A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Archive for March, 2008
I was conversing with some fellow marriage therapists about the difficulties faced by adults who were sexually abused when they were children. One therapist reminded us of a great scene from the movie Forrest Gump. Remember Forrest’s girlfriend Jenny, whom he met on the first day of school? Her father abused her when she was a young girl. When Jenny and Forrest go back to her home town and come upon the run-down shack where Jenny suffered at the hands of her father, she flies into a rage and begins hurling stones at the shack. She keeps this up until there are no more stones to be found. Then Forrest utters the very eloquent line, “Sometimes there just ain’t enough stones.”
That’s a great commentary on the anger that continues into the adulthood of those who survived childhood abuse.
In marriage therapy the issues of childhood abuse sometimes surface. The survivor may have chosen to be in, or to remain in, a destructive relationship. She may have a hard time maintaining appropriate boundaries and have difficulty resolving conflicts. A good marriage therapist needs to inquire about the childhood of his or her clients and deal appropriately with those who suffered abuse as children.
Here’s a fun little test you can take to find out how passionately in love you are. For each of the fifteen items, rate them on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 means it’s not true for you at all, and 9 means it’s absolutely 100% true for you. Of course you can pick numbers between 1 and 9 to accurately rate your feeling level. For example, 5 would mean it’s moderately true for you.
Obviously, the blank line in each item is reserved for the name of the person you love.
- I would feel deep despair if __________ left me.
- Sometimes I feel I can’t control my thoughts; they are obsessively on __________.
- I feel happy when I am doing something to make __________ happy.
- I would rather be with __________ than anyone else.
- I’d get jealous if I thought __________ were falling in love with someone else.
- I yearn to know all about __________.
- I want __________ —physically, emotionally, mentally.
- I have an endless appetite for affection from __________.
- For me, __________ is the perfect romantic partner.
- I sense my body responding when __________ touches me.
- __________ always seems to be on my mind.
- I want __________ to know me—my thoughts, my fears, and my hopes.
- I eagerly look for signs indicating __________’s desire for me.
- I possess a powerful attraction for __________.
- I get extremely depressed when things don’t go right in my relationship with __________.
All done? Now add up the 15 numbers. The minimum possible is 9, and the maximum possible score is 135. Here’s how to interpret your total score:
- 106-135 points = Extremely passionate. Wildly in love!
- 86-105 points = Passionate, but less intense.
- 66-85 points = Average. There are occasional bursts of passion.
- 45-65 points = Cool. Infrequent passion.
- 15-44 points = Cold. The thrill is gone.
I was thinking about couples who come to me for marital therapy and where they typically fall on this scale. (Of course, the two people may sometimes have wildly different scores.) I think it’s hard to make any generalizations. People with very high scores come to marriage therapy if there is some intense conflict that they want to overcome. Younger couples who come in for pre-marital counseling typically have very high scores. People with low scores come to marriage therapy if, for example, the “spark” is gone.
By the way, I should give credit where credit is due: this test was developed by Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher.
You know about preventative maintainence for your car, right? You take it in for factory service every 15,000 miles or so, and you have your oil changed every 3000 miles. Right? You do, right? Good. Your car be happy and will take you wherever you want to go for a long, long time.
What about preventative maintenance for your marriage? How about doing it before you get married? That’s what we call premarital counseling, and it’s becoming more and more popular. In fact, many churches require a couple to attend premarital counseling before they can be married in the church.
How does premarital counseling work? Typically, we meet for 6 sessions. We spend a lot of time talking about communication styles. We also look at expectations, goals, and shared dreams. It’s usually a lot of fun.
Of course, it’s possible that some glaring issue could arise during premarital counseling - something that the couple hadn’t realized was a problem. That sounds bad - but isn’t it better to find out about it before you tie the knot? Yes it is. On the other hand, you may learn in premarital counseling that the two of you are made for each other!
During marriage therapy sessions, I hear about many arguments between husbands and wives. Couples can argue about little things and big things. They can argue about important things and unimportant things. They can even start out arguing about something small and unimportant, and before long, the topic has somehow switched to something big and important. People can even argue about things that happened years ago, as if it were possible to somehow change something that’s already happened.
I try to get couples to “soften” the things they say to one another during disagreements. As I’ve said before in this space, name-calling is never a good idea. Nor is it wise to compare your spouse negatively to someone else (”John’s wife earns a lot more money than you do!”). But I thought I go a bit further and make a list of ten “soft” phrases that could and should be used in disagreements.
Here’s my list:
- I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean what I just said. Let me retract that and try again.
- I can understand what you’re saying.
- I love you.
- What you just said really hurt my feelings.
- How can we work together to solve this problem?
- We’re starting to get worked up. Let’s take a 15-minute break to cool off, and then continue talking.
- Can I have a hug?
- I agree with some of things you say.
- I appreciate it that you ….
- What you just said was pretty harsh. Could you please rephrase it?
Sound corny? Maybe. But I think they work to keep things calm, to remind yourself not to overreact, and to periodically disarm your partner with your own kindness and vulnerability.
Try it out!
OK, I couldn’t pass this one up. According to a new report released by the Council on Contemporary Families, men are doing double the amount of housework that they were doing 40 years ago. And not only that, they are doing triple the amount of child care they were doing 40 years ago (to which I ask: how can it be “child care” if it’s your own children? Isn’t that what we call parenting? Yikes!).
The report summarizes the results of several recent studies. Another finding was that if a man is helping with the housework, the woman feels more cared for and more like an equal partner (and I say: they had to do a study to figure that out? They could have asked me - or any other marriage counselor - and saved a whole bunch of money!).
OK, now for the good news, gentlemen: the studies showed that if a man does more housework, it results in more frequent sex (again, I think I could have predicted that, but whatever…). It does seem obvious, does it not? If the man is watching SportsCenter while the woman loads the dishwasher and folds the diapers, she’s gonna build up resentment, and that is definitely not going to put her in the mood.
So men, I think the moral of this story could not be more clear: go grab the vacuum cleaner!
In the January/February issue of Psychology Today magazine, there is a semi-provocative article entitled “Scents and Sensibility” which describes how important the sense of smell is in influencing attraction between men and women. Apparently women depend heavily on a man’s odor in determining whether or not he is attractive. Men also are influenced by a woman’s odor, but apparently not to the same degree.
The article goes on to say that when a woman is on the birth control pill, her sense of smell is inhibited to the point that it no longer influences her feeling of attraction. Also, the pill affects a woman’s own odor to the degree that men will find her less attractive than if she weren’t on the pill.
So far, so good. But I stopped reading mid-article when I came to this nugget: “One of the most common things women tell marriage counselors is, ‘I can’t stand his smell.’” Say what?
I have spent hundreds of hours counseling married couples and the number of times a woman has said that to me is…hmm, let me think…wait for it…oh yeah…zero. I have never heard that statement or anything close to it.
So…real world calling Psychology Today…it is not common for a woman in marriage counseling to complain about how her husband smells.
OK, I’m done ranting now.
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