What Does A Marital Relationship Look Like? One Of The Ways To Diagnose Relationships In A Couple

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

In almost every family, there are times when one or both partners have doubts about whether to continue the relationship. Spouses come to a psychologist to better understand themselves and their partner, to see the prospects of their relationship. One technique for doing this is to represent relationships using figurines. Practical example. At the consultation - spouses who are "a little over thirty". Together for five years. There are many claims to each other. I will name them - Masha and Misha. Permission was obtained from clients to publish an excerpt from a therapy session. I offer spouses a collection of figurines so that everyone can choose those that resemble themselves and their partner. Each of the spouses puts the figurines as they see their relationship. The wife is the first to create her composition. She sees herself as the Monster behind her husband - Piglet. In what figures Masha chose and how she arranged them, it is clear that she perceives herself more, "more significant" than her husband and puts him in front of her. This position corresponds to the relationship - mother and son. In her parental family, her parents had the same relationship. Masha's mother was constantly "raising" her husband, who had not matured. I appeal to my husband:

How do you like the option proposed by Masha?

- I agree with the image, I myself would have chosen this Piglet. He is cheerful, perky. And Masha for me is this Beauty.

He puts the figures next to him - Pretty Woman on the right, Piglet on the left.

Mishin's variant of the arrangement of the figures shows that he wants a partnership, not a child-parental relationship. However, he gives the leadership to his wife. Her figure is on the right. “Whoever is on the right is right,” Masha summed up. And Misha agreed with this. Using figurines allows spouses to see their relationship "from the outside" and compare the views of each other. I appeal to my wife.

How do you like the option proposed by Misha?

Masha looks “in the floor of her eyes,” and says scornfully: “I don’t care if he considers me a beauty or a monster. He wants a partnership, let him behave like a partner: he often visits at home, helps. And then he has excuses all the time: hunting, fishing, friends. And I pull the whole household alone.

What do you call "household"?

- This is a house, a garden plot, two cars. There is always a full refrigerator in the house. This is my responsibility. There is always a three-course lunch. I maintain perfect order in our three-room apartment. - So perfect that it sickening. Imagine, every day she wipes the dust everywhere and demands that I move furniture, even a sofa. - You will not be asked to do this. And I have to move everything myself.

Masha, what happens if you don't wipe the dust?

- I will fall in my own eyes, like a mistress.

Was there perfect order in the parental home?

- Yes, my mother always taught me that there was not a speck of dust in the house.

And for you, Misha, does order matter?

- None. It is much more important for me that Masha is in a good mood, and she grumbles all the time. All the time he demands something from me. So I want to run away from home. I'm looking for a reason. - He's looking for a reason! Doesn't even hesitate to admit that he wants to run away from home. Behaves like a teenager. He should have fun all the time. I put my car down like a ship, and uses mine. Blame it on, but I, again, have to clean up. - My car broke down, it is expensive to repair it. I save my family budget.

Misha, how old do you feel yourself?

- Fifteen. Misha's psychological age is fifteen years old. At this age, he lived in the village with his mother and sisters, helped a lot with the housework. Parents divorced. Misha had to do all the male work. The needs for communication with peers, characteristic of this age, remained unmet. Now Misha is trying to make up for what he did not receive as a teenager. Masha always considered herself ugly. Even as a child, the mother told the girl that she was disappointed to see the newborn had dark hair, and not blond, like her mother herself. And the girl's body is too big. And the mouth is big. And the nose is like this: "seven grew up, one got it." I listen to this sweet, pretty woman and am surprised at the difference between the way that I see and the way she describes herself. In childhood, we uncritically assimilate the messages of our parents: how our loved ones perceive us - this is how we ourselves consider ourselves. When a girl does not have the value of her femininity, she is forced to develop traits in herself that compensate for this lack. Masha gave up trying to decorate herself, channeling her energy into hard work, into the desire to become ideal. At the heart of this is the desire to be a “good girl” so that my mother will love. Her perfectionism manifests itself not only in relation to herself, but also to those around her. First of all, to my husband. At the same time, condemning her controlling, critical mother, Masha does not notice that in many ways she copies her behavior.

What attracted you to each other at the time of marriage?

- I liked the fact that Masha is responsible, active, active. - And I liked that Misha is light, cheerful, kind.

And now you are dissatisfied with precisely those qualities for which you have chosen each other?

- Surprisingly, it turns out so. When creating a family, spouses come into a relationship each with their own experience, an individual idea of how the family functions. The ideas of the "young" can be diametrically opposed. The origins of these concepts are in childhood. In marriage, it is necessary to unite the two original worlds. Learning about the peculiarities of the family in which the partner grew up, the spouses begin to understand each other better. If you don't invest in a relationship, it will decline over time. For the development of relations, it is necessary to make efforts, to increase mutual understanding, trust, mutual assistance. And this gradually happens in the course of therapy.