A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Archive for January, 2009
- Grand Piano Strings
- Photo © 2009 Jay Slupesky
The research journal Personal Relationships has published a study about - and I am not making this up - whether it’s possible to predict if a couple will stay together just by looking at what words they use in their instant message (IM) conversations. The answer they came up with is yes, it is indeed possible.
The study showed that the use of certain pronouns and emotion words is an indicator of relationship satisfaction and stability. Some words indicate happy relationships and some other words indicate unhappiness.
So, what are the words? I’m glad you asked.
For women, the use of the word “I” indicates satisfaction with themselves and the relationship. Men’s use of the word “me” indicates more of a dissatisfaction. Hmmm.
Men’s use of positive emotion words (e.g. “happy”) indicates satisfaction and stability, and women’s use of positive negations (e.g. “not happy”) indicates dissatisfaction. One additional interesting tidbit is that the use of sarcasm (e.g. “oh, great”) is a bad sign when used both men and women.
So I’m wondering: did they really need a research study to figure this out? I think I could have told them - and saved them all the time and money they spent on the research!
- Sunset Over San Francisco
- Photo © 2009 Jay Slupesky
Some people have trouble asking their spouse for things they want. It can be something little or something big, but for some individuals there are reasons to keep their desires to themselves.
Perhaps the subject is what to do next weekend and you’d really like to go to Tahoe. Maybe it’s that you want to have sex tonight. Or it’s that you want to rearrange the living room furniture.
What keeps people from being open about what they want? I can think of three things:
- They are avoiding conflict. If they say what they want it may lead to an argument, and that would not be good.
- They feel they don’t “deserve” what they want. This sounds like a self-esteem issue to me. Some people feel that they must sacrifice their needs and desires for the good of the relationship.
- They are afraid of being turned down. The possibility of the spouse saying “no” is scary. This happens most often, I think, in the area of sex. The man (for example) may want sex, but he doesn’t ask, because his wife might say no, and that would be hard for the man to deal with. So he avoids the possibility by not bringing the issue up in the first place.
I find that people who don’t ask for things typically build up resentment over their needs not being met. This resentment is bound to come out, either quickly in a big blow-up, or slowly, with contempt on a day-by-day basis. Neither is good. I almost always try to convince my clients that it’s best for the relationship to speak freely about your desires. It’s counterproductive to do anything else.
- Flock of Dunlins in Flight
- Photo © 2008 Jay Slupesky
Have you ever given your spouse the silent treatment? Or have you ever been on the receiving end of the silent treatment? In my experience, a person resorts to silence when they are angry and/or hurt and either (1) unable to communicate their feelings, or (2) want to punish their spouse. Or both.
The person who is choosing silence has temporarily claimed some power in the relationship. Things are going to be on hold until he or she decides to end the silence. The other person may be protesting the situation and making repeated attempts to repair things, but it only ends when the silent person wants it to end. That’s a position of power that the silent person may feel they normally are lacking.
To be on the receiving end of silence is no fun. In fact, it’s painful. Some clients have told me how they develop physical symptoms and/or acute depression after a few days of no communication with the person they love.
When I encounter this situation in my counseling office I usually ask the silent person a few thought-provoking questions. These are:
- What benefits are you receiving from this situation?
- What will make you decide to end the silence?
- What effect do you think this is having on your spouse?
I think the first question is the most important one. It usually takes some time for the person to figure out the answer, but when they do, they usually realize that are making a big mistake.
- Contrail Over San Francisco Bay
- Photo © 2009 Jay Slupesky
When I meet with couples whose marriages are in crisis, I see people in severe emotional pain. Why is it so painful when your relationship is troubled? What is it that keeps us awake at night?
According to psychological “Attachment Theory” we are all born with a need for emotional closeness and connectedness with others. As children this need is satisfied by our parents, but as adults we need love and responsiveness from another adult.
Back to the couple whose marriage is troubled: the secure attachment with another adult is damaged and may even be close to ending. We’re not getting the love that we need from another adult. That is painful enough. The thought that the relationship might end can be scary.
By the way, the need for secure attachment explains a lot of the anger that occurs in a couple’s relationship. When we perceive a threat to our happy relationship, we protest. Unfortunately, the protest often takes the form of anger and harsh words (which damages things even more) rather than a a clear statement expressing a heartfelt need (which should result in more intimacy). That’s why good communication skills are so important.
As of January, 2009, material from this website has been plagiarized four times. Each of the offenders was found by the the program “Copyscape,” which I highly recommend. All four offenders removed the copied material after I took action. Here’s a brief blow-by-blow:
- A marriage & family therapist (MFT) in San Francisco took large amounts of material from my home page and used it verbatim as the “couples therapy” page on his website. Copyscape detected this on December 2, 2007. I emailed the offender, who replied within a few hours and apologized. The plagiarized material was removed from his website as of December 8, 2007.
- A MFT couple with offices in Santa Rosa and Petaluma, California, took 174 words from my home page and wove it into the main page of their site. Copyscape detected this on December 7, 2007. I emailed the offenders, who did not reply to me. After waiting 48 hours, I contacted their web hosting company and asked that either the plagiarizers be required to remove the copied material from their website, or, failing that, that the hosting company remove the site from the Web. This is my right under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). I received a reply from the hosting company saying that would investigate. As of December 12, the copied material had been removed from the other site. Update: on December 17, I received an emailed apology from the offenders.
- On June 21, 2008, Copyscape reported that a blog called Family Marriage Counseling : 11 Stubborn Barriers had copied my post Has Your Marriage Therapist Even Been in Therapy? in its entirety. The blog owner’s email address was nowhere to be found on the blogsite, so I had no way to contact him/her. Therefore, I fired off a DMCA complaint by fax to Blogger, the blog hosting site (which is owned by Google). I heard from the Blogger legal department after a couple of days; they said they would look into it. As of June 25, 2008, my work has been removed from the other blog.
- On December 23, 2008, Copyscape reported that a blog called Ask the Marriage Counselor had copied two of my posts: Those Cheatin’ Hearts and Glass Half Empty? Relationship Trouble Ahead!. The posts were copied word-for-word and in their entirety. Again, I fired off a DMCA complaint by fax to Blogger, the blog hosting site. Once again, Blogger did their job, and as of January 6, 2009, my work has been removed from the other blog.
A Brief History of Plagiarism & Copyright Infrigement of this Website
©2007 - 2011 Jay Slupesky, M.A., MFT. All rights reserved.
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