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Betrayal Trauma in Marriage: How to Help Your Spouse Heal (When You Caused It) Jun 19, 2019

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It is a Tuesday afternoon. You are loading the dishwasher. Your phone buzzes on the counter. You glance at it. Nothing important, a coworker about a meeting. But you catch your wife's face out of the corner of your eye. The muscles around her jaw tighten. Her eyes flick from the phone to you, then away. She does not say anything. She just goes quiet for the next twenty minutes. You betrayed her months ago. You confessed. You apologized. You changed the password on your phone, told her it would never happen again, and meant it. And yet here she is, six months later, still flinching at the sound of a notification. You want to say, "It was just Mike." You want to say, "Why are you still doing this to yourself?" You want it to be over. Betrayal trauma in marriage is what happens when a partner's deception, infidelity, or hidden behavior leaves the betrayed spouse's body on alert long after the truth comes out. It is not a phase your spouse moves through in a few weeks because you said sorry. It is a real injury, and helping her heal is going to ask more of you than you probably realize. This article is for the person on the betraying side. If you are the one who did the unthinkable, what follows is what we often see actually moves the healing forward, and what does not. What Betrayal Trauma in Marriage Actually Looks Like Before you can help, you need to know what you are working with. Betrayal trauma is not the same as ordinary grief or disappointment. The discovery that the person closest to you has been living a hidden life, or has had a relationship with someone else, produces a specific kind of injury. The mind catches up to the betrayal long after the body has already registered it. In practice, this often looks like: Intrusive thoughts. Scenes she did not witness play in her head anyway. The other person's face. The hotel room. A phrase from your text history. These can show up without warning, in the middle of a grocery run. Hypervigilance. She scans your phone, your face, your tone, the timing of your texts. Her body is doing this whether she wants it to or not. The same questions, asked again. You answered them last month. You answered them last week. She is asking again. This is not her being unreasonable. This is her nervous system checking that the story still holds. Mood whiplash. She seems fine in the morning. By afternoon she is crying. By bedtime she is furious. There may be no obvious trigger. Body-level reactivity. She flinches at a notification sound. Her stomach drops when she sees an unknown number. She wakes at 3 a.m. and cannot get back to sleep. These are not signs that she is failing to heal. These are signs that her body is doing exactly what bodies do after this kind of injury. Her nervous system has learned that the person it trusted for safety is also a source of danger. It now has to relearn safety in your presence. That is slow work, and a lot of it happens beneath conscious awareness. If you want the longer version of why this happens at the brain-body level, our companion article on how betrayal trauma impacts the brain and body walks through the neurobiology. One pattern we often see in our practice: the betraying spouse decides, around week two or three, that he has "fixed it." He has confessed, apologized, and changed his behavior. He genuinely cannot understand why, at month six, his wife is still asking the same questions and still flinching at his phone. From the inside, it feels like she is refusing to move on. From her side, her body has not yet had enough evidence to file the danger as past tense. Both experiences are real. But her pace, not your impatience, has to set the recovery timeline. Why Your Defensiveness Makes Betrayal Trauma Worse The single most common thing we see derail recovery on the betrayer's side is defensiveness. Not big, obvious defensiveness. The small kind. The sigh when she asks the question again. The "I already told you that." The "It was not as bad as you are making it sound." The "I have been doing everything I am supposed to be doing." Of course you would be defensive. Given how exposed you feel, given the shame, given how many times you have apologized, how could you not be? The impulse is understandable. It is also one of the things keeping her stuck. Here is what the defensiveness is actually doing. It is a kind of pacifier. It is not soothing her. It is soothing you. The pacifier is doing its job, taking the edge off the shame in your chest for a moment, but the cost is that her nervous system reads your defensiveness as the same signal that produced the betrayal in the first place: you do not understand the gravity of what you did, which means you might do it again. Her body cannot tell the difference between "he is minimizing because he is uncomfortable" and "he is minimizing because he does not really get it." So she escalates. She raises her voice. She asks more questions. She brings up old material. And the spiral begins. Your defensiveness raises her alarm. Her alarm raises your defensiveness. The louder she gets, the more you minimize. The more you minimize, the louder she gets. Both of you end up exhausted, both of you end up feeling unheard, and the actual healing work stops happening because all your bandwidth is going into managing the cycle. Breaking that cycle is the work. It starts with three moves. Step 1: Admit Your Guilt Without Hedging Defensiveness on the betrayer's side tends to come in three flavors. None of them work, but each one feels protective in the moment. The first is brazen denial. You lie, or you keep details out of the picture, hoping that what she does not know will not hurt her further. The problem is that she usually already knows, or will figure it out, and now you have added "lying about it" on top of the original betrayal. The recovery clock has to reset. The second is more subtle. You do not lie. You try to talk her out of her feelings. "It was not as bad as you think." "It only happened a few times." "She did not mean anything to me." You think you are helping by making it smaller. She hears, "He still does not get how much he hurt me," which is the opposite of safety. The third is blame-shifting. Maybe you let slip that if she had been more available, or more affectionate, or less critical, things would not have happened. Even if there is some truth in the marital dynamic that preceded the betrayal, this is not the time. She is too vulnerable right now to weigh her contribution to a marriage you were not honest about. There may be a place for that conversation later, in therapy, when she has stabilized. Right now, raising it sounds like you are looking for an exit ramp from responsibility. Admitting guilt without hedging means owning the full extent of what you did, the way you would describe it if her best friend asked, not the way you would describe it to a sympathetic lawyer. It also means letting go of the impulse to compare yourself to other betrayers. "At least I did not do what so-and-so did" is a comparison your spouse is not going to find comforting. The gravity of your betrayal is determined by what it did to her, not by where it ranks on a hypothetical scale. How She Knows It Will Not Happen Again The thing she is unconsciously scanning for, in every conversation, is evidence that you have integrated what happened. When you own your guilt without hedging, you communicate something her body can actually use: I see this. I see what I did. I see the impact. A person who can see all of that clearly is much less likely to repeat the behavior than a person who is still bargaining with the size of it. That is the function of the unhedged apology. It is not performance. It is not penance. It is information. It tells her that the part of you that did this is being looked at, not protected. And steer clear of the cheap apologies that look like apologies but are not: "I'm sorry you feel that way" puts the problem in her feelings. "If I hurt you, I apologize" makes the hurt conditional. "I already said I was sorry" claims completion she has not had a chance to confirm. Each of those is the pacifier doing its work for you, not for her. Step 2: Demonstrate Remorse, Not Self-Pity Admitting guilt is the seeing-and-saying part. You look at what you did, and you say it without trimming the edges. Remorse is the feeling-it part. Remorse is, in the words of one researcher, "the transgressor's distress over the effect of their misbehavior."[1] Guilt says, "I did this." Remorse says, "I see what this did to you, and I feel it." This is the part of the work that is hardest to fake and hardest to push through, because remorse asks you to reconnect two things you had to separate in order to do the betrayal in the first place. To act out, you had to disconnect the desire for whatever you went looking for from the consequence for the person sleeping next to you. Those wires got cut. Remorse is the rewiring. It is what happens when you let yourself sit, really sit, in the impact you had on her, and feel the natural response that follows. You cannot rush this. You also cannot manufacture it. But you can stop blocking it. The most common block is the impulse to turn the conversation toward your own pain. Do Not Play the Victim Your pain is real. The shame, the loss of your own sense of yourself as a good person, the fear that your marriage might not survive: all of it is real. But when the conversation is about her wound, your pain cannot become the center of the room. When you collapse into self-pity in a conversation about her wound, you put her in the position of comforting you for hurting her. That is not a position any betrayed spouse can be in and also heal....

Male Privilege in Marriage Jun 12, 2019

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These days, it’s difficult to have an open conversation about privilege because it has become such a hot button political issue. But if we can take a step back from political agendas, we can see that there is quite a lot of research that shows the reality of privilege and its impact on marriages. So here, there will be no accusatory fingers, no tearing down of the idea of being men. Taking a look at research-based observations on the reality of male privilege will help husbands empower both themselves and their wives in their marriages. Privilege Explained In general, privilege is an advantage that a person or a group has that others may not. Sometimes, this can be situational. For example, by being the most attractive person in the room, you may enjoy the privilege of being given the most attention. This situational privilege comes and goes depending on your specific context. However, privilege also can be constant, or at least more long-term. By having a certain wealth, citizenship, race, and/or gender, you are afforded certain benefits wherever you go that others without those advantages do not. There is nothing wrong with having privilege! Being born into a specific context does not make you a better or worse person. However, we do need to be aware of our privilege. We need to acknowledge its presence in our experience. One way to look at it would be like how people look at biases and opinions. If someone says that they have an unbiased opinion, you know that this is impossible. Since everyone has certain biases, a more honest approach would be sharing an opinion while acknowledging the biases involved. Similarly, you can have better relationships and conversations when you recognize that others do not have the same privilege as you do. By not recognizing those privileges, you might unwittingly leverage them to your personal gain or even exert dominance. You can better love your neighbor when you can see where you have advantages that they do not and use those advantages for their benefit. Acknowledging privilege can often be difficult because it requires humility. It means realizing that some of your advantages may not be fully earned due to merit, which can be quite hard to admit. But in doing so, you can learn to esteem others better than yourself and reduce the risk of mishandling the privilege that you carry. To bring this concept into the real world, let’s look at what it means for a husband and a wife to be preparing for church or simply going out. Typically, the husband doesn’t have to be worrying about a whole lot when he’s getting ready. However, the wife is much more likely to consciously worry about how she looks: both in terms of feeling that her beauty and her modesty may be evaluated at church. A husband’s frustration with the amount of time required for his wife to get ready in this context is a reflection of the fact that there are different societal expectations based on gender. You tap your feet impatiently, wondering why your wife is spending so much time “unnecessarily”. Why does she need to bother with makeup or spending so much time on her hair? This is an example of male privilege: the husband has the benefit of lower expectations being placed on him. One of the key goals of talking about privilege is to become aware of it. This will help you understand your wife better and extend empathy to her rather than getting frustrated with her for taking the time to deal with things you don’t need to think about. Understanding Male Privilege Generally You can’t help being born as a man or a woman. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the way you experience the world is shaped by your gender. This ranges from physical and biological differences (e.g. typically higher levels of testosterone and greater physical strength) to social differences in priorities, values, and concerns. One researcher observed that the world has generally been shaped to cater to men’s interests since historically, women’s roles have been restricted to the home. This leads to several privileges in society: Men are more likely to be seen as having or being worthy of authority. Men are less likely to attract unwanted attention or criticism to their bodies. Men’s age tends to be less of an issue than it is with women. And if these privileges aren’t things you have noticed before, that in itself is a type of privilege. Men are afforded the advantage of not being required to have a certain level of self-consciousness. Women, on the other hand, are forced to be more self-conscious and concerned about their position and place in the world. Again, this is a large factor for why women have to worry about how they appear in public. Another place this exhibits itself is in visiting a mechanic for car repairs. Yes, as a man, you might be concerned that the mechanic might be trying to rip you off because he’s a crook. But in the exact same scenario, your wife will also have to worry about being ripped off for being a woman. What if the mechanic, seeing her as a woman, considers her to be an easier target? This is a privilege that men have that women do not. Or what about when it comes to personal safety? Many men wouldn’t think twice about walking around by themselves at night. But women experience far more fear in these situations than men do. If you don’t have to worry, or if you have to worry less because you are a man, then that is a privilege you experience. Because of its fit with dominant social norms, male privilege often appears invisible, even to itself. Thus male privilege can seem… fit with respect to health, adult with respect to age, traditionless with respect to ethnicity, colorless with respect to race … whereas women often feel acutely aware of their distinctive social position, men can often find it difficult to distinguish their own social features, because they see it as the norm. Like with many things people take for granted, men typically do not see their own privilege. It’s only when specific factors are different (e.g. gender) that people are forced to be aware of their lack of privilege. Once again, it’s not wrong to have privilege, to be a male. But it becomes wrong if you use that privilege selfishly or presumptuously, whether you are aware of that privilege or not. Male Privilege in Marriage Now that you have a better understanding of male privilege in general, it’s time to see how male privilege shows up in your relationship with your wife. 1. Power Balance It might seem counterintuitive, but more men are starting to see themselves as the subordinate party in their relationship. While you might think that male privilege should lead to more power in relationships, that isn’t actually always the case. Often, if women take more dominant roles in marriage, the effect on men is not as strong as you might imagine. Despite experiencing less dominance at home, men typically experience power and privilege elsewhere. However, for women, a loving marriage might be the only place available to them to restore self-esteem and empowerment by becoming more dominant. This is especially true for women that are members of social groups that have historically received poor treatment. This overlap of privileges and/or disadvantages is commonly referred to as intersectionality. Essentially, the disadvantages of being a woman in society are compounded other disadvantages, such as those experienced by people with disabilities, immigrants, people of color, or low-income communities. If you see your wife employing dominance at home to feel empowered in general, you should try to see this larger reality of her life. While you might feel personally affected by her overbearing attitude, realize that it may not even be about you. There might be other areas of her life where she feels powerless. Use this opportunity to ask about areas in her life where she feels overlooked or not in control. Your goal here is to help her empower her generally in life, not to reestablish dominance as a man in your relationship (this too is privilege!). As a husband, you want your wife to feel respected and empowered not just at home, but in all aspects of her life. Please note that this is not necessarily true in all situations, nor is it the whole picture of what is happening. But you do need to be aware that it is an influence, one that affects the balance of your marriage dynamics. If you have privilege, you can bestow it on others. And you should. This is not an act of belittlement because you are better than her, but it’s realizing that you intrinsically receive things simply by being born as a male. And by sharing that privilege with your wife, you help bring equity and fairness into your marriage. 2. Perceptions of Vulnerability Male privilege also comes to bear in what you fear in your marriage. Of course, both of you can experience great anxiety over the possibility of losing the other. However, in most marriages, the husband only has to be focused on the loss of their wife. Their wife, on the other hand, might have to be concerned about her future livelihood. Because men typically inhabit the role of active provider, women in marriage often have to deal with the added fear of losing their security. These added layers of concern and vulnerability around issues of power and advantage mean that you do need to be careful how you talk about certain things. For example, men can joke in certain ways about gender that their wife can’t make back. And not just that, but she has to consider other layers of effects that the husband might not in marriage. Like how society might perceive her as being nagging, or how her husband might feel his authority was being undercut, etc. ...

How to Forgive Betrayal in Marriage: A Step-by-Step Guide Jun 05, 2019

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Can you forgive betrayal in marriage? Yes. But not the way most people think. Forgiveness after betrayal is not a single decision you make and then feel better. It is a process that unfolds over weeks and months, often painfully, as you move from the grip of anger and grief toward something you might not be able to imagine right now: compassion for the person who hurt you most. If your spouse has betrayed you, whether through an affair, pornography use, emotional infidelity, or another deep breach of trust, the pain you are carrying is real. It is not something you need to rush past. Forgiveness does not mean pretending the hurt did not happen. It does not mean your spouse is off the hook. And it does not mean you have to stay in the marriage. What it means is that, when you are ready, you can begin to loosen the hold that anger, resentment, and grief have on your life so that the betrayal no longer defines you. We see couples in our practice every week who are navigating this exact question. Some arrive convinced they will never be able to forgive. Others arrive wanting to forgive immediately, hoping it will make the pain stop. Both positions are understandable, and both need to be challenged gently. The path to genuine forgiveness lives somewhere in between, and it starts with understanding what forgiveness actually requires of you. What Forgiveness After Betrayal Really Means Forgiveness is more than a single decision, particularly when you are dealing with deep hurt. It is a journey of many steps, a process filled with difficult and sometimes painful choices. The process of forgiveness is what brings you from feelings of ill will, revenge, punishment, avoidance, or hatred toward a sense of what researchers call “benevolent emotion” toward the person who wronged you. You know that you have genuinely forgiven when you are able to have warm, kind thoughts about the person who hurt you. When you can make the shift from negative feelings about your spouse to something more balanced, more whole. That will not happen all at once. As you forgive, you will still feel angry and hurt even as you start to build that benevolent emotion toward them. This is normal. This is the process. And this forgiveness is something you need. Your mental health needs it. Your marriage, if you choose to rebuild it, needs it. In order for you to be healthy, you need to move toward forgiveness. Not the day after a betrayal. Not the week after. You need time to vent your anger, to grieve, to understand what happened before you can even begin this work. Depending on the severity of the betrayal, this might take weeks or months. That is completely okay. But when you are in a place where you are ready to begin, and when you are in a safer place where the betrayal is no longer ongoing, you will find it is time to take that first step. How to Forgive Betrayal in Marriage: The Four Reframes One of the reasons that forgiveness of a grave offense is so difficult is that it involves reframing. You will need to take a close look at the betrayal, your spouse, yourself, and then your marriage from a more complete perspective. Not a more positive perspective, necessarily. A more honest one. This is hard work, and it takes time. But it is the road that leads to freedom. 1. Reframe the Action The first difficult step in the process is reframing what your spouse did to you. This means looking at what happened through a lens of empathy, which will help you toward forgiveness by lessening the intensity of the anger and blame you feel. Let us be clear about what empathy does not mean here. Empathy does not mean excusing what your spouse did. It does not mean their choices were acceptable. It does not mean you are minimizing the damage. What empathy means in this context is stepping back far enough to see the bigger picture of what was happening in your spouse’s life, their emotional state, their history, and the vulnerabilities that contributed to their terrible decision. In our practice, we often walk clients through this distinction carefully. One of the most common fears we hear is: “If I try to understand why they did it, doesn’t that let them off the hook?” No. Understanding why something happened is not the same as saying it was okay. A therapist working within attachment theory would frame it this way: your spouse’s behavior came from somewhere. It did not appear out of nothing. Understanding the “where” does not excuse the “what,” but it gives you information you need to decide what happens next. When you are able to understand the how and the why of the betrayal, you are able to gain a more objective perspective. And as a result of reframing their action, you will start to experience relief from the feelings of anger and rage that may have been consuming you. 2. Reframe How You Feel About Your Spouse When you have been betrayed in marriage, your attention naturally locks onto the hurt. The pain fills the entire frame. This is why the first reframe matters: when you can begin to see the action in context, it also starts to change how you feel about the person. By reframing, you begin to restore balance in your feelings about your spouse. There is far more to who your spouse is than the wrong they did to you. By seeing the bigger picture, you can start to look past the hurt and see the whole person again. Not immediately. Not easily. But gradually. Once you have processed the initial wave of grief and started to reframe your feelings, you can begin to remember and reflect on the good things about your spouse. The qualities that drew you to them. The moments that mattered. And by taking those into account alongside the betrayal, you will start to rebuild a more complete picture. You might be afraid to do this. Opening yourself up to warm feelings can make you feel vulnerable to being betrayed again. Or you might worry that reframing communicates to your spouse that what they did was acceptable. Sometimes choosing not to forgive, choosing not to reframe, functions as a safety mechanism to protect yourself from being hurt again. This is where a trained counselor can make a real difference. In couples counseling, we help the betrayed spouse identify the difference between emotional vulnerability and emotional danger. Feeling vulnerable is part of healing. Being in actual danger, where the betrayal is ongoing or your spouse refuses accountability, is a different situation entirely. In the first case, the reframe helps. In the second, it is premature. 3. Reframe How You See Yourself When you have been hurt, the voice in your head that screams “how could they do this to me?” can drown out everything else. The indignation feels righteous. You can begin to move into a place where your identity becomes entirely wrapped up in being the wronged party, the victim, the one who would never do something like this. We want to be gentle here, because this is the most delicate of the four reframes. As you begin the healing process, it helps to remember that you, the offended spouse, have also done things in your life that have required forgiveness from others. Not the same things. Not of the same magnitude. But you have wanted and needed grace, too. When you remember that, you begin to reframe how you view yourself. You start to see yourself as more than just a victim. You see yourself as a full human being who has both given and received forgiveness before. This is not about moral equivalence. Your spouse’s betrayal is not the same as you forgetting an anniversary or losing your temper. The point is not to equalize the offenses. The point is to access the part of yourself that understands what it feels like to need forgiveness, because that part of you is the part that can eventually extend it. Clinically, we see that people who remain locked in the identity of “the wronged one” for too long often struggle to move forward, even when the rest of the healing work is going well. The identity of being betrayed becomes a kind of prison of its own. Reframing how you see yourself is the key that opens that door. 4. Reframe the Dynamic of Your Marriage The final reframe is the hardest of them all. It requires you to have gone through the previous three, because you will build on what you have learned from each of them. In taking stock of the situation after a betrayal, you will need to examine the behavior and attitude changes your marriage must undergo to prevent this from happening again. Your spouse will need to see how and why they came to a place where they would betray you. That is their work, and it is non-negotiable. But here is the part that is extremely difficult to hear: you will also need to take stock of the ways the marriage dynamic as a whole contributed to an environment where this offense became possible. This does not mean the betrayal was your fault. It was not. The person who betrayed you made a choice, and that choice belongs to them. What it does mean is that a marriage is a system. And systems have patterns. In Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), we look at the negative interaction cycle that a couple has built over time, the ways they have learned to protect themselves from each other that inadvertently push the other away. Understanding that cycle is not about blame. It is about building something different going forward. A large part of this fourth reframe is reminding yourself that the two of you are a team in rebuilding. By seeing that the one who hurt you is actually on your side in the repair work, you will find it easier to forgive them than if you continue to see them as an outsider in your own marriage. Start small. Go for groceries together. Plan a family outing. Find a way to serve in your community together. As you take small steps as a team, you begin to build a new sense of togetherness and partnership that you may not have had before. It may feel awkward....

Why Your Husband Can’t Hear You During Conflict May 29, 2019

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So you’re trying to have a serious conversation with your spouse, but it doesn’t seem to be working. They aren’t answering the questions you ask. Instead, they seem to be ignoring you or shutting you out. And that just gets you even more upset. Don’t they care? It’s easy to take these situations personally, to assume that these actions are deliberate. But what if it wasn’t? When you conflict with your spouse, something interesting happens inside of both of you that inhibits your ability to hear or even to remember what is said. What’s Happening on the Inside? To properly understand what is going on when your spouse appears to be shutting down or shutting you out during marital conflict, you need a quick primer on the nervous system. Your central nervous system (CNS) is a collection of nerves and cells that connects your brain and spinal cord to the rest of your body, allowing signals and messages to be transmitted back and forth. Always on, it enables you to control your bodily functions, most of which are subconscious. By not having to concentrate on things like your heartbeat or digestion, this frees you up to focus on higher level tasks. You can work, exercise, watch movies, or talk with others. Since the CNS handles the plethora of unconscious tasks in your body, you can focus on the conscious challenges. When Stress Happens In the event of a stressful situation, the CNS responds, affecting you on both conscious and subconscious levels. Based on the severity of the threat, it begins to override every other priority that you have at the moment. This strong response is designed to protect you from potential danger. If you encountered a wolf as you walked in the local park, your CNS response would allow you to quickly stop worrying about what’s for dinner and instead focus on not becoming dinner. These responses can range from moderate to extreme, depending on the situation. Extreme responses are usually given for extreme situations when you are in clear, imminent danger.[1] In these cases, your CNS might shut down enough body functions that you flee, collapse, faint, or dissociate from the experience. Our primal desire to stay alive is more important to our body than even our ability to think about staying alive [or to think about much else, for that matter].[2] While marital conflict does not typically trigger this extreme reaction, it still is common for conflict to trigger a notable CNS response. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you feel that your spouse is a threat to you. However, if they are upset with you, then your safety in your marriage is at risk. Because safety is at risk, your CNS triggers alarm bells to try to protect that safety. When you have a serious conflict with the most important person in your life, your body registers this as a significant emergency. It activates all of the fight or flight tools for survival like increased heart rate, respiration, and cortisol. And worse yet, it decreases your ability to reason, ironically making it more challenging to deal with the conflict at hand. What Really Happens When You Fight Another issue with this response is that it is most concerned with self-preservation. When you are fighting with your spouse, you need to focus on preserving your marriage, not yourself. Please note that this is about typical marital conflicts, not situations of spousal abuse when you do need to be focusing on self-preservation. When your nervous system is activated, your thought patterns do not run the same way they do when you are calm. Your CNS response makes it more challenging to be open and engaged, making it more difficult to exchange information and affection. It affects nearly every single organ in your body. Your body starts to release hormones like adrenaline. Your mind becomes hyper-aware of your environment. Your heart begins to race, and you might even start to sweat. Your fight or flight system activates, pushing you to be aggressive and defensive towards your spouse (fight) or else pushing you to walk away or shut out the threat (flight). If you can stay in a calm state, you will more emotionally open, more facially expressive, and better at listening to and understanding each other.[3] These all are essential tools to connect and solve problems together. And if you both are calm, you help each other by showing affection and affirming the safety and security of your marriage. However, your own CNS tends to fight this, acting directly against the tools you need to tackle the situation together. Hearing Interestingly, your body reduces your ability to listen while under stress. Your CNS filters out the range of sound in which human voices fall. It does this to heighten your ability to detect threats you would expect in a survival scenario. Your nervous system forces you to focus on strange or unusual sounds like a twig snapping in the forest or shoe scraping on cement. Your nervous system is trying to help you survive, but in a marital conflict, it ends up inhibiting your ability to hear each other. It doesn’t mean that either of you wants to stop listening, only that your bodies are making it more challenging to do so. Reasoning In these situations, your body even compromises your ability to reason well.[4] Sometimes when you or your spouse are in an argument, one of you might say something out of character. You might jump to ridiculous or extreme conclusions, reacting with irrational fears that don’t make sense when you are in a calmer state. Again, your nervous system is trying to help you survive. Heightened emotional responses and logical leaps are meant to help you get out of harm’s way, but in the context of marital conflict, they only make the situation worse. Memory Affecting more than just reasoning, your CNS also has been found to respond to stress by affecting your ability to create narrative memory.[5] After an argument, you or your spouse might only remember bits and pieces. You might have a difficult time tracing back the course of the argument or understanding why you were fighting in the first place. This is why it is so crucial to be able to learn how to return to a state of calm. You will not only be better able to deal with the conflict in the present, but you will also remember and learn more from the experience in the future. Calming Your Central Nervous System in Conflict It’s important to reiterate that the very reason why your survival mechanisms kick in during marital conflict is that they are incredibly important to you. Even though your CNS may not actually be helping you, it is responding because you instinctively know that your marriage is in danger. So what is the best way to manage this response? Researchers have found that the best way to adapt to stressful circumstances is through the practice of emotional regulation.[6] By doing things that reduce your vulnerability to unwanted feelings, you prepare yourself for stressful situations. This will help to reverse the effect that your nervous system has on your body, allowing you to return to a calmer mindset. And this, in turn, will allow you to be more aware and present, better equipped to deal with the situation at hand. Calm Your Body Again, the relationship the CNS has with the body works both ways. While stress can trigger your CNS to tell your body to behave in certain ways, certain behaviors can signal to your CNS that you are no longer in danger. In this way, you communicate through your body to your nervous system that the stress response is no longer necessary. Breathe A stress response will typically cause you to accelerate your breathing involuntarily. Researchers have found that when people who have post-traumatic stress disorder breathe mindfully and meditate, they can reduce their stress and anxiety levels. While not everyone has PTSD, the principle remains the same. When you are in a stressful situation, such as arguing with your spouse, start by breathing slowly and deeply. By consciously controlling your breathing, you are telling your CNS that it can calm down. Visualize Your nervous system’s response to stress involves pushing you to escape or fight your way to a safer place. So if you can picture yourself in a peaceful place, you can “hack” your CNS, signaling to it that you’re no longer in the dangerous situation anymore. So perhaps revisit a favorite childhood memory, or visualize sunbathing at the beach. Just try to think of a specific time and place that will help you calm down, and your body will begin to relax. Of course, you need to tell with your spouse what you are doing. Otherwise, they may think that you are just checking out, or that you don’t consider this issue to be important enough to focus on. Let them know that you are taking a moment to calm down your body because you believe that the discussion is important enough to require your full attention. Move Because your CNS has locked down so many processes, you need to reestablish your connection with your body. As a result, it is common to hear of people going for a walk to clear their heads. And while a marital conflict is not always the best time to go for a walk, at the same time slow and mindful movements can help you reconnect your body with your mind.[7] Again, just be sure to tell your spouse you’re doing this so you can reconnect -- not so that you can disconnect. Calm Your Mind Physical activities are not the only method to push back on your nervous system’s stress response. There are several psychological techniques that will enable you to diffuse a high-stress situation with your spouse. Reframe Researchers know that the way you perceive the nature of the source

How Empathy Deepens Intimacy May 22, 2019

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There are few things more discouraging than coming to your spouse with something exciting to share and being met with a blank stare. Or saying what a disappointing day you’ve had and being told to be more positive. In relationships, you want to be understood. You want your spouse to feel what you feel, to validate the experiences that you’re having. It can be devastating when that doesn’t happen. But if you’re able to cultivate empathy, you will be able to find more stability and intimacy in your marriage. What is Empathy? More than simply hearing someone else, empathy is about being able to take on their perspective almost as if it were your own.[1],[2] You can stand in their shoes and see the world through their lens. It’s about being able to fully understand what a situation is like for someone else.[3] It’s not enough to feel sorry for the other person. Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Experiencing empathy is telling them that you can feel their pain and understand why they feel it, not merely feeling sorry that they are in pain. Showing empathy in this way validates their experience, telling them that it’s understandable to feel this way. Empathy doesn’t necessarily require you to agree with the other’s perspective. If your spouse is furious with how a friend treated them, showing empathy doesn’t mean you have to be angry at their friend. But it does mean being willing to listen and understand the reasons for their anger. It means acknowledging that it makes sense they would be upset. It can be challenging to feel the ups and downs of another your spouse’s experience. But if you take the time to hear them out and put yourself in their shoes, you can offer them something valuable: being seen and understood. Why Should You Empathize? In marriage, empathy brings a broad range of benefits to the table.[4] Being able to show empathy to your spouse is a big part of being able to have a well-adjusted and stable relationship. When you can understand their perspective, you will be able to better adjust to married life, reducing the possibility of divorce. Empathy is a skill that you develop, and some marriage counselors even suggest empathy training for newlywed couples. For some, it comes naturally, but training can help individuals be more understanding despite not learning this skill as children or even as adults. And everyone can benefit from further developing empathy, as it provides new and more profound ways to communicate and interact. Research shows that becoming better at expressing empathetic understanding often leads to improved relationship satisfaction. After all, feeling understood meets a deep need that can’t be found anywhere else. How Can You Build Empathy? There are three primary building blocks to help expand in your capacity for empathy:[5] 1. Honesty To see things from your spouse’s perspective, they first have to be able to share it with you. If you want your spouse to understand you, you need to be open and willing to share your perspective with them. Looking for your spouse to feel what you feel? You have to be honest about how you’re feeling. So dishonesty gets in the way of allowing yourself or your spouse to extend empathy. Sometimes it creeps in for genuine reasons. You might want to protect your spouse from the stress of your work life, so you choose to say that you’re okay after you come home. But you need the courage and willingness to expose even the most carefully hidden parts of you to your spouse. If you want to have a deeper relationship, you need to be honest and vulnerable enough to share everything with your spouse, not just the easy stuff. 2. Compassion While similar to sympathy, which was defined above, compassion goes beyond just feeling bad for someone. It’s about genuinely seeking to understand for the sake of helping the other. Compassion helps to develop your empathy because it provides a caring motivation for doing so. When you can feel for your spouse, you will be able to start feeling with them. When you emotionally engage with and respond to what your spouse is feeling, you provide a fantastic way to have experience intimacy with one another. 3. Equity One of the reasons to contrast empathy with sympathy is that sympathy can easily lead you to assume that you know better. When your spouse comes crying to you, it’s easy to think that they are only feeling this way because they don’t have the insight that you do in the situation. And somehow it’s up to you to educate them how to react correctly to their situation. However, this assumption actually keeps you from feeling what they feel. If you don’t treat them with the same level of respect as you treat yourself, you will dismiss their perspective instead of understanding it. Equity is about being fair and impartial. Your spouse deserves someone able to listen and show empathy as an equal, and when you are that person for them, you help build a deeper relationship. My Spouse Can’t Do Empathy! So what are you supposed to do if you can’t see any capacity for empathy from your spouse? You need to remember that empathy is developed. Maybe in their home growing up, that wasn’t a value that was encouraged. Perhaps empathy wasn’t something offered to them, so they never learned how to be empathetic. Certain personality disorders can make it difficult to show empathy, but it’s quite rare for a person to be completely unable to show empathy. Only sociopaths and psychopaths are like this. So odds are that your spouse just needs to learn how to develop her empathy skills. Or, what happens when your spouse is more empathetic to others than to you? It’s understandable to feel offended at this, but it’s possible that this doesn’t mean they value others more than you. Researchers have found that some people have learned to express empathy in specific contexts and relationships more than in others.[6] Rather than assuming to know why they do this, see it as a chance to show some curiosity and build empathy with them. Try to find out why they show empathy in some situations and not in others. In discovering this, you can better understand them as you help them better understand you. Instead of assuming that they can’t or that they refuse to show empathy to you, take the opportunity to help them do a better job of expressing empathy in your marriage. By doing this, you will help build intimacy together. How to Empathize for Deeper Intimacy Now that you know the foundation and broad strokes of empathy and its relationship with intimacy, here are three tangible strategies to apply in your marriage: 1. Focus on Your Spouse You need to show through actions that you truly believe that it’s not all about you. It’s not just an external signifier, as you do need to internalize this. But your spouse needs to see you demonstrate this behavior. To achieve this, you actually will have to temporarily put your own ideas and feelings on hold.[7] As you do this, you will be building a relationship where your spouse will begin to reciprocate, giving you the time and space to share your ideas and feelings as well. For example, what do you do when they tell you a story about how crazy their day was? Do you counter with how much more insane your day was? Or do you listen and ask questions, affirming them as you show them understanding and empathy? Remember that you need to focus on your spouse. As much as you want to talk about your own experience, you need to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your spouse. If you use their opening up and sharing of their lives as a chance to talk about yourself, they might give up. They won’t feel listened to, and you’ll lose an opportunity to deepen your intimacy through empathy. But if you take the time to hear them out and validate their feelings and experience, they will feel loved and acknowledged. And maybe that will open up a perfect time for you to share the craziness of your own day. Just as long as you remember that it’s not all about you. 2. Listen To Understand A major pitfall when you start trying to listen to your spouse is listening in order to respond. You may have the perfect response or illustration for the conversation; you’re just waiting for the opening. But listening to respond isn’t actually listening. When you do this, you miss out on important moments in your conversation. You miss out on the core needs of your spouse. They might be desperate to hear affirmation, but you’re so focused on what you have to say that you miss out on meeting their need. If, however, you listen to understand, you will achieve what’s called “shared meaning”.[8] This happens when you both realize you understand what your spouse said in the way that they intended for you to understand it. This can be such a difficult thing to accomplish that it’s no wonder it doesn’t happen when you listen to respond! But if you listen to understand, you will be able to enter into their experience empathically and you will create shared meaning. And when you feel their frustration, their joy, their sorrow as they do, you discover something beautiful. Each other. Through this shared meaning, you see your loved one and know them intimately, and your spouse knows this is happening. 3. Pay Attention Time is precious. In a world that demands your attention, the focus that you place on your spouse is invaluable. Don’t let yourself be distracted by the news, the notifications on your phone, or your Facebook feed. Look at them when they are sharing with you. What do they look like? Are they relaxed or agitated? Are they maintaining eye contact or looking away frequently?...

How Curiosity Deepens Intimacy May 15, 2019

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So there you are, carrying on with your day as usual when for some reason, your spouse does something completely unexpected. You have two options at this point. You could make an assumption based on previous experience, or you can choose to investigate further to find out something new. Making an assumption is generally more comfortable, but it represents a missed opportunity to get closer to your spouse. When confronted with the unexpected, curiosity can push you into areas of discovery that will deepen intimacy in your marriage. What Is Curiosity? Curiosity is the desire to learn new things, bridging the gap between what you know and what you want to know.[1] If irreducibility is the idea that your spouse is infinitely complex, curiosity is the drive that pushes you to continue your quest to know them. Typically, curiosity leads to a sense of resolution as you find something new. That discovery satiates you, and you move on. Not so with marriage. In some ways, curiosity is like sex. When you have physical intimacy with your spouse, there is a resolution to your lovemaking but that resolution is never finally satiated. You will want more. Curiosity allows you to seek and discover new things about each other continually. When you find out something new, it is satisfying but that does mean the discovery of all there is to learn about your spouse is complete. There’s always more! And so curiosity and irreducibility provide a cycle that repeats itself over and over. Curiosity seeks new information that irreducibility provides, discovers it, and then provides a feeling of resolve when you learn something new.[2] And so curiosity pulls you into a grand, lifelong chase of exploring your spouse, always pushing you towards the next revelation. How Does Curiosity Affect Intimacy? Knowing the different ways that curiosity affects intimacy will help paint a picture of how you can apply curiosity in your marriage. Here are five ways that curiosity works to deepen intimacy: 1. Curiosity Leads to Deeper Understanding of One Another As the saying goes, closed mouths don’t get fed. You can’t learn about your spouse if you do not allow yourself to.[3] Curiosity supplies the drive to discover new revelations, creating the opportunity to build understanding in your marriage. That understanding is critical to finding acceptance in each other. For example, when your spouse does something that agitates you, without enough information, you will tend to make up your own explanation. And in a distressed marriage, confirmation bias will often influence you to assume the worst. Curiosity provides a healthier response. When confronted with something you don’t understand, curiosity helps you constructively seek to understand what is happening for your spouse. Doing this allows you to improve your relationship instead of making assumptions that inhibit growth. 2. Curiosity Helps Both of You Grow When you ask your spouse questions, you allow them to share things with you. When they choose to share, and you listen to them, a process begins called self-expansion. Essentially, this is the process of growing and learning from the things your spouse shares with you. When we are in a relationship that offers self-expansion opportunities, besides feeling closer to our partner, we become linked to them—their qualities become part of us. Several studies show that greater self-expansion corresponds to greater relationship satisfaction and commitment.[4] Self-expansion helps you to grow through what your curiosity uncovers about your spouse. In a way, their strengths, ideas, and resources become yours as well. When you witness your spouse showing growth you didn’t see before, that encourages you to grow in that area as well. As curiosity helps you grow, you become more fulfilled in and committed to your marriage. Because you are now working as one unit. Curiosity and self-expansion mean that when one of you grows, both do. 3. Curiosity Makes You More Open To Your Spouse When you are engrossed in your own world, filled solely with your thoughts, ideas, and desires, your perspective becomes close-minded. Because you aren’t opening yourself up to your spouse, you won’t be able to understand or grow together. However, curiosity does the opposite.[5] It shifts your perspective outside of yourself. And the stronger your curiosity, the higher your levels of openness.[6] When you choose to learn about your spouse, you choose to open your heart and to engage with whatever may come.[7] That openness gives you and your spouse a safe place to share. By being open, your spouse can feel secure knowing that you won’t judge them. And as you both open up to each other, you can speak honestly from the heart. In this way, curiosity enables you to grow your intimacy with one another. 4. Curiosity Make You More Adaptable As you each become less close-minded, curiosity also helps you both respond to and engage with the challenges you face. Higher levels of curiosity have been linked with adaptability and proactiveness.[8] As a result, you will be better equipped to handle changes and difficulties in your marital life. Rather than fearing change, curiosity gives you the confidence and the tools to respond to new information. No matter what the changes mean, you will be ready. And as you stand together to face the challenges ahead, your intimacy grows. Because you know that whatever life brings you, you will be able to survive and thrive, together. 5. Curiosity Encourages Acceptance If you don’t learn to adapt, you learn to fear uncertainty. Without curiosity, you only think from your perspective, relying on assumptions, expectations, or initial impressions of situations instead of investigating further. Researchers have found that doing this leads to premature conclusions and reliance on stereotypes.[9] This line of reasoning will often lead you to conclusions that aren’t supported by facts. Curiosity fights this by helping you unearth what’s really happening. Instead of jumping to conclusions, through curiosity, you will find the space to connect and find common ground. You can move past your often negative gut response to find understanding. Curious people show a strong tendency to engage in tension-producing situations that offer self-expansion opportunities … When profoundly aware and curious, a person is able to be responsive to the disclosures of other people and enjoy this intimacy generation process regardless of any negative thoughts and emotions.[10] When your spouse does the unexpected, choose curiosity. Seek to understand rather than to assume. Take advantage of this chance to reach out with love, acceptance, and compassion. We Already Know Everything About Each Other! As mentioned in our previous post about irreducibility, it’s impossible for you to know everything about yourself, much less your spouse. And even if it were possible to know everything at one moment, you and your spouse are always growing and developing. There’s still something new to know. One great thing about curiosity is that it breeds interest. Scholars have found that even in situations that are not inherently engaging, curious people can generate interest on their own.[11] So even if your marriage might seem a little boring, curiosity can revitalize it and bring excitement. For example, have you found yourself stuck doing small talk with a stranger? You ask the standard questions out of politeness when “Bam!” They say something that grabs your attention. Suddenly, you’re engaged in a new exchange that you were not expecting. You need to look for that subtle flicker in conversations with your spouse. It’s smoldering there under the surface, but with a little air, a little interest, sparks will fly. If you pay attention and let curiosity guide you, you’ll always find ways to bring that fire back to life. So How Do I “Do” Curiosity? There is no one way to be curious, but there are some ways to use it intentionally to increase intimacy in your marriage: Be open to receiving. Keep your mind and heart open to hear from your spouse. Be ready for anything. Asking questions can reveal more than you were expecting.[12] You will find complex answers that might raise even more questions. But life is like that, so you will need to… Embrace uncertainty. Be ready to adapt to whatever comes your way as a result of curiosity. Try to listen impartially without allowing your assumptions get in the way of the experience. Curiosity will open up situations that you didn’t expect, and rather than sticking with what you expected, embrace and adapt to what you find. Be a learner, not a student. Be a learner, not a student. Remember that it’s not about finding the answer. It’s about a lifelong process of learning, not a finite end-goal.[13] If learning is your goal, you will find that you can achieve it every single time. When you adopt a mindset that tries to learn in every situation, you will always manage to remain curious. References [1] Mussel, P. (2013). "Introducing the Construct Curiosity for Predicting Job Performance." Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(4), 453-472. Retrieved from Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/23464120. [2] Mussel, P. (2013). "Introducing the Construct Curiosity for Predicting Job Performance." Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(4), 453-472. Retrieved from Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/23464120. [3] Mussel, P. (2013). "Introducing the Construct Curiosity for Predicting Job Performance." Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(4), 453-472. Retrieved from Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/23464120. [4] Rose, Paul (last), Fincham, Frank, McKnight, Patrick, and Kashdan, Todd....

How Irreducibility Deepens Intimacy in Marriage May 08, 2019

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How can your marriage work when the two of you are so wildly different? At the start of your marriage, it’s easy to overlook those differences. But the more you get to know your spouse, the more you realize that they are a totally distinct person from you. While that can be overwhelming or even unexpected, this is an incredible step towards developing intimacy. Learning to appreciate and explore the mystery of the individual you are married to will help you grow closer to one another. Irreducibility and Autonomy Build Intimacy The first step, while perhaps a little tedious, is to define terms. Irreducibility and autonomy are critical psychological concepts to nail down. Once you see what each means, you will see how crucial they are as you work to build a marriage together. Autonomy in Marriage You and your spouse are separate people. And autonomy means that you each have the ability and the right to govern yourself [1]. Each of you can be independent and complete without the other. This might seem to contradict how you might see marriage portrayed. Some of the most romantic quotes from movies (e.g. “you complete me”) can give the impression that we are incomplete without the other. This isn’t the case; you are absolutely capable of existing apart from your partner. Marriage is choosing to become interdependent, to become one, not surrendering the capacity to be independent altogether. Understanding this will protect you against psychological abuse that says that you can’t live without your partner or that says you are nothing without them. Autonomy in marriage means that no matter what, you and your spouse are two individuals with the ability to make choices independent from each other (even though you have chosen to live inside the union of marriage). Irreducibility in Marriage Knowing that you are separate allows you to build on that idea. Since you are autonomous, you will never fully understand the mind and heart of your spouse. This is irreducibility. Being different people means that each of you will have different emotions, thoughts, and motivations. And this is a great thing! If you could fully understand and comprehend your spouse, then at a certain point, your intimacy would stop growing. Your marriage would become stagnant if you stopped trying to get to know your spouse. Irreducibility brings hope to marriage. It means there is always something more to know, always another way to become more intimate, to grow, to deepen your understanding of one another. How Irreducibility Deepens Intimacy in Marriage As two married, autonomous, irreducible individuals, you are bound to run into differences in thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and experiences. Discovering these differences will affect your behavior and how you interact with one another.[2] The truth is that discovering these things will take a lifetime. No matter how long you have known each other, you will always surprise one another. This should not cause you to feel anxious or somehow inadequate as a spouse. Instead, this should encourage you to pursue one another continually. Irreducibility brings vibrancy, mystery, and excitement. If you embrace it in your marriage, you will never be bored with your spouse. Instead, you will have a foundation for exploration, creativity, understanding, and intimacy between you. How To Make Autonomy and Irreducibility Work For You Now that you know what autonomy and irreducibility are and the roles they play in marriage in general, here are some practical steps to see how they can deepen the intimacy in your own lives: Go For Understanding It’s not enough to know about autonomy and irreducibility in marriage. Those concepts only give you the framework. If for whatever reason you have stopped trying to understand each other, you need to take the next logical step. You need to pursue your lifelong journey of understanding your spouse. This journey will be full of wonder and surprises. As you continually get to know your spouse, resist the urge to give up, thinking that somehow you’ve made it. Instead, let curiosity push you forward. As you learn more and more about each other, you will understand each other better, deepening your intimacy.[3] Leverage Autonomy to Spice Things Up Sometimes without realizing, you can find yourself in a rut or a routine. You’ve started to coast, no longer driven by curiosity to explore one another. In these moments, remember that there’s more to explore, to understand about each other. So try something new. Use your autonomy, your ability to make decisions as an individual to help the two of you discover new experiences together. Put yourselves in an unfamiliar environment or situation. There, you will find something new to learn with and about your spouse, helping you get out of that rut. Beware Independence However, there is a balance to be had here. You need to be careful not to put too much value on autonomy and independence in marriage. Research shows that overemphasis on individualism and personal space is linked to higher divorce rates.[4] While you do need to acknowledge your differences in marriage, you also must partner and work together as one flesh. This is why you need to bring in the other ingredients of intimacy–vulnerability, curiosity, and empathy. These provide counterbalances to autonomy and independence. Marriage is about two “Me’s” becoming “We.” If you forget this and remain as two “Me’s,” you will start to undo intimacy. Practice Compromise Finally, as you embrace the irreducibility and autonomy in your marriage, you need to learn to employ healthy compromise. Again, learn to find balance. In abusive marriages, only one person can enforce their will. When this happens, the other partner will secretly look for ways to free themselves.[5] So if you don’t compromise and become overbearing and domineering, you will push away your spouse. Compromise is not about betraying your values in favor of theirs. Compromise is an invitation into a dance where each of you learns what the other wants. And together you find your rhythm and step forward through the song as one. Whenever you are making decisions, do everything you can to find out what the other is thinking. Just because they agree with your suggestion doesn’t mean that they are happy with it. Compromise sometimes means doing the hard work of asking questions even when you think you know their answers. Asking questions invites them into a conversation where they can share who they truly are. And compromise allows each of you to express yourselves and even surprise one another as you deepen your intimacy as a couple. References [1] Laceulle, H. (2018). “Autonomy. In Aging and Self-Realization: Cultural Narratives about Later Life” (Pp. 159-188). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Retrieved from Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/j.Ctv8d5tp1.9. [2] Wilson, J., & Musick, M. (1995). “Personal Autonomy in Religion and Marriage; Is There a Link? Review of Religious Research”, 37(1), 3-18. Doi:10.2307/3512067. [3] Obert, Julia C. “What We Talk about When We Talk about Intimacy.” Emotion, Space and Society 21 (November 1, 2016): 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2016.10.002. [4] Wilson, J., & Musick, M. (1995). “Personal Autonomy in Religion and Marriage; Is There a Link? Review of Religious Research”, 37(1), 3-18. Doi:10.2307/3512067. [5] Weber, M., & Bermingham, C. (2003). “Authority and Autonomy in Marriage. Sociological Theory”, 21(2), 85-102. Retrieved from Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/3108620.

How Vulnerability Deepens Intimacy in Marriage May 01, 2019

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Intimacy is something that everyone wants for their marriage. But achieving that requires risk. Because to deepen intimacy in your marriage, you will need to open up to your spouse, to be vulnerable. Building Intimacy with Vulnerability Intimacy is complex. It is not something that happens passively; you must work with your spouse to put it together. Vulnerability is a crucial piece, one of the four primary aspects working in sync as parts of the whole[1]. 1. Irreducibility Your spouse is not a puzzle you can solve. Whenever you think you know everything about them, you’ll always find something new. Irreducibility means respecting the fact that your spouse is a fully realized human being, with an infinite number of intricacies. Their emotions, thoughts, and motivations run incredibly deep and constantly change. No matter how long you’ve known them, they will always surprise you. 2. Curiosity Knowing that you can’t fully comprehend your spouse does not stop you from trying. On the contrary, curiosity compels you to pursue them, to get to know them, to understand them. It’s the eternal pursuit of marriage to know and be known by one another. Every day of your relationship should be a dance, an adventure where you relish another chance to learn something new about each other. 3. Vulnerability Humans crave connection. But fear of rejection and pain can cause you to close yourself off from others, to protect yourself. Because opening yourself up to another person means you are handing them the power to hurt you. Marriage is different than other relationships. You committed to fight together, to depend on each other, to have each other’s back. You can’t have that deep connection to one another if you are not willing to be vulnerable. So try to let that person into the places you have shielded from others. Yes, there is risk here. But this is where the payoff is. When another person can see you and accept you for who you truly are, you will find an incredibly deep, profound connection. 4. Empathy Your spouse craves that connection as well. That’s why you married each other! By sharing in your spouse’s joy, sadness, pain, hopes, fears, and dreams, you can understand and accept them for who they are. You too will be able to empathize with them, to see the world from their perspective. It’s beautiful when these aspects work together as you build intimacy with your spouse. Irreducibility lets you acknowledge that there is always something more to discover about each other. Curiosity drives you forward to learn it. Vulnerability allows each of you the opportunity to see more about the other. Empathy enables you to fulfill each other’s deep need for connection and acceptance. This empathy you find when you are at your most vulnerable with each other is the very thing that will deepen your intimacy in marriage[2]. What Does Vulnerability Look Like? Vulnerability in marriage means opening up to your spouse. It’s about allowing them to see and to share your emotions, experiences, needs, and beliefs. And a large part of confiding in them is opening yourself up to the possibility of being hurt. Take Emotional Risks By revealing yourself to your spouse, you allow them to decide how to react to your vulnerability. At that moment, they can choose to offer empathy, acceptance, and love, the very things you crave. They can also choose to reject or dismiss a part of you that you hold dear. In giving them this opportunity, you are telling them that you trust them, that you believe the best in them. That despite your fear of being rejected, you are allowing them the opportunity to know you better. Confiding in your spouse despite the risk is essential to building intimacy with them. However, you do need to be careful. Building risk is a process, and you can’t just jump to being 100% vulnerable all the time. You need to make sure to lay the groundwork necessary to grow together and deepen your intimacy with each other safely. Create the Safety to be Vulnerable When taking steps towards opening up with your spouse, you need to know that it’s safe to do so. Obviously, if you are in an abusive marriage, you must wait until your abusive spouse becomes a safe person before choosing to be vulnerable with them. And if you are in a distressed marriage, certain destructive behaviors will need to be deal with before it becomes safe. For example, you might share with your spouse how you struggle with changing a particular habit. In a distressed marriage, your spouse might take the opportunity to berate you for not changing rather than choosing to listen and empathize. Or you might find yourself reacting so strongly that you accuse them of being intentionally unsupportive or being the reason why you struggle with that issue. You will need to address bad behaviors like this to ensure that you both can open up without hurting the other. Once you can create a baseline level of safety for each other, you will be able to start exploring what it means to be vulnerable with each other. Starting slowly will give each of you the practice and opportunity to relearn how to extend empathy to one another. And the more you practice this, the more easily and the more deeply you will be able to find connection with your spouse. Here are four ways to make your relationship safe enough to allow both of you to be vulnerable with each other: 1. Reciprocate It’s not fair to ask from your spouse what you aren’t willing to offer yourself. To encourage vulnerability from them, you need to be vulnerable yourself. By doing this, you can help your spouse see that you can be a safe haven they can open up to[3]. And when they do open up to you, extend the very empathy that you seek towards them. 2. Build Trust It’s easier to take emotional risks when you know that you can trust your partner with your vulnerability. Build trust in your marriage by being transparent, honest, and faithful. Start with the small things, like following through on your promise to pick up some eggs at the grocery store, and work your way up. This way your spouse will learn to trust you enough to be vulnerable with more significant issues[4]. 3. Raise Issues Appropriately Sometimes in an effort to be vulnerable, it’s easy to forget that your spouse has other things happening in their life. When they are stressing about the possibility of losing their job, maybe find a better time to tell them about that dream vacation in Bali you’ve wanted to go on since you got married. If you bring up important topics at difficult times for your spouse, you are more likely to be rejected[5]. So remember to empathize with them by choosing when to bring up tough topics wisely. 4. Practice As you and your spouse make vulnerability a habit, you will find that it becomes easier for both of you. Maybe right now, you are finding it very difficult to share certain things about yourselves to each other. You can ease into this is by sharing smaller things or things not directly about you. As you get used to this, you can slowly start to open up with each other more and more[6]. Vulnerability does not happen overnight. You need to practice care and safety to lay the groundwork for greater vulnerability. And the more you create safety, the easier it will be to be vulnerable, and the more you practice this, the stronger and deeper your marriage will become. References [1] Julia C. Obert, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Intimacy,” Emotion, Space and Society 21 (November 1, 2016): 25–32, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2016.10.002. [2] Obert. [3] Patricia Carter and David Carter, “Emotional Risk-Taking in Marital Relationships: A Phenomenological Approach,” Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy 9, no. 4 (October 8, 2010): 327–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/15332691.2010.515533. [4] Elizabeth Fawcett, “Helping with the Transition to Parenthood: An Evaluation of the Marriage Moments Program,” All Theses and Dissertations, April 19, 2004, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1135. [5] Carter and Carter, “Emotional Risk-Taking in Marital Relationships.” [6] E. M. Waring, “Facilitating Marital Intimacy through Self-Disclosure,” The American Journal of Family Therapy 9, no. 4 (January 1, 1981): 33–42, https://doi.org/10.1080/01926188108250422.

How Couples Can Grow Spiritually…Together Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

The Internet floods us with ideas, tips, and tricks for couples to grow in their relationship with God. Sifting through it all can get overwhelming. Which works and which doesn’t? Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff and look at the ideas that truly work. Be Doers, Not Just Hearers Couples who share religious faith experience higher overall marital satisfaction (Perry, 2015). So yes, being married to a fellow believer is great! But that’s just the beginning. You need to go beyond passively hearing about your beliefs and actively start to do what your belief tells you. Research also has shown that when couples take specific spiritual actions together, they experience better marriages than just by sharing the same faith (Mahoney et al., 1999). If you want to strengthen your union, you need to take steps in your spiritual journey together. As you grow in your shared faith, your marital satisfaction and quality go up. Marriage becomes healthier and more satisfying. Is Personality a Factor? It’s rare for couples to have the same personality and expression of spirituality as each other. And sometimes those differences can be discouraging. If you are shy, you might feel disheartened that you don’t seem to have the same energy for God as your extroverted spouse. If you’re more outgoing, you might think you’re spiritually shallow because your quieter spouse spends more time in personal prayer than you. The apostle Paul addresses this in his letter to the Romans. He describes how you are different parts of the same body, that each of you has something unique to bring to the table. Recognizing that you “have gifts that differ according to the grace given” to you, Paul exhorts you “to exercise them accordingly” (Romans 12:6). And research backs him up on this. Dyer & Luckey (1961) found that differences in personality type do not affect spirituality in marriage. There is no right personality type to grow spiritually, so you shouldn’t worry that your spiritual growth doesn’t look like your spouse’s. Instead, focus on what’s important: sharing your journey pursuing God. How Couples Can Grow Spiritually So what are some specific ways to grow in your relationship with the Lord as partners? Here are some easy, yet effective methods to accomplish this: 1. Hold Weekly Check-Ins Hectic schedules can easily cause you to forget to touch base with each other, so you might start to drift apart. To prevent this, Willford & Willford (2013) recommend that couples hold a weekly check-in. Consistency is vital because it shows your spouse that you are prioritizing and valuing this time with them. In these check-ins, you should cover these important topics: Celebrate the Wins. What were the highlights of your week? Share moments that gave you joy, and give your full attention to them when they share theirs. Rejoice in each others’ triumphs, remembering to thank God for these blessings. Share the Struggles. Be real with each other. Open up and share your frustrations and problems. Use the scheduled time to gather your thoughts so that you can have a healthy discussion on these difficult topics. Process together, and bring them before the Lord in prayer. Dream of the Future. What are you hoping? Planning? Where is God guiding you? As a couple, you need a glimpse of the future before you, to know that you are striving towards the same dream together. When you make it a point to have these deep conversations with each other, you develop incredible intimacy, growing in your relationship together. 2. Pray Together Joint prayer is another excellent way for couples to thrive. When couples regularly pray together, they experience higher marital quality, higher levels of trust, and reduced conflict as praying teaches them to forgive each other (Fincham et al., 2008). Sometimes you might be tempted to use your joint prayer time to air your grievances against your spouse. But you need to be careful not to use this time to passive-aggressively attack your spouse. It shouldn’t need to be said, but prayer is not meant to manipulate or change each other. Abusing prayer like this will damage your relationship instead of building it up (Fincham et al., 2008). As you pray together, focus on thanking God, trusting Him with your lives. Pray for blessings, wellbeing, and guidance for yourselves and each other. Listen to your partner's prayer, and take this opportunity to develop empathy for them. Doing this helps you to understand your partner’s heart and desire. By learning to empathize, you learn to work cooperatively instead of against each other. 3. Share Marital Beliefs Understanding how God views marriage helps couples to grow spiritually and guides their journey together (Mahoney et al., 1999). These mutual beliefs bring you closer to your spouse and God. Some of these tenets include: God is a part of your marriage, and He influences your actions. Your marriage is sacred and blessed by God. Marriage symbolizes Christ’s union with the church. Sharing these beliefs will give you the strong foundation your marriage needs. 4. Face Challenges Together You will have trials wherever you go in life, including in marriage. But sometimes it’s easy to forget that God didn’t create you to face them alone, nor did you pledge to when you said your vows. When facing challenges, you need to turn to one another and God for support. When couples have to deal with stressful situations, marital conflict, or life transitions, van Tongeren et al. (2018) found that turning to God together helps them take on these difficulties. And not only will it help you with what’s before you now, but it also helps you with future struggles. When you turn to God as a couple, you both grow in your faith, strengthening your marriage for what you will face tomorrow. References Dyer, D. T., & Luckey, E. B. (1961). Religious Affiliation and Selected Personality Scores as They Relate to Marital Happiness of a Minnesota College Sample. Marriage and Family Living, 23(1), 46–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/346886 Mahoney, A., Pargament, K. I., Jewell, T., Swank, A. B., Scott, E., Emery, E., & Rye, M. (1999). Marriage and the spiritual realm: The role of proximal and distal religious constructs in marital functioning. Journal of Family Psychology, 13(3), 321. Perry, S. L. (2015). A Match Made in Heaven? Religion-Based Marriage Decisions, Marital Quality, and the Moderating Effects of Spouse’s Religious Commitment. Social Indicators Research, 123(1), 203–225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0730-7 Williford, C., & Williford, C. (2013). Faith Tango: A Liberating Approach to Spiritual Growth in Marriage. Crown Publishing Group.

Cognitive Biases in Marriage: Reactance, Mood and Confirmation Apr 17, 2019

Show notes

Cognitive biases are those sneaky little brain shortcuts that happen without us even realizing it. They make life more efficient and most of the time are helpful… but sometimes they can backfire too! Today we’ll look at three more of these biases so you know what they are, why they happen and how to stop them from messing with your marriage! Reactance Bias What Is This Cognitive Bias? Gotta love this one: when you feel like someone is trying to force you to do something, you react by doing the exact opposite. Why This Happens Reactance happens when a person feels that their freedom to make choices is being threatened. If you feel that your choice is being taken away, you are likely to act in a way that reaffirms your own ability to choose. Usually, by acting in a way that is the total opposite to what you were being pressured into[i]. Here’s an example of reactance in action: when the legal drinking age was increased from 18 to 21, research shows that young students aged 18 to 20 started to drink much MORE, as an act of defiance against the fact that they weren't allowed to drink any more. The fact that they were being told they weren’t allowed something just made them want it even more. In marriage, this may happen when you demand that your spouse does something (e.g., helping with housework, cutting down on some unhealthy behavior, spending more time with the family, etc.), and they feel like their freedom is being threatened. Quite often, they will react negatively by taking even less care of the house, or spending more time away, and so on[ii]. What To Do About It The first step is to recognize when this bias is at work within yourself. You can learn to challenge this whenever it occurs and we have more on this in the bonus guide for today’s episode. If you are married to someone who is quite prone to reactance bias, you can also learn to phrase your request differently. Research shows that that there are ways to phrase requests so that they are less likely to trigger reactance bias. These ways are[iii]: Use less threatening language: instead of "you have to" or "you must” or “I need you to", try "could you" or "I'd like you to" Add a 'postscript' to your request: adding phrases to the end of your request that make it seem like more of a choice. Eg "it's up to you, but it would really mean a lot to me" or "only if it isn't too much trouble”. If you notice, these post scripts underscore that you’re giving your spouse the option to choose. Empathy: help them see why this particular is an issue for you and allow them to see it from your perspective. This is so your spouse can want to help instead of feeling like they have to help. Mood Bias What Is This Cognitive Bias? When judgments and actions related to your marriage are influenced by your current mood. And this occurs even if your mood has nothing to do with the current situation. Why This Happens Emotions, decisions and memories are all linked in the brain. When we are feeling one particular emotion, the brain activates memories and thoughts that fit with the current mood, and dampens memories/thoughts that do not fit with it[iv]. This can cause your mood to affect the way you relate to your spouse, even if the source of your mood has nothing to do with your marriage. Let me give you some examples tied to various brain functions: Memory: feeling sad or angry causes you to recall more sad and angry memories and makes it harder for you to recall happy memories[v]. For example, if you come home from work feeling frustrated it will be easier to recall things your spouse has done that frustrate you. See how your mood has nothing to do with the current situation? But can impact your marriage? Attention: feeling anxious or down causes you to focus your attention onto things that fit with these emotions[vi]. For example, if you are feeling sad you are more likely to focus on the negative things your spouse does than the positive. Or, if you are feeling anxious you are more likely to pick up on the things your spouse does that heighten your uncertainty. Interpretation: events and actions can also be filtered and interpreted to fit with your current mood. For example, if you are feeling anxious you may interpret your spouse's snappy comment as a sign that they don't love you and want to leave you, rather than seeing it as just a one-off incident. What To Do About It There are two primary coping methods for mood bias. Stress Regulation. Mood bias is much more pronounced when we are under high levels of stress[vii]. So learning effective ways to deal with stress can stop this bias from impacting you as much. Emotion regulation. Learning to process and regulate your emotions in healthy ways is the best way to stop them from interfering with your thoughts and actions. Learning strategies to lift your mood and reduce worry can also help with this. Even simple things like exercise[viii] and adjusting your posture to be more upright and less slouched[ix] can improve your mood and reduce mood bias. So there are all these little things you can do to look after your mind and make sure it’s working in a way that helps you. Last, but not least... Confirmation Bias What Is This Cognitive Bias? People try to interpret events to fit with their already existing beliefs and opinions. Or, put another way, we look for the data that confirms what we already think is true, rather than using the data to decide what we believe. Why This Happens Once a belief forms in your mind, it takes a lot of effort to change or remove it, especially if the belief is something deeply important to you. It is much easier to interpret events around you in such a way that fits with the beliefs you already hold. People will therefore place great importance on information that fits with their beliefs, while downplaying or excusing away info that contradicts their beliefs[x]. Once you form an opinion of your spouse, confirmation bias can cause you to interpret most everything to confirm that belief. This can either be positive or negative. For example, imagine a wife who holds the belief "my husband doesn't like spending time with me anymore" If the husband has to cancel dinner plans and work late one night, she will interpret that in keeping with her belief, thinking something like "he is hiding from me by staying at work, he never wanted to have dinner with me in the first place." Equally, if the wife held the belief "I can depend on my husband to provide for the family", she would interpret the same situation to fit with this belief, thinking something like "obviously he would rather spend time with me but he needs to prioritize work so that he can provide for us." So you can see that this bias is not inherently problematic: it can go either way. How do we make sure it goes the right way for us? What To Do About It Admiration is the key. Dr. Gottman[xi] writes that admiration is one way to overcome negative confirmation bias as it helps you to see the best in your spouse and interpret their actions positively. Developing admiration for your spouse causes you to form positive beliefs about them. This means that you will interpret their actions in keeping with these positive beliefs more often. In this situation confirmation bias will actually be helping your marriage rather than hindering it. It goes to show that these biases in our mind aren’t necessarily a bad thing- you just need to know about them so that you can learn to use them for your advantage. References [i] Benjamin D. Rosenberg and Jason T. Siegel, “A 50-Year Review of Psychological Reactance Theory: Do Not Read This Article,” Motivation Science 4, no. 4 (2018): 281–300, https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000091. [ii] Rosenberg and Siegel. [iii] Rosenberg and Siegel. [iv] Riccardo Russo et al., “Mood-Congruent Free Recall Bias in Anxiety,” Cognition & Emotion 15, no. 4 (July 2001): 419–33, https://doi.org/10.1080/0269993004200259. [v] Russo et al. [vi] Richard J. Macatee et al., “Attention Bias towards Negative Emotional Information and Its Relationship with Daily Worry in the Context of Acute Stress: An Eye-Tracking Study,” Behaviour Research and Therapy 90 (March 1, 2017): 96–110, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2016.12.013. [vii] Macatee et al. [viii] Séraphine C. Clarke et al., “Cognitive Interpretation Bias: The Effect of a Single Session Moderate Exercise Protocol on Anxiety and Depression,” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01363. [ix] Lotte Veenstra, Iris K. Schneider, and Sander L. Koole, “Embodied Mood Regulation: The Impact of Body Posture on Mood Recovery, Negative Thoughts, and Mood-Congruent Recall,” Cognition & Emotion 31, no. 7 (2017): 1361–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1225003. [x] Christina Schwind and Jürgen Buder, “Reducing Confirmation Bias and Evaluation Bias: When Are Preference-Inconsistent Recommendations Effective – and When Not?,” Computers in Human Behavior 28, no. 6 (November 1, 2012): 2280–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.06.035. [xi] John Gottman, Catherine Swanson, and James Murray, “The Mathematics of Marital Conflict: Dynamic Mathematical Nonlinear Modeling Od Newlywed Marital Interaction,” Journal of Family Psychology 13, no. 1 (March 1999): 3–19.

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