In my psychotherapy practice I have heard this statement more than a few times. Married couples seeking guidance and clarification on whether their relationship can make it. There is truth to the old saying “Marriage is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” So what makes it so hard? And how do couples get through the hard times?
In the beginning of marriage each person makes a commitment to be together, to be each other’s primary person, to be the person they think of first after themselves. That’s a big investment in another human being. So what’s the return? Love, connection, intimacy, acceptance, safety, and hopefully, happiness.
The first few years of marriage involve creating a home and life together. Sometimes that includes children, sometimes not. But it’s the cultivation and tending to phase of the relationship.
After a few years, work, school, money, family and other obligations can easily become the primary focus for each person and the investing in the relationship lags or simply runs on autopilot. Couples can run on autopilot for a while, but eventually, the relationship needs to return to being the priority. If couples aren’t able to get back on track with prioritizing each other in the relationship, conflict and separation likely will occur.
A technique I use with couples is called “filling your relationship emotional bank account.” Couples who have made other parts of their lives the priority above the marriage and relationship have been making “withdrawals” from their relationship emotional bank account in the form of spending time with friends instead of each other, working long hours and forgoing connection time with their partner, addictions, or isolating into computer games, cell phones, or other forms of technology instead of communicating and sharing.
The first few years of marriage were all about making deposits to the bank account (dates, meals together, evenings home, sitting and talking) and the bank account was sizable and provided an “in case of emergency” fund for the relationship. But once the deposits turn into withdrawals, the relationship emotional bank account can quickly decrease. “Fine! Let’s just get a divorce then,” is a sign that the bank account is overdrawn and needs deposits to restore the relationship.
In therapy, through a series of scenarios, each person has an opportunity to share, discuss, and problem solve hot-button issues with their partner. The goals of therapy include finding a better way to have cooperative conflict as opposed to contemptuous conflict, identifying how to make regular deposits to the relationship emotional bank account, and creating a current, more relevant set of expectations for the marriage that is in line with life now, and not how life used to be.
Each month a local mental health therapist will discuss an area of mental health. This week’s contributor is Sherri Moe, MS Psychotherapist.
Leave a Reply