Til Death Do Us Part (Not Really)

I facetiously refer to marriage as “20 and out” because I’m a wise-guy but actually the stats come pretty close with about half of all marriages ending in divorce.  After fifty plus years of dealing with marriages, I consider myself an expert although my wife may have a different opinion.  A large percentage of therapists don’t treat marriage problems because getting in between spouses in trouble is not for the feint of heart.  I have two quick stories from my earliest years.  A couple I was treating brought in a cartoon which showed a man behind a desk with a framed certificate behind him that read “Marriage Counselor” and a man and a woman sitting in chairs in front of the desk.  The caption recited by the man says: “Well, we agree about one thing: ‘You’re full of s..t!’”  The other is that, as a young, dedicated and naïve psychologist, I believed that my job was to save marriages and indeed I still think I give my patients the best shot they have at fixing their relationship.  Anyway, I was seeing a young couple, married only a few years without children.  I was seeing them regularly and there was some but not a lot of progress.  They rather abruptly stopped seeing me but both came back later to see me individually.  Both of them told me they had to stop seeing me so they could a get a divorce.  I’ve learned a thing or two since then.

Almost without exception, people walking up the aisle think they are in it for life.  As I indicated above, that is clearly not the case.  But why do relationships that start with so much optimism fail so completely and so often.  The answer is proprietary but I’m giving it away for free in this post.  The best relationships are built on attraction and almost all marriage relationships begin with it.  The attraction may include the physical but is clearly much wider and deeper.  The couple just cannot get enough of each other.  They move heaven and earth just to be in each other’s presence.  How did I ever live without you.  We share so much.  You are truly my soulmate.  Wonderful as that feeling is, most relationships cannot maintain it.  Those that do tend to be the ones that last.  I used to marvel at the feeling that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward seemed to share.  They really seemed to like each other.  The reality may have been different but their public face was one of mutual attraction.  I often tell my patients that I can’t help them to like each other so if they don’t, our effort will likely fail.  What then supports and maintains attraction?

I say the fuel of relationships is shared activity.  Couples who do things together tend to do well.  In the beginning, just being together is a shared activity but over time, that will fade and must be replaced by common interests.  Dinner is not a common interest.  Couples who are struggling will likely descend into discord once the menus are taken away.  Common activity is an action.  It can be active like bowling or card-plying or passive like watching a television program or going to a movie.  What is important about common activity is shared feeling.  It is sharing feeling that fuels the relationship.  If it’s an activity, the couple can talk about how they felt doing it and if it’s a movie, for example, they can discuss how they felt about the plot, the characters, the experience.  Too often, children become the common activity is marriages.  Attending games and performances, providing rides to everywhere take up all of the couple’s free time.  Eventually, children grow up and turn their attention away from home and parents which is healthy.  However, unless the couple has maintained their attraction through other common activity, when the children leave, they may find themselves sitting across the kitchen table saying “who are you?”  Without the sharing of emotion in daily life, there will be no intimacy and all too often that includes sex.

In most of my offices, I sit in a chair opposite a couch.  The married couple usually sits at either end of the couch, certainly if they are feeling disconnected.  I tell them that I see each of them but on the wall, above them, I see the marriage.  I tell them that a marriage is like business partnership and that they, as partners, each have 50% of the enterprise.  Nobody has more power than the other.  That means that any decision that is made must be “by agreement”.  If either partner objects then it doesn’t happen.  Obviously, since they are different people, they are not going to agree all the time.  But just like the business partnership, the partners need to discuss, maybe compromise, and achieve an agreement if the proposed action is to occur.  The right to veto is inherent in the partnership and is therefore not subject to criticism or name-calling. I like couples to do an exercise of sorts each day. I want them to "check in" with each other every morning and every night. Not to engage in a lengthy, deep discussion but just to say to each other "how are we doing?" The idea is that, if there is something separating them, it get identified and dealt with quickly. I like to say that the mark of a healthy relationship is that they deal with conflicts effectively and efficiently, i.e. well and quickly. Because all relationships have conflict or problems. (I like to think that some of my ideas are original but the one about checking in probably came from reading of Siddhartha in graduate school where Hermann Hesse says couples should never go to sleep angry. I still think some of my ideas are original.)

The notion of marriage as a true partnership means that, wherever each partner goes, they are representing the partnership.  They are no longer autonomous individuals when they marry, they are partners in a common enterprise, a business if you will.  I ask each spouse then to think about the good of the partnership whenever they make decisions.  The question is: how will this decision or action affect the partnership?  Will it help it, make it stronger or will it hurt it?  The good of the partnership, the marriage, takes precedence over the good of the individual.  When married people think of the marriage first and themselves second, the marriage will likely succeed.  Nobody gives up their individuality or their integrity, rather they subject themselves to the common goal, the success of the marriage.  And they do it hopefully until somebody’s death do them part.