MARITAL COUNSELING

Front matter

@ 7 ae } he a ee 4.

*

A Biblical, Behavioral, Cognitive Approach

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER

What Happens to Marriages?

Expectations Are Not Fulfilled

Index

377 377 379 380

400 404

417 422

OTHER BOOKS BY H. NORMAN WRIGHT

Adults—How to Help Them Learn

After You Say “‘I Do”

An Answer to Building Your Self-Image

An Answer to Depression

An Answer to Discipline

An Answer to Divorce

An Answer to Family Communication

An Answer to Frustration and Anger

An Answer to In-laws

An Answer to Loneliness

An Answer to Parent-Teen Relationships

An Answer to Submission and Decision Making

An Answer to the Fulfilled Marriage

An Answer to Worry and Anxiety

Before You Say “I De”’

Building Positive Parent-Teen Relationships Celebrate Your Marriage

Characteristics of a Caring Home

The Christian Faces Emotions, Marriage and Family Relationships Christian Marriage and Family Relationships

The Christian Use of Emotional Power Communication and Conflict Resolution in Marriage Communication— Key to Your Marriage Communication—Key to Your Teens

The Family That Listens

A Guidebook for Dating, Waiting and Choosing a Mate Healing of Fears

Help, I’m a Camp Counselor

How to Be a Better Than Average In-law

Into the High Country

Living Beyond Worry and Anger

The Living Marriage

Living with Your Emotions, Self-Image & Depression Marriage and Family Enrichment Resource Manual A Marriage for All Seasons

Pillars of Marriage

Pre-Marital Counseling

Preparing for Parenthood

Preparing Youth for Dating, Courtship and Marriage Seasons of a Marriage

Training Christians to Counsel

Chapter 1 What Happens to Marriages?

Many marriages today are like the house built upon sand. They have been built upon a weak foundation of dreams. Because in dreams the mind does not have to distinguish between reality and fantasy, one is able to create without restraint. Often, therefore, dreams are the starting point for successful endeavors; however, dreams not followed by adequate planning usually do not come true.

Marriages built on dreams are risky because dreams do not consider the disappointments that are inevitable in every marriage. When the rains of reality and the winds of stress burst against such marriages, the relationship that holds them together crumbles. Much more is involved in > fulfilling dreams than merely expecting them to come true.

Expectations Are Not Fulfilled

Someone has suggested that there are two basic causes for trouble in marriage: not finding in marriage what one expected to find, and not expecting what one actually finds.

As most couples marry, they expect stability, security, and predictability in their marriages.

Stability is freedom from change. The word stability actually means resistance to change. It is the property that causes something when disturbed to restore itself to the original condition. We do not generally like change and usually resist it.

Security is freedom from want. We want our needs to be fulfilled, especially by our marriage partner.

Predictability is being able to know in advance and therefore avoid surprises. Having the ability to forecast the future, at least in a general way, gives us a feeling of control.

There are periods of time in the lives of most couples in which one or even all three of these expectations are not fulfilled.

, One reason for unfulfilled expectations is that they may have been unrealistic from the beginning. Some common unrealistic expectations are:

1. My wife will always want to be a homemaker.

2. My husband will take care of the yard and keep the car running just like my father did.

3. I will decide where to take our vacations.

4. We will spend our vacation time with our parents.

5. My husband/wife will always want to have sex when I am in the mood for it.

6. My husband/wife will want to spend all of his/her free time with me.

Many individuals have emotional difficulties that remain undetected by others. Some of these people are drawn together into marriage because the personality of one is abundanily full of a trait lacking in the other. Thus they marry and are satisfied by fulfilling each other’s neurotic needs. They unrealistically expect these needs to remain the same forever.

In such a relationship, one person derives satisfaction from having the other be dependent and lean upon him, while his partner has a tremendous need to be weak and dependent. Some want to control and dominate; others want to be controlled and dominated. In time, however, partners in these marriages tire of their position and want to assume the other’s role of dominating or being dependent.

Another reason for unfulfilled expectations is unex- ' pected circumstances. Many of life’s events can be planned for in advance, like having a baby, and many bring security and satisfaction. Some events, however, come asa surprise and bring tension, pain, and unexpected circumstances. Loss of a job, illness, birth of a child with a defect, and sudden death in the family are crises for which one cannot plan.

According to family service experts: Any sudden change becomes a threat to whatever marital balance has been achieved. It tends to reawaken personal insecurities that the marriage has successfully overcome or held in check. You’ve noticed how sick people tend to fall back into childish ways—they become terribly dependent, demanding, unreasonable. Similarly some people regress in other kinds of emotional crises. Longconquered patterns of behavior reassert themselves, at least until the first impact of the shock has been absorbed.!

Even minor changes may become crises: — A spouse no longer wants to go to the other’s favorite restaurant for dinner.

—A spouse wants to change a family tradition that includes the other’s parents.

— A spouse announces that a new business opportunity has opened in another state and wants to move.

—A\ spouse stops preparing a favorite dinner.

—A spouse gets rid of a favorite piece of furniture.

When unexpected circumstances occur, many couples are able to adapt to the new and put aside the old. Others do not cope with the new circumstances and need marital counseling.

The normalcy and potential of change is a message which couples need to hear even before they marry. The turmoil and disruption of many relationships would be non-existent if this were to occur. The marital journey has been well described by Dr. Mark Lee.

Anyone who has ridden in an old New York subway car will recall his sensation of pitching and rolling as the train raced along worn tracks or slowed to a stop ina station. Standing passengers move as one body back and forth with the car’s sway and changing velocity. All that prevents a pile-up of bodies on a turn or quick stop is the overhead strap. Almost oblivious to what is happening, passengers grip a strap, automatically tightening and loosening their holds to meet changing situations. In their free hands they hold books, or newspapers, which they avidly read.

The experience may be made an analogy to marriages. A marriage changes pace, speeds along, even stops. Tracking is sometimes smooth, sometimes irregular. Tunnels and open spaces alternate. Those who take the ride sometimes relax, and sometimes hold on for dear life.2 A husband discussed this process of change as he

responded to the question if the love in his marital relationship had changed after twenty one years of marriage. He said:

I still feel passion and excitement with my wife. But all of life moves in patterns and cycles, andI think marriages go the same way. A marriage has its dry moments and hot moments, its ups and downs. Most marriages tod

don’t make it. I think the ones that do, survive by going through these changes. As long as you're allowing something to happen within your marriage, then I think there’s some chance for its survival. The secret of agood marriage is change. It’s gotta move. If it stops, it’s dead.

Unsatisfactory Marital Behavior Patterns Develop

| When marital relationships begin to crumble, couples ‘complain about various aspects of their marriage. Bernard Greene reported a study of 750 couples complaining of marital problems and derived the following list of common complaints:

Lack of communication Constant arguments Unfulfilled emotional needs Sexual dissatisfaction Financial disagreements In-law trouble

Infidelity

Conflicts about children Domineering spouse Suspicious spouse Alcoholism

Physical attack Greene found the following problems, in order of frequency, present among couples experiencing conflict in their marriages: 1. Narcissistic spouse — whose orientation is selfcentered and not on the marriage. 2. Indifference — an actual negative approach toward the partner’s feelings, needs, and wishes; or even a lack of respect for him, leading to a lack of concern. 3. Inability — an incapability to reinforce and support the partner; what Bern refers to as “stroking.” 4. Inflexibility — a rigid set of attitudes and values which do not permit the individual to deviate from a fixed pattern or code. 5. Inexperience — a lack of experience in positive, meaningful, relationships. 6. Crossed transactions — digital (calculating) and analogic (using analogies) modes of communicating in which areas of verbal and nonverbal communications have little in common. 7. Avoidance maneuvers — where one partner avoids communication by withdrawing (however, since in a marriage one cannot not communicate, the partner still gets the message of rejection). _ 8. Distortion — messages are received, but not as sent.4 In counseling one often sees these problems in one of © several common unsatisfactory marital behavior patterns.

One such pattern has been called the half-marriage.5 In this pattern one spouse (for example, the husband) appears retiring, inexpressive, and nonverbal. He withdraws from confrontation, yet he is angry about the pain he feels from the relationship. The other spouse (the wife in this case) appears outgoing, expressive, and verbal. She moves ahead in a strong, even attacking manner, which is her way of expressing the anger she feels about the pain from the relationship.

Outwardly they appear to be different, but inwardly 4 a couple is much the same; they simply manifest their needs differently. They each want to be taken care of by the other, yet they have learned to cover this desire cleverly. They each want the other person to be strong so they can lean upon the other, yet neither wants the other to lean on him. Each has built a protective cocoon around himself to hide his inner feelings and thereby appear to be strong.

Often we hear a Christian wife say that she wants her husband to become “the spiritual leader of the home” and take charge of the family affairs. At the same time she becomes involved in a number of community or church activities in order to withdraw from him and show that she is strong and doesn’t need him. In spite of all the activity outside her home, she is still lonely. She becomes angry with her husband and uses her anger to cover up her feelings of inadequacy and to convince herself and others that he is the cause of her unhappiness.

As the years go by, each partner intensifies his pattern of behavior. In so doing they suffer in most areas of their marriage. He probably retreats sexually, which angers her even more. Sexual dysfunction in both spouses is common —he becomes impotent and she nonorgasmic. Quarrels and even separation are common.

Other couples you will see will appear outwardly “well put together.” The husband is reserved and cold, and the wife is quite pleasant. An aura of success in their life is evident. Inwardly, however, both partners are overly sensitive and hurt.

Despite the outward appearance of self-sufficiency, they both want to be taken care of by another person. This dependency need shows up in their struggle for intimacy. Often the wife pushes for emotional closeness as if she were trying to ignite a fire under her husband. She wants assurance from him that she is loved and accepted. The harder she pushes, the more he retreats into his protective shell.

The husband’s withdrawal does not stop the wife, for she sees it asa challenge. She maneuvers and coaxes him to win. his love but to no avail. Then she decides he should love her regardless of what she does, so she explodes with anger. He withdraws even further.

The dating and courtship behavior of an outwardly wellput-together couple can assist you in analyzing their relationship. The wife was probably a very fun-loving, vivacious, and independent person, which made her husband comfortable as they dated. In essence, she provided the effort and entertainment. She felt that he was the type of person who could take care of her because he was a strong, silent, and dependable male. The person with the attaching personality (in this instance the wife) usually is more responsible for making the relationship permanent.

Some couples are best classified as married singles. You will see them in your congregation and in your office. They are legally married, but their relationship is not intimate. The two who were supposed to become one never became one. Some of these couples married out of obligation (pregnancy, for example) or for some convenient reason. They may be deeply involved in a career or profession, and marriage may be only an addendum. The real marriage is to someone or something outside of the supposed marriage.

Another couple you will see act like married children. Both spouses are dependent and seek a parent in the other. They throw temper tantrums, they are physically violent, and they seek instant self-gratification. Both are takers; neither is a giver. They are lonely and want affection but never have learned how to give to one another. Often the tie to their own parents has not been broken, and interference from the parents is common.

If you were to observe them for awhile, you would find both of them spending most of their time outside the home with friends of their own sex. Each expects the other to stay home and take care of the house. They become jealous over the outside interests and try to interfere with each other’s outside life. When conflicts arise, they withdraw or go to others for support. If they do disagree and face an issue, they behave like children—fighting, hitting, and throwing. They seek help from the police or a counselor.

In the sadomasochistic marriage you will often see a passive wife and an angry or aggressive husband. He attacks and belittles her. She accepts his attacks as though she deserves them. Each year of marriage this unsatisfactory marital behavior pattern intensifies. He attacks and she gives in; and the more she gives in, the more he attacks. He blames her for their marital problems, and she accepts the blame. The pattern continues until her masochistic receptacle overflows and then she hysterically explodes.

Even though their behavior is markedly different (yet complementary), their inward life is very similar. They are both dependent, want to be taken care of by the other, and have low self-esteem.

Marital Satisfaction Fluctuates During the Family Life Cycle

Another phenomenon frequently observed in counseling is the fluctuation of a couple’s level of marital satisfaction at the various stages of their family life cycle. Numerous studies have been conducted in an attempt to determine changes during the cycle. Figure 1, which is based upon several research studies, indicates changes in satisfaction at seven nuclear family stages among typical middle-class couples. Many couples will reflect this trend while others will vary considerably. The allowance for variation is important since projecting this pattern onto all couples _ would be invalid. Considering the potential adjustments which occur at each stage is one means of identifying the stress and disruption of a marital relationship.

Jane Aldous, in her excellent book Family Careers — Developmental Change in Families, described the fluctuation that occurs in marital satisfaction:

Marriages may be made in heaven, as the popular saying goes, but their maintenance occurs in an earthly setting. The emotional euphoria with which most marriages start is eroded over time by establishing daily routines, by growing irritations from constant association, by competing attractions of jobs and children, and by coping with the multitudinous problems, both large and small, that family life in an industrialized society entails. Fortunate couples develop an intimate understanding unique to the relationship that replaces the raptures of the first period‘of the marital career.®

There are many predictable changes that occur as couples proceed through the various stages of the family life cycle.

Some of these changes become cripplers of marriage in the process.

Figure 1 Husbands’ and Wives’ Marital Satisfaction r over the Family Career

High : 5 = 2

Low

2S ee eee =e _ll JiRSe ell

| Me WM IV V VI Vil Couple Couplein Families Families Families Families Aging newly _ childbearing with school with with young —_ in the families established period children secondary adults middle school years

children

NUCLEAR FAMILY STAGES

Source: Jane Aldous, Family Careers—Developmental Change in Families (New York: John Wiley, 1978), p. 202.

After The Honeymoon

Philip Yancey, in his excellent book After the Wedding, described one of the reasons for a sudden drop in marital satisfaction after the honeymoon: adjustments to married life.

Why can’t couples predict adjustments before they get married? We've already seen that their romantic perspectives often blind them. Also, there are adjustments about habits they would not know about before marriage (he tosses and turns at night; she hangs pantyhose in the bathroom; he throws tools into messy, disorganized drawers). These can usually be worked out by compromise.

The really tough problems of adjustment come when partners have different expectations about marriage. What if a wife is used to big birthday celebrations and elaborate Christmas decorations and the husband isn’t? © What about a husband who expects a seductive, affectionate wife who will hang on him publicly—what if he finds she’s physically aloof? Though hints of these differences appear in courtship, often the huge gulf does not yawn open until after marriage, when the two are thrust together for sixteen hours a day, not just when they want to be together.

Does the husband expect the wife to forfeit a career to be housewife and mother? Does the wife expect the husband to be a career climber? Does the wife expect the husband to keep a well-running, clean car? Who should clean the garage? Who is to take the initiative in sex?

If your expectations differ, conflict will result.” Other adjustments couples must make include need fulfillment, adjusting to differentness, establishing goals, expressing emotions, communication styles, decision making, power structure, roles, adjusting to family background, and in-laws, just to mention a few.

As couples begin the family life cycle, several factors help create problems:

1. Lack of preparation for marriage. David Mace, a pioneer in the field of marriage enrichment, described this lack of preparation:

... When I try to reconstruct, in counseling with couples, their concepts of the making of a marriage, | find that it adds up to a most confused hodge-podge of starry-eyed romanticism, superstition, superficial concepts, and laissez-faire. Seldom do I find any real understanding of the complexity of the task of bringing two separate individuals into a delicately balanced coordination of each other’s thoughts, feelings, wishes, beliefs, and habitpatterns.®

Mace goes on to say that neither partner is able to recognize his/her own need to make radical change in thoughts and behavior in order to maintain a close relationship. Instead, they seem to believe that their closeness will be continuous because of sexual attraction. He also suggests:

There is rarely any clear realization that disagreement is inherent ina partnership as intimate as that undertaken by two people in marriage today; with the result that, instead of recognizing conflict as the raw material out of which the marriage must be fashioned, they flee from it as from some alien element that threatens to destroy their love. I find that they have generally entered marriage with little readiness for its demands, having spent the premarital period in a round of pleasure-making activities that bears little relationship, and even less resemblance to the realities with which married life now confronts them.?

2. Inability to handle disappointment, hurt, and suffering.

3. Unawareness of the effects of the various stages of the family life cycle.

4. Imbalance or lack of understanding concerning an individual’s striving for identity and intimacy. What is identity? It is the sense of “who I am.” What is intimacy?

Intimacy is a relationship of closeness, total honesty, and trust.

A man builds his identity through his occupation or profession. Many men pursue goals of making a good living and finding a good life, which prove to them they are adequate and of worth. (This typically male process is undergoing some change, however, as many women are now pursuing careers and professions.) Because their identities are built in this manner, men devote their time and — energy to their work. The marital relationship often takes a secondary position. When couples marry, the timing is such that most men are just at the point of establishing themselves in their line of work. Their main task at this time is establishing identity through their work. At the onset of marriage a wife is seeking to build an intimate relationship with her husband. This is where frustration may occur. It can be described as identity versus intimacy.

Underlying part of many wives’ strong emphasis upon intimacy is their own striving for building their sense of identity. Often they build an identity through their husband or family. (This typically female process is undergoing some change, too, as many women are now being employed outside of the home and some marital roles are changing.)

Many wives become discouraged after a few years of marriage because the intimate relationship with their husband does not develop as expected. Thus, in time a wife may turn her efforts for intimacy toward the children. Perhaps this accounts for why many mothers find it so difficult to let go of the children when they are old enough to leave the nest.

If this situation continues—the husband building identity through work and the wife building intimacy and identity through the children—a crisis will eventually occur. Many husbands in their forties realize they have reached the end of the line for upward progress in their work. There is nowhere else to go, so their goals begin to change. They may now turn back to their wives with a desire to build intimacy. They could be in for a shock, because many wives, after the children leave home, begin to consider how their own identities have developed. They may now decide either to complete their own education or to pursue a career. Their desire for an intimate relationship with their husbands is not very intense after so many years of no reciprocation on his part. The issues of the meaning of achievement and values in relationships need attention during marital counseling because often they are the underlying cause of the symptomatic problems couples bring to counseling.

Childrearing

Notice the drop in marital satisfaction on the chart during the childbearing years. Why does the presence of children affect marital satisfaction so much?

Becoming parents may be a normal stage in the family life cycle, but the limited learning couples bring to their new roles creates worries that in extreme cases affect infant care. (This, in turn, affects the marital relationship.) There is often a lack of formal or informal training for performing parental roles. The implicit socialization for such roles that the child experiences in taking the roles of his father and mother while interacting with them is absent when he or she is an infant.’° The pregnancy period itself is used by relatively few

couples as a time to prepare for parental roles. Unless the couple already has children, the couple’s preparation generally consists of obtaining the clothing and equipment the coming baby needs. Reading, seeking counsel from friends, discussing the situation with other couples, or all three constitute the usual sources of information on infants. Since there is usually no actual experience with infant care, the information sought may be inappropriate or irrelevant. Even couples active in prenatal courses such as the Lamaze training classes for natural childbirth feel unprepared for performing parental roles after the child’s arrival.

The pregnancy period differs in this respect from the period prior to marriage when the couple is committed to each other. At that time, husband and wife can try out interaction patterns and, in developing their marital role, explore attitudes and expectations concerning those roles and other family issues. They can also discover issues on which they disagree and how to handle conflict.

The suddenness of the arrival of parental responsibilities accentuates the problems of lack of learning. There is no equivalent to the honeymoon period in which parents and infant can become gradually acquainted. A demanding and helpless baby allows for no respite regardless of how unpleasant the care is or how inadequately parents give it.!!

There have been a number of studies testing E. E. LeMaster’s thesis that, though. normal and expected, the transitions to parenthood constitute a “crisis” for the marital relationship.!2 Particularly among middle-class couples who tend to be concerned about the quality of marital careers, the parent-child relationship can compete with the husband-wife relationship for time, nurturance, and affection. The husband-wife companionship that has developed through the courtship and early-married days is disrupted by the baby, forcing a reorganization of the relationship to include a third person.'8

Couples who make the transition successfully haye also had time to work out mutually satisfactory sie & arrangements, since they had been married for some time, at least three years. Husband or wife have also taken a preparation for marriage course."4

These results indicate that the accomplishment of the family development task of morale maintenance in the beginning stage of marriage is linked to how threatening

parenthood is to the marital relation. If couples have a

communication structure characterized by a way of

conversing that results in agreement and the smoothing over of conflict, they are more apt to be effective family planners and to be more satisfied with their marriage.'®

In general, most research findings tend to support the parenthood studies just discussed. Couples who had entered the parental career were less satisfied with marriage than they were before the child was born. This decline was not universal, however; so let us examine the varying marital arrangements of new parents who did and did not become less happy with their marital relationship. Couples whose marital satisfaction went up with the arrival of the first child were those characterized bya segregated marital - role organization.

These couples talked with each other less, turned less often for help, and were less emotional toward the spouse in times of conflict than were new parents who were less satisfied with marriage. The former couples appeared to be less dependent upon each other for satisfaction of affectional needs. The type of marital role organization they possessed is consistent with such an interpretation. Their traditional beliefs that husbands should not perform household tasks supported a segregated type of conjugal organization. The wives also seemed to view motherhood as the fruition of their family careers. They placed high value on such material role behaviors as preference for breast feeding, concern about the child’s crying, and “being child-centered in plans for feeding.” The marital career being of lesser importance, therefore, would compete less with the parental career.!®

The Middle Years

A number of cross-sectional studies have shown a decrease in marital adjustment over time, whether recently married couples and couples in their middle years of marriage are compared, or whether the same couples are compared in their early and middle periods of marriage. There is some evidence that middle-class couples shift from shared interests and household concerns to segregated activities. Occupational and parental demands appear to account for the shift.”

Working-class couples, however, do not experience joint marital role organization to such an extent. From the beginning, their marriages have been more often characterized by a segregated task organization in which roles are assigned according to traditional male-female roles. It is among middle-class women, who are more apt to expect interaction with husbands in many areas, that one finds resentment at competing responsibilities. Thus, middle-class wives with organizational roles outside the home maintained higher levels of marital adjustment. They chose to engage in outside employment in order to share more of the concerns of their occupationally-committed husbands. But national surveys show marital strain when women are employed outside the home through economic necessity which is more often the case with working-class couples.18 To summarize, the decline in marital satisfaction

associated with a change from joint to segregated marital arrangements occurs among person-oriented couples who have initially, at least, experimented with role making. Such couples are disproportionately found among the more educated segment of the middle class. The declines in marital adjustment that working-class couples also appear to experience over the child-present years, therefore, do not stem from a loss of shared activities, since rarely were they there in the first place to lose. The coming of children for this group serves as a common interest rather than a divisive force, but the additional expenses and responsibilities children bring can also create conflict, particularly in couples hardpressed for funds. In addition, new expectations coming from the current emphasis in the broader society on greater sexual freedom and women’s rights exacerbate differences in families of all classes.!?

This crisis time is also the time for what was described by Ken Kesey in his novel Sometimes a Great Notion as the “go-away-closer disease.” The husband or wife may be starving for contact with the spouse but avoids contact like poison when it is offered. He or she may long for human relatedness but ends up sabotaging any chance for it to happen. Barriers are erected to keep anyone from getting too close, too intimate, too involved—yet the person is unhappy and restless in isolation.

How does one catch this strange go-away-closer disease? It seems to come in varying degrees with the middlescent malaise. The anger or frustration or disappointment we feel about the world and what it has done to us (or prevented us from doing) is directed at the person with whom we live in closest proximity. It is another form of kicking the cat. We may sense that things have gone awry, but for some reason we find it impossible to talk about the situation with our spouse. The next step is to stop ourselves from caring about, or feeling for, or doing as much for the other person because our own problems require all of our attention. It is hard to be sensitive to the needs of our spouse if we are locked in our own inner struggles. Besides, since no one else really understands us, we must keep our defenses up lest we reveal more than we want to show. Who wants someone else knowing what we really like down inside—the resentments, the hurts, the frustration, the failures. Intimacy is lost also as spouses begin to see each other’s faults more glaringly. Over the years, faults may come to loom larger as virtues turn into vices and then eventually become blatantly intolerable. Here, again, spouses usually show a reluctance to discuss the unpleasant aspects of each other’s personalities—except, perhaps, in the heat of anger when they couch them in derogatory terms that question the partner’s sanity or intelligence.2° To add to this we have the emergence of what is referred to as the male mid-life crisis. Jim Conway, in his excellent book Men in Mid-Life Crisis, described the situation: The man approaching mid-life has some strange and difficult times ahead of him. He may negotiate the walk along the unfamiliar top of the brick wall with little trouble, but many men in mid-life feel more like Humpty Dumpty.