This page automatically marks posts as read as you scroll.
Adjust automatic marking as read setting
If you have ever had trouble in your relationship, it would seem that everyone thinks he or she holds the secret to repairing your marriage but most of this advice will be wrong.
The biggest misadvice given by even talented marriage therapists would be the act of communication or learning to resolve your conflicts. The advice might go something like this: “learn to communicate better”
(Pretty profound right?)
When couples get in a conflict, they typically feel they are right and need justified. They become so focused on how they feel and proving they are right and their spouse is wrong. It would make sense that listening to each others perspective would lead a couple to find solutions to their conflict right?
A common method recommended by marriage therapists is called active listening. A therapist might ask you to try a form of listener-speaker exchange. You might state a complaint as an I statement that focus’ on what you are feeling instead of criticizing your spouse.
Next, the spouse would repeat back the statement to make sure they have heard it right. (active listening) This will validate their feelings. Problem solving will take place without anger…right? The problem is that active listening and conflict resolution doesn’t work.
According to research by John Gottman in his book "The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work": “The best of this type of marital therapy conducted by Neil Jacobson, had only a 35 to 50 percent success rate.”
I came from a bad marriage where I was counseled to communicate in a similar fashion described. I worked on myself constantly. I tried to become a better husband. I thought that better communication was the key. The more I tried to communicate, the worse the relationship became. In John Gottmans book, “The 7 principles for making marriage work”, he described a Roach Motel for Lovers that described perfectly my last relationship.
“This horrible place is marked by endless conflict and bad feelings. Couples check in to it and then discover they can’t get out. When couples become trapped in the Roach Motel, they each come to believe that their partner must be fundamentally selfish. Their minds fill with thoughts like, “He doesn’t care how I feel” and “All that matters to her is getting her way.” Each becomes increasingly convinced that the other isn’t on their side and doesn’t have their back. The relationship devolves into a zero-sum game in which one partner’s victory is perceived as the other’s defeat.”
There are of course other elements of communication to consider. How important is marital friendship? How do you deepen friendship to a level it once was? Is your marriage beyond resuscitation?
These are questions I will address in the coming weeks. I will say that I have learned much of the good, bad and the ugly from my last divorce. I blamed myself and suffered a great deal from my divorce. I have recently remarried and have experienced a rebirth. I find that the communication skills I once thought I lacked are a blessing of love in my current marriage. I have discovered another element that my wife and I focus on that permeates our conversations. We always start a serious discussion with a scripture and prayer. I can’t emphasize enough what the Power of the Holy Ghost can bring into a marriage. With that thought in mind, I will conclude with this statement by Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
I strongly urge you and those who advise you to face up to the reality that for most marriage problems, the remedy is not divorce but repentance. Often the cause is not incompatibility but selfishness. The first step is not separation but reformation.
If you are already descending into the low state of marriage-in-name-only, please join hands, kneel together, and prayerfully plead for help and the healing power of the Atonement. Your humble and united pleadings will bring you closer to the Lord and to each other and will help you in the hard climb back to marital harmony.
No comments:
Post a Comment