Real Advice

20th Century vs 21st Century Marriage

By Terry Real

The 20th century marriage, like marriage before it for centuries, was primarily a companionable marriage. A man and woman stood shoulder-to-shoulder, raised kids, faced war, illness, economic changes. Long heart-to-heart talks, exquisite sharing, great sex -- that was for kids, for early stage relationships, and affairs for some.

A generation or two ago, if a woman complained to her mother that her steady, providing husband just seemed "too distant" or non-sexual or even ill-tempered and mean, she would have been told in no uncertain terms to grow up and go home. But in today's world it is exactly such quality of relationship issues that lead to unhappiness and divorce.

When historians look back at the 20th century one key feature they will note is the changed role of women.  For the first time in history, women -- empowered economically, socially, politically, and psychologically -- are no longer dependent on marriage to survive. To stay in their marriages contemporary women need more from their men than paychecks.

The new 21st century marriage is the truly intimate marriage -- intimate in all of the five domains of human experience: intellectual, emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual.  The 21st century intimate marriage takes all of the characteristics of the centuries old companionship marriage and grafts onto it the qualities of a lover relationship -- sustained erotic passion, great amounts of attention and interest in one another, deep emotional sharing, long walks on the beach holding hands. We want marriage to be a lifelong romance.

LIBERATION VS. THERMONUCLEAR ANNIHILATION OF A RELATIONSHIP

One problem facing us is that while I've said that we want our marriages to be intimate, a more accurate description would be that some of us want more intimacy, by which I mean, of course, women. We can understand the enormous tension between the sexes by grasping a simple historical fact: In the 20th century, women's roles radically changed and men's, by and large, did not.

This is not a criticism of men. It's a simple statement of fact. Because men haven't changed all that much, the status quo of 20th century marriage generally works just fine for them. It is women who want more. It is women who fuel the self-help industry, and it is women who drag men into couple's therapy.

Today's women want more intimacy from men than most men have been raised to deliver -- and men are coming up short. Women must deal with the dilemma of, as one of my clients put it, "being a 21st century woman married to a 20th century guy." Unfortunately, as the miserable state of marriage shows us, most women don't deal with their predicament all that well. In their attempt to drag their relationships into the 21st century most women resort to 20th century skills. And you can't create a new marriage using old skills.

One skill set women turn to comes from the first half of the last century. It is our mother and grandmother's skill of acquiescence or "compromise". "Harry's a good man, after all," a woman might say to herself, "so what if he..."  The problem with this strategy is that unlike our mothers and grandmothers, contemporary women don't compromise all that happily. The relational bar has been raised and when today's women put up with Harry's distance or control, immaturity or anger, they resent it. And that resentment eats away at the woman and at the relationship like a cancer, diminishing openness, generosity and passion.

The second skill-set women turn to comes from the last few decades of the 20th century, the time of personal empowerment. Whether it's psychotherapy, 12-step codependency groups, women's groups or many spiritual encounters -- the growth in the "personal growth movement" is personal, not relational. And a lot of women "grow" themselves right out of potentially workable relationships.

If the traditional 1950's woman was repressed and resentful, the new "liberated" woman was armed and dangerous.  I summarize the credo of personal empowerment as: "I was weak. Now I'm strong. Go screw yourself!" When women finally do blow up at men there's rarely a shortage of "supporters" willing to climb up on chairs to shout, "You go girl!" But while an attitude of, "I'm mad as hell and I ain't gonna take it any more!" may be a step up from dis-empowerment, it is not a step forward into a healthy relationship.

THE ROAD MAP TO A PEACEABLE (AND INTIMATE) ACCORD

In order to realize the new vision of truly intimate relationships both sexes need a new road map and a new set of skills sophisticated enough to deliver on the promise of our new ambitions. In The New Rules of Marriage, I call this road map: relational empowerment, and the new skill-set: relationship practice.

In the next several issues of REAL ADVICE, I will describe this radically different approach to modern relationships as well as some of the essential skills that comprise it. I call this series: Learning to Live Relationally.  You will also read Blogs from some of my colleagues to get insights into how they deal with couples experiencing many of the same issues you deal with everyday.

Stay tuned!!

Terry's Response To Amy's Comment

Dear Amy -

When you speak of "handling" your husband's guilt and shame, you are describing what you imagine is going on inside of him. You're better off staying focused on what's going on (or not going on) between you.

How is he "unavailable" to you and the kids? Is he physically not around or around but utterly self-preoccupied or even there in body but walled-off emotionally? Sit down and think about the specific behaviors that you'd like from him -- break it down for him.  And here's the ten thousand dollar question -- ask yourself if there's anything you could do differently to help him be more attached and accountable.

If that still gets you nowhere, your next step would have to be seeking professional help because if he doesn't respond to your reasonable requests and humble offer to help him, you've got a situation on your hands that is too tough to handle on your own.

Best regards - Terry.

Married Americans: The New Minority

By Terry Real

WHY MOST MARITAL THERAPY AND SELF-HELP ADVICE MISSES THE BOAT

For close to fifty years one of the few stable facts about family life has been the appalling state of marriage. Forty to fifty percent of all marriages fail. Of the fifty to sixty couples left standing, how many stay together because they are truly happy, as opposed to reasons like finances, children, religion or plain fatigue?

Conservatively, one out of three "intact" marriages aren't very gratifying. What does that tell us? That if, as a man or a woman, you simply do what "comes naturally," the dead-on odds are that you will be miserable.

Even the latest census data tells us that married Americans are now "the new minority." We've become so used to the chronic dysfunction of marriage that we don't seem all that alarmed. I'd like you to think for a moment about how you would feel if this were your children's school, or a government program, or your own business that was running at a forty to fifty percent failure rate. I doubt as a society we'd be so complacent.

Why is it that so many people -- people who are successful professionals, good friends and neighbors, great parents -- fail so miserably at the one thing that matters most: love? What has gone wrong? I believe that the reason why so much marital therapy and self-help advice misses the boat is that there is a big elephant in the middle of the room that no one is naming. That elephant is nothing less than the institution of marriage itself -- as we've known it. The nature of marriage is undergoing a sea-change, a transformation that will be all too the good -- so long as we survive it.

The problem is that fundamental changes in the nature of marriage are moving faster than we are; we've been slow to adapt, or rather most of what we've learned about marriage, indeed about love, is obsolete. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are no longer in our parents' and grandparents' marriage. We need to understand our new marriages, and learn how to make them thrive, or face the probability that we won't be nearly as happy in them as we hope to be.

NEXT BLOG -- MONDAY 10/29: "20th Century vs. 21st Century Marriage." You are invited to comment or feedback on this entry.

To Arrest School Violence, Fund Training for Counselors & Teachers

By Terry Real

Cleveland students are experiencing their own mini-post-9/11 having returned to school after the massacre at SuccessTech. But are they any safer today?

We live in a country in which 135,000 children take guns to school every day. That averages out to 43 guns taken to high schools in every American county today -- 43 more chances for a massacre in your neighborhood and mine today.

Asa Coon was just one more bullied young man building an arsenal in his bedroom that would be the envy of any drug lord. That fact alone cries for more engaged parenting, but as with other forms of neglect and abuse, when the parents fail, our society relies on teachers and school counselors to act.

The cure for the type of violence we have seen in Columbine, Paduka, Virginia Tech and most recently Cleveland lies in understanding the hidden epidemic of male depression. As a father and a mental health professional I believe we need urgent funding so our school systems can provide the training necessary for school counselors and teachers to identify the warning signs before a teen is about to crack.

In the bygone days of neighborhood schooling, faculty enjoyed a different dynamic with the student body. The principal, vice principal, home room teachers, coaches and guidance counselors provided students with a choice of non-parental adults to confide in and seek counsel. The staff were not as burdened by red tape or student populations the size of small cities as they are today. The fact that most faculty and staff cannot even recognize most of the student body by face much less name is a reality that just exacerbates the sense of disconnect our teens feel today.

As a practicing family therapist for 25 years, I know that few boys escape firsthand acquaintance with active trauma. The hidden epidemic of depression is the number one killer of boys and young men  --  more than childhood disease, more than accidents or natural disasters. By far most violent acts, both inside and outside the home are committed by males. It's a simple fact: wounded boys become wounded men.

Our culture demands that boys suppress complaints of any kind. No pain, no gain. Don't be a sissy. But this constant burial of psychological and emotional pain is very damaging. In people of all ages, this leads to depression. During adolescence, a time of general emotional and identity confusion, children are especially vulnerable.

Current research makes it clear that a vulnerability to depression is most probably an inherited biological condition. But in the majority of cases, biological vulnerability alone is not enough to trigger this disorder. It is the collision of inherited vulnerability with psychological injury that produces depression.

Our traditional socialization of boys hurts them. Boys tend to externalize pain; they are more likely to feel victimized by others and to discharge this distress through action. Suburban school massacres and inner city gang violence bears this out.  Some boys become bullies to try to gain self-esteem. Those bullied like Cho at Virginia Tech and Coon in Cleveland may snap and retaliate with extreme violence.

There are other, more secretive forms of violence. Recently, the CDC has reported an alarming increase in cutting and self-mutilation by teens of both sexes. While this behavior is more prevalent among girls, boys do it too. The spike in self-mutilation by young men and women has become so epidemic that it is known as the "new anorexia" among medical and mental health professionals.

There is no doubt that our teachers are overburdened by class size, but in an age when both parents work and where two parent households are increasingly rare compounded by the pressures of over-programmed kids in the digital age, what happens at school has the greatest impact on our children. After all, they spend more time on campus than they do at home. Parents must be vigilant at home, but some parents simply cannot or will not. The children of those parents are under the most stress, and they are the most at risk for depression.

A few dollars spent on helping teachers and school counselors identify the warning signs of depression and the simmering violence or self-mutilation that can result, will quell bullying and prevent future campus massacres. Furthermore, those few dollars will save our communities millions of dollars by preventing crime, domestic violence and substance abuse.

The Rudeness of Spouses, Part 3

By Terry Real

This is the 3rd part and conclusion of this article.

TED and ANNE GET RELATIONAL

Guys are enormously skilled at dealing with a woman in a fit. They duck under the wave, let the storm pass, and then go on doing whatever they want. What guys are not used to is moderate firmness that doesn't back off.

I asked Anne to practice speaking to Ted in a way that conveys she genuinely wants a partner (rather than simply venting).

"Ted, I feel lonely and overwhelmed. When I say I need you to take the kids, you don't have to make a big fuss about it, okay?"

With encouragement, she listed four specific changes she wanted Ted to make: Take over the burden of checking in with the kids' teachers; call his mother every week rather than relying on her to do it; plan a family outing once or twice a month; treat her now and then to a night out or flowers.

To her surprise, Ted agreed to all four. Then Anne ask the million dollar question, "What can I do to help you deliver?"

Ted took and aggrieved tone. "You can tell me what I'm doing right," he said peevishly. "Don't just scold me."

Anne, provoked, began to wind up, but a look from me stopped her. She took a deep breath, let go of her first consciousness, and ... smiled. "Deal," she said holding out her hand.

"Go on," I told Ted. "Shake on it, partner."

TWO MONTHS LATER...

In a follow-up letter about two months later, Anne wrote: "I'll come home and see Ted sacked out on the couch and become enraged. Every particle of me wants to rip into him, but a voice in my head says, 'Stop!' I breathe and make myself settle down. Then I wake up the lazy bum and tell him -- respectfully -- that his participation in our family is not discretionary. Now instead of the issue turning back to 'How Anne spoke to poor Ted,' my husband actually pitches in. And on those few occasions when he tries to pull that victim stuff -- 'Anne, you're so hard on me...blah, blah,' I don't buy into it anymore. I'm not being hard, and I know it."

REAL ADVICE

Anne got into the habit that I encourage my clients to develop. Before opening your mouth, ask yourself two questions:

1) What do I really want?  It may seem appealing to prove him wrong, pay him back, leave in a huff, or cave in to keep the peace, but what you probably really crave is healthy intimacy.

2) Is what I'm about to say or do right now going to get me closer to what I want?  If you honestly feel your next word or action has a shot at success, go ahead and try it. But if it isn't going to be constructive, then don't do it. It's that simple.

When Ted told Anne she could be more supportive and less scolding, it wasn't hard to imagine any number of juicy responses she might have shot back, like "I'll reward you when there's something to reward" or "can't you be a man and not base your actions on my approval?" Such zingers would have been fair, given the way Ted was behaving.

But what Anne wanted was a thoughtful partner, so instead of picking a fight, she dared to take yes for an answer, accepting  his suggestion even though it wasn't delivered as graciously as she had wished.

You might say that cultivating second consciousness means learning to act in your own best interest. Or you might simply call it learning to love like a grown-up.

The Rudeness of Spouses Part 2

This is a continuation from the previous post.

OLIVE OYL GOES BLUTO

Anne had her own version of Popeye -- "I want what I want but I don't want to ask for it." She told me that her anger at Ted came from an abiding feeling that, "he just isn't there" with her and the kids. She said, "Ted is the kind of guy who will come home, step over a pile of stinky diapers to give me a kiss, and not even think to pick them up. I have to manage the house, the kids, our social calendar..." She summed it up with a phrase I hear over and over again from women: "I feel like I don't have a partner."

I asked Anne to spell out what more partnering might look like. She said, "I shouldn't have to tell him what to do!" Then I asked if she could think of any ways to help him rise to the occasion. "But that's just the point," she said. "Why do I need to take responsibility for Ted's behavior? I spent years in therapy learning how not to do that. Are you kidding?"

"Well---" I said,

She said, "I am not going back to that codependent stuff. Why should I make his problem my concern?"

"Because you love him?"

"Right," she snorted.

"Okay, then. Because you live with him. You have to deal with him."

She shook her head.

"I don't know Anne," I said. "I didn't pick him. You did."

Anne's refusal to give her husband direction came from an understandable and healthy impulse to stop taking care of him. But there's a difference between babying someone and helping him out. Anne's new stance was rooted in the same old underlying assumption as the most traditional fairy-tale vision of happily ever after -- a good husband should have to be told what I want.

"I'm sorry, " I said. "But Cinderella is dead and Prince Charming most likely just got out of rehab. If you're going to get your needs met, you're going to have to state them effectively."

I believe the quality we bring to relationships with friends and co-workers but leave on the front steps at home is thoughtfulness. I don't mean remembering birthdays. I mean reining in your annoyance when you know someone's going through a tough time, or giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, or saying, "Let's figure out a solution together."

Spontaneity is great for positive emotions, but handling life's challenges takes care and skill. Contrary to the idea that we shouldn't have to be so calculating with our mates, we need to be even more conscious, more on our toes, because no one pushes our hot buttons better or more often.

In the Relationship Skills Workshop, Anne laid the blame for her bad behavior squarely at the feet of her partner. She admitted to yelling, calling Ted selfish and uncaring, and even throwing things -- but only, she said because he was so difficult. Hers wasn't the only destructive response to conflict I've seen in my practice. Another woman might have blamed herself; someone else would have withdrawn from Ted, or tried to "fix" him.

As we all do, Anne brought her characteristic reaction to difficulty into the marriage with her. She could have married Mahatma Ghandi, and sooner or later the plates would have flown.

Anne's default setting, what I call first consciousness, is rage. But with a little coaching, she could develop an inner voice that would help her choose a more constructive response. She could take a moment -- the time it takes to draw a breath -- to practice using second consciousness, a learned, adult way to react.

"Guys are enormously skilled at dealing with a woman having a fit," I said. "The duck under the wave, let the storm pass, then go on doing whatever they want. What guys are not used to is moderate firmness that doesn't back off."

PART 3:  DID ANNE & TED LEARN THEIR LESSON? Find out in Part 3 on Thursday, October 18. We invite you to comment or feedback on this posting.

The Rudeness of Spouses

By Terry Real        (Part 1 of 3)

Originally published in the August, 2006 issue of "O, the Oprah Magazine"

At work your spouse is the soul of consideration.  At night it’s all you can do to get him to be civil. And, sometimes, you’re the bad guy. Therapist Terry Real blogs about how to make home a nicer place to come home to.

TED and ANNE and THE 800 LB GORILLA

A couple I’ll call Ted and Anne were attending a workshop I was giving on relationship skills. They were there because they quarreled constantly, they said just that week they had argued bitterly over driving the kids to school.  As best I could piece it together, the fight went something like this:

Anne: “Honey, you’re going to need to take both kids to school tomorrow. I scheduled a doctor’s appointment.”

Ted: “You know I can’t do that. I made a plan to run with Jim, and I've canceled twice already. This is called ‘How many ways can we stop Ted from exercising?’”

Anne: “You know, Ted----”

Ted (irritated): “Thirty minutes is what I ask for, thirty minutes out of 24 hours. That’s all I want.”

Anne (shouting): “And all I want is a real partner for a change. Someone who cares about something besides himself!”

After hearing them out, I asked Ted, "Was there any other time this week when you were equally annoyed with someone but chose to handle things differently?"  After some prodding, he came up with a mistake his assistant had made at work.  He'd been packing up his papers for an important presentation when Julie admitted she'd forgotten to tell him that the meeting was canceled.

"Julie is terrific," Ted told me. "But ever since her mother's hospitalization, she'd been letting things slip." Her apology didn't change the fact that this latest lapse cost him hours of valuable time.  Still, Ted knew better than to lash out. Looking at Julie's stricken face, he said, his anger drained and he asked her whether she needed time off.  When she responded that it was better for her to be at the office, he was touched, and she was reassured.

Placing the two incidents side by side, an obvious question emerged: Why did Ted show more consideration to his assistant than to his wife?  For her part, Anne was known as a as a straight shooter with her friends and at work, but with Ted she allowed resentment to build until she blew up in a rage.  As shocking as it might sound, Ted and Anne reserved their worst behavior for each other.

POPEYE and OLIVE OYL

Helping couples for more than 20 years has brought me face-to-face with a sobering truth:  Most of us don't treat our spouses with nearly the same level of respect and diplomacy that we extend to colleagues, friends, and even strangers. We give lip service to the idea that marriage takes effort, but in our day-to-day lives we think, I don't want to work this hard.

"Look," Ted said to me, "when I'm in the office, I have to manage my staff, but I don't want to think of my marriage as a job."

Ted was pleading the case for what I call the Popeye syndrome:  "I yam what I yam!"  His fantasy was to come home, loosen his belt, pop open a beer, flip on the TV, belch... and still be loved. Men might have gotten away with this a generation ago, but now it's quite likely that as we pull up in our driveways after a hard day at work, our wives pull in behind us. 

If we want our marriages to be happy, we don't get to come home and just "relax" -- which to most of the men I work with means "to be left alone."

MEET OLIVE OYL IN PART 2 ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 15. Until then, we welcome your comments and insights.