Jenny Glick wants to know: Can you handle the truth?
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When many couples show up for marriage therapy with their spouse, they secretly think, “I hope the therapist tells my spouse that he/she is wrong.”
It is very common to want your therapist to align with you and to validate that yes, indeed, your partner is the one with the problem and if he/she changed, things would get much better.
Alas, this is neither the long-term nor the best solution to your marital woes.
Are you looking to create meaningful change in your relationship?
I am talking about real change here– not just complaining about the problem or your partner while you still do the same thing over and over again.
If you really want your relationship to transform, these are a few things you need to start doing right now.
Increase Your Clarity
This means getting clear on what your relationship goals are…and find out what goals your partner has. Get clear about the kind of life that you want together, the kind of marriage you want to have, and describe exactly what this looks and feels like.
Put In The Time
In order to see substantial change in your relationship, be prepared to put in the time. You need time together to explore one another, time to have fun, time to relax, and time to practice the new skills that you will be learning with one another.
Get Ready for Discomfort
Any change requires some stretching and relationship change is no different. Be prepared for some emotional discomfort as you try on new ways of being together. For example, if you tend to butt in when your partner is talking or if you start defending yourself and arguing, your new practice might be to learn how to be curious with your partner. You’ll have to take an emotional risk or two.
Improve Your Reaction to Problems
If you tend to get triggered if your spouse walks through the kitchen but doesn’t give you a hug, try responding to this ‘problem’ in a new way. What does “being ignored” by your partner bring up for you? Try using new words to talk to your partner about this. Choose words that avoid blaming, shaming, or guilting your partner into seeing your side.
♦◊♦ Four Tough Questions ♦◊♦
Can you really expect your partner to treat you better than you treat him/her?
Is it fair to ask your partner to do something that you are not willing to do yourself? If you are pressuring your partner for sex and then pulling away in an angry huff when you don’t get what you want, can you really expect your partner to WANT to be intimate with you?
Can you really expect your partner to treat you better than you treat yourself?
If you are critical of yourself, you could be opening the door for your partner (and others) to do the same to you. If you are not willing to learn how to be patient with yourself, forgiving of yourself, and kind to yourself, than why do you expect your partner to do that for you?
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If you want your partner to change, do you think about what you could do to make it easier for them?
Many people come into therapy and will happily delineate all of the many ways that their partner sucks at this or that. This keeps you in the problem cycle and it becomes difficult if not impossible to get out of this cycle if you keep supporting what doesn’t work. Instead, honestly look at what you can do to make it easier for your partner to change. Consider being on your partner’s team rather than putting yourself on the opposite side.
How do you create an environment for your partner to be his/her best self?
What do you do everyday to help your partner be the best version of him/herself? How do you create a supportive and loving environment for him/her to flourish and grow? If you find that there are places where you feel resentful and don’t want to do this (“because she’s not doing this for me!”) then it is easy to see where you can get stuck in a unproductive cycle.
If you are ready to improve your marriage or relationship, start here.
Start with yourself.
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Ready for more tough talk pointers from me? CrossFit For Relationships. Strengthening Your Marriage at Its Core.
Find more tips on my blog, where this post was originally published.
Photo: walknboston/Flickr
Thanks Chandrey for your comments and I am glad that they are questions that might facilitate some personal growth and relationship strengthening! What a gift to be married to your best friend…enjoy your many years ahead!
Excellently put – a real conversation starter, if not a total game changer =) | I myself struggle with expecting something that I myself don’t always feel necessary to give. Being married to my best friend often mean we’re both unwilling to compromise or even be honest with ourselves about how we mistreat each other. Thanx =) much appreciated article.
All good points. But I discovered after 33 years that without knowing it, I was in a mixed orientation marriage. That my wife’s true passions and desires took her towards her own sex. So we’re struggling to see if there are ways to make it work, for both of us. But we’re both mourning the passionate full giving of self that we have never known, and will never know if we stay together.
Mixed orientation marriages are becoming more widely talked about so you are not alone in traversing this difficult path. There are some useful resources and counselors available to support the both of you through this as you discern what next steps to take. Support from a skilled clinician, pastor, or spiritual director can be invaluable during such a time. Good luck.
The big question is how long will you keep trying? The first two years I tried to ignore what was going on. I knew that two days after we moved into an apartment complex that my wife started fucking the neighbors. We had been married six months. I kept trying to get her into therapy for twelve years. One day she said it wasn’t working. Two weeks later a mental health professional told me I had PTSD! More people need to get out quicker. Don’t wait for two or three broken limbs or being totally isolated. You may have noticed… Read more »
Surprisingly, James, it takes the average married couple 6 years to seek support from a therapist after things are tough at home! You are right, it can be very difficult to manifest change after so many years (and certainly 12!) because the toxic patterns and old hurts are so heavy in the relationship. I am not one to advocate that the couples “tough it out and stay together” — sometimes the best course of action is to close the chapter and move on to other pastures. Or as Gwenyth Paltrow is calling it “conscious uncoupling”. 🙂
#1: No. #2. Depends on the meaning we put in the word “treat”. I would expect my partner, or us together, to be able to do stuff that I can’t do by myself. (Like, mutually agreeable love-making, and other totally dissimilar stuff…) OTOH, there’s loads of articles on this site alone that tells us that love is all about unconditional love and forgiveness.I’d reckon that the occasional screw-up could be expected to fall under that category. But then again, this kind of thing might not be supposed to work both ways, what do I know? #3. Yes. To the best… Read more »
Thorough comment, FlyingKal…yes, we totally learn that relationships are about unconditional love and forgiveness…but this isn’t always realistic given the tools that we have to work with. As I see it, relationships are a pathway to person growth and becoming better people and can lead to unconditional love and forgiveness but we don’t always start there.
Thanks for the comment!
Expecting things, especially from other people almost always leads to disappointment. Too many people don’t question WHY they are getting married or living together in the first place. Marriage is not a solution or a cure-all. Too often it is the problem.
Great point, Wes. Marriage is not a cure-all and it often does show up problems for each of the partners. And expectations are often the culprit!