier people tend to get married, marriage still causes an increase in happiness above what it was pre-marriage.

Stats on Marriage and Happiness/Satisfaction

So what about the stats on this? What are we looking at?

79% of married men and 81% of married women report being “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with life[ix]. This is higher than for those living together, or those who are single or divorced/separated.

40% of married people reported being “very happy” with their lives, compared to under 25% for single people[x].

I just want to the sidebar for one sec here — in case you happen to be single and reading a post on a marriage website— there are still nearly 1 in 4 people who are single and very happy. Yeah, it’s less than the percentage of married and happy. But don’t choose to stake your happiness on being married — because there are people who are not married and are still happy.

I just don’t want to leave anyone with the idea that if you’re single, you can’t enjoy life or if you’re single, you aren’t reaching a standard that the rest of us have who are married. It’s just different. It’s about what you make of it for your singleness as much as for those of us who are making something of our marriages.

Factors Leading to Joy and Happiness in Marriage

Now let’s go over the factors leading to happiness and joy in marriage:

1. 1. Communication[xi]. Styles of communication that were relaxed, friendly, open, dramatic or attentive increased marital happiness. Using a variety of different communication styles was also linked to happiness. Couples who are happily married develop unique conversation styles that are more personal, spontaneous and make self-disclosure easier.
      You’ve probably seen couples who seem to speak a totally different language that only they understand. This totally relaxed, unique way of relating to each other builds intimacy and happiness into the relationship.
   2. Friendship[xii]. Don’t miss this one. Marriage increases happiness and life satisfaction levels overall, and protects against the dip in life satisfaction many people feel in middle age. This effect is twice as strong in married couples who are also best friends. These effects are found almost universally in different cultures around the world.
   3. Social Support[xiii]. “Marriage is the greatest source of social support for most people, more than friends or kin, including emotional and material support, and companionship.” Marriage also promotes physical health by encouraging you to think about long-term consequences and to live healthily and protects mental health by giving you someone to confide in and receive support from. “Social support” sounds so technical — but this is a beautiful thing when you have it. And great for your health and wellbeing too. Well worth building into your marriage.
   4. Specialization[xiv]. Couples complement each other with different emotional skills, creating a “balancing act that leaves both partners better off.” Don’t compete or complain about shortcomings — complement each other. Also sometimes true with physical skills, leading to an easier division of labor.
   5. Meaning[xv]. “Marriage partners together create a shared sense of social reality and meaning- their own little separate world, populated by only the two of them”. Even a marriage that isn’t perfect can still provide a sense of meaning and a sense that what you do matters. There’s also meaning in the bond you have: no matter what else happens in life there is someone who cares for you and values you.
   6. Better Sex[xvi]. Marriage creates a better sex life due to increased intimacy, exclusivity and enabling you to continually grow closer together and learn how to enjoy sex more. We talk about this a lot more in episode 128!
   7. Humor[xvii]. Marital happiness was linked to the use of positive humor (jokes that were about the relationship or the spouse in a playful, benign way). Negative humor (sarcasm and harsh jokes at the spouse’s expense) was negatively correlated with happiness. For both positive and negative, your perception of your spouse’s use of humor was more important than how you use it yourself. So use humor, but wisely and graciously.

Staying Happy Long Term

When it comes to long term marriages — what makes them happy? How do you keep that sense of joy and contentment through the years? Well, we’re going to see it’s some of the same things so I won’t spend too long on this. But I do think it is definitely worth noting these items.

A study from 1990[xviii] interviewed 100 couples who had been married for at least 45 years. These couples identified some variables which were important in sustaining their marriages for so long and remaining happy throughout:

1. Being married to someone they enjoyed spending time with
2. Commitment to the spouse and to the marriage
3. A sense of humor
4. Similar aims in life, sharing the same friends and agreement on decision making

They found that men and women were very similar in their responses.

Creating a happy marriage also prepares you for the increasing health challenges that come as we age. See, marital closeness protects against hardship. Research shows that relationship quality and closeness to your spouse buffer against the depressive effects of hardships such as physical frailty and financial distress[xix]. Not only is a great, happy marriage something to aim for in itself, but it helps protect you from feeling the effects of hardship in later life.

So: yes, you can have a happy marriage. It is possible. It is also very enjoyable. And it is very helpful. I hope that as you read this today you are challenged and encouraged to keep moving forward! If your marriage isn’t as happy as you’d like it to be, hopefully you can identify some areas you can work on. A joyful marriage is definitely something worth fighting for!

References:

[i] Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (Crown/Archetype, 2002).

[ii] Shawn Grover and John Helliwell, How’s Life at Home? New Evidence on Marriage and the Set Point for Happiness (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2014) <https://doi.org/10.3386/w20794>.

[iii] Michael Argyle, ‘Causes and Correlates of Happiness’, in Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, ed. by D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (New York, NY, US: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 353–73.

[iv] Waite and Gallagher.

[v] Argyle.

[vi] Waite and Gallagher.

[vii] Alois Stutzer and Bruno S. Frey, ‘Does Marriage Make People Happy, or Do Happy People Get Married?’, The Journal of Socio-Economics, The Socio-Economics of Happiness, 35.2 (2006), 326–47 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2005.11.043>.

[viii] Grover and Helliwell.

[ix] Argyle.

[x] Waite and Gallagher.

[xi] James M. Honeycutt, Charmaine Wilson, and Christine Parker, ‘Effects of Sex and Degrees of Happiness on Perceived Styles of Communicating in and out of the Marital Relationship’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 44.2 (1982), 395–406 <https://doi.org/10.2307/351548>.

[xii] Grover and Helliwell.

[xiii] Argyle.

[xiv] Waite and Gallagher.

[xv] Waite and Gallagher.

[xvi] F. Scott Christopher and Susan Sprecher, ‘Sexuality in Marriage, Dating, and Other Relationships: A Decade Review’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62.4 (2000), 999–1017.

[xvii] Melissa Johari, ‘Humour and Marital Quality: Is Humour Style Associated with Marital Success?’, Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive), 2004 <https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/170>.

[xviii] Robert H. Lauer, Jeanette C. Lauer, and Sarah T. Kerr, ‘The Long-Term Marriage: Perceptions of Stability and Satisfaction’, The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 31.3 (1990), 189–95 <https://doi.org/10.2190/H4X7-9DVX-W2N1-D3BF>.

[xix] Roni Beth Tower and Stanislav V. Kasl, ‘Depressive Symptoms across Older Spouses and the Moderating Effect of Marital Closeness.’, Psychology and Aging, 10.4 (1995), 625–38 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.10.4.625>.

One of the benefits of being a patron of The Marriage Podcast for Smart People is that you’re given the opportunity to request topics. One of our patrons asked us to address cross-cultural or inter-racial marriages. It’s an interesting area, with research showing that there are some common difficulties inter-racial couples face, as well as some real strengths they can draw from their different backgrounds and perspectives.

We should acknowledge at the start that we do address this issue from a place of white privilege — even though we have a bizarre last name, we are both white and so a set of privileges was defaulted to us at birth.

However, we have been studying this issue and want to bring some wisdom to those of you who are inter-racial couples. We’d also love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.

Interracial couples face challenges in their marriages that often find their source in issues that aren’t marital.

Socioeconomic Differences

For example. A study in 2006[i] looked at survey data for interracial couples and found a higher risk of severe distress compared to intra-racial couples (same race). What is interesting is that they noted that issues to do with socioeconomic status accounted for half of the variance.

So they concluded that one of the largest challenges in interracial marriages was to do with money and socioeconomic status. It’s an unpleasant fact about the western society that racial minority families are, on average, less well off than white families. So an interracial couple may be coming from very different economic backgrounds, which can create tension.

Another study along these lines[ii] pointed out that interracial couples have fewer resources available to them in terms of being able to share finances, possessions, and workloads due to this disparity in socioeconomic status. Tied to this was the observation that these couples may be less able to get support from their extended family due to the possibility of the family disapproving of the marriage, which could also add to marital strains.

I think the point here is that we all know financial issues put strain on marriage: but for interracial couples, the likelihood of experiencing this stressor is higher. Yet, in this, I also want to offer hope. Financial stress does impact your marriage: however, financial stress does not mean there’s something wrong with your marriage. To me, the question then becomes: how can we acknowledge this reality but have it become something we face together rather than something between us?

For those readers not from interracial marriages, that’s actually something you can use for your marriage too! If you want a bit of extra help we have a whole series of posts on marriages finances, with some useful info on topics like how to build a budget and how to reduce debt.

Stigma

There has been a stigma about cross-cultural marriage in society — probably forever. It was even illegal in many US states and in many countries — perhaps still is, in some. I don’t know.

This stigma and disapproval of cross-cultural marriage is an issue: in ways that those of us with intra-racial marriages may not even consider. For example, stigma may make it harder for interracial couples to show affection in public[iii] due to that fear of being judged.

Stigma can also affect you outside of public settings: think about families. More conservative families may dislike the idea of you marrying someone from a different race or culture. Older research suggests this stigma issue may even have a “Romeo and Juliet Effect” where parental or family disapproval actually works to increase feelings of love[iv]. However, most modern research shows the exact opposite: disapproval from your social network often leads to lower relationship quality[v].

So there’s this sense of isolation and disapproval from your family and from society in general. It’s possible that this could bring you closer together as a couple in a “you and me against the world” kind of way but even so the strain this puts on your marriage should not be underestimated.

Trust

The stigma around cross-cultural marriages and the long history of inequality and discrimination between races may lead to an inherent mistrust and even anger inside your marriage.

This may come out in conflict situations[vi]. The long and difficult history of race relations can lead to things being misinterpreted or generalizations being made and other unhelpful communication issues.

Again, now you have something that is between you but finds its source outside your marriage. We’ll unpack this a little more but we have the same principle as with socioeconomic issues: can you have a discussion that acknowledges this reality (if it actually is real for you), and then agree that you’re both going to help each other to acknowledge it as something to face together, rather than have between you?

So that might look like a white husband saying, “Look, I know you’re angry and you see my perspective as being racist — but I want you to know that at the very least I don’t want to or intend to be racist. If there’s some way I’m unconsciously using my white privilege or being racist, please help me understand.” But if there’s nothing there you can identify that your spouse is being racist about, could it be that you are just experiencing a trigger from other traumatic racial situations — and this is not actually a problem occurring in the present?

It could go either way, right? He could be doing something racist or insensitive and need to be educated and given an opportunity to apologize and make amends. Or, he could just be doing something without any intent to be racist and certainly with the desire to never treat you differently because of the race — but this is how you are experiencing it due to other things you have experienced. Possibly it could be a little of both.

Either way, helping him to learn about himself and learning about yourself — these are all valuable discussions to have so that you can work through and understand how this plays into your dance as a couple.

But this requires you to trust each other — not despite racial differences — but with awareness of those differences.

Trust helps with communication, decision making, conflict resolution, and commitment.

One of the ways you can build this trust is by creating your own shared worldview as a couple. All of us have a worldview. And it is shaped by culture and race and experiences of race. Understanding each other’s worldview and building a shared set of beliefs is vital for a trusting relationship[vii].

You don’t necessarily need the same beliefs but having compatible beliefs will make communication easier and increase your happiness in your marriage.

At the very least you need to be aware of what each other’s beliefs are as you could be coming at this relationship with very different perspectives on how it is going to look. Assuming those beliefs are the same is just going to add to the strain of marriage. Talk about gender roles, religion, parenting — as early on as you can in your relationship.

Communication

Now let’s look at how interracial couples can work on communication. Cross-cultural communication is interesting, especially in light of the pursue-withdraw cycle that we talk about on our show from time to time. A study from 2006[viii] interviewed 363 participants from different countries (Brazil, Italy, Taiwan and the USA) about communication style and satisfaction. Findings were the same across cultures:

1. 1. Constructive communication style linked to higher satisfaction
   2. Demand/withdraw patterns were found in all cultures with men in the withdrawing role being significantly more common in all cultures
   3. Demand/withdraw communication associated with lower satisfaction across all cultures.

So styles of communication and conflict resolution are often the same across cultures. I don’t know enough to speak to this fully but of course in this type of marriage work you are looking at primary emotions like anger, joy, fear etc. And those primary emotions are common to all humankind.

The takeaway here is that your communication doesn’t have to fail or be a problem because you are from different cultural or racial backgrounds. And it also means that there are a lot of therapists out there like myself who can help you create a marriage you’ll love today and treasure for a lifetime.

Racial Identity

Let’s end on a positive note here.

A study by Leslie & Letiecq[ix] interviewed 76 interracial couples. They found that taking pride in your own racial identity while also being accepting of other cultures was the highest predictor of marital quality for these couples.

What I took from this is what we need to do in any marriage: acknowledge our reality, and learn to be accepting and committed. Don’t thrust these issues under the table or pretend they aren’t there. Because they are there.

Another study from 2009[x] also identified the need for supportive communication. They also talked about self-disclosure as a predictor of marital satisfaction in interracial families. That’s sharing your internal world and experience with your spouse. And they also talked about identity accommodation, similar to the previous work we just referred to. Identity accommodation is about having positive attitudes towards both your own and your spouse’s culture and heritage.

So when these positive ingredients are mixed together, it increases your sense of family identity. Who you are as a couple. What’s beautiful now is that we’re talking about “us” and “we” rather than “you” and “I”.

And that’s the key to a successful cross-cultural marriage: in the face of all these issues like disapproving families and economic strain, and in spite of years of distrust and inequality in society, you have chosen to come together and make your two worlds one. Choosing to understand each other and celebrate your separate beliefs while working towards creating your own shared outlook on life will allow your marriage to thrive in spite of anything life throws at you.

References:

[i] Jenifer L. Bratter and Karl Eschbach, ‘“What about the Couple?” Interracial Marriage and Psychological Distress’, Social Science Research, 35.4 (2006), 1025–47 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2005.09.001>.

[ii] Yan-Liang Jerry Yu, ‘Rethinking Marriage and Health: What Role Does Interracial Marriage Play?’, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 2013.

[iii] Elizabeth Vaquera and Grace Kao, ‘Private and Public Displays of Affection Among Interracial and Intra-Racial Adolescent Couples’, Social Science Quarterly, 86.2 (2005), 484–508.

[iv] Richard Driscoll, Keith E. Davis, and Milton E. Lipetz, ‘Parental Interference and Romantic Love: The Romeo and Juliet Effect.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24.1 (1972), 1–10 <https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033373>.

[v] H. Colleen Sinclair, Kristina B. Hood, and Brittany L. Wright, ‘Revisiting the Romeo and Juliet Effect (Driscoll, Davis, &amp; Lipetz, 1972): Reexamining the Links Between Social Network Opinions and Romantic Relationship Outcomes’, Social Psychology, 45.3 (2014), 170–78 <https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000181>.

[vi] Farah A. Ibrahim and David G. Schroeder, ‘Cross-Cultural Couples Counseling: A Developmental, Psychoeducational Intervention’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 21.2 (1990), 193–205.

[vii] Ibrahim and Schroeder.

[viii] Andrew Christensen and others, ‘Cross-Cultural Consistency of the Demand/Withdraw Interaction Pattern in Couples’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 68.4 (2006), 1029–44.

[ix] Leigh A. Leslie and Bethany L. Letiecq, ‘Marital Quality of African American and White Partners in Interracial Couples’, Personal Relationships, 11.4 (2004), 559–74 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2004.00098.x>.

[x] Jordan Soliz, Allison Thorson, and Christine Rittenour, ‘Communicative Correlates of Satisfaction, Family Identity, and Group Salience in Multiracial/Ethnic Families’, Papers in Communication Studies, 2009 <https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstudiespapers/7>.

This is a great question! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just leave all the past behind, turn over a new leaf, and start afresh? 

Most couples have problems and difficulties that they’ve been through and are trying to put behind them. Some of you might even have serious issues in your past that are still causing you pain and affecting your marriage today. And so you may be wondering if it’s possible to move on from difficulties in your marriage without bringing up all these issues again. Is it possible to leave past conflict unresolved and still have a happy marriage?

Turns out it’s not a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

For those of you that are new to the site, we speak to marriage issues out of a Christian worldview but what makes our approach unique is that there’s a ton of research in psychological journals that becomes part of our content.

So when we come to a question like this we aim to give you a very balanced, reliable recommendation that is going to truly help you move forward in your marriage. Because that’s our goal: to help you create thriving, passionate marriage. And if you are reading this it is probably because you don’t have that but you want it. And we want to help you get there!

How Unresolved Conflict Impacts Marriage

A good starting question is: can you have a happy marriage while leaving past arguments or differences unresolved?

It turns out that unresolved conflict does not appear to impact the duration of your marriage. But: it is negatively correlated to relationship satisfaction. Meaning that as the amount of unresolved conflict increases, it might not lead to the complete breakdown of your relationship but you’re probably going to become less satisfied with your marriage[i].

What is interesting is that this researcher then factored conflict out of the equation. You can do this with multifactorial analysis to pinpoint what exactly is causing the effect that you’ve observed. And when the amount of conflict (or frequency of arguments) was removed from the equation, the satisfaction still went down. Meaning that it truly is about the fact that things are left unresolved: this is the key factor, not the conflict itself.

But the researcher did have something to conclude about conflict styles: the more unresolved conflict, the more negative conflict styles were present. When higher levels of unresolved conflict were present in couples he observed more things like withdrawal during arguments, escalating small issues into arguments, etc. Which makes sense. Not dealing with stuff causes a buildup of pressure so that when things do spill over into an argument it’s going to be more extreme and all these other unresolved issues are going to get thrown in as well. Poor communication strategies are likely to follow. As another researcher put it: “To leave conflict unresolved is a risky course of action. An unresolved conflict could fester to the point of causing an explosion.[ii]”

So the evidence says: resolving conflict is better than leaving it unresolved. And I think most of us know that on an intuitive level: we have to deal with the things that just aren’t going away.

But: there is also some research to indicate that avoiding conflict (and even leaving things unresolved) may be a good idea if your conflict style is very negative and volatile. If you really do not have any functional, adaptable ways of resolving issues then you may need to contain the fallout. In that case, leaving things unresolved may be the lesser of two evils[iii].

That’s fine for the research to point out but I would still contend that if this is your situation it would be better to learn those skills. Read a book, get some counselling: do something to help you guys learn how to resolve conflict. I just cannot see this working out well in the long term even as I understand and acknowledge why it may be helpful in the short term. Avoiding conflict because your way of dealing with it is so destructive doesn’t sound like a healthy, sustainable marriage, so if you find yourself doing this then get help with learning new conflict-resolution skills.

Of course, I’m assuming we’re not talking about an abusive marriage here. Avoiding conflict becomes a whole new topic when any form of abuse is involved. Remember that abuse isn’t always as obvious as physical violence; verbal and emotional abuse resulting from conflict are serious issues that need to be identified and addressed. We’ve written a series of posts on abuse and part 1 was all about how to tell if you’re in an abusive marriage, so give that a read if you’re concerned this may be an issue in your marriage.

3 Ways to Avoid Conflict

There’s three avoidance strategies that we probably all use at some point or another. They can actually be helpful but they can also be quite unhelpful too!

Withholding Complaints

Withholding is simply not mentioning it when your partner does something that you find aggravating. This solution works best for minor grievances and when used to avoid raising minor day to day issues was positively correlated with relationship satisfaction.

However, the offending spouse still has no idea they have done something to upset the other spouse and so the behavior will likely persist[iv].

This may work best for concerns that aren’t worth addressing right now. Or, maybe it’s something that you feel just happened as a one-off situation. But generally, for bigger issues or recurring problems, simply refraining from mentioning them isn’t a great idea as it just leads to that festering low level of dissatisfaction that’s liable to blow up.

Suppressing Arguments

Suppression is avoiding talking about the past issue or withdrawing once your partner has initiated the discussion. This can be done by pretending to agree with what your spouse is saying so as to stop the argument, minimizing the importance of the issue they have raised, or outright avoiding/leaving the conversation (stonewalling).

Personally I find this hard to take in the moment because I feel disconnection from myself and the other person. I prefer to put something on the table.

However, the researcher noted that minimizing the importance of a past issue and focusing on “shared values which tied them together which overwhelm the importance of the past conflict” was a trait observed in some happily married couples.

So it does appear to work for some couples. I think there’s value in the idea that sometimes we do need to declare a truce over an issue and then maybe agree to leave it until we feel like we are more equipped to come back to it. If used with restraint, it can be a way to remind yourself about the positive, get unstuck, and move forward.

However, if you’re doing this constantly it becomes the elephant (or herd of elephants) in the room that nobody wants to mention.

Declaring a Topic Taboo

This is the next notch up from suppressing arguments. Declaring a topic taboo happens when you mutually decide not to ever talk about a certain issue for the good of the relationship.

Deciding that a certain issue is totally off limits is probably something you’ll only consider for major issues, maybe after having tried and failed to come to any kind of resolution. But as a strategy for dealing with these major problems, it isn’t always successful.

Explicitly agreeing that you aren’t going to talk about an issue is problematic because it means acknowledging that there is an unresolved issue that you are unable or unwilling to solve.

On the other hand, deciding not to argue about something can be done based on selectively disclosing your position to your spouse without attempting to persuade them of your point of view. In our post about why it’s important to stop bottling things up we created a guide for how to approach irreconcilable differences; issues that aren’t going anywhere and are unlikely to ever get solved. There was a similar idea there about continually sharing your own perspective without trying to change your spouse’s mind or persuade them. This ongoing discussion might be a better idea than simply making something taboo.

Declaring topics or past issues as taboo was negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction in terms of both the number of taboo subjects and the extent to which they were made explicit[v].

However, relationship commitment moderated this effect to the point where taboo topics did not significantly affect relationship quality in high-commitment couples. Implicit decisions to make some subjects taboo were less linked to low marriage satisfaction and were present in some happily married couples.

So you can see many of these strategies kind of work and kind of don’t. It is a mixed bag. It is probably very nuanced from couple to couple and even issue to issue with that couple. Sometimes you can both live with designating a subject as taboo and loving everything else about being married to each other. Sometimes you cannot.

So these are examples of how you may be able to fix your marriage, or parts of it, without dredging up the past. On the other hand, the research is also showing this likely isn’t going to work for everything in your past. And I’m guessing: the larger the issue, the less likely it is to work out for the benefit of your marriage.

Starting Over Without Resolving the Past

So what about the whole turn-over-a-new-leaf thing? Can you just put everything behind you?

Personally, I think this is pretty unlikely to succeed. The reason being is that your relationship is a matrix of perspectives and behavior. You act and react towards your spouse. You perceive and interpret and make meaning out of each other’s words and actions. These form a matrix defined by your experiences of each other over the years.

So you can decide to put all history in the past and close that book but you still have this matrix. And the next time your spouse repeats some problematic behavior, the matrix will activate to help you make sense of what you’re seeing and you’re probably going to respond in the same old way. You may have consciously decided to try and forget the past but your unconscious perceptions of your spouse and interpretations of their behavior haven’t changed. Which means you really haven’t moved forward at all, nor have you actually turned over a new leaf.

I’m sorry — but I don’t think it’ll work.

HOWEVER. If you want to try anyways, here are some factors from a study done in 1999 that may help this work[vi]:

1. 1. High levels of tolerance and open-mindedness.
   2. Coping devices- finding positive things to hold on to in the marriage.
   3. Selective conflict avoidance- you can’t avoid ALL past issues
   4. Avoidance must be freely chosen by both spouses, rather than one spouse being coerced into not talking about something.
   5. Employ good communication skills- “Unlike unhappily married conflict avoiders, the happy ones moderate their use of avoidance and supplement it with positive communication behaviors. They try to understand and accept each other’s perspective”.
   6. You need to be good at observing your partner and helping them solve issues without being asked- if you have decided not to talk about certain issues then you need to be good at taking the perspective of your spouse, noticing when they are unhappy and resolving it without being asked.

So there are some ideas for you. What do you think? I know for me, it may get you away, but I do believe you have to learn to communicate and learn to resolve conflict.

Keep the Kids in Mind. There is one important sidebar here. Our children are watching us. Did you know that unresolved conflict negatively impacts children?

One study noted that witnessing arguments and episodes of anger that were left unresolved increased distress and sadness levels for children of all ages (5-19) compared to witnessing arguments that were resolved[vii].

Also, the sense of conflicts being left unresolved or escalating was linked to higher levels of fear in young children[viii]. It’s easy to see how unresolved issues could create a tense, slightly volatile environment around the home, and young children are highly susceptible to this sort of thing.

I’m not saying this to guilt anyone but just to encourage the importance of learning to resolve conflict well.

Ways To Move On From Past Issues

If leaving things unresolved is generally a bad idea, how do we move forward? Or more precisely, where does a couple start? How do they know what they should address first, or what is most important to address?

It’s a good question. Sometimes if you solve larger or key issues, the other ones disappear and lose their importance because now the couple feels more together, more understood, and so on.

I have three questions you can ask yourself about the unresolved issues you’re facing from your past.

Is It Influential?

If the issue has been formational with regards to trust, how you see yourself or your spouse, you need to revisit it. On the other hand, if it happened, you don’t like it, but your relationship hasn’t ended up organizing/orienting itself around it, you may choose to let it go. Basically, if you can see the effect something is having on your marriage it’s probably something worth addressing again.

Do We Just Need to Face It?

Talking about difficult issues is hard and often leads to the use of negative communication styles even if couples can talk about minor issues effectively[ix].

Even if you’re generally good at dealing with conflict there might still be that one sore spot or that one issue that you keep getting hung up on and can’t seem to talk about constructively. How about learning some skills first and then coming back to the issue? You both know it’s there. You could agree to prepare for it by both reading a book that is on point for that topic. Or by listening to past episodes of our podcast on conflict. Or hiring a counselor and saying, we have this one big issue, we need your help.

There are a lot of resources available to you.

It may be you just need to agree to address this one even though it might be tough. With a few hard conversations, you can get through this. On the other hand, if you’ve tried to address this in the past and it has never worked, or if it feels like it is tied into deeper, overwhelming issues, that’s a signal to get some outside help.

What Do You Want?

If you are the spouse looking for resolution, it will help greatly if you start by defining what resolution looks like. You can’t change the past, so that is fixed. That being the case: what then are you seeking? Do you want to just be heard and acknowledged? Do you want something to change now and for the future? Do you want amends to be made?

Sometimes it can be really helpful when we stop and really work on getting clarity on our own on what an ideal outcome would look like, then disclosing that to your spouse as you start the conversation. Just saying, “Look I know we can’t change what happened but I’m going back to this simply because I want to be acknowledged, heard and understood.” or saying “I just want you to hear me, and if you feel ready, make an empathic apology from the heart or, if there’s something I did that I need to apologize for, let me know that too.” Saying “if I have XYZ then I believe I can move on from this” sets a clear target or desired outcome that you both can work towards.

Did that answer the question? It’s a straightforward question but I think it’s a nuanced answer. Simply put, no I don’t think you can fix your marriage without going back to the past at least somewhat.

I think what frustrates spouses the most is keeping on going back to the same issue and never getting resolution. I get why that’s frustrating. But again, the alternative of just moving forward and forgetting about it is probably just a pipe dream. It’s just a pipe dream because there’s something back there that hasn’t been healed.

But: leaving the marriage is not a good outcome either. So it’s worth finding ways to approach these past hurts and allowing them to heal, even if the process is difficult. And if you can’t fix it: reach out for help. You don’t have to do this alone.

References:

[i] Duncan Cramer, ‘Relationship Satisfaction and Conflict Style in Romantic Relationships’, The Journal of Psychology, 134.3 (2000), 337–41 <https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980009600873>.

[ii] Sandra Petronio, Balancing the Secrets of Private Disclosures (Routledge, 1999).

[iii] Petronio.

[iv] Petronio.

[v] Michael E. Roloff and Danette Ifert, ‘Antecedents and Consequences of Explicit Agreements to Declare a Topic Taboo in Dating Relationships’, Personal Relationships, 5.2 (1998), 191–205.

[vi] Petronio.

[vii] E. Mark Cummings and others, ‘Resolution and Children’s Responses to Interadult Anger.’, Developmental Psychology, 27.3 (1991), 462–70 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.27.3.462>.

[viii] Kalsea J. Koss and others, ‘Understanding Children’s Emotional Processes and Behavioral Strategies in the Context of Marital Conflict’, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109.3 (2011), 336–52 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2011.02.007>.

[ix] Keith Sanford, ‘Problem-Solving Conversations in Marriage: Does It Matter What Topics Couples Discuss?’, Personal Relationships, 10.1 (2003), 97–112 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00038>.

When it comes to PDA, or public displays of affection, what are you comfortable with? Holding hands? A light kiss? How about a passionate kiss at sunset on the end of a pier somewhere in Florida? Or is that starting to get gag-worthy? 

PDA is often a touchy subject in married couples (pun intended — my bad). But seriously, it can be difficult to find a level of public affection that you’re both comfortable with. Research has some interesting findings on the use of PDA, how it can help marriages, and some ground rules to bear in mind.

If PDA Includes Sexual Behavior, That’s an Issue

Ultimately this discussion of PDA is about what you each are comfortable with and how to work with that in your marriage. We want you to maximize the amount of affection you show and experience.

But there are limits here. There’s a line crossed from a public display of affection to a public display of sexual behavior. The former is a great way to show love to your spouse; the latter is not such a good idea.

I think there are some clearly sexual behaviors: touching your spouse’s private parts in public with your hand is sexual — that is indecent in any public context. That’s immodest. It is not respecting your spouse. It is objectifying your spouse in front of others. Think about it this way: intimacy is about vulnerability. The greater the vulnerability the greater the safety required. You can’t offer safety for this level of vulnerability in public. So if it’s not safe to be this vulnerable, don’t be that intimate.

But there is a grey area. For example, kissing. In North America, a kiss goes all the way from a peck on the cheek — that’s probably the most innocuous — to a full fledged French kiss where we have tongues playing tonsil hockey and so on. At this stage you have to respect a couple things.

First is your culture. Our podcast, at the time of recording, has been downloaded in 169 countries. In some of them, the peck on the cheek might earn you jail time or at least attention from a policeman if it was seen. In others, if you didn’t actually greet your spouse with this if you reunited in public (say, coming off an airplane) then your family would wonder what was wrong with your marriage and start worrying about the two of you. So keep your culture in mind.

The second comes back to sexuality. If your kissing is becoming sexual then we go back to the previous cautionary note about respecting each other and respecting the people around you. As the Bible says, “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful” (1 Cor. 10:23). It might be legal. It probably isn’t helpful to anyone.

So let’s establish those two general guidelines: “is it sexual?” and “what does your culture allow?” as starting points. Now as we go through the research keep in mind that from now on we’re making the assumption that we’re looking at decent PDA.

Let’s actually look at PDA and relationship satisfaction because we want to be focusing on marriage. And then let’s look at factors affecting PDA inside each marriage, and then how to find the balance.

PDA and Relationship Satisfaction

The research shows that both private and public physical affection increase relationship satisfaction.

Expressing affection and love for your spouse through a variety of means is unquestionably a good thing. We’ve looked previously at the concept of the Five Love Languages, of which physical touch is one, but today’s research suggests touch is something everyone should be using.

Here are a couple of studies. First, Kent & El Alayi[i] surveyed women in committed relationships and found that they experience higher relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment and feelings of intimacy when private and public displays of affection were part of their marriage.

Most couples believe that physical touch is a good thing. That’s obvious to us but it’s not to everyone (we’ll get to that later) but “research has shown that individuals believe physical affection to serve a causal role in enhancing their romantic relationships. For example, people report using physical affection as a maintenance behavior for their relationships[ii]“. So it’s something that couples actively use rather than just a thing that researchers notice.

Another study[iii] found the same: all types of physical affection were correlated with high satisfaction with the relationship and with the spouse. But they also found that physical affection improves conflict resolution: while it had no effect on the frequency of conflict in the relationship, higher rates of cuddling/holding and kissing (both in private and in public) were linked to greater ease of conflict resolution. So that feeling of intimate connection caused by physical contact has very positive effects on marriage.

A later study from Gulledge and others[iv] showed other benefits to physical affection:

1. Stress relief
2. Decreased blood pressure
3. Decreased anxiety and aggression
4. Reduced sexual dysfunction

The mechanism here is important. There’s affection for affection’s sake. But touch also has a huge supportive component because life is just rarely a walk in the park. We all have big challenges we’re facing constantly. And physical touch helps spouses feel supported and reduces feelings of distress[v].

Physical touch is supportive even if the receiving spouse did not ask for support, and they often do not even perceive the touch as an attempt to comfort them. It’s just an unconscious thing that couples do to support each other. And that’s a really good thing. So there’s a supportive component as well as a significant impact on marital satisfaction.

Factors Affecting PDA

So we know there are benefits to PDA. But at this point, couples may be feeling a little tension because one spouse is more comfortable than the other. So what impacts our different comfort levels?

We already mentioned culture in the sense of what culture you both reside in. We’ve seen in a previous post how this idea of emotion culture shapes what levels of emotional expression men and women are comfortable with. But what about differences in culture between you? If your marriage is cross-cultural, what culturally informed expectations do you bring? That’s something to talk through. Here are some of the individual factors which can impact the way PDA works in your marriage.

Gender Differences. Gender matters. Men tend to initiate more PDA than women[vi]. Higher rates of male initiated PDA have been found in younger and non-married couples, and higher rates of female-initiated PDA tend to be found in older and married couples[vii][viii].  I don’t know why.

There are some specific actions which men and women tend to prefer. Males tend to prefer putting their arm around their spouse while women prefer to link arms/hands[ix].

For younger or un-married males, physical touch and PDA were seen as a courting behavior whereas for women in secure relationships it’s more about feeling connected to the person you’ve already “successfully courted”. So there are differences in meaning. Men may get married and PDA drops off because they are no longer mentally in that courting stage.

I hate to put it this bluntly because I don’t want to say anything to promote the objectification of women or treat them as property, but a young man may reach for his girlfriend’s hand in public to make a statement that this one is taken. Once she is wearing his wedding band, he may subconsciously shift away. Well, what about continuing that same PDA just for the joy of touching? For the guys reading this, women clearly enjoy it when you’re willing to show your affection in public, so why not make a real effort to step up your PDA? Regardless, be aware of differences in gender.

Perceived Marginalization. If you feel that people would disapprove of your relationship for any reason you are less likely to engage in PDA[x]. This was found to be a particular issue for interracial couples[xi] and same-sex couples[xii] and extends to any couple who perceive themselves as marginalized or think that others would disapprove of their relationship.

Even if you think your church doesn’t approve (maybe you’ve remarried after divorce) or somehow your family doesn’t approve of your marriage, this is going to impact your PDA. And that’s a shame because you’re letting worries about other people’s reaction limit your use of behavior that’s really good for your marriage.

Parental Effects. Young women whose parents had divorced were found to be more uncomfortable viewing PDA than women whose parents were still together[xiii]. Why? Hard to say. But it does suggest that your attitudes towards PDA are informed by what you saw when you were being raised. If you saw your parents engaging in PDA as a child, you will likely be less uncomfortable with it now.

Danger Arousal. This one is interesting. Did you know that sexual arousal and physiological arousal in response to danger are sometimes hard to differentiate? So sexual activity in public may seem more sexually arousing because of the increased “danger” it presents. “If you look at our two core instincts—survival and reproduction—then you can split arousal into two categories: danger arousal, which is a call to arms or to action, and sexual arousal, which is a call to reproduce. They’re two sides of the same coin, but the brain doesn’t always know the difference and can easily confuse the two.[xiv]”

Meaning that you may put the two together and the risk and enjoyment of PDA combine, making things hotter. This may lead to extreme PDA or sexual behavior in public. Arousing but probably something you want to watch out for.

What’s the Right Amount of PDA for You?

This gets interesting for a marriage therapist like myself. Because, if there is an imbalance in the desire for PDA you can get into a pursuing/distancing cycle and that can end up being harmful to the relationship. So one spouse is pursuing in order to feel connected and the other is withdrawing in order to feel comfortable, but this leads to concern about rejection which leads to an intensified pursuit and a stronger withdrawal and boom, you’ve gone from a little bit of fun chasing to a negative cycle[xv].

In this kind of negative cycle, you’re now pursuing your own needs at the expense of your spouse rather than offering safety and connection and acceptance. It’s no longer for the benefit of the relationship: it’s really only your own benefit that you’re securing.

At the end of the day, this comes back to having a conversation. The conversation needs to acknowledge the unacknowledged:

1. “Rules” that you have formed based on your own expectations
2. Cultural values and their impact on your comfort levels around PDA
3. Perceptions you have about how others see your PDA as a couple

Talk these things through. They matter.

But also start talking about what you like or dislike. I like it when you hold my hand in the mall. I like it when you nibble on my bottom lip, but not in public, thank you very much. Or when you’re out in public you can respond to PDA by giving non-verbal cues like “purring” or using body language that conveys relaxation or appreciation, or backing off a little if you’re uncomfortable.

So for PDA you want balance. But in all kinds of affection: public and private, you want to develop this as a skill in your marriage. More affection is better. But it may just mean more hand-holding publicly—it doesn’t mean either of you should be pushed towards more discomfort.

But privately, there really are no limits for the couple. Affection is a powerful resiliency factor for keeping you together in the face of conflict, in the midst of stressful life situations, and is good for your health. More is better.

References:

[ii] Kent and El-Alayli.

[iii] Andrew K. Gulledge, Michelle H. Gulledge, and Robert F. Stahmannn, ‘Romantic Physical Affection Types and Relationship Satisfaction’, The American Journal of Family Therapy, 31.4 (2003), 233–42 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01926180390201936>.

[iv] Andrew K. Gulledge and others, ‘Non-Erotic Physical Affection: It’s Good for You’, in Low-Cost Approaches to Promote Physical and Mental Health, ed. by Luciano L’Abate (New York, NY: Springer New York, 2007), pp. 371–84 <https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36899-X_18>.

[v] Kelley J. Robinson, Lisa B. Hoplock, and Jessica J. Cameron, ‘When in Doubt, Reach Out: Touch Is a Covert but Effective Mode of Soliciting and Providing Social Support’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6.7 (2015), 831–39 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615584197>.

[vi] Judith A. Hall and Ellen M. Veccia, ‘More “touching” observations: New Insights on Men, Women, and Interpersonal Touch’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59.6 (1990), 1155–62 <https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1155>.

[vii] Frank N. Willis and Leon F. Briggs, ‘Relationship and Touch in Public Settings’, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 16.1 (1992), 55–63 <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986879>.

[viii] Hall and Veccia.

[ix] Hall and Veccia.

[x] Kent and El-Alayli.

[xi] Elizabeth Vaquera and Grace Kao, ‘Private and Public Displays of Affection Among Interracial and Intra-Racial Adolescent Couples’, Social Science Quarterly, 86.2 (2005), 484–508.

[xii] Kent and El-Alayli.

[xiii] Jenna L. Scisco and others, ‘The Effect of Parental Divorce on Discomfort and Cardiac Activity in Response to Public Displays of Affection in College Females’, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 51.4 (2010), 221–37 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10502551003597881>.

[xiv] Emily Schaffer, Sarah Edelman, and Stephanie Dixon, ‘Public Displays of Affection on Miami’s Campus’, Prezi.com <https://prezi.com/i3hdjp5vnqyd/public-displays-of-affection-on-miamis-campus/> [accessed 20 April 2017].

[xv] Gulledge and others.