I Am Ok – You Are Ok
Years ago, when I first became a marriage and family therapist, I attended a marital enrichment workshop by two social workers from a family service agency. The instructors spent most of the time reviewing detailed lists describing the hallmarks of the “perfect relationship.”
Here are some of these lists: Top Ten Things to Do in a Marriage; Marital Don’ts (fourteen); Marital Do’s (fourteen); Predictors of Healthy Marriages (sixteen measurements); Communicating To Be Helpful (eight points); Top Ten Strategies to Improve Communication; and Men and Intimacy (ten pointers). Participants received 13 formulas for everything from “difficulties when listening” to “how to reveal one’s innermost thoughts.”
Unfortunately, these lists can be harmful. The “do’s and don’ts” in them send the learner the message that there are absolute standards of marital behavior that cannot be deviated from. This can easily lead to judging yourself or your partner as deficient. When these perceived deficiencies are addressed, they can lead to conflict and ill will.
As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have worked with thousands of couples and learned that tolerance, flexibility, acceptance, and creativity are pillars of a successful relationship. Every individual is unique. So, too, two people make a one-of-a-kind relationship. Relationship success comes from finding unique solutions and strategies to everyday relationship challenges.
When taken to heart, recognizing each person’s uniqueness opens the door to tolerance and acceptance. If, for example, your spouse is sensitive or messy, be respectful and celebrate the differences between the two of you. Seek an advantage in your partner’s specialness. For example, a “messy” person is often less demanding, or a “sensitive person” can understand another’s feelings. As a couple, create your own personalized standards. Often, opposites attract. You may have married someone very different from you. Discover how you complement each other . . . and enjoy your differences. Together, create a multicolored rainbow.
Intolerance of individual differences can lead to nonstop complaining, frustration, and anger. Intolerance has a “snowball” effect and can cause a total breakdown of the marriage. As a person dwells over something they don’t like in their spouse, it can be exaggerated in their mind and grow to intolerable proportions. When this happens, everything one’s spouse does is viewed through a biased filter based on past disappointments and mental exaggeration, and now, no matter what is done, it is still not good enough. One’s spouse can appear as an enemy in the mind of one’s disappointed and angry partner.
Many marriages “work” simply because each individual is tolerant and accepting of their partner. They search for creative solutions rather than demand compliance with absolute standards and assign fault or blame when disappointed.
I once worked with a couple that was constantly bickering. The wife was very critical of her husband. Whatever he did was not good enough. She felt she could not accept him as he was. The husband, in turn, would respond by ignoring her and staying away by keeping long hours at work. This further aggravated and irritated his wife, who already felt lonely and isolated. They had repeated this vicious cycle for years, and it was wearing them both out with despair and making the kids anxious and insecure.
I told her to lower her expectations of her husband and overlook many of the things he did that bothered her. “If they are small things, just ignore them,” I told her. I then suggested that those important issues, rather than voicing them as complaints, express them as positive behavioural requests. For example, if she couldn’t stand that he left his dirty clothes on the floor, instead of complaining, she should calmly and respectfully request that he put his dirty clothes in the hamper and thank him when he did. When she tried this new approach, she discovered it worked. Her husband, not feeling attacked since her request was presented politely and with respect rather than a complaint, found it much more agreeable to accommodate her wishes. He stopped resisting as he did in the past.
Like a miraculous medicine, this goodwill and acceptance spread into many other areas of their relationship. Even more important than his simply doing what she wanted, she now reached out to his potential, and he grew and improved as a person. This new view of him created a home environment that was friendly, upbeat, and healthy for the children. This was their creative and individualized solution to a long-standing marital problem. This further encouraged additional positive change and growth in many other areas of the marriage. Ultimately, both felt more accepted, and their differences were acknowledged rather than judged. Over time, the old wounds healed, and they became happy and confident in their marriage.
Pirkei Avos (a classic book of Jewish ethics) says, “Who is rich? He who is happy with his lot…” Riches exist in many different ways. In marriage, “Who is rich?” refers to the one satisfied with their partner. This satisfaction will elevate a husband and wife above petty bickering and hostile entanglement to true Sholom Bayis (peace in the house).
Cookbook recipes are a valuable way to learn the basics of cooking, but nobody can become a world-class gourmet by imitating someone else. Success comes from working toward creative, individualized solutions to relationship problems and challenges in marriage. We are different on the outside, our faces, fingerprints, etc., and unique on the inside. If a marriage is to be truly satisfying, it must honour this distinctiveness.
