Is Being Defensive The Biggest Cause To A Relationship Breakup? Learn More is a post from: Save Your Marriage When Everything Else Fails Try This
When Traditional Views Split a Marriage Apart
In any marriage, if you have unrealistic expectations, or more importantly, if you haven’t changed your expectations over time, you could be surprised how disconnected your marriage can get.
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People change over time and sometimes their priorities change as well.
Most people don’t realize how their roles as husband and wife, or mother and dad, change as the years go by.
A great marriage will continue to endure if you both put your spouse as number 1 in your life.
That not being the case is one of the biggest reasons for the relationship breakup.
Logan and Gail’s last child recently entered college. Gail felt optimistic, even though she was sad to see her “baby” leave home. She was excited about this new phase ofherlife.
Gail decided to take an online course. She landed a job as a receptionist in a pediatrician’s office. Gail loved what she did. She loved spending the time with the kids at work; they invigorated her and made her feel alive.
Gail also decided to spice up her social time and fill her calendar. In the evenings, after work, she often went to the gym orspent time with friends, shopping or just hanging out.
Loganis finding it very difficult to handle these changes. Often when he comes home from work, Gail’s not there.He’s not used to returning to an empty home with no one there to greet him and with no mealon the table. Logan is upset; he’s had a lot of pressure at work, andnow he feels like he’s losing his wife, too.
As a result of these changes, they constantly argue about who should be responsible for what tasks at home and how they should spend time together.
While Logan has begun to realize that he needs to become more involved at home to help get things done, this is not howhe expected his life to turn out. He feels wounded and alone. They are so close to a severe agonizing relationship breakup.
Logan is not alone. Most couples face this challenge when their marriage enters a new phase. Instead of complementing each other, couples end up competing against each other.
Gail loves Logan and the kids, but she needs to move on from always doing for others to doing something for herself. She felt that in making this change, her husband would feel excited about it. But that’s not what was happening.
The challenge here is that the two of them are communicating with each other as if they were the same people they used to be. They have thesame physical attributes, but over time their roles have changed.
Logan’s role in the relationship has actually pretty much stayed the same, but Gail’s role has evolved. Consequently, Logan feels awkward, and he doesn’t know what to do. Instead of respecting and understanding Gail’s new ways, he’s pushing heraway.
In any marriage, couples who stay together for the long termare able to survive the ups and downs and are willing to adjust to new expectations in the relationship. If they don’t, it typically spells the end of the relationship.
What Logan and Gail need to realize is that they need to go from a child-focused marriage to a partner-focused marriage.
Most couples don’t realize it should be this way all the time, but somehow the children get the focus in the marriage, and the partnership aspect gets lostalong the way. This partner-focused marriage needs to be rediscovered in order for them to save their marriage.
Three-step process to turn your marriage around
Here’s a three-step process to turn your marriage around if you should experience this situation:
1. Adjust your expectations.When you get married, you have certainexpectations and dreams.And then children come along, and you focus on them. Eventually, the kids leave so your roles become different. You need to understand and appreciate this.
2. Negotiate your agenda.When your roles change,you need to clearly express to each other what you want so that you have complete understanding.
What’s happening in Logan’s situation is that he’s forcing hisexpectations without even understanding and respecting his wife’s perspective. It’s important that Gail respects his views, too, so both of them need to negotiate what they want to accomplish.
3. Ask yourself this question: How can I improve my communication in the marriage? When thechildren were younger, you may have had very little time to talk to each other.
But now youneed to—as simple as it sounds—schedule time to talk and listen to each other.So instead of talking to each other in the fleeting moments that youhave, you need tohave a focused sit-down to openly communicate.
This may sound easy and straightforward, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how are you doing with these techniques in your marriage right now?
The higher your score regarding how do I save my relationship, the better the chances that you’ll have a healthier and happier marriage.
By Dr. Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D
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