WORKING SOLO ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP

There is an old story passed around by marriage therapists. The wife in a troubled marriage, one filled with mutual resentment, came up with a plan of action. She decided that she would wait six months until she asked for a divorce from her husband. During that time, she decided, she would act as if she really liked him by treating him kindly and lovingly. So what happened? Her treating him as if she really liked him became real. He blossomed and so did she. Six months later there was no interest in divorce. The marriage had become revitalized.

I have seen many clients over the years who have come in to talk about their marriages without their spouses. Sometimes the spouses have refused to come in and sometimes my clients didn't want their spouses to come in. Both situations, on the surface, seem to spell disaster for the marriage. However, in many cases if a solo spouse is very willing, s/he can make important changes in the marriage. These changes can so positively impact the system of the marriage that ruts and stuck behaviors can change for the better. I have seen this happen many times.

As you know, I believe in systems and believe that marriage is a system, too. It is a system made up of three equally important elements, each partner and the entity of the marriage itself. In my office when I work with both partners, I always tell them they are the consultants for my real patient, the marriage. And I symbolically motion to an empty chair and "place" the marriage on it.

So this means that if I have only one spouse to work with, then the third entity can still be impacted. What a spouse contributes to the "bank" of marital behaviors and perceptions is vitally important.

For example, what if one spouse's perception is that the other is always to blame. (In 1% of the marriages this may be the case. Those type of marriages can't be saved). So this one spouse is full of resentments, has stopped listening to the other, and has become a martyr. What can this one spouse do?

Well, for one, s/he can take steps to stop being a martyr. This can happen if the complaining spouse does something different. What would this look like?

Well, instead of staying stuck s/he could radically change her behavior. It might be very instructive in therapy to have this spouse examine the resentments and see which ones may also reflects elements of feelings about him or herself.

Constant resentments toward another usually contain a lot of material that we feel about ourselves, uncomfortable feelings full of shame, self-doubt, anxieties, and a pervasive sense of chaos that we don't want to claim and look at.

Instead of dealing with these difficult things we project them onto our spouse. Why? Because they are convenient, they are not perfect, and the intimacy involved in living and sleeping with someone can be reframed into seeing them as an ideal repository for our negative frustration.

So, I have helped solo spouses reclaim their projections by dealing with their own stuff. If you listen to what you don't like about someone else you will learn a lot about the parts of yourself that scare you.

We also begin to get into power struggles with our partner. It begins to feel like a competition for self-esteem where only one can win and one can lose. If one spouse steps out of this game and refuses to play, it will feel on the surface like s/he has lost the power struggle.

What has s/he really lost? S/he may switch the anxiety of having to always be on guard to the anxiety of trying something new. Of doing something different. At least this kind of anxiety can lead to new, healthier behaviors that will certainly help this spouse get unstuck and grow. And it may really change the marriage.