After years of counseling couples, I have noticed that there are several things that contribute to the deterioration and destruction of a marriage. My hope in presenting these is to help couples or individuals avoid these pitfalls so they can enjoy a healthy marriage.
#1 - Lie
Lying is one of the greatest causes of disruption between a couple. When a spouse lies, whether it’s a minor or major, it destroys the very foundation of what a healthy relationship is built on, which is trust. If a spouse begins lying, there is no way for the other person to know what is truth and what is not. It sets the relationship into upheaval and back to step one where trust has to be rebuilt and established over time. I encourage you, always be honest, even if the truth could cause great upset, it is better to work through that than to have a barrier of untruth tearing you apart.
#2 - Argue against or disregard your spouse’s feelings
Feelings are neither right or wrong, they are just feelings. Now what we do with our feelings can be right or wrong, feelings don’t excuse behaviors or validate them. I see couples ignoring, arguing against, or dismantling their spouse’s feelings. Instead of doing this and hurting your marriage, be open to what your spouse is feeling and experiencing from you. In listening you are not “allowing” inappropriate behavior or bad choices, but if you can hear their feelings and try to understand their perspective, it will go a long way.
#3 - Focus on yourself
Today there is much emphasis on self care and self focus. I don’t think that a little bit of self care is a bad thing, we need to be attuned to our own needs so we can be healthy, however, culturally it has gotten to a place of selfishness and denial of others. There is this big emphasis that “it’s all about me now” or “it’s time to put what I want first.” It is often accompanied with the phrase “I deserve this.”
It may be true that you deserve a different treatment or a change, but it shouldn’t be the ground you stand on. A marriage cannot survive in selfishness, and when people are too hyper focused on self, disappointment and sadness, even depression often follow. If you feel you have been the one giving and you have been taken advantage of, instead of switching gears to completely take care of you now, examine the ways you were giving and pouring out. Was it really love or was it what you thought was love? Were you draining yourself to appease the other spouse in ways that were not even healthy for them to receive Fixing or saving them from natural consequence would have helped them in the long run should they experience it?
Should you care for yourself? Absolutely, caring for yourself enables you to care for others well.
Should you focus on yourself? To a certain extent, absolutely, it allows you to take stock in how you are doing, and understand what you are feeling and why you are operating the way you do.
These things are good, but I would argue that a majority of your focus should not be concentrated on yourself, but rather on others, getting outside yourself, opening yourself to their experience and perspective, it’s a far more fulfilling way to live.
#4 - Only focus on what they are doing wrong
It is very easy to see what others are doing wrong and discount the good they do because you are upset with them. However, if we do that it creates a cycle that completely discourages the other person. Imagine if everything you did right wasn’t recognized but only what you did wrong. We need to take a balanced approach, acknowledge the good, but don’t take a blind eye approach to the bad. Often in my office I work with couples where one of the spouses feels beaten down because the good they do is never acknowledged, but the mess ups they have are highlighted and focused on continually. Allow your spouse to hear the good too, acknowledge when they do it right.
#5 - Allow your feelings make all the decisions
There is a rising phenomenon where people are starting to let their feelings define what they will do and what they value. This is a dangerous thing to do as feelings change and sometimes feelings lie to us. Feelings should be part of the decisions we make, but they should not make up the whole of the decision. The majority of our decisions should be made by our values, our future goals and in consideration of others and how it will affect them, as well as ourselves. Feelings should be a part of those considerations, but its unwise to have them be the driving factor.
#6 - Compare your marriage to others
I cannot express enough how many people come to my office that are having a lot of difficulty in their individual lives as well as their marriages, but no one besides their therapist would even know. Often they tell me how they present well to others, while behind closed doors things are falling apart. This is why it’s dangerous to compare ourselves and our marriages to others. We truly don’t know what is happening behind closed doors. Instead of comparing your marriage to others, compare it to where your marriage was a year ago and if recently married, then some time before that in your relationship. If you feel things are improving, great, if not, spend time looking at how to improve it. As time goes on, evaluate again. I would caution you to stay far away from the trap of “they have such a great marriage” when really there is no way of knowing their individual struggles.