Marriage Series: Crossing the Great Marital Barrier: What the Heck is Weltenschauung?

INTRODUCTION

The greatest challenge in a marriage is for spouses to understand the world as seen by the other spouse.  By “world” we mean the conscious and unconscious vision that the spouse has about what is important, how things work, expectations of what a marriage will be like, what is the desired end-product of relationships in general, ties to the family of origin, values and so on. Fortunately, there is no rush.  It literally takes years and many experiences, but part of every experience, especially marital disagreements, should include trying to understand the perspective of the other spouse.  This is an extremely difficult idea to process, but likely the most important ingredient in a truly successful marriage.

The root cause of destructive marital conflict is a failure to accomplish the task of understanding the world of the other spouse.

In order to understand how this works, we introduce a word in the German language- weltanschauung, because there is really no equivalent word in English.  Literally translated, it means “world view,” but has much deeper implications.  For Germans, the implications of the word are much broader.  It means that one person’s world view is so different from another’s, that they are literally having different experiences, even if at the same event.

Absolutely everything that we think, see and do reflects our weltanschauung.  No two people share the exact same weltanschauung.  People with similar backgrounds, literally from birth, not only share a part of each other’s weltanschauung, but also have broad differences.

People with very different upbringing usually have extremely contrasting weltanschauungs.

Lawrence Durell wrote a series of four books, or more literally, four versions of the same story.[1]  He wrote a story about four closely connected people (in one case, romantically involved subjects), but each of the four books tells the story from the perspective of just one of the four people.  What struck Ken most about these books was how incredibly different the stories were, depending on whose perspective was involved.  When a later book described an incident that had occurred in an earlier book, only one or two  basic facts connected them.  The experiences of the people in the book were entirely different, including important facts.  For example, one subject described what happened to another person, but in the second version, the other subject assumed it was a different person to whom the event happened.  Assumptions were mistaken.

Our point here is to underline that everyone’s weltanschauungs, even those with similar backgrounds, are different, leading to different perceptions of almost everything and different understandings of how things work.

The Meeting of Two Weltanschauungs: At Marriage

When most people marry, they usually are in love and seem to have much in common, what we sometimes call compatibility.  Rarely do they appreciate the gap between their weltanschauungs.  That gap rears its ugly head when they begin to have differences and begin to argue.  Early in the marriage, arguing might be rewarded with lovingly “making-up” with one another, but over time, the arguing begins to be more taxing.

Because spouses do not share weltanschauungs, they begin to see themselves as “right” and the other spouse as “wrong.”  The irony is that in the context of their different weltanschauungs, likely they are both “right,” but often do not understand how that can be.  The competition to get what they each want out of the marriage can grow into nasty unresolved conflicts.  A pattern of conflict usually causes spouses to develop an increasingly negative view of one another.  Before long, instead of talking about the content of a disagreement, they start talking about what negative people they are (e.g., “You are so controlling.”).  It rarely occurs to the spouses that the root problem is that they are literally living in two different worlds.

Crossing the Marital Barrier Leads Spouses in Either of Two Directions

1. When spouses eventually come to grips with their different weltanschauungs, this can be the turning point in a marriage. By learning to understand their spouse’s weltanschauung, they begin to resolve their disagreements in ways that work for both of them. This is largely possible because they truly understand each other’s perspectives. They can now move into a successful and rewarding marriage.  It still might take another five or ten years (or maybe more) to understand each other’s weltanschauung well, but because they are moving in that direction, their marriage becomes deeper and more meaningful along the way.
2. When spouses continue to escalate differences to arguments and to marital conflict, they can develop increasingly negative views of one another, even to the point of contempt. They can become increasingly vulnerable to alcohol problems, emotional and physical violence with one another, affairs, and the like.  Some divorce, and some stay in an unsatisfying marriage that has other benefits, but they are at best apathetic or at worst contemptuous towards one another.

Knowing that the failure to bridge the gap in weltanschauungs is the problem gives spouses the power to turn their marriage into a successful one.

Knowing that the problems in a marriage are not really what the spouses think they are can be a turning point.  The problems are not the criticisms of one another or the unresolved conflicts.  The problem is a failure to understand the differences in weltanschauungs.  Some spouses are really just bad people, but most are not, even if they seem like they are when in a failing marriage.  A failure to resolve the gap between weltanschauungs literally brings out the worst in people and hides the best in them.

To bridge that gap takes rules and skills, just like any other form of success in life. 

Think of becoming a successful accountant.  There are rules involved in getting the right training and in the actual practice of being an accountant.  The purpose of the training is to develop the necessary skills. Even after qualifying as a licensed accountant, experience hones those rules and skills in order to be increasingly successful.  The same is true of marriage.  There are essential rules that must be followed.  Some are obvious, such as no affairs, no abuse, etc.  Some are subtle, such as taking the time to find out about the spouse’s daily experiences.

Disagreement Resolution Skills.  There are Disagreement Resolution Skills[2]  involved in resolving differences.

1. These skills can be learned and applied; and
2. This can lead to learning more about the weltanschauung of the other spouse.

When this happens, the resolution works well, or at least fairly well, for both spouses.

CONCLUSION

The most important task for reaching a successful marriage is for spouses to aim at truly understanding each other’s weltanschauung.  This is accomplished by having rules and skills in place to make this happen.  No matter how similar spouses might be, no two spouses view and think about life the same way.  Understanding the differences can lead to solutions when in disagreement and where solutions work well for both spouses.

This is, in a nutshell, what our book, The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work is all about.  The book takes a broader view of marriage, lists and defines the necessary rules, and describes the skills necessary to make marriage work.  The book also provides training and exercises to learn the skills.  In addition, the underlying tone of the book is the same as should be in a successful marriage: “If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right!” 

Marriage should be and can be fun, even when learning to bridge the gaps, resolving important disagreements and building a successful life together.

[1] The book series is collectively known as the Alexandria Quartet.

[2] Our research-based disagreement resolution skills are explained in our book, The Road to a Successful Marriage is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work.  To purchase our book, and/or to check out our other books, free articles, booklets and blogs, see:  www.marriageanddivorce.org.