Marriage Series: A Real Example of Our Lessons Learned Regarding Marriage Principles and Skills

Our book, The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work, lays out nine necessary principles and seven essential skills based on research for reaching a successful marriage.

A successful marriage includes as many disagreements as an unsuccessful marriage, but the disagreements get resolved successfully, quickly and with less emotional damage.

An unsuccessful marriage is one in which spouses harbor negative judgments of each other, where disagreements grow into painful conflict and with little time spent truly happy with one another. A successful marriage has short-lived disagreements with approximately 90% or more of the time where the spouses are enjoying one another.  These spouses live with the satisfaction of building a very satisfying life based on teamwork.

As we describe in another blog, living with marital stress most of the time releases stress hormones that take a toll on the body, increasing the chance of physical problems and shortening life.  On the other hand, when living in a satisfying marriage most of the time, the body releases “happy” hormones, which means being healthier and living longer.

This can sound all very theoretical and difficult to apply to the real problems that arise in a real marriage.  We therefore decided to give a very practical example of a real problem in a marriage:  Ken “volunteered” his marriage to Carol as an Example to show how the principles and skills are really used.

Three caveats before we begin:

1. No one problem needs all nine of our principles or all seven of our skills. Therefore, our Example here will only highlight some of each.
2. There is no way to do this topic justice in a really short blog. That said, this blog is longer than most of our other blogs.
3. In order to tie a Solution to the example, by using specific principles and skills, we will insert the principle or skill into the blog by highlighting it. While this makes the story a little choppy, we hope it brings more clarity.

The Problem: For years, Carol complained to Ken that it really hurt her feelings when he didn’t pay attention to what she did on her own. He rarely seemed to know what she was doing on a particular day, and even more rarely, asked about what she had done afterwards.  It felt to her like he didn’t care about her.

This would upset Carol, though Ken was clueless.  Interestingly, Ken thought and therefore assumed she knew that he cared about her and that if she wanted him to know about what she did, she would tell him. However, over time, he began to feel that his caring about her was always being tested.  He then wondered: if he paid attention to what she did on her own, he cared, but if he didn’t pay attention, he must not care. This was confusing and made no sense to him.

Ken and Carol have always taken long morning walks, and this conflict ruined many of those walks.  Obviously, they waited way too long to address the problem.  After a particularly painful walk, Ken and Carol decided to address the issue and have a serious talk.

Both Carol and Ken understand that the root of marital conflicts lies in the fact that spouses live in very different worlds:

• Principle: Assume that both of them are “right,” given their different worlds.
• Skill: Both spouses can be right, but disagree.
• Skill: Understand each other’s perspective of the problem.

            Ken knew that Carol had a great memory, which is why she always knew what was going on, even with friends and other family members.  As a result, she was always able to ask people things that Ken simply didn’t remember.  A friend might tell her that she went to a doctor, got a treatment but was told to go back in three months.  In three months, Carol would call the friend and ask about the follow-up.  Ken would marvel at her memory.

However, by Ken finding out about Carol’s perspective, he learned that her knowing what was going on with others and her asking about it was inherently connected to her caring about them. This was a “Ahah” moment for Ken. In addition, by Carol finding out about Ken’s perspective,  she learned that he really cared about her, but expected her to talk about her experiences, without his asking (Skill: Understand each other’s  perspective).

By discussing each other’s perspective, they could begin to understand each other’s  situational reactions and feelings. This was a “Ahah” moment for both of them.  They both quickly learned that some of what they each thought were merely assumptions, not reality.

Ken thought that Carol was “testing” him by expecting him to be like her (Skill: Don’t believe your assumptions.).  What he learned was that in her world, not paying attention to the details of someone else’s life really meant that you didn’t care. It was not just a good memory. (Skill: She revealed that she writes it in her calendar so that she does not forget.)  She really believed that expressing that level of interest was inherently tied to caring about the person.

The Solution: It was time for Ken and Carol to focus on solutions that would work for both of them, not blaming each other for the causes.  They both realized that Carol’s reactions were central to who she is, not just a habit that she could change.  More importantly, Ken realized that he did not want her to change.  She brought so much joy to him and to so many people’s lives with her attentiveness.  She sends out birthday cards to 8-10 people every month.  She calls adults who were once children on their birthday and sings happy birthday to them. She has been told that they look forward to that every year.  One young woman, a daughter of a close friend, even told her that “It’s not really my birthday until you call.”

This meant that Ken had to change (Principal: Be humble.).  He had to change his behavior patterns. (Principle: The way to change the personality of a marriage is to change behavior patterns.)  Ken cheated in the beginning by sneaking looks at Carol’s daily calendar, and then say something (e.g., “Where are you meeting Kim for lunch?”) to demonstrate his interest, and then after the lunch, ask another question about it.  Eventually he set out on his own and got better at remembering what she was doing and asking about it before and after, although making mistakes (e.g., “Say hi to Jean.”  Carol: “That’s tomorrow, not today.”).

Recently, on a walk, Carol said to Ken, “It really hurt my feelings that you didn’t ask about my eye exam.”  Ken’s initial reaction was to get very angry.  He wanted to say, “I have been working on that for years and have gotten to 95%.  Can’t you just appreciate that and not expect me to be perfect.”  However, he didn’t say it. (Skill:  Manage strong emotions.)  He realized that she didn’t say that she expected perfection or that she didn’t appreciate his efforts. (Skill: Don’t believe assumptions.) She just said that it hurt her feelings.  Ken said, “I’m sorry.” (Skill: Sorry can be an admission of guilt, but it can also only mean that you are sorry the other spouse is hurt.)  Ken added, “I’m still shooting for 100%,” as a way to remind Carol that he cares and is making a real effort. (Principal: Shoot for good enough.)

On the same walk, Ken and Carol walked a few more steps in silence.  Then, Carol reached out and took Ken’s hand. (Principal: The importance of physical affection. Skill: Keep it short and repair the emotional damage.)

BINGO: HAPPY HORMONES!

The purpose in this example is to demonstrate that our Principles and Skills are not just a theory. They are practical steps to resolving a marital disagreement successfully, and taking very little time to do it.

Ken is embarrassed for letting the problem smolder for so long before addressing it, but when he and Carol did address it, they got a solution that worked for both of them and took very little time doing it.  Had they not, it was a problem that was already ruining what could have been pleasurable walks and could have grown into painful and damaging negative beliefs about one another.

All this was possible by applying some of the Nine Principles and some of the Seven Skills in our book.

Ken and Carol are not special people.  They did not always, in their 42-year marriage, understand the principles and skills described above.  They spent a great deal of time early in their marriage with false beliefs about one another and too much of their marriage in emotional distress.  From time to time, both had mixed feelings about being married.  The saving grace in those years was a willingness to discuss their mixed feelings (Principle: Be open to discuss mixed feelings about each other). In addition, they had a strong undercurrent of genuine love for one another, had many mutual interests in common and benefitted from a tenacious “don’t give up” attitude.

Slowly, they developed the skills, long before Ken’s research to uncover the importance of the principles and skills needed to have a successful marriage.

Ken and Carol both understand that they will always face disagreements, literally until their dying day. However, they are absolutely confident they will overcome their disagreements as they arise, often very quickly, and spend nearly all their time together- having fun being married. The lesson learned is a simple one: A successful marriage is a true blessing!