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Making Your Marriage Work
Construct a genogram, and you will clearly see underlying reasons for marital success and failure. Go back least two to three generations, looking for patterns of behavior and emotional expression. In your family genogram, you may see lines and breaks in lines indicating marriage, divorce, remarriage, births, deaths, emotional closeness, emotional distance, and emotional breaks. Once you see patterns, you can determine how this relates to your emotional reactions to your spouse. You were affected by what you learned from your parents as you grew up. Emotional closeness or distance between your parents will express itself in how you relate to your spouse. Once you understand patterns of behavior learned during childhood, you can see why you react the way you do toward your spouse. Your relationships with your parents and their relationship with each other affect your marriage today. You learned to express love by seeing the way your parents expressed love to each other. Making Your Marriage Work takes understanding; genograms may help. Counselors are trained to help you construct a genogram for each spouse.
Here is a perfect case in point: your father showed love to your mother by fixing her car; you learned that when your spouse fixes your car for you, you are loved. If your spouse's parents expressed love by taking each other out to a fine restaurant for dinner, or giving flowers and gifts, they learned to show love by giving flowers, gifts and dinner out. Problems arise when the spouse whose parents expressed love by fixing your car, fixes your car to show they love you, but you wanted flowers.
The problem is that you and your spouse are speaking different "love languages". "Dr. Gary Chapman in his book "The Five Languages of Love," describes five ways love may be expressed that translate into feelings of love for each spouse. Dr. Chapman's love languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Dr. Chapman also describes five languages of apology in his book "The Five Languages of Apology." Dr. Chapman's languages of apology are: expressing regret, accepting responsibility, making restitution, genuinely repenting, and requesting forgiveness. Learning these languages encourages positive communication and closeness in marriage, Making Your Marriage Work.
Each of you has what Dr. John Gottman calls an "emotional bank account." He says that each spouse needs to make "deposits into the other spouses" emotional bank account. Each negative encounter is a withdrawal from that account; each positive encounter is a deposit to the emotional bank account. Dr. Gottman says that "for every one negative encounter, there needs to be at least 5 positive encounters in the emotional bank account for the couple to get through hard times."
Marital problems cause pain and distance between spouses. Everything you do in your marriage either brings you closer to each other, or pushes you farther apart. You can change the way you communicate your feelings to your spouse, and learn to show acceptance for your spouse for who they are, rather than for their performance, Making Your Marriage Work. People resist criticism, hostility, anger, negativism, complaining, arguing, nagging, contempt, control, neglect, emotional and physical abuse, passive aggression (silent treatment, ignoring, stonewalling), shaming, blaming, profanity, and other attempts to change them. Accept your spouse for who they are, not for what they do. Your spouse is a human being, not a human doing.
Women need love, men need respect; without these, marriages fail. Without respect he reacts without love and without love, she acts without respect. When a wife tries to change her husband, he feels disrespected, not approved of, and will distance him from her. Men may even react with emotional and/or physical abuse against their wives when they feel disrespected for who they are. Abuse is never ok, in any circumstance. When man has addiction or violence problem, wives, you do not have to have to take the abuse. You may need to separate, for the sake of safety. However, if you separate, do so with the intent of reconciliation, when it is safe for you to do so. If you feel your husband's behavior is not worthy of respect, you may still find things to respect about him as a person.
Emotional divorce occurs before legal divorce. Again, I emphasize that everything you do and say either brings you closer together, or pushes you farther apart. The goal is to bring you closer together and bring balance, empathy, unconditional love, and respect to your marriage. Often, one person does not want the marriage to continue. If your spouse wants to leave the marriage, you cannot change them or their mind. You can change things about you that may encourage your spouse to want to stay. Attempts to change your husband will make him feel disrespected and unaccepted for who he is, and this will push him away from you. Husbands, attempting to change your wife will cause her to feel that you do not love her for who she is, and you will push her away.
Strategies that work in saving marriages are those that bring you closer to each other. Find ways to agree with each other. Focus on the positive things in your marriage. Focus on what is right with your spouse. Find ways to genuinely be on your spouse's side. Do not give them reasons to be defensive. Take care of your physical and emotional health. A strong, positive, healthy spouse is attractive.