A Marriage Therapist's Blog

 

Thoughts on Marriage Counseling

 

Archive for December, 2008


Dec 22

Taking Spouse-Snooping to the Next Level

By Jay Slupesky
2 Comments
Specific Problems



“Turning Torso” apartment building, Malmo, Sweden

Snooping on spouses has been taken to the next level.  The next lower level, that is. I just started hearing about it recently and this one is downright creepy. Before I get into this devious new method, though, let’s review the common garden-variety spouse-snooping that has been going on for some time. All of it is made possible by modern technology such as the internet and cell phones.

  • Who is the the spouse calling and texting? If a cell phone is left unattended, it’s easy to review text messages sent and received as well as check the call logs to see all incoming and outgoing calls. And if the cell phone is not easily accessible (perhaps it’s being carefully guarded), the phone bill, showing all calls made and received, can be checked online on the cell company’s website.
  • What is the spouse doing online? If a computer password is easy to guess, of if an account is accidentally left logged on, the suspicious person can read all email sent and received and see all websites visited (unless the computer user intentionally deletes this information).

I want to be clear that I do not recommend spying on your spouse. In other words, don’t try this at home!

OK - I hear you asking - what is the new and scary way that spouses are spying on one another? They’re doing it with the location-reporting features built into the newest cell phones. Verizon calls their service “Chaparone” and according to their website it allows you to “easily locate your family member’s cell phone from your Verizon Wireless phone or your PC - in real time, at any time.” The service will show you on a map where the person is, and it can even give you the street address! In other words, you can be tracked wherever you go.  No need to hire a private detective any more.

Sprint cellular offers the same service; they call it “Family Locator.”

Most of Verizon’s and Sprint’s promotion of this service is understandably centered around keeping track of where your children are. But if you read carefully they do make it clear that the service can track any other person who is on your cell phone plan.

So how could a person spy on his spouse this way without the spouse knowing about it? Here’s how. Buy the spouse a new phone (makes a great Christmas gift!) which has the Chaparone capability. Then simply turn on the Chaparone feature before giving the phone to the spouse. Of course, don’t say anything about the Chaparone service. Then start tracking her from your PC or your phone.

You don’t believe people would do this to their spouse? They would and they have.

Again, I do not recommend spying on your spouse. My motivation for writing about this new technology is only to warn people that it exists and could happen to you.



Dec 16

Let’s Make Some “I Statements”

By Jay Slupesky
No Comments
Communication



Kitten

As any communication-oriented marriage counselor will tell you, it’s always better to make an “I statement” than a “You statement.” What you say should be about yourself and your own feelings (and hence it can easily begin with the word “I”) as opposed to a blaming or criticizing statement about someone else (and such a statement which probably would begin with the word “you.”)

I thought it would be fun to dream up some You statements and turn them into the likely I statement that should be made instead.

You statement: “You are always angry.” I statement: “when you act that way I worry that you are angry at me.”

You statement: “You don’t pay attention to me.” I statement: “I’m worried that you aren’t as interested in me as you used to be.”

You statement: “You don’t say you love me anymore.” (I think that’s a song lyric!) I statement: “I’m afraid that you don’t love me anymore” or perhaps “I feel unloveable.”

You statement: “You’re mean to my friends.” I statement: “I wish that my friends could see what a great person you are.”

And one more. You statement: “You are a selfish narcissist.” I statement: “I worried that my desires aren’t important to you any longer.”

Think about how you react if your spouse made some of these You statements to you. Then think how you would react to the corresponding I statements. Hopefully your reaction to the I statements would not be defensive or attacking but would be another caring I statement.



Dec 08

Intimacy is Close By if You Want It

By Jay Slupesky
No Comments
Communication



Fruit Stand, Canterbury, England

Dan Wile has some great thoughts about communication in marriage. He says that at any moment intimacy is just one or two sentences away. The problem is figuring out what the sentences are!

Let’s look at some possibilities.

  • You could attack or defend. For example, “Why didn’t you call me today? You said you would.” This turns your partner into the adversary. No intimacy is achieved.
  •  You could avoid.  For example, ”How was work?” You hide your disappointment about not getting the phone call. No intimacy is achieved here either.
  • You could confide your feelings. “This is kind of embarassing to admit, but all day long I was looking forward to you calling me. I really missed talking to you.”  Intimacy now results because you’ve turned your partner into an ally instead of an adversary.

The great thing about confiding feelings is that frequently triggers the other person to do the same thing. In other words, intimacy is self-reinforcing.

In marriage therapy we work on making these kind of statements all the time.



Dec 01

The Three Phases

By Jay Slupesky
1 Comment
About Marriage Therapy



Fishermen, St. John’s, Newfoundland

Wile’s “Collaborative Couple Therapy” does a great job of explaining the cycles that all couples go through. There are three phases in any relationship:

  • Collaborative phase, in which the partners are speaking what is on their minds. They are making “I statements” which are not blaming and which express deep feelings. For example, a wife says to her husband, “I get lonely when you work late.”
  • Withdrawn phase, in which partners are not speaking what is on their minds. To continue the above example, even though the wife is unhappy with her husband working late, she doesn’t say so. She may say nothing, but she probably feels resentful.
  • Adversarial phase, in which partners are blaming each other. In this phase, the wife might fire off a name-calling/blaming statement such as, “You are a workaholic and it’s destroying our marriage.”

Obviously, the collaborative phase is the best place to be. In this phase, spouses are allies and work things out together. When the husband hears that his wife his lonely, he is touched and may feel some guilt. He’s then in the mood to talk about it and to work together (collaboratively) towards a solution. Contrast this with the husband who is greeted with the “workaholic” accusation: he will be in no mood to respond positively. He may fire off his own salvo or he may just withdraw. Neither of those options does anything to improve the situation.

It can be a challenge to learn how to avoid blaming and to make the kind of statements necessary to stay in the collaborative phase. That’s a major goal of marriage therapy.