Marriage-ology

Blog has moved

2006-02-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Please come visit this blog at its new location, Marriage-ology.com. I also have a new RSS feed set up for Marriage-ology.com. Hope to see you there!

Blog will be moving

2006-01-30T22:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates the last couple of days; I do have plenty to say about marriage! But I'm working on moving this blog over to Typepad as I can no longer stand to work without categories and other advanced functions. You'll be able to see the blog soon at www.marriage-ology.com, and sign up for the new feed there. I'll keep you posted!

Do you really think that men and women are equal?

2006-01-27T22:39:00.000-08:00

Was reading a very interesting article on Slate about testing for bias. And there is a research project at Harvard through which you can test your own bias on issues of race, gender, sexuality: The Implicit Association Test.

The method that they use to test bias is very interesting and innovative, and purports to allow a window into what you really think about different groups of people, versus what you say you think.

For the record, I tested as moderately associating men with the sciences and moderately associating women with liberal arts. I haven't done any of the other tests yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I'm moderately biased in those areas, either.

The good thing about knowing your biases, is that then you can choose to remain conscious of them and make informed decisions, rather than letting an unconscious bias skew you.

So, what's the truth, do you really think men and women are equal, or are you biased?

Does pornography affect marriage?

2006-01-26T23:44:00.000-08:00

I was going to post this evening a follow-up on how to spend your 15 hours of quality together time with your spouse, but I admit I've gotten sidetracked...by pornography.

No, I haven't been looking at it online. But I have been listening to some podcasts at xxxchurch.com, in particular the latest episode of their weekly radio show, "Dirty Little Secrets," where they interview Pamela Paul, the author of Pornified: How the Culture of Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. Warning, if you decide to listen to the radio show, it's fairly graphic and disturbing.

To quote from the podcast, Pamela Paul interviewed a number of men who use pornography during the research for her book, and she reports that many of them were

A lot of men who, again, would never think of themselves as addicts, did say that they were trying to cut back on their pornography use and having trouble doing it...[They] reported even when they cut back on pornography, they were still seeing a lot of the negative effects...trouble maintaining an erection during intercourse, trouble achieving orgasm while inside a woman's body, trouble enjoying sex without watching pornography at the same time or without conjuring images from pornography in their mind while they were with a woman.

From my own personal experience, I know that pornography does dramatically and negatively affect marriage. And I haven't gotten to read Pamela Paul's book yet, but she clearly believes that porn has negative effects. What do you think?

Movies: The Notebook

2006-01-26T06:50:00.000-08:00

My husband and I watched The Notebook last night. (Yeah, I know, we are way behind the times.) I enjoyed the movie, loved the characters, and of course I sobbed like the mushy-hearted sentimentalist that I am toward the end of the movie.

WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD, for the three people in the world who are lamer than I am on keeping up with movies.

But at the end of the movie, when the sweet old forever-in-love couple die in each other's arms rather than face life alone...I wasn't crying. Actually it kinda torqued me off. The message is that "I am not complete without you" (gag) and "life isn't worth living without you" (more gagging). Why is it that we, the American movie-going public, think it's so romantic and cool and heroic to die rather go on living without a lover? What about the large family that this couple left behind, now having to deal with the simultaneous loss of both parents, rather than just the death of one? The old couple clearly chose that moment to die together, and I really think that's rather a cruel thing to do to one's children and grandchildren.

I also had some issues with the infidelity of the character of Allie. Sure, she wasn't married to the guy she cheated on, just engaged to be married and with a big fancy wedding all planned. But that doesn't make it cheating any less. I also find it interesting to think that, if the characters were reversed and it had been a man cheating on his suffering fiance...well then the outcome of the movie would have been entirely different, because men who cheat in movies are assumed to be inherently jerks, whereas women who cheat are assumed to be just confused and indecisive. Overall, I have to say, I don't like the romanticizing of infidelity; it's a bad value to be putting out there.

So, I liked the movie, but it's definitely not going on my very short list of "movies that illustrate important truths about marriage."

Maintaining romantic love, part 2: Fun is fundamental

2006-01-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

Picking up from where I left off yesterday, it's time to answer the question, "Now that I'm convinced I should be spending large chunks of quality time giving my full attention to my spouse, what the heck is supposed to fill up that time?"

Do you remember when you and your spouse were dating? Most likely, the majority of the time you spent alone together could be put in the category of "quality together time." You had a lot of fun together doing things you both enjoyed.

Expanding on Willard Harley Jr.'s "Policy of Undivided Attention," from page 53 of "His Needs, Her Needs for Parents:"

Give your spouse your undivided attention a minimum of fifteen hours each week, using the time to meet his or her needs for intimate affection, sexual fulfillment, intimate conversation, and recreational companionship.

While it might be tempting to read the passage above and say, "Oh yeah, sexual fulfillment for 15 hours a week, let's go baby!" ...might I just suggest that perhaps that may not be the most effective approach to take with your spouse. Sex isn't something that happens in a vacuum, although pornography does make it seem like everyone should just be jumping into it with no preliminaries. For that matter, good conversation doesn't happen just because someone decides, "OK, this is the time for conversation, let's do it." (And I know this through extensive empirical testing.) Nor does satisfying physical affection happen without some prep work. (Try giving your spouse a warm hug or deep kiss right after you've irritated their socks off, and I bet you'll see what I mean.)

Today let's start at the beginning and focus on the very first thing you should be doing in your 15 hours per week together: having fun. AKA "recreational companionship." Doing things that you both find fun, and doing them together. Satisfying recreational experiences will naturally lead to good conversation, which naturally will create physical affection, which often then will lead to good sex.

If you have kids, one of the most important elements of having fun together is that you absolutely MUST GET RID OF THE KIDS for your 15 hours per week. Kids are great, I love my kids, but you cannot have quality time and put your undivided attention on just having a good time together when your kids are around. So, solutions? Here are some ideas:

Make sure the kids go to bed on time. In our household that means 8 pm for the preschoolers, and 8:30 pm for the older one. That gives us a good two hours of time together each night.
Go out on a date. Dates aren't that expensive, especially if you have a family member or friend who can visit. Trust me, you need to be dating your spouse.
If you have older kids (age 5 to 10 or so), you may be able to get away with closing the door to your bedroom and having some private time with your spouse on a weekend morning. It may be only half an hour or so, but hey...every moment counts.
Go to church together and leave your kids in the kids' classes, if you both enjoy church. My husband and I treat church like a bit of a mini-date; it's a great chance to sit together, hold hands, whisper comments, and so on. Ditto for going to a Bible study...sometimes relatives who won't babysit just so you can "date" are willing to do it if you're going to a church event :D
If you have kids who are preteen and up, then you can leave them at home for a couple of hours while you and your spouse go out.

In the future I'll post a big list of date and activity ideas for you (ranging from free to expensive), but for now think of the kinds of things you and your spouse used to enjoy together, and just make a solid commitment to getting back to having fun time for the two of you. It really will make a huge difference in your romance.

Tomorrow I'll go over how to do "good conversation" during your 15 hours per week.

Maintaining romantic love, part 1: Is your marriage worth 8.9% of your time?

2006-01-24T12:15:00.000-08:00

If someone was to ask you what you thought the biggest killer of marital happiness is, what would you say--fighting? infidelity? money troubles? It's true, each of those things can cause unhappiness in marriage. But based on what I know from experience in my own marriages, and from my studies, I have a different answer, and it's a simple one: Time. Couples who spend enough high-quality time together will stay in love and happy in spite of conflict or troubles, while couples who neglect to put in the effort to have their best times together will not.

This revelation isn't mine, though. I learned about it from Willard F. Harley Jr. in his excellent "His Needs, Her Needs" series of books. In the 1970s he took a hard look at why traditional marriage counseling wasn't helping couples stay together, and his conclusion was, "if I wanted to save marriage, I would have to go beyond improving communication - I would have to learn how to restore love."

One of the primary components of his love-restoring plan--the foundation of the rest of it, really--is what he calls "The Policy of Undivided Attention." This official-sounding phrase really boils down to "spending fun, romantic time together like you did when you were dating, and no kids or other distractions allowed." From "His Needs, Her Needs For Parents," page 57, here are his basic recommendations:

The number of hours you schedule to be together each week for undivided attention should reflect your love for each other. If you and your spouse are in love, schedule fifteen hours each week to be together. But if one or both of you have fallen out of love, plan more time until marital satisfaction is achieved.

Did you get that? At least 15 hours per week in quality, focused time together. Does that sound scary? Apparently to a lot of couples it does, as Harley says on his website:

It's incredible how many couples have tried to talk me out of their spending more time together. They begin by trying to convince me that it's impossible. Then they go on to the argument that it's impractical. But in the end, they usually agree that without time for undivided attention, they cannot re-create the love they once had for each other.

Let's think about it for a moment. If you live on Earth like me (which you do), you have 168 hours in a typical week, give or take an hour here or there for seasonal time changes. 15 hours to spend hanging out with just you and your spouse, paying attention to each other, is only 8.9% of your total weekly time. It's less than half of the hours you're expected to spend at your job, right? So in reality, it's not that much total time.

Speaking of your job, if you didn't put in the required hours and performance there on an extremely consistent basis, would it be reasonable for you to expect your boss to give you a raise or promotion? Marriage isn't much different--if you don't put in the hours and work, you're not going to be rewarded well, and you'll probably end up with a pink slip.

Now that you're thoroughly convinced that you should be spending plenty of quality time with your spouse, your next logical question is: But what the heck are we supposed to do for 15 whole hours together? I'll start on that answer tomorrow, but in the meantime, be reassured that quality time together isn't all about "sitting and talking about the relationship." To be continued!

The dishwasher

2006-01-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

When we were first married, my husband and I had not-infrequent arguments about how to load the dishwasher. We each had our own method, we were firmly convinced that our own method was the correct one, and we were furthermore convinced that our household, marriage, and indeed the world would be a much-improved thing if only our dunce of a spouse would see the light of truth and start doing things our way.

Not terribly long into the deal, we figured out that our household, marriage, and indeed the world would be better served if we just agreed on this complex system:

When she does the dishes, she loads the dishwasher however she wants to, and
When he does the dishes, he loads the dishwasher however HE wants to.

We haven't fought about the dishwasher issue since then.

About six months ago (that would make us married for 7-ish years at this point), I noticed something both odd and revelatory: My husband and I now both load the dishwasher via approximately the same method.

Did you know that, according to Diane Sollee of the Smart Marriages Coalition, "every happy, successful couple has
approximately ten areas of 'incompatibility' or disagreement that they will never resolve?" And that couples divorce not because of these disagreements, but rather "the number one predictor of divorce is the habitual avoidance of conflict?"

Of course, there are bigger things to disagree about than how to load the dishwasher: Money, child-rearing, where to live, work, friends, extended family...the list of potential hot topics is huge. However, I've found in my own marriage that a gentle agreement to disagree, combined with the passage of time, plus an occasional expression of honest, tender emotion, brings the two of us closer to one another even on these issues. For example, we disagree on how our money should be handled, but we're slowly making progress to a place where we're both comfortable with things. We disagree on pretty much everything to do with housework. We agree in principle on child-rearing issues, but in practice I find that we often conflict with each other. We don't enjoy all the same activities.

Wow, looking at that list makes all of our disagreements seem kinda scary. But I know that if I'm patient, and treat my relationship with my husband as more important than these issues, then we'll be OK--and who knows, maybe in another seven years or so, I'll find that we have a couple more of our former disagreements worked out.

Marriage and Caste

2006-01-21T08:50:00.000-08:00

This article on "Marriage and Caste" by Kay S. Hymowitz is a fascinating, well-supported thesis on how the modern concept that marriage is optional for childbearing is negatively and unequally affecting the poor in the United States. To quote from near the end of the article:

When Americans announced that marriage before childbearing was optional, low-income women didn’t merely lose a steadfast partner, a second income, or a trusted babysitter, as the strength-in-numbers theory would have it. They lost a traditional arrangement that reinforced precisely the qualities that they-and their men; let’s not forget the men!—needed for upward mobility, qualities all the more important in a tough new knowledge economy. The timing could hardly have been worse. At a time when education was becoming crucial to middle-class status, the disadvantaged lost a reliable life script, a way of organizing their early lives that would prize education and culminate in childbearing only after job training and marriage. They lost one of their few institutional supports for planning ahead and taking control of their lives.

The article is long but really worth a read.

Family structure clearly influences educational outcomes for U.S. children

2006-01-20T13:10:00.001-08:00

The Institute for American Values has released a research brief which summarizes the findings of a comprehensive literature review done at the University of Chicago to look at the effects of family structure on educational outcomes in the U.S. To quote from the brief:

A comprehensive review of recent academic research shows that family structure — whether a child’s parents are married, divorced, single, remarried, or cohabiting — is a significant influence on children’s educational performance. Family structure affects preschool readiness. It affects educational achievement at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. Family structure influences these outcomes in part because family structure affects a range of child behaviors that can bear directly on educational success, such as school misbehavior, drug and alcohol consumption, sexual activity and teen pregnancy, and psychological distress. There is a solid research basis for the proposition that strengthening U.S. family structure — increasing the proportion of children growing up with their own, two married parents — would significantly improve the educational achievements of U.S. children.

Specific examples of outcomes?

"For instance, three- and four-year-old children growing up with their own married parents (or in an “intact” family) are three times less likely than those in any other family structure to experience emotional or behavioral problems such as attention deficit disorder."
"Fourth grade students with married parents score higher on reading comprehension, compared to students living in stepfamilies, with single mothers, and in other types of families."
"Family structure substantially influences outcomes such as high school dropout rates, high school graduation rates, and age at first pregnancy. For example, young people from non-intact families are significantly more likely to drop out of school, compared to students living in intact families."
"For young people, growing up without their own married parents is linked with lower college attendance rates and acceptance at less selective institutions. Young people, especially women, who grow up with their own married parents tend to marry later. Research has shown a link between delayed marriage and higher educational attainment among young women."
"Teenagers from non-intact families are more likely to be sexually active. There appear to be no significant differences in sexual behavior between adolescents from stepfamilies and those from single-parent families."
"Being in a stepparent or single-parent family at age 10 more than doubles the odds of a child being arrested by age 14."

The researchers suggest that "these findings about family structure and children’s educational outcomes should encourage policy makers and social leaders to think creatively about supporting marriage in ways that will allow more of our youngest citizens to succeed educationally and flourish socially."

I think it's also reasonable to suggest that each of us married folk should work harder on the marriages we've already got, and get the word out to the people around us that staying married is GOOD for kids.

Mischief

2006-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

My husband and I just joined Netflix. One of the things we really enjoy doing together is watching series of things, like TV shows, or movie themes--for example, we are currently on a very long-term project of watching all the Oscar Best Picture-winner movies and the AFI Top 100 list. We don't do this as a passive activity; rather, we talk to each other the whole way through, pausing as necessary to guffaw over stupid plot turns or ridiculous stunts.

Both of us have now added movies to our Netflix queue independently; and I assume we'll discuss as we go along which movies we'd like to see next and that sort of thing. But now I'm thinking, as a joke, that it would be really funny to add something bizarre to the queue and bump it up near the top, and see how he reacts to it. I will have to peruse Netflix and see what I can come up with.

We like playing mild jokes on each other like this. I think a little mischievous humor is good for our relationship.

Edit 1/20/06: Then I read today about a woman who's taking it a little farther...the Netflix queue is actually a point of contention in her marriage. o_0

Stay married to build wealth, divorce and lose wealth

2006-01-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

A study published in the Journal of Sociology by Ohio State University researcher Jay Zagorsky reveals that individuals who get married and stay married have a net worth almost twice as great as those who are single or divorced.

From a CNN/Money article:

Zagorsky, who looked at a group of about 9,000 young baby boomers aged 41 to 49, found that married individuals accumulated net worths that were 93 percent higher than single or divorced individuals. And married individuals tended to experience average wealth increases of 16 percent annually.

Single and divorced people accumulated wealth more slowly than married ones, with 8% and 14% annual increases respectively, according to the study.

Married individuals fared better building wealth, according to Zagorsky, primarily because they share expenses and may have two incomes.

And from a news article here on the study:

Those who divorce lose on average, three-fourths of their personal net worth.
People who divorced started losing net worth four years before their divorces were final. That could be because they had separated before divorcing, forcing them to support two households.
Men fared better than women after divorce, holding about 2.5 times the wealth. That's a difference of $5,124.

TV in the bedroom = half as much sex

2006-01-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

A study of 523 Italian couples has found that have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don't. To quote from the news article:

"On average, Italians who live without TV in the bedroom have sex twice a week, or eight times a month. This drops to an average of four times a month for those with a TV, the study found.

For the over-50s the effect is even more marked, with the average of seven couplings a month falling to just 1.5 times.

The study found certain programmes are far more likely to impede passion than others. Violent films will put a stop to sexual relations for half of all couples, while reality shows stem passion for a third of couples."

So today's recommendation for improving sexual frequency in your marriage? Get the dang TV outta the bedroom, pronto!

Soul mates are dumb

2006-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

The idea of soul mates; that each of us has one (or some other very limited number) of "perfect matches" out there, and we just need to find him/her; this idea makes me sneer.

First, "soul mates" implies that if you don't find that one person, you're pretty much screwed. You're doomed to unhappiness because you haven't found that one person who "completes" you. (/gag at Jerry McGuire). There's no making it work with a less-than-perfect-match person. You're just DOOMED. (Or apparently, if you follow some of these soul mate links or these, you can pay money for someone to help you find your soul mate. But paying out cash to find your soul mate is better than being DOOMED, right?)

B, when/if you do find your "soul mate," the implication is that since they are perfect for you and you are likewise perfect for them, there won't be a need to put in any hard work on the relationship. This is another dumb idea. Show me in the entire freaking history of mankind where a relationship of any kind didn't need work. Show me one, I dare you. Perfect, apparently effortless couplings are either complete fakes or they are doing a lot of work where you and I can't see it. Why is this, you might ask? Because relationships always have people in them, and people are messed up, and therefore relationships are messed up and need constant fixing. A corollary to this vapid "it shouldn't take work idea" is the equally stupid "if it needs work, then that person is not your soul mate and you should leave them" idea.

Furthermore, the idea that my soul has some "other half" hanging around out there in the world, or which maybe belonged to someone who just died in a traffic accident halfway across the world, or that maybe is dawdling in the void waiting to pounce on me...the whole thing is just creepy. I'm not anti-spirituality at all, but honestly it's partly this woo-woo factor that turned me off of paganism/Wicca when I was trying to practice it. I'm more of a down-to-earth, hands-on, practical spirituality kind of gal.

Next, I object to the idea that I need some other person to complete me, and I think it's a weak position to put oneself in. Whether I'm a complete person or not is entirely between God and me. I may choose to act in a more interdependent than independent manner, out of respect and love for my spouse, but that doesn't mean that I'm only half of something bigger. I'm all of me, and if my husband died tomorrow, or left me, well...I'd still have all of me, even though I would undoubtedly be a much sadder me and miss him terribly.

And finally, in the name of "but s/he is my SOUL MATE!!11!!! and that makes it OK!" many an adulterous affair has been conducted, and many a family has been broken. This is a very common refrain heard from cheaters: "I'm not in love with you anymore, I'm in love with Other Person, s/he is my soul mate, and therefore the fact that I'm lying and betraying you is totally justified!" Ideas that can be used to excuse infidelity gross me out.

In conclusion, soul mates are dumb.

Every day sex

2006-01-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

Having good sex on a regular basis (yes, with your spouse) is an important part of maintaining a happy marriage. (I sort of sound like a breakfast cereal commercial, don't I?) Sex is a legitimate and important emotional need between spouses, and it just sort of acts like a glue that keeps you together. Plus it's a great stress reliever and sleep aid.

The ~~hard part is~~ no, wait ~~difficulty arises~~ not that either, now I sound like an erectile-dysfunction-product commercial!

What I'm trying to say is, doing the sex thing with enough quality and quantity to keep marriage alive is a challenge. Raising kids, working, paying the bills, maintaining relationships with friends and family, all that serves to suck up all available time. And then there's not much time or energy at the end of the day for making that good sex happen.

My husband and I ran into this issue somewhere after our second child was born. We got to a point where we were argumentative with each other about it; I'd say, "It's been a couple of days since we had sex," and his response was always along the lines of, "No, it's been weeks since we had sex!" Thus we'd launch into an argument about the frequency of sex, when all I had wanted to begin with was just to say, "Hey let's do it soon." It was pretty counterproductive, since nit-picking arguments are not the aphrodisiac, passion-producing kind of arguments.

I also found that at bed time, which is the time that sex usually happens, there was a lack of clarity about which of us might want to have sex, whether the other person wanted sex, and so on. We'd lie next to each other, and were probably both thinking about sex, but not wanting to be the one who initiates, because that's such a setup for rejection, you know?

So at that point, we hit upon a new plan, a Grand Idea, which I'm sure was my Grand Idea since I'm the one who has those in our family. The Grand Idea was this: Since we can never keep track of when we last had sex, and one or both of us is always feeling deprived, and one or both of us is often feeling rejected, let's have sex every day instead of keeping track!

Thus began our season of having sex every day, as long as physical issues did not interfere. And it was a great innovation: there was no rejection, since we were both committed to every day sex; sex was frequent enough for both of us (well honestly, it was almost frequent enough for my husband at that point); and there was no keeping track of or being argumentative about how often sex was happening. Personally, I also found that every day sex increased my desire for sex, rather than reducing it. It was also something nice to look forward to at the end of the day, a special time that I knew would happen between us. And it was a good reason for both of us to get to bed on time, and at the same time!

Unfortunately we've gotten a bit away from every day sex over the past six months or so. I'm thinking we maybe need to get back to it, because it really was a good solution for us.

Do you think every day sex would work for you and your spouse?

At the end of the day

2006-01-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

Currently, due to various circumstances, my husband drives me to and from work in our van. We almost always also have at least two of our three kids in the car with us as well; and sometimes we have all of them. (Anytime the kids are not in the car with us feels quite shocking, like there's a whole savannah of quietness around us.)

I really appreciate the time at the end of the day, when they pick me up at work, and my husband and I get to have a 20 to 30 minute conversation about the various things that we did, saw, read, heard, thought that day. We ask the kids to quiet down, and just focus on each other as much as possible. The kids do interrupt, but we briefly answer their questions (usually it's a version of "whewh Gwamma Kay?" from the 2-year-old) and then go back to our conversation. I'm sure the kids hate it, but they're just not old enough for an explanation about "this is good for mommy and daddy's marriage, and mommy and daddy's marriage is good for you" to make any sense to them.

In the past I had somewhat frequently suggested to my husband that we just go for a drive to nowhere, and talk. But he hates doing that--waste of gas and whatnot. It feels pointless to him, and he likes his activities to have a point. So I stopped suggesting it, but now I'm glad that we have this time together at the end of the day, just driving, with nothing else really to do but connect with each other.

When we get home, the spell is broken. There is dinner to be made, and all the kids are seriously demanding attention. By the time they are all in bed by 8 to 8:30 pm, we are just too exhausted and drained for coherent conversation. That makes the drive home all the more precious to me.

Do you have any rituals that help you and your spouse stay conversationally connected?

I have at least three good reasons for working on my marriage

2006-01-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

and one of them is turning five years old today.

Happy birthday, my dear, sweet, lovely boy.

How to improve your marriage in one easy, totally free step!

2006-01-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

Stay married.

That's it. That's the one easy, totally free step: Stay married, and your marriage will become happier.

According to a study done at the University of Chicago, family researchers found that "two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later." Furthermore, they found that the most unhappily married folks had the best chance for marriage improvement in that five-year period. "The most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later." (Emphases added.)

What about the people involved in the study who got divorced? "The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of mastery....Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those who stayed married." (Emphasis added again.)

The researchers also conducted focus group interviews in order to look into why unhappy marriages improved. "Spouses' stories of how their marriages got happier fell into three broad headings: the marital endurance ethic, the marital work ethic, and the personal happiness ethic." Basically these ethics come down to: 1. Outlast it; 2. Work on improving it; and 3. Work to become happy in spite of a not-great marriage.

So there you have it, a simple, easy, completely free-of-charge method for improving your marriage. Personally, I've found that this method does work. Are you willing to give it a shot?

Snoring

2006-01-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

My husband snores. I probably snore too, but he rarely comments on it and it apparently never bothers him, if I do. However, his snoring does bother me, and has the power to prevent me from going to sleep, and the power to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Sometimes we have amusing conversations about his snoring, the kind of conversations where one of the people acts as if they are completely awake, but the things they say are so whacked-out, it's just not possible they are truly conscious.

Last night we had one of these conversations. I was awakened at about 12:30, probably by my sweetie's snoring. I (mostly) gently nudged his slumbering-on-back figure and said, "Hey, you're snoring, turn over." He responded indignantly, "I'm not snoring, I'm awake! And I just came to bed! Besides, turning over doesn't stop me from snoring." I just blinked at him, pushed on him again, and had my own indignant say: "I can't believe you're arguing with me about this! I know your snoring better than you do, and I know what works!" He turned over and stopped snoring long enough for me to get back to sleep.

Part of me knew that he was asleep, but his tone of voice was completely rational, even though what came out of his mouth was crazy talk.

He has suggested jokingly on more than one occasion that we may be heading toward the "two bedrooms for one married couple" lifestyle. But I'm not OK with that, in a big way. I hate that idea. It's important to me that we share one bed, our marriage bed. It's symbolic--a more important symbol to me, by far, than wedding rings--and it's cozy, and it's comfortable, and it's a place of peace for the two of us. It's one of the few places in our household that is completely NOT owned by our kids. ("Get the heck off my bed, NOW!") If no other long-term solution presents itself, I'll just deal with the occasional sleeping difficulty due to his snoring rather than sacrifice our marriage bed.

(Note: In a quick survey on the web, I wasn't able to find any reliable, verifiable statistical information on the number of married couples who don't share a bedroom. If anyone has some, please do pass it on.)

Perspective, truth, and the differentiation to know the difference

2006-01-11T17:50:00.000-08:00

On the way home tonight, my husband and I got in a...well, not an argument, but rather a moment of strong feelings, a moment of tenseness. The conversation started reasonably innocently, with me relating a story about what various women at work said about how they handle the "honey do" list at home. Different women had different methods--some husbands need to entirely own and direct the project at hand, some wives feel the need to control and delegate. My own philosophy is fairly hands-off: I may voice a desire for some particular thing to be accomplished around the house, but there is no timetable, and no expectation that it will actually be done. If I really want something done, or done at a particular time, then I pick up the necessary tools and do it myself. (At which point, my husband will usually step in and try to take over the project.)

My husband related his parents' method of negotiating these things. His mom would plan a whole project, decide all the details of what would be done and how, shop for the components, bring them home...and then the project would sit in readiness for years, while his father passively refused to do anything about it. Of course, he hadn't been consulted at all about the project, so it's understandable. At some point my mother-in-law, fed up with waiting, will pick up the tools and attempt the project on her own, but it sounds like she's not very good at it, so my father-in-law always has to take over.

I pointed out to my husband that his parents' process for getting projects done around the house is essentially the same as ours is. He was offended by that. I didn't mean to offend him, but to me, the mechanics of the situation are essentially the same. He objected that, "But the difference is that I just forget that things need to be done, I don't let them sit around for years and years!" And that's true. However, the end result, if not the timing or the motivation, is the same.

I asked my husband why he was offended by what I had said. He responded (and this is not exact words, but the gist of his statement), "I'm offended because when you pick up a project that you've asked me to do, you're telling me that I'm not going to get it done and so you have to do it."

My feelings about this, which I expressed to him: Just because I want something done, and I have a timetable for it, and in order to meet my own timetable I take up the task; that does not mean that I am "saying" that you were not planning to do it, or not capable of doing it, or assigning any other negative motivation or attribute to you. There is no accusation in my action, there is simply the sentiment, "I want this to get done now." It's not some kind of manipulation, a tactic, a ploy, or character assassination. It's merely me doing something that I want done. It's the opposite of playing the princess and expecting you to serve me.

Though I explained this, I know that he doesn't understand it. His "lens of perspective" is that I am "telling him" that he is lazy, or incompetent, or forgetful. But my "lens of perspective" is that I'm just doing some work that I want done. Who's right here?

While our current culture would say that "all perspectives are equal and valid," that does not mean that all perspectives are true. Think about the last time you were driving on the freeway and another driver cut you off. You probably got mad, and maybe cursed at that person about what a jerk they are. You probably felt personally slighted. Is your perspective that you were personally slighted actually true? Well, objectively speaking, the other driver had no idea who you are--your name, address, personality, religious affiliation, politics--so no, this wasn't a personal slight. In all likelihood, the jerk who cut you off wasn't paying attention to you at all, but rather was arguing on a cell phone with their spouse, fuming over a conversation with their boss, or otherwise upset about some situation in his/her own life. The act of cutting you off was only personal insofar as it was about the jerk. The wrong done to you had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with that other person.

For myself, I find that trying to look at the truth of a situation rather than just my own perspective gives me a feeling of freedom. I'm free from believing that people are out to get me personally. I'm free from assigning evil motives to people. I'm free from thinking that maybe something is wrong with me, because a customer service representative's attitude toward me says nothing about me and everything about them. (Of course, I mean this only in situations where I haven't initiated the negative interactions by being a jerk in the first place.)

This whole issue, of perspective and truth, comes down to differentiation. Differentiation is a somewhat awkward-feeling concept in psychology, unfamiliar to the American psyche; we know independence, and we know dependence, but we really don't "get" any other models of relating to one another. Defined by David Schnarch, Ph.D., in Passionate Marriage, "Differentiation is your ability to maintain your sense of self when you are emotionally and/or physically close to others," page 56.

When I look at the interaction that my husband and I had this evening, or see the effect of freeway behavior, it occurs to me that if we were all better-differentiated, we'd be able to see the truth more clearly, and not just react based on our perspectives. Being differentiated means fully knowing who I am, what my boundaries are, what my values are; and still being able to remain close to the people I love. It means not having to decide that they are "telling me something" about myself in their actions. It means far fewer arguments where we debate over the subtext of things, what the other person really meant with those words, that look, those actions. Of course, if a person is well-differentiated, then I assume that s/he is able to clearly communicate his/her real thoughts and feelings, with no need to manipulate, hide, or falsify.

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where there was no subtext, and all we needed to deal with was just that stuff that's above the subtext?

Skinny or smart?

2006-01-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

I remember a very intense debate in my English class in high school (junior year, I think) over what we'd choose: to be stupid and beautiful, or smart and ugly. Personally, I was in the smart-ugly camp; but perhaps if I'd been beautiful rather than smart (you could have called me pretty, but I definitely wasn't beautiful), I would have chosen stupid-beautiful for my lot. I recall that the stupid-beautiful camp had a lot of folks in it, which somewhat mystified me.

Now a (probably unscientific) survey of women in the UK has "revealed" that "women would rather be slim than have a much higher IQ." Also, when given mutiple choices including being permanently free of money worries, women still (51%) responded that they'd choose to be slim.

(Snarky comment: Now, the survey participants couldn't have been that smart to start with, if they'd choose slimness over permanent financial security! If they'd been thinking, they'd realize that "no financial worries" also means "freedom to exercise as much as I need to, plus hire a gourmet light-cooking chef, to deal with my weight issues.")

Why are women so worried about their weight? We know it's not really about health, but about appearance. We want to appear physically attractive, primarily to men, and primarily to men to whom we're married or otherwise romantically committed.

This would all be complete silliness if it wasn't for the fact that an attractive spouse has been described as a legitimate emotional need in the field of marriage therapy, by Willard F. Harley Jr. (See Harley's book His Needs, Her Needs or this article at his MarriageBuilders.com website for an explanation of physical attractiveness as an emotional need.) Now, this is a fairly controversial issue, because people don't like or want to hear that their spouse needs them to look differently, because "looking better" can be really a heck of a lot of work to accomplish. When the subject of physical attractiveness comes up on marriage forums on the internet, whooboy it can sure provoke a firestorm of posting, on both sides of the issue.

Personally, I'm relieved that my husband chose me as a mate primarily because I'm smart, and that he chooses to ignore the fact that I'm overweight. Physical attractiveness isn't one of his top emotional needs. But if it was, what would I do about it? What would I be willing to do to meet that need? (As in, healthy things, not extreme diets or anything crazy.) Come to think of it, I'm not actually doing that well right now at meeting his needs for fun time together (recreational companionship) and good sex.

Marriage haiku #87

2006-01-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to my sweetie, because he knows why.

Dirty socks on floor
Hamper is inches away
I say, "We need maid!"

Where truth matters

2006-01-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of big news stories happening at the moment that concern lies told by authors and their publishers, presumably in order to get books sold. I'm referring to the James Frey and JT Leroy scandals.

Public and press reaction is varied and runs the gamut from condemnation, "When I first read that book, it rang untrue to me," to justification, "I don't care about the truth, I love their work anyway."

It occurs to me that we decide the truth doesn't matter if we are, ourselves, emotionally invested in the situation. Look at the way we react when a politician is discovered to have lied about something: If we already liked/respected/voted for that person or organization, then the lie doesn't matter; but if we disliked/disrespected/voted against them, then the lie is a terrible thing. We justify the liars with whom we identify. A lie is OK, or not so bad, or well-intentioned, if it comes from our own side.

The idea that "truth doesn't matter" worries me, when it comes to marriage. (And here, of course, I am assuming that general cultural values and attitudes translate to values that we practice in life. In my experience and studies, that is true.)

If we believe that the truth doesn't matter (when the lie is ours), then it's OK to "fall into" and continue an affair, because "as long as my spouse doesn't know, s/he isn't getting hurt."

If the truth doesn't matter, then it's OK to apply for credit cards and max them out without telling my spouse, because "I deserve the things that make me happy," without regard to what my independent actions do to my marriage or family.

Having been on both sides of this issue in marriage (the liar and the lied to), I know that the truth does matter. The truth and the lie, and the intention to deceive, matter almost more than the hurtful thing done by someone who purports to love you. "How could you do this to me, and more importantly, how could you lie like this to me?"

I really think truth matters, and in marriage most of all.