The Marriage Podcast for Smart People

One of the things we want to get you thinking about at the very start of this year is what you are going to do, with deliberate purpose, to enrich your marriage this year. Marriage is an easy thing to take for granted. Think for a moment about the things you value most. What do you do with those things? You get insurance for them! There is every kind of insurance out there which most of us have on our valuable possessions, like life insurance, medical insurance, disability insurance, house insurance, car insurance, business liability insurance, even extended warranties are a form of insurance. We spend thousands of dollars per year on insurance. Yet we balk at a $30 expense, or even a $300 weekend of marriage enrichment. Does that really make sense? Think practically for a moment. The cost of divorce drops your net worth by at least 50%, plus it’s like $30,000-90,000 to deal with all of the actual fallout with lawyer fees etc. Never mind the emotional cost or cost to our children, family and friends. Our marriages are super valuable, but isn’t it ironic, and really kind of foolish, that we spend money on insuring other valuable things in our lives, but not our marriages. We want to encourage you in 2015 to insure your marriage by engaging in some sort of marriage enrichment. Here’s why: Bray & Jouriles (1995) found that should difficulties arise, couples responded better to marriage counselling when they had increased problem solving and communication skills, were less distressed at the onset of counselling, and were more emotionally engaged with each other. McAllister, Duncan & Hawkins (2012) found that marriage enrichment worked on those very skills listed above: communication and relationship quality (emotional engagement and less distress). The point being that marriage enrichment programs address key areas that lead to better outcomes should the need for counselling arise. As we spoke about in our series on fighting, repair after the fight is much more successful if positive mojo had been inputted into the marriage long before the fight occurred! Every couple hits rough spots. At the very least, marriage enrichment programs help you get through those tough times, but should you both decide you need extra help, they also crate an incredible advantage for going the extra mile with counselling. Our CHALLENGE for you this year is to do something deliberate to enrich your marriage. Even if you can just save up $30 a month and aim for a weekend away at the end of the year, you’re taking that first step. If you can’t do that – you can get a good book from the library for free. Read it, then discuss it together. We’ve all heard the objection, “Well, you only need that if you’re messed up.” Not so, says the research! Research by Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, Markman & Johnson (2009) showed that more distressed couples and those at risk for divorce were less likely to attend marriage enrichment programs than couples that were in more healthy relationships. Interesting that the couples that made it a priority to enrich their marriages were less distressed and at less risk for divorce. So, what kinds of resources are out there? There are really three approaches: * Self-directed: You can do this at home, at your own pace with no professional involvement. Books and online programs are a good example of self-directed enrichment. * Traditional: This is done in a classroom or group setting. It usually requires more time commitment and more money. * Blended: A combination of self-directed and traditional. This could entail a workbook plus a group setting, or online eCourse plus coaching or counselling. The research mentioned above (McAllister, Duncan & Hawkins) shows that self-directed is bette...

Here’s a fresh thought for fixing or just strengthening your marriage this year: try improving your sleep quality. Really? Yes, really. In this episode of our marriage podcast we interview Shawn Stevens. He is a best-selling author and the creator of the Model Health Show, currently the #1 Nutrition and Fitness podcast in the world on iTunes. [youtube id=”zAM6iPk53m8″] Watch the video for the full interview. I invited Shawn for an interview because I wanted him to help us understand how we can take care of our marriages by taking care of our sleep. As Shawn says at the start, “When you’re tired, your best friend can look like your worst enemy!” The Case For Sleep In the interview, we discuss various research articles that identify the impact of reduced sleep. The bottom line is, when you don’t get enough sleep, you limit your brain’s ability to help you relate to others. Sleep is the only state we experience that helps to rebuild our bodies and minds. Yet, it’s often the first thing we reduce when we begin to feel overloaded. Ironically, we reduce the one part of our daily lives we need the most. Reduced sleep affects men and women different. For men, poor sleep predicts more negative ratings of spousal interactions the next day. For women, negative daytime interactions take away from sleep that night. You can imagine how quickly a destructive cycle can form from this interaction. Clearly, there is a well-established link between relationship quality and sleep quality. Sleep and Stress Sleep is also an important part of stress regulation. Marriage is a great source of stress relief but Shawn identifies how critical sleep is as part of managing stress. But the challenge is that stress makes for poor sleep and poor sleep makes for more feelings of stress. How does a person break out of this cycle? Strategies for Improving Sleep Quality One of the critical take-home lessons from this interview is the importance of exercising in the morning. This has a huge impact on the amount of time spent in the deepest (and most restorative) stage of sleep. Exercising at night, or late in the evening, is counterproductive to being healthy. You might be exercising, but you’re eroding the restorative potential of your sleep. Another critical take away is to observe a caffeine curfew. Caffeine has a half-life of about eight hours (depending on your metabolism). Consequently, Shawn’s recommendation is that there be no caffeine intake after 2 PM in the afternoon. Intake after that time is going to impact your body’s ability to get the quality of sleep it needs. Shawn also notes the importance of moderating body temperature. Running our house too warm, especially at nights in the bedroom, takes away from sleep quality. The research recommends running one’s bedroom temperature between 60 to 68 F (16 to 20 C) is ideal. There’s a side-benefit to a cooler room: more cuddling! That can’t but help the marriage too, right? Finally, we discuss the impact of sexuality on our sleep quality. The body releases a wonderful cocktail of hormones following orgasm with one’s spouse. Those hormones promote deeper and more restful sleep as well as reducing the impact of stress in our bodies. More from Shawn Stevenson Be sure to check out Shawn’s website, and podcast to learn more about how you can improve your health and fitness. As well, be sure to pick up a copy of Shawn’s book, Sleep Smarter: 21 ...

Sometimes after a long day, you just want to climb in bed and go to sleep… but your spouse has other ideas! Differences in sexual desire are very normal. Usually there is one high desire and one low desire spouse in a marriage – sometimes desires are equal, but not very often. Normally, the husband is high desire and the wife low desire, but there is nothing wrong if it’s the other way around! We want you to be aware of how these differences in desire can affect your marriage. On a side note before we start; we are making the assumption that the difference in desire is NOT due to one or both spouses engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage, whether that’s masturbating to porn, or having an affair, and so on. Those are issues that need to be dealt with, but outside the scope of today’s post. Gender Matters Research indicates that men generally want sex more often than women and that they rate their own sex drive higher than women rate theirs. On an interesting note, men and women respond to initiations equally. The man just feels rejected more often because he initiates more. So some of the difference between genders is simply about perception. Byers and Heinlein (1989), who performed the research above, also found that individuals with greater sexual satisfaction responded more positively to initiations. In other words, having higher quality sex leads to greater desire and arousability. Here are five points that we want you to consider with regards to any differences in sexual desire in your marriage: 1. How is the quality of your relationship? The amount of emotional intimacy going on in your relationship is a critical component, especially for the low desire spouse, as physical intimacy is an extension of emotional intimacy. Are you really connecting at that “heart” level? Another thing we need to distinguish between is desire and arousability. Just because you don’t initiate a lot doesn’t mean you are not interested in sex. The ability to be fully sexually engaged can be just as strong in both spouses. The low desire spouse needs to allow his or herself to be aroused and the higher desire spouse needs to realize that a rejection is not a personal slight. A person may want sex because they are feeling close, but the inverse is also true. They can want to be close by having sex. As long as this “want” is coming from a place of fullness (think, overflow of the heart) rather than a place of neediness (to calm anxiety about the relationship), it is a healthy thing. 2. How is the quality of your sex? Good sex leads to more sex. Are you sexually competent and skillful? Some of us were raised in a faith background that continually told us, “sex is bad”. Then we get married, and it’s hard to switch into “sex is good” mode! We need to develop sexual competence – male and female! Have you had a real orgasm? What does it look like? How do you know if you’ve had one? It’s easier with men, but what does it take to bring her to orgasm? There are good Christian resources out there – check out The Marriage Bed for help in this regard. This is a good, clean website that can help you develop greater sexual competence. Make sure your sex is not a goal-oriented event. His or her release is not the goal – closeness and intimacy is! Neither spouse should feel used. How you speak of your sex is also important. Don’t be critical of your spouse or your sex before, during or after the event. What do you think about sex? Do you believe it is good? Has one spouse been abused or suffered sexual trauma? All these beliefs affect the quality of our sex. And the last thing to think about with regards to the quality of sex, is your beliefs about your own sexiness. In a Christian marriage done right, the only place you are sexy and seductive is within your marriage.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy and cheer with everybody bubbling over with joy. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it just plain hurts. It’s the time of year when there is so much stress and tension. Maybe you’re alone this year, and there is a lot of grief and pain involved. No matter what we’re going through, God has a story of redemption for our lives. Let’s start with the Christmas Story from Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. Let’s sympathize with Joseph for a few minutes here. He was engaged to be married to Mary, whom he thought was a virgin. Instead, he finds out she is pregnant and he knows the baby is not his. What would you have done? What do you do when your spouse lets you down? I think our natural inclination and first response is like his: walk away. He made that decision (resolved) but then thought it over. That’s where God steps in and says “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife.” The whole story of redemption begins with redemption in the story of Joseph and Mary’s marriage. I don’t know what you’ve gone through this year in your marriage. Maybe your marriage is awesome and part of why it’s awesome is because you do things to enrich it like listening to marriage podcasts. On the other hand, maybe 2014 will be a year that you remember where some really hard things happened in your marriage. We just finished a four-part series on fighting – fighting sucks. It’s painful. Sometimes it’s prompted by disappointment, like the disappointment Joseph felt when he initially found out Mary was pregnant. Some of those disappointments can be severe. I want to encourage all of us – because we all let our spouse down, and get let down by our spouses – to look for the story of redemption that God is writing into our lives. God is calling us to be leading characters in that story. It’s his story, but it’s our role to join in and engage rather than to walk away, push back or abandon the story entirely. There are some that are reading this, and this Christmas is especially painful for you because you are ready to engage in that story of redemption but your spouse isn’t. In fact, you may be facing your very first Christmas alone. Our hearts go out to you. That’s hard. It’s sad, and we know it must be a very lonely experience. But that’s where I want you to be encouraged! Step back from the story of redemption you wish was being written into the larger story of redemption that is always being written in and through the power of Jesus Christ. Our little kingdoms can be in chaos. But God’s big kingdom is always ruled by a benevolent, loving God who was willing to go through his own loss, grief and sorrow in the giving of His Son to this world so that we could take him, crucify him, and put him away. Right when that story seemed like it was no longer being written, the angels that appear here to Joseph appear again to another two Mary’s in Matthew 28 – it’s an angel of resurre...

After a fight, you basically have four options: you can exit the relationship, you can be patient and loyal by waiting for your spouse to change, you can neglect your spouse, or you can repair. (Branau-Browna & Ragsdale, 2008) We’ve discussed fighting in the last few topics: why fighting for your marriage is good, different fighting styles couples use, and basic ground rules for use in a fight. This last topic in our series, about how to repair after a fight, is definitely the most important of these four topics! Really, thinking that the repair comes after the fight isn’t really accurate. To set your marriage up for success, repair also needs to come before and during a fight! Before Start with way before! Stafford and Canary (1991) list five factors that gauge the quality of a relationship and that you want to make sure are in your marriage long before a disagreement occurs. * Positivity – create a positive atmosphere for communication. * Openness – practice the habit of being open and honest with each other. Don’t put up walls. * Assurances – use statements designed to reassure your spouse of the well-being of the relationship (like “I’ll love you forever”, “I will never leave you”). * Task Sharing – share the daily work related for a family and home. * Support Network – involve family and friends in the relationship (not someone you’ll go complaining to your spouse about, but someone who will support and help you both through whatever comes) We want to challenge you to be strategic on a long term, visionary sort of basis! Build these qualities into your marriage and set yourself up for success before a conflict is even on the table. As another researcher says, “the quality of the friendship between husband and wife” predicts whether repair attempts will work. Foster that friendship multiple times daily! During In 2010, Driver et al found that “all couples attempt to repair during conflict.” It’s a natural think to do, but what we need to learn is to initiate repairs sooner and more often, and recognize and accept when our spouse is offering them! During a fight, down-regulate your negative emotion or try to dial down how upset you are! This does not mean you may not be upset; you just need to contain it for a reasonable amount of time. When you are stuck in negativity, or dish it right back when you receive it from your spouse, you get into the zone where relationship damage occurs. Bloch, Haase and Leveson (2014) found that down-regulating was directly correlated to marital satisfaction over the long term. They reported that when you’re in a place of prolonged negativity and high emotionality you can’t understand each other, you can’t respond well to your spouse’s repair efforts and you are not going to get to collaborative problem solving. Try to calm yourself down when you’re feeling flooded with emotions and know that you’re getting negative. To do this, stop and take a few deep breaths – in through your nose, out through your mouth. To ground yourself back to reality, try running your hands down the side of your pant leg, or along the arm of your chair. Pay close attention to the feel of the fabric under your finger tips. These actions will remove you far enough from the overwhelming emotions so that you can think more clearly. To attempt repair during the conflict, try some of the following tips: * Take a break (“I need some time to calm down”) * Use humor when appropriate (very powerful) * Reaffirm the security of the relationship (verbally or physically [reach out]) * Validate your spouse’s position (You might be right) * Offer a compliment Remember, if you don’t have the previous mojo of positivity,

Most of us have the wrong idea about conflict in marriage. We fear the conflict could lead to the disintegration of our marriage. That’s a reasonable fear, in many ways. But we paint with too broad a brush. You see, it’s not the conflict itself that puts the marriage at risk but rather the behaviours within the conflict. If you’re just jumping into this series, this episode and show notes are the third in a series of 4 on fighting in marriage. In the first show, we talked about why fighting is good for your marriage. Then we went over fighting styles in the second episode: some work and some do not! You want to be sure to have a style that isn’t destroying your marriage. In today’s episode we’re interested in the actual behaviors that we engage in while we fight because those can take a marriage down over time too. Long Term Ground Rules for Fighting We need to have a long view of marriage. Conflict is inevitable and so it is going to come again and again. But did you know that there are behaviors you can engage in that will strangle your affection and love over time? They are: * Exploding and getting out of control * Just giving in to your spouse on the issue – every time * Withdrawing during conflict: shutting down and refusing to talk These three behaviors were identified by Hanzal and Segrin (2009) as being particularly dysfunctional over the long term. They will wear down your spouse, leaving him or her with less and less ability to deal with them over time. Wives are particularly sensitive to this. You see, husbands react more to in-the-moment behaviors. They get stressed but then they calm down. Wives in conflict develop a stress load that just builds and builds. They carry their marital conflict history with them and then begin to get charged up more quickly facing future discussions. So being explosive, or just caving in every time, or withdrawing are all ways to alienate your spouse. Why? Because there is no actual resolution to the issue that prompted the conflict. The long term ground rules that you and your spouse agree on should include a commitment to keeping one’s self under control during conflict as well as being dedicated to seeing an issue through to resolution. Behave Yourself! There are three categories of behavior that occur during fighting, and I came a cross an article from the Journal of Marriage & Family (October, 2010) that explained them nicely: * Destructive: include overtly negative reactions to marital problems such as yelling, insults, criticism, belligerence and contempt. * Constructive: involve overtly positive reactions such as saying nice things, calmly discussing the problem and actively listening. * Withdrawal: entail disengaging from the conflict or person and may include things like leaving the situation entirely or just checking out by keeping quiet. On the positive side, constructive behaviors actually lead to spouses feeling better and more satisfied about the marriage. On the other hand, destructive behaviors in both newlyweds and longer married couples predicted divorce up to seven years later. “Predicted” is a key word there: it means that an increase presence of the destructive behaviors showed a higher probability of divorce. Withdrawal behaviors were no better (research from Gottman and colleagues). Here’s the takeaway: marital conflict, or fighting, is not the problem. Bad behavior while fighting is. The Bottom Line on Fighting There’s probably nobody alive today who has studied marital conflict more than Dr. John Gottman. He summarizes all his extensive research on successful and unsuccessful m...

“How couples argue and disagree about issues appears to be more consequential to the success of marriage than whatthey argue about or how often they experience conflicts.” To reword the above quote taken from an article by Hanzal and Segrin in the Journal of Family Communication, you could simply say “how we fight has far more influence on the future of our marriage, than what we fight about”. Therefore, our fighting style, or how we fight, really matters. Before I get into the different styles of fighting, we need to be aware that gender differences make a big difference in our fights. In fact, a husband and a wife will experience the same fight differently. Not just because they have different perspectives, but because they are different genders. You might not be a typical couple, and that’s not necessarily a problem, but the following things, about how most couples operate are good to keep in mind. Women tend to be more negative in conflict and use confrontational behaviors that say “this is all about me”, rather than the marriage. The behaviors include being demanding, hostile, threatening, insulting and insisting that all the change should come from their husband. But to stereotype men for a moment… Men are more likely to avoid. They get scared of the big emotions, so feel safer avoiding them altogether. Another thing for men to keep in mind is that the less influence a woman feels she has in her marriage, the bigger the artillery she has to use to gain influence, so the more confrontational she will be. Husbands, if you want a happier wife, receive her influence! Remember, both husband and wife have the same end goal of trying to save the marriage, but they come at it from two completely different angles Anger One thing that surprised me when Caleb and I were discussing fighting in marriage, was that an angry wife has a far greater negative impact on marital satisfaction than an equally angry husband. The Proverb that says ”It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman” apparently is very true! Wives, we need to take our anger seriously! It not only lowers our marriage satisfaction but our husband’s as well. The more angry we become (this goes for both husbands and wives but I’m specifically thinking of woman), the more tempted we are to use nasty behavior such as demand, withdrawal, contempt and criticism; all of which are particularly corrosive to marital well-being. Styles So now that we know that our fighting style really matters and that each gender comes at a fight a different way, let’s look at some of the different styles of fighting in marriage. This model of fighting styles is taken from Dr. Gottman’s study in 1993. The first three are functional and work fine. The last two are considered unstable. 1. Avoiders Avoiders don’t think they are avoiders, but don’t have any specific strategies for resolving conflict. They may wait stuff out, or even talk stuff out, but never really go deep with each other. They kind of state their points, reaffirm their common ground and move on after coming up with some ambiguous solution. The challenge with an avoider’s marriage over the long term is that you can end up distant and lonely. 2. Volatiles Volatiles come straight at each other. They disagree and try to persuade each other. They produce a lot of drama: both positive and negative. They value arguing and really work hard at convincing each other. These folks can bicker pretty good but passionate love-making with likely follow. 3. Validators Validators tend to walk the middle line. There is conflict but there’s ease and calm too and each spouse is trying to validate the other.

Fighting is something I am passionate about. Probably because I was so bad at it when we first got married… I would get mad and come across as hostile, crying and flinging words that I didn’t always even mean. Caleb would try to apologize, calm me down and say whatever it took to get himself out of the situation. And what did the fighting accomplish? Nothing! The issues never got resolved. Enter Caleb’s grad school where he learned how to teach others to fight. Thankfully, he taught himself and his wife a few skills too, and our fights look much different today. In fact, we can even vocalize the hard truth that needs to be stated without the other spouse getting hurt. I love the fact that we can actually resolve issues now – get them dealt with and out of the way, rather than have them resurface time and time again. Caleb and I are firm believers that fighting is indeed good for your marriage! But, something that we need to make clear from the start is that the fighting that we’re talking about that actually deepens intimacy in romantic relationships is ‘well-handled’ conflict. ‘Poorly-handled’ conflict, on the other hand, has negative implications for the relationship. First, let’s rule out the bad stuff that is not good for your marriage. This includes hostility, anger, physical or verbal aggression, threat and personal insult, yelling, insults, criticism, belligerence and contempt. These are not acceptable and do not resolve anything in a marriage. If used, they may shut the argument down for a short time, but the issues have not been dealt with and will definitely arise again in the future. However, we’re not here to discuss the negative so much as the positive aspect of fighting. The following facts about why fighting is good for your marriage are summarized from the research of Gottman, Satir, Siegert and Stamp. The goods on fighting: #1: It helps you to learn about each other. #2: It builds cohesion and commitment. #3: Dealing with stuff is better than ignoring stuff. #4: It is a catalyst for personal growth, when you’re forced to confront your own humanity. #5: It’s a catalyst for spiritual growth. You have to enact the gospel in your life so faced with sin and brokenness; we have to deal with grace, forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, mercy and altruism. In the next three episodes in our mini-series about fighting, we’ll describe different fighting styles, some ground rules in handling conflict well, and how to repair after a fight. For now, know that if you have conflict in your marriage, you are normal! We always seem to want to know though, “How normal are we? Do other couples fight about the same things that we do?” Well, here’s a list for you from Dr. Gottman. He says that couples fight most about communication, finances, children, sex, housework, jealousy, and in laws. Sound familiar? To end, I want to give you a tip that you can start today, that will build good mojo into your marriage and help it survive the fights that do come up. It can be summed up with the words turn toward your spouse. Turn toward each other for emotional connection. Do things that deepen emotional intimacy. Get inside each other and become students of each other. Court each other, romance each other, nurture and nourish each other. Work at having great sex, at playfulness, fun and adventure. Let’s rearrange the words in the title for a moment. Instead of “Why Fighting is Good For Your Marriage”, think “Why Fighting For Your Marriage Is Good”! When you turn toward your spouse and build that positive connection, you are fighting for your marriage. And I am passionate about fighting for my marriage! Image courtesy of Ed Yourdon unde...

Ahhhh, marital bliss! Socrates himself apparently once said, “By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” We joke and we laugh about terrible wives, and worse husbands. The truth of the matter is, unless we invest in our marriages, we will never have a deep, intimate, rewarding relationship with our spouse. So today’s post is nice and simple (even if it gets a little deep at times)! We give you three things you can do to make your marriage happier. #1 – Be Willing to Change Your Beliefs I questioned Caleb on this one as I’d always been taught to “buy the truth and sell it not”. How would it make my marriage happier to sell that truth!?! He informed he, however, that it did NOT mean changing my spiritual beliefs but about being willing to change what I think makes the perfect marriage. We head into marriage making a covenant based on the assumption that nothing is going to change. But we DO change, and we need to roll with that and always be thinking about how we can bring our best to our marriage. To quote Karney, from a study done in 2003, “Couples who stay happiest overall are the ones who change their beliefs about what is important in their relationships.” For example, when we first married, I loved Caleb’s spontaneity and adventure. Now that we have kids, however, I appreciate the stability that Caleb gives our family. The marriages that stay happy by shifting beliefs decide “that whatever aspects of the marriage have declined must not be so important after all”. If I still clung to the fact that spontaneity and adventure were essential for happiness in my marriage, I would look at Caleb’s shortcomings and grow resentful. So, we need to be willing to change our beliefs about what is important in our marriage. #2 – Positivity is the Fuel for Happiness A bunch of researchers published a study in 1998 in the Journal of Family Violence, comparing the perceptions of marital positivity between healthy couples, distressed couples, and distressed and aggressive couples. They found that happily married spouses engage in more frequent and special types of pleasurable communication. They also found that happily married spouses engage in higher quality spousal-specific caring gestures. What lessons can we learn from these findings? Be deliberate about vocalizing positive thoughts towards your spouse – that’s going to increase marital happiness. As it says in Proverbs 17:22, A joyful heart is good medicine! Philippians 4:8 reminds us to think on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and worthy of praise. Also, stop to think about what specific actions, gestures or things you can do that show you care. Gratitude is so important in marriage. A study from 2011 (Personality and Individual Differences) found that more gratitude equals more marital satisfaction. Not only that but my FELT gratitude is a predictor of YOUR satisfaction, but my EXPRESSED gratitude is not. It’s not good enough just to say something, you have to actually mean it! #3 – If You’re Going to Fight, Get in the Ring and Do It Properly. Sort of… Positive fighting has more to do with engagement. Research, published in 2009, found that if either spouse is disengaged during a conflict, especially in the early years of marriage, the couple ended up experiencing their marriage as less trusting and intimate and were more distressed in their marriage overall. As humans, we don’t like to fight (at least most of us don’t!). I think we kind of hold back or check out in the moment because we don’t want the fight to get out of control. While we don’t want fights to get out of control, this is NOT the right way to go about that. The research also found that conflict avoidance predicted greater marital distress. Are we scared of our anger,

Ever have a conversation that goes something like this? Hubby: So are we all good then, honey? Wifey: Yup. Hubby: You’re sure. Wifey: Yes, I’m fine. Hubby: OK then. I’ll take your word for it… What Exactly Is Womanspeak? Womanspeak is saying something where the meaning is different from the intent of the words spoken. And yes, I know it’s not just a woman thing. Not all women do it, and men are just as capable of speaking this way, we just stereotypically assign this to women (hence the name!). Just for the record, I prefer to call it husband-hearing! I’ll give you a few examples of what I’m talking about– my word or phrase will be on the left and Caleb’s “interpretation” will be in brackets: Fine (means: totally not fine at all) You choose (means: you figure out the exact thing I secretly want to do) Whatever (means: I only care about this enough to hold your anxiety hostage for another three days) That’s ok (means: like you’re getting any sex for the next two weeks) Communication is a tricky thing because it can derail in a variety of ways. When we communicate, we send a signal that may or may not be clear. The person receiving the signal may not receive it with the intent with which it was sent. Sometimes we may not even know exactly what we intend to send. Or perhaps our verbal communication can be in conflict with our non-verbal. We may even use words with one meaning but our tone of voice carries another meaning. Here’s a few more examples to illustrate the point: “Is it cold in here?” could actually mean, “Can you please go turn up the heat?” Or, “Hey baby, do you want to snuggle? wink wink”. Or think of the question, “Oh, are we having tuna casserole tonight?” That could mean: “I’m delighted, because it’s my favorite!” Or, “Seriously, we’ve had that five nights in a row.” Or, “I don’t really care, I’m just curious.” Really, depending on the type of day I’ve had at home, I will hear that question totally differently. Why Do We Do It? To answer this question, we delved into the deeper reasons of why we might not speak clearly. Perhaps we don’t want to be the stereotypical nagging wife constantly asking for stuff so only hint at things instead. Maybe (and this is something I know I struggle with) we have a fear of rejection. If I ask Caleb if he wants to peel the potatoes and he says no, that’s just his preference. But if I say, “Could you please peel the potatoes?” and he says no, that could feel like a personal rejection. What about having a fear of intimacy or vulnerability? It’s a lot easier to test the waters with a vague question than ask for something outright and risk rejection. It’s a lot easier too, to say “Do I look fat in this?” than to be vulnerable and say, “I’m feeling insecure about my body right now”. We’ve been over the HOW and WHY we use womanspeak, but after having witnessed it in our marriage and other marriages, I can say that it does not bring about the desired response. When you say one thing and mean another, it does not build intimacy. Here’s what you need to do in order to have healthy communication between you: How Can We Have Good Clear Communication? 1. Learn to state your wants or requests clearly. For example, if you want him to do something, don’t start with “Do you want to….” Instead try, “Could you please…” 2. Don’t lie! Saying “I’m fine” when you’re not, is a lie. Be truthful and say something like “I’m not sure how I feel right now but if you give me some time to calm down I’ll come back to you as soon as I’m clear myself”. 3. State your expectations before it matters. This one is hard to explain without an example, so rather than an explanation, I’ll go straight into story. If I’m planning something on the weekend, I need to state my expectations to my husband early in the week so that ...

Maybe you’re not like me. Maybe you don’t REACT to everything. Maybe you should be writing this post about defensiveness… In this week’s podcast episode, Caleb talked about defensiveness and how you can disarm your own defensiveness. I especially need to learn how to disarm my defensiveness, as I seem to react every single time to the slightest provocation! Why is it that I can react so strongly to the smallest thing? I think it’s because I like to be right and I hate being wrong. That’s just me, and I’m ok with that, but I’m not ok with the defensive overreacting! I was glad to hear that there is a part of defensiveness that is born out of our God-given instinct towards fight, flight or freeze. Defensiveness is the “fight” part of that. So maybe I’m not always overreacting – it’s a comforting thought to know that I can and will defend my loved ones when needed! However, defensiveness in marriage goes beyond that and can become problematic. It is deflecting blame back on your spouse and saying, “I’m not the problem; you are!” Caleb says the antidote to defensiveness is to accept responsibility for your own stuff. He makes it sound so simple… So I asked Caleb, why does being defensive NOT work in marriage? Because, the more you defend yourself, the harsher your spouse has to be to get through to you. The thicker the concrete wall, the bigger the bomb needed to get through those walls. Being defensive sometimes is not going to wreck a marriage. However, Dr. Gottman talks about the four horses of the apocalypse: the four most destructive features in a marriage and defensiveness is one of them. He says that when all four horses are present in a relationship his research shows there is more than an 80% probability that the marriage will fail unless corrective action is taken. I don’t know about you, but I want to eradicate any features in my marriage that will cause it to fail. Why do we get defensive? It could be that you or I have a fragile ego. Because we’re feeling fragile, we interpret our spouse’s disagreement with any of our ideas, choices or behaviors as a personal attack. “If you challenge my ideas, you are challenging me!” That’s about ego, hence the need to defend as if being attacked. We may get defensive to protect ourselves, but in actuality, it produces more conflict – more of what we don’t want! It may feel like we need years of therapy to get our fragile egos sorted, but here are two tips which can have an immediate impact in lessening our defensive reactions. Tip 1: Say, “You could be right.” That’s it. So easy. So simple. Yet it creates such a powerful mind shift. The next time you find yourself reacting to something said to you, and your instincts want to kick in to defend yourself, instead say, “You could be right.” That buys you some time to calm down without automatically going into fight mode! It keeps you open and lets you hear any genuinely constructive criticism that could be valid or actionable. Even if the only good in what your spouse is saying is in the intent and the content is not worded well AT ALL, by saying “You could be right” you lower your own emotional resistance. It gives your spouse influence, which in turn puts you in a powerful place. If you shut your spouse down (by getting defensive), they are most definitely going to shut you down. Then you’re in a crazy cycle you don’t want to be in! Tip 2: Bring in an imaginary third party. Ask the question, “How would you respond if someone said that…” Benjamin Franklin used this technique. It works very well if your spouse is being close-minded. It helps to keep us in a place of curiosity rather than having a knee jerk ‘fight’ reaction. For example, Jack comes home hungry and says to his wife, “I can’t believe you haven’t started dinner. I’m really hungry!

If you woke up tomorrow and a miracle happened so that you had a thriving, passionate marriage, what would you see differently? What would be the first signs that a miracle had occurred? Today, on our podcast, Caleb introduced me to the “miracle question” above – the lynch pin question in Solution Focused Therapy. You can ask this question about anything really. For example, “If you woke up tomorrow, and a miracle happened so that you no longer easily lost your temper, what would you see differently? What would the first signs be that the miracle occurred?” Basically in asking this question, you are asking a person to create a small shift in their thinking by looking at the other side of their problem and then coming back through from that side. That sounds pretty complicated, but what I got from it was this: Sometimes I can find myself stuck on an issue and don’t know what to do with it. If I could envision what my life would look like without the problem, and then come back to the problem with that vision in my head, it can give me ideas of what I need to do next. It can also give me the motivation to become unstuck! Let me give you an example. It’s not a marriage example, but a housewife one. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with my house. It may not be terrible, but not how I want to keep my house. When Caleb asks me the ‘miracle question’ and I envision what my house would look like if a miracle occurred (how come this type of miracle never actually happens!?!?!), and then come back to my problem (my messy house) from that direction, I can generally think of what I need to do next. The Long Version Caleb also gave a LONG version of the same question. You really should listen to the podcast episode to get the full effect but I will do my best to type it as he spoke it. Think, calm, quiet, relaxing, SLOW voice as you read this: “I am going to ask you a rather strange question. [pause] The strange question is this: [pause] After we talk, you will go back to your work (home, school) and you will do whatever you need to do the rest of today, such as taking care of the children, cooking dinner, watching TV, giving the children a bath, and so on. It will be time to go to bed. Everybody in your household is quiet, and you are sleeping in peace. In the middle of the night, a miracle happens and the problem we’re discussing right now is solved! But because this happens while you are sleeping, you have no way of knowing that there was an overnight miracle that solved the problem. [pause] So, when you wake up tomorrow morning, what might be the small change that will make you say to yourself, ‘Wow, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’”? Then you must wait, SILENTLY, for the answer. Let your spouse be creative and come up with an answer! What’s the Point? Caleb and I finally discussed what the point of this question is. It’s definitely not a natural response in the middle of a problem that seems to have no solutions. So, what is the point? This question breaks you out of your box – your usual way of thinking. It takes big drama, inspires creativity, and helps your spouse see that there are steps they can take to start to shift their own circumstances. And it can be used anywhere: in marriage, at work, with your kids, with a girl friend! But, you have to ask it well. You have to ask it slowly, and then wait, SILENTLY, for the answer.   I have to admit when Caleb first starting talking about it, it sounded pretty “woo-woo” to me, but after thinking it through, it made a lot of sense. Now I can’t wait to try it on Caleb, but given that I’m married to a marriage therapist, he always seems to think of these things first!

Guilt is an effective motivator. It’s also a great way to make you an unbearable spouse. If you’ve ever had someone lay the, “If you really loved me you would…” guilt trip on you then you know exactly how that makes you feel. Loathing. Disgust. Nothing like, “I love you! I’d love to do that for you!” Motivating your spouse to change by using guilt may get you the short-term gains but it is going to cause long term pain. Why Do We Use Guilt on Our Spouse? It does work as a technique to help a powerless person in a relationship get his or her own way.  But it is just not healthy when used to this end. It causes resentment and anger in marriages. It dampens a child’s sense of independence and self control (Mandara & Pike, 2008) and can lead to depressive symptoms and low self-esteem (Leith & Baumeister, 2008). So while it does create leverage to obtain the outcome you want, it really is hard on your spouse and on your children. Often we do this because it was modeled for us in our family of origin. Or, we may do it because we genuinely do have less power in the relationship. Guilt is a way to even out the power imbalance. So I do want to call out all the control freaks here: if your spouse is guilting you, it may be because you aren’t sharing power with him or her in your marriage. So when you are getting guilted, just give yourself a real honest check-in to see if you’re provoking it. The Entitlement Twist One of my huge life-lessons when I first got married was understanding how selfish I was. I think we all bring some entitlement to the relationship. Because we’re in love I deserve or expect a lot from you. That can also come out in the language, “If you really loved me, you would…” The research shows when one spouse brings excessive entitlement to a marriage that there are some real nasties associated with this. Violence. Aggression. Higher divorce rates. And–surprise—selfishness! If You Really Loved Me, You Would Stop Guilting Me We reveal some key things to do to replace the guilt and entitlement during the episode. But for those of you that are reading this, here’s a couple key points to note. First, find a healthier way to express your needs. Try: “I would really like you to …, is there any way that can happen?” Second: learn gratitude. Really. If you bring an attitude of service to your marriage it will pay far greater dividends than an attitude of entitlement. Entitlement is sin. Confess, repent, and serve. Image courtesy of Jason under the Creative Commons license. Guilt is an effective motivator. It’s also a great way to make you an unbearable spouse. If you’ve ever had someone lay the, “If you really loved me you would…” guilt trip on you then you know exactly how that makes you feel. Loathing. Disgust. Nothing like, “I love you! I’d love to do that for you!” Motivating your spouse to change by using guilt may get you the short-term gains but it is going to cause long term pain. Why Do We Use Guilt on Our Spouse? It does work as a technique to help a powerless person in a relationship get his or her own way.  But it is just not healthy when used to this end. It causes resentment and anger in marriages. It dampens a child’s sense of independence and self control (Mandara & Pike, 2008) and can lead to depressive symptoms and low self-esteem (Leith & Baumeister, 2008). So while it does create leverage to obtain the outcome you want, it really is hard on your spouse and on your children. Often we do this because it was modeled for us in our family of origin. Or, we may do it because we genuinely do have less power in the relationship.

I found the topic of triangles in marriage to be fascinating. How often do I get my nose out of joint by something my husband does? And then try to get my support from someone else? THAT is creating a triangle! What Is A Triangle? Triangles are three-way relationships. Usually this looks like mom-dad-child, or an unpopular variant: husband-wife-mistress. Sometimes the husband’s work can be his mistress… They usually consist of two close parties and one distant one. For example, Dad is angry and abusive (distant) so Mom and oldest daughter are close and allied against Dad. Or, husband and work are close and wife is distant. Why Do We Triangulate? On the positive side, because they help us relate and understand one another. When we’re not getting along with a parent, we can talk to our spouse. Triangles can also be used to relieve tension. In any 1 to 1 relationship, tensions grow. These tensions can be relieved by bringing in a third party but can also really increase problems. Look at it this way: couples that aren’t getting along can talk about their kids, their friends, work; anything but their own relationship. They can both be close to the issue at hand and be distant from each other. The ideal though, would be for the couple to be close to each other and allied (distant) against the issue. Identified Patients (IP’s) are also created by triangles. (An Identified Patient is the one seen to be the “problem” when a family goes for therapy.) Often times the IP is one of the children acting out subconsciously to relieve the tension between the parents. When both parents are focused on the behavior of the child, they are not dwelling on their own tension-creating problems. What Drives Our Need To Triangulate? In its simplest form, we triangulate because we have an anxiety about closeness. This is about “How close can I be to my spouse and still allow the other person to be different from me? You can see this when you go home to your parents. If one parent does something socially embarrassing, are you embarrassed? Or do you allow them to feel their own embarrassment and recognize it is not yours to feel while still feeling close to him/her? Or look at another example: you and your spouse are arguing. One of you points to a kid and says, “Bobby agrees with me and he thinks you’re wrong too!” You just ran into the question: how close can I be and allow you to be different then me? What you thought, perhaps subconsciously, is “If I can’t be close, I’m going to make Bobby close and distance you in order to bring you back to being the same as me.” It reduces my anxiety because I have a coalition with Bobby and I am now controlling you. Let’s De-triangulate! What do we need to do to counter this triangulation in our marriages? First, recognize that it’s always going on and accept that, BUT, watch for unhealthy triangulation in the form of distancing between you and your spouse. Don’t triangulate your kids in order to take anxiety out of the deficiencies in your own marriage. Remember the Identified Patient – ever see a child who is a problem child because it gives both parents something to be together on? Second, talk about it! Talk about what you need to be together on as parents. Talk about boundaries you might need to set on in-laws, work, or affair possibilities. Thirdly, become an emotionally mature, well-differentiated person. * Understand your Family Of Origin (FOO) – did your parents draw you in to take sides and relieve their own anxiety? Are you repeating the process in your own family? * Learn to identify, name and own your own feelings. * Develop a healthy, self-identity and live out of that place instead of others’ expectations. * (And this one I LOVE!) Be OK with being different than your spouse: don’t get fixated on how little you have in common.

Does homeschooling actually wreck marriages? Absolutely! But no more than sending your kids to public school… No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we need to realize the impact on our marriage, and compensate accordingly. The fact is homeschooling presents different challenges than public schooling, or even having both parents work outside the home. Each scenario has its own challenges! So, while homeschooling is great, it’s good to be specifically aware of a few things with regards to your marriage. Here are some of the challenges to marriage that we hear about from people who homeschool: * Husband can feel like he’s getting the shaft when it comes to the time, energy and commitment wife gives to the marriage. He can start to get resentful if he feels like there is nothing left for him at the end of the day. Marriage care tends to be pushed to the bottom of the list as day-to-day life becomes more child-centered. * What if the kids went to public/private/Christian school and my wife got a job? Dreaming about the what-if’s of a two income family can create resentment. Finances are the #1 reason for divorce. * Husband and wife are not together on this commitment. A cardinal rule of parenting is that both parents need to be in agreement! * Poor role division. Overloading either mom or dad can have an adverse impact on their health, the marriage and the family. Also, it is easy for Mom to become the homeschooling parent and Dad to become only the breadwinner. That’s not healthy, Dad needs to know how he can be involved with the family (and be involved!) and Dad and Mom both need to support each other. Here are four things you need to do to combat the unique challenges of a homeschooling marriage: * Remember, God called you to marriage before parenting (usually), so love your spouse more than your homeschooling! * Find your self-identity: Aim to have a thriving, passionate marriage of homeschooling parents – not a homeschooling marriage! Your identity is in Christ, not your educational preference. We are all going to grieve and celebrate becoming empty-nesters. If you define your identity as a home-schooling mom, then what are you going to be when you are not homeschooling? Who are you then? Another question to ask is if you are “homeschoolers” or people that teach at home? What is your identity? * Have non-school conversations and non-school dates! If it’s the two of you together at the zoo – enjoy your time together at the zoo and stop planning your ecology module… * Self Care! Homeschooling demands sacrifice by both parents. What are you doing for self-care? How are you investing in your marriage elsewhere to compensate for the sacrifice you and your spouse make daily? A mom once told me that pre-children she used to be disgusted with woman who didn’t take care of their feet and had dry heels. Now, she is glad if she manages to shower on a given day. How priorities change when we have responsibilities 24/7! What are you doing to take care of yourself and your marriage!?! Obviously there is nothing wrong with your marriage and it’s not on the rocks just because you homeschool! We just want you to pause and assess whether everything is in balance. Every marriage needs to do this – everybody has his or her own challenges. Homeschooling is a major commitment and decision that you feel is a clear blessing to your children. We wouldn’t dispute that, but we want you to stop, do a check-in and ask yourself, “Hey, is my marriage still first”? IowaPolitics.com under the Creative Commons Does homeschooling actually wreck marriages? Absolutely! But no more than sending your kids to public school…