Category: marriage

Gendered: “girl culture 2”

One of my colleagues was raised by her father. While he was in the military, she experienced many different global cultures, and was raised around men. She mentioned to me that while she understood what I was talking about in my first Gendered post, she wasn’t raised in that way. She was raised by a man and that experience made her emotional and communication patterns different than most American women. More masculine, we could say. Makes complete sense.

What she then said was that her more unique direct and simple speaking style has often brought her the experience of rejection and judgment by women, even close friends, who were socialized to be constantly circumspect, people pleasing and perfectionistic in all relational matters.

She has been called “angry,” “too direct,” and other unpleasant words of judgment by women. She has experienced looks of surprise and body language of distancing and distain while talking in professional meetings, therapy settings and social outings. I have encouraged her to write a personal response to my post so I can add it here.

I, too, have been cautioned against speaking my mind even by my Midwestern-Lutheran-socialized-by-awfully-nice-people-30-years-together spouse. We have even disagreed on something as simple as whether we ought to say our opinion to family members or even more horrifying, friends. Socially, he will almost always choose the grin and bear it or simply ignore it route. Me? I’d rather find a nice enough way to speak my mind. I spend enormous amounts of time in my mind trying to suss out the right way to say what I am thinking so I don’t lose connection to those around me. (I’ve been doing that as I write, edit and re-edit this post.) Even with all that internal sifting, no doubt some have and will call me a bitch behind my back.

But you would never do that, would you gentle woman reader? Become automatically uncomfortable when a colleague, boss, friend or loved one violated those carefully maintained but invisible gender norms. Provide some emotional feedback? Subtly step back in disapproval? Most of the most painful comments and betrayals of trust I experienced as a female pastor throughout the years were from other women in my social and leadership circles.

While most of us are struggling to wake up to our inherited and unearned privilege of race and economic status in contemporary America, may I be among those who bang the gender drum at the same time. Inherited gender roles are reinforced every day, without reflection, and women are the ones who seem to have the most at stake when other women don’t obey the rules.

Let us wake up and act up. We have been controlled and socialized by rigid expectations about our bodies, our biology, our fertility, our parenting and caretaker roles and yet we have been at the head of the line when it comes to enforcing the rules. If we want freedom and opportunity for all, let us mean all. This freedom to be ourselves, no matter our gender identity, is what I believe feminism is about. Call me a feminist. And then ask me to offer my point of view. I’m quite sure I’ll have one I can share.

Reader Response: Dividing Family Loyalties

Many thanks to M who took the time to write me about his experience with family loyalty. Here is his letter, in part:

“I am writing because I have been on the wrong end of this issue. That is, my wife has put the needs of her parents ahead of me and our marriage. We married in 1987. In 1995 we made the fateful decision to move in next door to her parents. Problems stared within a few months of moving in.

When a spouse puts parents (or really, anyone else) as a higher priority ahead of the needs of the marriage and their spouse this is the biggest domino that falls causing a cavalcade of other bad actions and decisions…The anger that is festered, self-doubt, damage to self-esteem causes so many poor decisions from how your money is spent, time and priorities are allocaated, how the children are engaged, infidelities and job effectiveness.

Unlike if this happens with friends or worse, a spouse has an affair, in these cases the offending spouse can make those people disappear from the relationship and the relationship has a chance to heal via distance, deeds and time.

When it is a parent or family member, in my wife’s case she was unwilling to stand up to her parents (mostly her mother) and say my husband comes first. When a spouse does not stand up …the family member takes full advantage of this weakness and manipulates the entire engagement. In my case, this continues to damage the marriage. The relationship with the in-laws only worsens and cannot heal or improve. The constant conflict is beyond exhausting.

You may ask why did I not see this before we got married. We met and married and started our life together 2000 miles away from her hometown. Consequently, I did not have the opportunity to witness this enmeshed relationship prior to 1995.

My wife in 2017 moved in with her mother. And I am now at 60 years old alone, trying to put the pieces of my life together.”

Dividing Family Loyalties When You Marry

There is nothing like bringing home a close friend or partner to shine a spotlight on the unspoken rules by which every family, your family, lived and lives.

Every family that lives with one another for some time develops a set of patterns for emotional engagement that soon feels like the “family rules.” These expectations for behavior may start within a marriage and strengthen their grip as children are brought into the home. Once the children catch on to these patterns, they begin to live by them. Only family members know how that family works, even though no one may have ever spoken these powerful expectations out loud.

Many of these rules are quite helpful, and create a kind of emotional shorthand that members count on. Some rules families frequently live by are: this family lets one another know our whereabouts; this family goes to church/synagogue/mosque; this family values education; this family values friendship, and this family works hard. Others might be less helpful. They might be expressed as: this family avoids conflict; this family never questions mother/father; this family relies on men for money, women for support; this family doesn’t live outside our region; this family keeps secrets, and this family doesn’t trust anyone outside the family.

With these internal rules, members keep the connections of their family relationships, even unhealthy ones, intact. Once we bring another person into close relationship with this family system through marriage, the rules become more obvious; our new partner has no way of knowing or observing these internal rules except by bumping into them. Because they don’t have the years of unconscious training in working within the boundaries of these family expectations, newcomers invariably stir up distress and even conflict by disregarding these rules or even openly disagreeing with them. This is one way newcomers remain permanently on the outside of their partners’ family systems.

This is where the partner, whose family of origin is the one getting stirred up, has to bring his or her best self to the party or he/she will end up offending and damaging the new family and partner. If the rule is “no one can challenge the way Mom behaves,” Mom can run roughshod over the new wife of her son and her son gets caught between his loyalties toward his family of origin and that toward his partner. Because the loyalty to one’s family of origin is older and deeper, chances are that is the one that most easily wins.

In families where emotional connection has never been particularly intense or expected, this kind of division of emotional importance happens automatically. Parents have children, raise them, and expect that once their children marry, the old family changes. The new has come, and everyone has to adjust. In more emotionally intense, enmeshed, or distressed family systems, blending a new spouse and/or grandchildren into the mix may require an our-way-or-the-highway kind of behavior from the newcomer that can make for chronic distress for everyone.

I counsel couples who find themselves in conflict over family rules to think about loyalty as an emotional quality of relationships that can and must be shared unequally. One can be loyal to both one’s family of origin as well as to a new spouse, but the most successful marriages have partners who transfer their primary loyalties to their new partner. Mom or Dad may still be core relationships, but if there is any important conflict, decision, schedule, or issue to decide, the default must move to the spouse and couple.

If you and your partner seem to be in constant conflict over your visits back to visit your parents, your time spent with siblings, or the ever-present sense that you care more about pleasing your parents than you do your spouse, check in with yourself regarding that unequal balance of loyalty. If you feel miserably caught in the middle, it’s time to shift your focus. Unplug some of that urgency from your family of origin and give it to your new partner and children. And, of course, if it’s just not as easy as that for you, consulting with a local marriage and family therapist will help you more easily make that emotional transition.

(Originally written as a post for GoodTherapy.org, April 2013)

Netflix’s “The Crown” & Joy in Marriage

Netflix’s major release of the second season of “The Crown,” a lavish and brilliantly acted biography of England’s Queen Elizabeth II in her very first years of her reign, is worth every moment of your time. Writer Peter Morgan is creating a masterpiece of historical drama.

At it’s core are the conflicts that face a young woman whose father dies relatively young and has the British monarchy thrust upon her at 25. We’re witness to the parallel sacrifices of her husband, nuclear family members, and all those who serve the royal family. As her husband Prince Philip chafes under the demands of his marriage to the Crown, his roguish behavior brings increasing pain and anguish to Elizabeth. Despite the developing pressures, Elizabeth suggests a small party to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. And it is at this dinner party that Philip makes a brief speech that describes the core of marriage’s worK:

(laughter …) “Ten years has taught me,
The secret of a successful marriage is actually to have different interests.
Well, different interests, not entirely different interests. It’s a funny business.
One sees the whole of the other person. You see even that part of them that they don’t see themselves.
And presumably, they see that hidden part of you.
One ends up knowing more about one’s partner than they know about themselves.
And it can be pretty tough to keep quiet about it.
So you have to come to an accommodation, an arrangement, a deal if you like.
To take the rough with the smooth.
But the extraordinary thing is down there in the rough, in the long reeds of difficulty and pain,
that is where you find the treasure.
So I would like to propose a toast in the name of love, in the name of our beloved country, in the name of steadfastness, in the name of another ten marvelous years.
I give you mon petit chou, Lilibet, Elizabeth, The Queen.”

(The Crown, S2E4, “Beryl”; starting 19m.00s)

What brilliant insight – spoken in Philip’s voice – of the hard but joyous human work of living closely with another person, and knowing more about them than they do about themselves; and vice versa. And rather than using that knowledge as a weapon, the happiest marriages reach an accommodation, an emotional arrangement, to take both the best and worse of their partner and accept this as the wonder of what it means to be loved well by another human being. “It’s there were you find the treasure,” says Philip. Yes, indeed. This is what it really means to love another person. To know all about them, accept them, and be accepted and cherished, despite this deep knowledge, in return.

Thank you for saying it so well, Mr. Morgan. May it be so for all of us.

What is Structural Family Therapy?

I’m grateful to Sal Minuchin for helping us as family therapists understand, conceptualize and maneuver within the dynamic structures of families: the way that the emotional and legal connections of parents to their children over generations create fluid as well as fixed patterns of hierarchies, loyalties, rules, subsystems, coalitions and boundaries. While we may know these experiences instinctively, his theory gives us a vocabulary, structure and system of talking and thinking about these automatic family features.

I’m particularly glad for the way his ideas give us a way to talk about family power. How are marriages formed? How do parents use their power over children? What does it mean to be a grandparent, a sibling, a twin, a youngest or oldest child? Who creates the family rules? Who breaks them? Of critical importance is the way that this theory helps me to conceptualize children’s emotional dysfunction. I don’t have to think simply in individualistic, intrapersonal terms. I’m free to think, speak and intervene with children’s pain interpersonally by helping their parents better manage their own functioning, power, and relational well-being.

Every time I draw a new genogram, and hear about a conflicted marriage, a stressed child, or cut-off grandparents, and think about rules, power and family structure, I draw upon the core ideas of Minuchin and generations of clinicians after him who have helped us all become students of family structure.

1/2021: Here’s a great detailed look at Structural Family Therapy from a new counseling resource, Choosing Therapy: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/structural-family-therapy/

Core Long-Term Marriage Skills

One of my couple clients asked me to create a summary of our work together. I know these skills apply to nearly every long-term marriage, so I share them here.

1. Assume positive intent from your spouse. Trust him/her. Build positive interactions. Look for the good. Notice it, appreciate it. Stop trying to control the outcome of every interaction so that you feel less vulnerable. Protect yourself less, be open to one another more.

2. Self-focus: always pay more attention to how you are managing your own emotions/behaviors/words/tones than you are to your partner’s. Think: what can I do to improve our relationship? Journaling, prayer, ritual, reading about emotions/relationships/family of origin patterns.

3. Make every effort to improve your conflict conversations.
Don’t ignore important pain. If you find you are doing a lot of internalizing, mind reading, and stuffing emotions, it’s time to talk.  Bring up pain as complaints (about the issue – “I feel”) not criticism (about the other person – “You are”).

Start a conversation gently, “low and slow.”

Expect your partner to initially defend. Wait until that strong reaction passes before you respond. Ask your partner to lower their defense so they can listen, if necessary.

Listen for one another’s point of view. Appreciate whatever truth you can in your partner’s POV. Repeat it to them so they know they have been heard. Share your POV. Check to see if your partner gets what you are trying to say.

If conflict begins to hurt, STOP. Don’t escalate. Take some time out to calm down and return again to the conversation.

4. Cultivate your marital friendship. Remember, however well you think you know your partner, don’t assume you can no longer be surprised. Make asking questions of your partner’s day, experiences, dreams, hopes, memories, plans and pains a regular habit. Do some new things together. Allow one another the emotional room to do things independently. Too much intensity can be just as hard on a marriage as too much distance.

5. Flexible people are more satisfied in their marriages. Recognize and reflect on the fact that the that details of our lives we take for granted as we become adults – our bodies, minds, work, relationships with children, hobbies, friendships, emotions, goals – are changing all the time. Especially make peace with the ongoing aging of your body.

6. Keep emotion primary in your experience of life and one another since emotion is the way our bodies and minds give us moment by moment information. Continue to grow in your ability to notice, name, manage and understand your emotional life. Remember that your spouse is doing the very same thing. Think emotion before you attempt to use logic in hard conversations.

7. Know that the past never leaves us, but we can find creative ways to manage how it informs our present. Holding resentments or secrets is poison to healthy long-term relationships. When someone injures another, the healthiest couples use their spiritual resources of remorse, repentance, renewal and forgiveness to experience the hurt, commit to the healing of the injury and press on.

8. Build a positive appreciation for touch, smiles, eye contact, and physical proximity as expressions of affection and sexuality. Use your creativity to express sexual energy and desire in ways that work for both of you. Be sure to talk to one another during sexual activity so that you are clearer about what works and what doesn’t. If there is a difference in levels of drive and desire, work to blend masturbation and some kind of mutual sexual activity.

9. Share the leadership of your family/couple. Appreciate one another’s unique skills and allow for growth and change. Make decisions together, and think of your marriage as a team, a unit, even as you are always individuals.

10. Remember that life is short, and grows even shorter as we age. Set a daily intention to do the best you can as a person and a partner. Cultivate your spirituality and your sense of humor. Stop threatening divorce; take the word out of your imagination and vocabulary. Re-commit to your shared future; appreciate and marvel at all that you have already endured and experienced together.

Have some advice you’d like to share with long-married couples? Comment below!

Your Big F***ing Job Can Ruin Your Marriage

As our economy has crawled out of the recession, so many people have experienced the shrinking of the job force at their companies, and the subsequent increase in the demands of their job descriptions.

Many are doing the work that 2 (or even more) people have done in the past. More people are traveling more miles, more leaders are being pressured to increase production, or customers, or digital content, or whatever is on the front line of worry for stake or shareholders.

Add in the natural disaster that a very harsh 2014 Minnesota winter brought to several industries (transportation, energy, retail, just to name three), high level executives are using up all their available energy at work. They come home exhausted, worn out and without any emotional flexibility at all.

They don’t have the energy for the demands of parenting, or if they put in a bit of their work with the kids, they certainly have not one single thing left for their spouse. The Marriage Will Not Survive if this goes on for any length of time.

I tell my clients that if they are working like this, dedicating themselves to the salvation of their company, they must save at least 5% of themselves for their spouse. It isn’t much, but in the scheme of life, it can be enough to greet your partner, listen to them a bit about their day, share some of yours, and connect.

No one will care at the end of the job if you lost your marriage for it. But your spouse and children will.

Stop living for your work, and work for your family and life instead. And if you can’t seem to figure this out alone or together, please call me or a local family therapist for some coaching, understanding, and practical help.

What Every Husband Ought to Know about Marriage Conflict

Nobody likes to hear someone close to them be critical, blaming or shaming. It feels bad. And sometimes scary. It turns out that when women talk like that to their husbands, contrary to popular opinion, most men feel this intense criticism very strongly in their bodies. And because male bodies “rev up” faster than women’s in stress (heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, tunnel vision), in order to protect themselves and their relationships from too much emotion, men frequently, readily, as a default, go into Defense mode.

It’s vital for happy, flexible marriages to have partners who know how to manage difficult conversations. There will be many of them over the years.

As I said in my last post, women have to learn how to bring up their complaints softly, gently, and with a caring touch.

Men need to recognize their usual default of Defensiveness, and learn to lower their emotional walls quickly.  If men can do this, while at the same time women practice being more gentle, the best situation for a positive interaction around difficult topics happens.

The most successful couples work on this communication posture change together. Trusting that the other is doing their best to move out of their “automatic” thinking/behavior/posture and tone to a more couple-friendly communication strategy.

Because I talk about these automatic couple missteps every day in my therapy practice, I know this is one of the most common couple problems. No one part of the couple can fix the problem completely on their own : each person in the marriage has a piece of the solution!

Long Term Marriages are Different

From Madeleine L’Engle’s Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage: 

Speaking of her 40 year marriage to her husband Hugh Franklin:

“We were not a latter-day Heloise and Abelard, Pelleas and Melisande when we married. For one thing, the Heloises and Abelards, the Pelleases and Melisandes, do not get married and stay married for forty years. A love which depends solely on romance, on the combustion of two attracting chemistries, tends to fizzle out. The famous lovers usually end up dead. A long term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.

Of course, the culture tends to glorify the passionate whirlwind romance, rather than the steady committed marriage. Anyone fortunate enough to share in the latter, to enjoy true love, realizes how empty is the former.” 

When To Get Marriage Therapy

Most couples come to therapy when they have completely run out of steam. While there is a great deal that MFTs can do to help, it’s not a time in the family when people feel resilient, optimistic or energized. In order to create permanent change, one needs a good deal of hope and energy. And so does one’s partner.

I’ve observed that for many couples (especially those who have had a less-than smooth relationship history, full of stops and re-starts, difficult emotional turmoil, previous long-term partners and/or huge life stress) there are much better times to come to couples therapy and have a much bigger chance for successful growth.

They are:

1. Before marriage. PLEASE consider pre-marital counseling, whoever you are. There are fabulous tools available to me as a therapist to assess your relationship as it is now, help you understand your unique partnership in basic system and personality terms, and help you enter the marriage more awake to your strengths and weaknesses.

2. After the FIRST really big, painful, emotionally threatening argument. Happier couples, those whose likes and dislikes, personality styles, family of origin patterns and conflict themes are more similar to each other may never even have one of these blow outs. Ever. That would be ideal. The moment a frightening, threatening, abusive fight happens, think: Help. We need help.

3. When one of you feels as if you are drifting away from your partner and couplehood in a big way : a job that takes you away from home for days or weeks at a time; when new parenthood strains the closeness; a crisis of faith or health or employment. Couple relationships are always managing their own sense of healthy emotional distance from one another. But the marriage should always feel quietly, confidently connected. If it doesn’t, don’t let it drift without comment and professional support.

These are the times I have noticed in marriages of change and opportunity, when both partners may be open to learning new things about each other and themselves, and still see the relationship as positive, life-affirming, permanent. These are the points at which relationships can be strengthened, renewed, matured. Don’t wait until you can’t stand it any more to reach out for counseling. Chances are, your chances of recovery get lower with every week you wait.