Now I Know How To Behave In Marriage

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I got divorced once.

That experience was very difficult for me, extremely painful, and … perhaps necessary. It was then that I realized that the time would come, and I will definitely learn how to behave in a marriage, so that the relationship turns out to be happy and long-term.

It so happened that I not only continue to study this in my new family, but also work on issues of family happiness with my clients in groups and individual sessions.

Scale the situation

Every time a controversial or conflict situation occurs in family life, it is important to omit the nuances, making this situation more global. In this case, it helps me to ask myself the question: “Does this lead me to more or less happiness? Is this what I dreamed of? Answering this question for myself, I already know how to proceed further - to relax and let go of the situation or to defend my position.

Conflict!

When in conflict, it is important to be aware of what is happening right now. This is exactly how I ask myself: "What are we now sharing - power, victory, control, justice, something else?"

And also, being in a conflict, it is very important to be able to swear. By nature, I tend to avoid conflict, “sweep under the rug” my discontent and claims in the hope that “this will pass”. “Let me wash the dishes. Tell me what needs to be done and I will do it”- this is how I behaved in conflicts before, and this did not lead to anything. More precisely, it led - to the loss of oneself in a relationship.

Now it is obvious to me: the ability to conflict is one of the bottlenecks and principal places in a healthy family. I say this not only from my own experience, but also seeing the needs of my clients.

My current wife and I did not know how to conflict. And I am not ashamed that over 15 years of marriage, we have repeatedly turned to family therapists. I am even proud of these appeals - they helped me build everything that I value; it was family therapists who taught me how to balance the conflict between defending my boundaries and supporting. And if earlier our dialogues in the conflict sounded like "I don't want to hear anything!" and "Me too!", but now they have changed towards "I'll try to hear you" and "I really want to know how you feel."

When we learned to deal with conflicts in this way, we reached a new level of responsibility, freedom, adulthood, security, and as a result, a new level of family relations, a new level of mutual access, where everyone was ready to open themselves in relationships deeper than before. How was this expressed? For example, let's take two abstract families (in fact, each of these families is my wife and I "before" and "after" our changes), where the spouses go through their conflict in different ways.

Conflict Resolution Option A, or "Always on the positive"

- I am fat?

- No, you are the most beautiful.

- I am clever?

- No, you're brilliant!

Option B, or "Conflict with a taste of negativity"

Are you familiar with this option? Many couples, “sweeping conflicts under the rug,” live this way not only for many years, but all their lives! At first glance, it seems that the participants in the dialogue are sincere, but this is sincerity in its cheap component, a kind of infantile sincerity built only on support. Giving positive information to your partner is always easier: there are fewer risks. But, alas, this approach to resolving issues within the family speaks of non-adulthood, of an unwillingness to hear something difficult that requires change.

And … leads to a dead end. Even if the partners continue to live in pairs, it will be a marriage by inertia, and can hardly be called happy.

- I am fat?

- How much do you weigh?

- 72 kg.

- Two kgs are clearly superfluous!

- "Obviously superfluous" - it hurts me. If you say, “Two kg bothers me,” I will be less offended.

- Well, one of your two extra pounds bothers me, and the second worries me more!

It takes more adulthood and responsibility to communicate in this way. But in this case, you have more tools in order to really look at things. But, of course, in order to interact in this version, you need constant mutual adjustment, sensitivity to each other, love and self-sufficiency. And then none of the spouses will be forced to take responsibility for the other side (after all, everyone is familiar with the option of mutual guarantee, when at the slightest gusts of wind resentment arises, dirt accumulates, and as a result it sounds manipulative: “I’m not telling you anything to don't hurt you ).

Be sincere!

Sincerity is a story not only about how to support each other ("Where is the corpse?" "A corpse in the garage" relationship. And if you didn't manage to be especially responsible and thinking, then nothing interferes in the dialogue process (“Where is the corpse?” “The corpse is in the garage!” “What a fool!

And - the main good news - in this version, when there is an agreement between the spouses about the opportunity to hear from the partner not only positive, but also negative information, the family is able to grow, it has a real future, which is usually called happiness.

Live your crises in style

At the moment when you have learned to conflict and have tried to work on sincerity in a relationship, you can move on to the next stage of family development, the stage "for the advanced" - the one where you need to learn how to deal with crises.

Many people are afraid of the very word "crisis", but …

… A crisis is not necessarily a bad thing. Quite the opposite: every crisis is an important and necessary step for the development of a family. Crisis of three years, crisis of seven years, menopause, maturity crises (birth of a child, a child went to school, a child's leaving for the army, a child's enrollment in an institute, retirement) - these transitions from stage to stage are familiar to everyone. And for many couples, these stages of the joint path turned out to be destructive. It is understandable! A crisis is when it is no longer possible in the old way, but you still do not know how to do it in a new way. But after any night, dawn comes: you just have to learn to live in a new way, and in the next ten years life will sparkle with new colors, it will be easy, understandable and predictable - and you will again speak with one voice and fall asleep in an instant. True, it will be this way exactly until the next crisis, until we have to change everything again and study each other anew.

Only couples who have mastered option B of behavior in conflicts can go on such a journey: they are equally good at both a kind word and a log (which will come in handy if your partner says: "Nothing good awaits us here, let's go forward", starts to slip: "And if?.."). No ifs! …

Love quietly crept ashore …

This is in Vysotsky's "Ballad of Love" after the flood, love quietly gets out on the shore. Things are different in life. How many times have I accompanied clients in the divorce process, so many times have I seen how, upon completion of the process, behind rage, hatred, vengeance on the surface of life, on its space cleared of emotions and claims, love literally erupts. It is very … strong every time. And every time at such moments I remember my own happiness. My wife and I really appreciate him. We stand for him very much. When we fight, I, knowing the value of my happiness, shout: “You cannot prevent me from being happy! Nobody will interfere with my happiness!"

And I very much wish all married couples - and especially those who are now going through difficult times - to get through them. Go to the next level. And to live on - happily ever after.