Marriage Counselling in Edmonton: Make Your Marriage Last – The Psychology of Why Marriages Fail
Hi there. I’m Dr. Kelly Clarke. Today I’d like to talk a little bit about marriage. Well, you may be that person that when you went through school, possibly high school or maybe if you did any post-secondary, that philosophy was your favorite subject or perhaps it was your worst subject. What I wanted to talk a little bit about is that every one of us has a philosophy when it comes to marriage. Whether you articulate it, know it or describe it, you will act it out if you haven’t articulated to yourself and to your wife or your romantic partner or to your significant other. So what I wanted to talk a little bit about is that it is healthy and it is important to talk about what you value in marriage or commitment or say a significant relationship that you have that when you are deciding that you’re going to be with this person that you will be driven by relationship values whether you they’re are conscious articulated or not they will be acted out. So, I think it’s important to talk about values. I think it’s important to talk about things like intimacy, like if you’re deciding to have children, how should we raise children? What is the kind of bare bones basics that you believe the purpose of a committed relationship is? And in this case, I mean, I’m talking about a committed romantic relationship.
Relationship Values and Philosophy
And so for me, I think that some of the fundamentals boil down to a commitment to meeting each other’s needs. That in a romantic committed relationship, the idea that you can go through without giving to your romantic partner will end the relationship eventually. So to me, I think a key value in a committed relationship is the idea of trying to commit to meeting the other person’s needs. You can see that that is not only giving and generous but in some sense self- serving because if you are generous and giving and the other person’s committed to that value then your needs are going to be met as well. But it’s an important value to be able to consider I’m in this to try to meet the other person’s needs. Of course, none of us are ever going to do that perfectly because we all have our stuff. We all have our pain. We all have our trigger triggers that the other person often brings up and so that creates some complications.
The other thing that’s important with I think philosophy and a committed romantic relationship is the sense that we are going to heal each other. Every one of us, nobody without exception comes into a relationship with their baggage, with their pain, with their stuff. And so I think that it is very healthy and important to realize that yes, I’m going to it’s not just my partner’s anger problem. It’s our problem. We are going to work on this together. Of course, it manifests and sometimes you’re the recipient of the anger. And so it feels like you might want to blame them back, but really ultimately if you can get on board with the idea that I am going to help heal this area that is producing some anger and that I’m committed in helping you to improve in that area, that goes a long way, I think, in marriage. So the first thing I wanted to talk to you about was to consider what your values are.
Behavior, Communication, and Daily Conflict
I have one couple that I’m quite impressed with that are friends of ours and they actually wrote out almost like you know a statement of purpose in their marriage. Now, that’s pretty detailed and and, you know, to some maybe not feel very romantic, but they would they would hold themselves accountable to the values they set forth, like maybe not yelling at each other when you got angry, not using profanity, you know, speaking to each other within a day of being angry at each other rather than letting the sun go down, honor anger, these kind of things. So these kinds of value statements these people wrote are almost like a philosophy statement of their marriage. So I wanted you to think about whether you voluntarily articulate it or not. You will act out your philosophy of commitment of investment into a romantic relationship. It’ll come out in your behaviors.
And that’s another thing I want to bring up is the key principle of trusting behavior. So, it’s important for us to realize that we can say that I love you all day to your romantic partner, but if behavior doesn’t reinforce those words, it doesn’t matter. It’s not that important. So unless somebody shows them, you know, either by spending time, you know, trying to pick up that favorite chocolate bar, enjoying a certain TV time together or doing recreational activities or meeting, you know, each other’s intimacy needs, until somebody actually demonstrates behaviors in keeping what feels and and and is loving as far as their values, a person can say that they love a person all day, but it actually isn’t valued or observed unless it’s seen in behavior. So, our behaviors matter. I always look at behavior, trust behavior.
Conflict, Compromise, and Acceptance
So, another thing is that we need to be roommates. One of the now we of course another thing of what a committed or romantic relationship is that we are these this hopefully romantic relationship that of course has everyday demands and it’s there’s to some component we’re to roommates and this creates a lot of difficulties for marriages I can see it a lot we will talk about things like they put the dishes in the sink I like the dishes on the counter and so you have these kind of debates I remember a lawyer friend of mine who is female tried to tell me tried to tell me she could prove that putting the toilet seat down was actually superior in a provable way than having it up. Of course, you know, the males wanting it up and the females wanting it down. And I thought that was a funny conversation. In fact, boycotting is the first priority that I talked about trying to meet each other’s needs.
The Relationship Bank Account
So really, and I argued to this person that if we’re trying to meet each other’s needs, the female will lift the toilet seat up when they leave and the male will put it down after he leaves if really we’re trying to meet each other’s needs. Just kind of a funny conversation, that’s something we might incorporate into the relationship. So, recognizing that we have different ideas around cleanliness and how the house is to be run financially, these kinds of things. I just read an article the other day about a couple who were very frugal. The other one was spending a lot and loved to blow money. And so they talked about the way that they managed it was having separate accounts. And I think another important part with that is recognizing yes, we’ll have certain different values. It’s important to realize not one of us is right in that. It’s not right whether you put the dishes on the counter or put them in the sink. It’s just something we prefer. And some people when they argue this has to be right is now starting to exclude the other person’s values. So a good compromise would be then to have the person put it on a counter you know maybe two days a week and two days in the sink for these kinds of things. So the idea that no I am not right this is just a value and I need to incorporate my partner’s considerations on these kinds of things. So, back to that idea of meeting each other’s needs is important.
And then also accepting that, yeah, okay, maybe my partner is,, messier than me. And it’s annoying. And of course, it is annoying to the person that’s cleaner as opposed to the person that’s messier., I was taken by my early training. I remember doing some marital counseling courses and one inventory that we used to predict whether people would get divorce said that acceptance was a big value in predicting higher levels of divorce. In other words, couples that had a high idealism for that yes, my partner will meet all these needs. Yes, my partner will turn off the lights every time I ask them. Yes, my partner will always take out the garbage. These highly idealized couples, idealistic couples tended to get divorced more frequently. Those who went, you know, yeah, they don’t take out the garbage as frequently as I want to. I’ve told them about it, but I accept that they’re going to get 80%, you know, out of 100. This kind of thing. So that idea of accepting, you know, things that we don’t completely enjoy about our romantic partner is very important as well. These are important things that we need to consider concessions to make healthy relationships.
And another thing that I wanted to leave on is the idea of that kind of relationship bank account. And I think this is really important as well that when we are in a relationship there’s not one of us that can survive in any relationship when it’s constantly giving. Because what that does to use the analogy is almost taken out of the relationship bank account. If the person continuously doesn’t take the garbage out, doesn’t kiss me when they come home and that’s important to me. doesn’t care about my intimacy needs, doesn’t care about or doesn’t I shouldn’t say care about, doesn’t respond to my needs about, you know, going out once a week for a date night, these kind of things that each time that that is not fulfilled in that person, it’s taking it’s it’s a it’s a withdrawal in the in the relationship bank account. So the idea is that if we keep withdrawing, just like our bank accounts, if there’s $100 in there and you know the relationship bank account, there’s a dollar taken out, there’s eventually it’s going to get to zero. When we start getting into negative balances and even deficient balances, the satisfaction of the relationship really starts to take a nose dive. Any one of us who are in romantic relationships, committed relationships, knows this to be true.
When my partner does, you know, takes out the garbage, gives me a kiss when I’ve asked them to, when I come home, says, “How was your day?” Cuz that’s important to you that there’s a deposit. There’s a deposit. Now it’s starting to get higher up in the marital bank account. This is when we start feeling more satisfied. Not only because they’re meeting our needs, but we feel valued, we feel respected, we feel cared for. and we feel that the other person thinks that we are important. So I just wanted to share a couple of principles and of course there’s lots of things we can talk about with marriage and committed relationships, romantic relationships and I will talk about those more on another day. But those are a few things I wanted you to think about. What are you doing to put deposits in your committed relationship account? I’m Dr. Kelly Clarke. You can reach me at drkellyclarke.com.