FAMILY LIFE. 6 BASIC FAMILY LIFE SCENARIOS FROM A FAMILY PSYCHOLOGIST

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

Family life. As you can see, family psychologists cannot fundamentally solve the divorce situation. But, nevertheless, since we, family psychologists, still exist, we must at least somehow help men and women, husbands and wives, their children and relatives. All those who, for whatever reason, do not want to get divorced. People who want to live not alone, but as a family, who value their partner, appreciate and love him, who seek to avoid family conflicts and sort out relationships. And we can help them a little, but still we can!

We can help all husbands and wives of the world with one important and necessary thing: honest information about how the family works, how it is born, how it functions, how it collapses and dies.

We cannot make people smart, we are not Gods, this is not given to us. But we can help those who consciously desire it to become family smart.

We can answer frankly to those who ask us.

We can help women see families through the eyes of their husbands.

We can help men see family through the eyes of their wives.

We can talk about what family and marriage are, how the optimal structure of a modern family should look like, the standard that can and should be guided by in your family behavior.

We can talk about the factors that strengthen the family.

We can talk about the threats that are destroying it.

And we just have to tell everyone about one strange paradox:

Despite the obvious similarity of faces and surnames,

some people create a family, and completely different people get divorced

This is actually the case! As a matter of fact, men and women, that is why they conflict and get divorced, because over the months or years of marriage, they become different, not what they were when they were still friends, lived in a civil marriage, accidentally or not accidentally "flew", or after the registry office we flew off on a merry honeymoon trip.

It is important to understand here that:

Family is not just a life together under one roof,

or co-breeding of a man and a woman

The family is the joint development of a man and a woman in life,

ideally, a simultaneous modernization of their outlook on life,

bringing them to the same denominator throughout

all the way together, until death

And here everything is simple. Because, there are only a few options for the development of the family situation.

Six main scenarios for family life:

Family life Option 1. "Loved ones forever." Ideal. Two very similar spouses. Husband and wife are close to each other from the start. This is if a man and a woman at the time of meeting and creating a family had common ideas about life in general and about family life in particular, a similar level of education, a similar social and material status, similar values and norms of behavior, coinciding goals and interests in life. The couple immediately lived in one beat, in unison. Then they were able to maintain this similarity throughout their life together. Or they changed, modernized their views on life and family, but they did it together. Albeit not quite synchronous, but still in reasonably close time intervals. Thus, the husband and wife always understood each other, the level of their contradictions was minimal, the level of justifying mutual expectations was very high. Such partners sail through life like on a ship with a deep landing, without feeling the waves, without quarrels and scandals. Such a married couple is the most durable.

Family life Option 2. "From Strangers to Close." Optimal. Two different, but very willing to become like each other spouse. Husband and wife became close to each other in the early years of marriage and were able to maintain a common vision of life for life. This is if a man and a woman at the time of meeting and creating a family had slightly different ideas about life in general and about family life in particular, different levels of education, social and material status, slightly dissimilar values and norms of behavior, not the same goals and interests in life. However, one of the couple was able to quickly adapt, pull themselves up to a higher level. Then, throughout their life together, the spouses were able to maintain this achieved similarity, learned to live in unison. They changed, modernized their views on life and family, just together. Albeit not quite synchronous, but still in reasonably close time intervals. Thus, after some initial period of contradictions and adjustments, the husband and wife always understood each other, the level of their contradictions was minimal, the level of justifying mutual expectations was high. Such a married couple develops practically without conflicts - it is very strong.

Family life Option 3. "Aliens could not become Close." Average. Two different and not very striving to achieve unity of the spouse. The husband and wife were never able to achieve a common understanding of life, including family life. This is, if a man and a woman at the time of meeting and creating a family, had either slightly or noticeably different ideas about life in general and about family life in particular, different levels of education, social and material status, slightly different values and norms of behavior, not the same goals and interests in life. In the future, some of the partners could not quickly adapt, pull themselves up to a higher level, or frankly did not want to do this.

As a result, the spouses could not form one whole, a single family organism, did not learn to live in unison. Accordingly, in the future, they either changed by themselves, pulled the strap of their modernization along various vectors, like a swan, cancer and pike. Or, someone changed and grew wiser, but the second partner frankly sat down in the "swamp" of life.

In this case, such a family will be ruined and shaken throughout life, distortions in outlook on life will not give them a calm comfortable existence. However, trying to live together, although difficult, is still possible. It was minimal, the level of meeting mutual expectations was average. And then, every time - after a scandal and a showdown. Such a couple develops through life, moves along it, all the time only in jerks: from conflict to conflict. Such a married couple is already fragile.

Family life Option 4. "The strangers did not even want to become Close." Bad. Two different and completely unwilling spouses to become similar. The husband and wife not only never had a common understanding of life, including family life, but no one wanted to bring these positions closer together, to abandon their beliefs. This, if a man and a woman at the time of meeting and creating a family, had noticeably different ideas about life in general and about family life in particular, different levels of education, social and material status, dissimilar values and norms of behavior, might not have any clear goals and interests at all. in life. Over the years of marriage, none of the partners has been able to adapt to a partner. A partner with a higher level quickly got tired of bothering a lazy person, a problematic spouse did not want to overcome his alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, conflict, ignorance, jealousy, carelessness, irresponsibility, etc.

As a result, the spouses not only could not form one whole, a single family organism, not only did not get close, but, on the contrary, every year more and more diverged in life. They became more and more different, different.

This super skew is practically irreparable. Here it all ends with scandals, fights, insults and divorces.

Family life Option 5. “Close ones have become Strangers”. Sad. Initially, two people who were very close to each other entered the marriage. However, in the future, the circumstances of their lives turned out to be so different that people changed completely differently, or only one changed, but the other half remained the same

Alas, even the initially very close-knit spouses, in the future, turned out to be disunited. This led to unfulfilled expectations, conflicts and other troubles, up to divorce.

Family life Option 6. "Either Close or Alien, or Alien, or Close." Jerks and jumps. This is when the entire married life consists of very unstable periods. Husband and wife (who could initially be similar, but could be different) either bring their positions closer to the most important events and decisions in family life, then their positions diverge. Accordingly, such a family lives on a very wide scale of assessments: from complete family idyll, to fights and filing applications for divorce.

From here, two things are obvious:

First. Men and women file for divorce when they finally understand that they fundamentally differ in their views on life, especially family life

Second. In order for the family to be happy and strong, a husband and wife must necessarily bring their positions, views on life, including family life, closer together

Accordingly, as a practicing psychologist, I assert:

A happy family is only shared management

the same joint family development

External control by a partner or a completely independent, autonomous existence of a husband and wife almost always ends in conflict and divorce.

Accordingly, a really useful thing that a family psychologist can do is:

- show partners exactly how husband and wife differ from each other in their behavior and views on family life and life in general;

- to teach in a timely manner to correct these imbalances, equip with appropriate techniques;

- in general, to prevent the husband and wife from becoming Others, Strangers to each other, to help them either gradually becomes Close to each other, or remain so forever.

Remark

I am often asked: “How can you characterize that category of men and women who especially suffer from various family troubles, who come to divorce? If all these people have something in common?"