Coping with Solvable Problems

Introduction

Work stress, in-laws, money, sex, housework, a new baby: These are the most typical areas of marital conflict, so there’s a good chance at least some of them are hot buttons in your relationship. Even in very happy and stable marriages, these issues are perennials. Although every relationship is different, there’s a reason why these particular conflicts are so common: They touch upon some of the marriage’s most important work.

Many people pay lip service to the notion that a good marriage takes “work.” But what specifically does this mean? Every marriage is faced with certain emotional tasks that husband and wife need to accomplish together for the marriage to grow and deepen. These tasks come down to attaining a rich understanding between husband and wife. A marriage needs this understanding in order for both people to feel safe and secure in it. When these tasks are not accomplished, the marriage feels not like a port in the storm of life but just another storm.

When there’s conflict in one of these six common areas, usually it’s because husband and wife have different ideas about these tasks, their importance, or how they should be accomplished. If the conflict is perpetual, no amount of problem-solving savvy will fix it.

The tension will deescalate only when you both feel comfortable living with your ongoing difference. But when the issue is solvable, the challenge is to find the right strategy for conquering it. Please refer to the previous lesson on differentiating problems as solvable or perpetual. Here we’ve listed these six hot spots, the task they each represent for a partnership, and practical advice for addressing the solvable disagreements they often trigger.

STRESS AND MORE STRESS

The Task:

Making your marriage a place of peace.

Most days Stephanie and Todd get home from work within a few minutes of each other. Too often, instead of a loving reunion, they find themselves in a shouting match. Todd, who has been kowtowing to a difficult boss all day, gets annoyed when he can’t find the mail because Stephanie moved it off the table for the nth time. Stephanie, who has a deadline at work and knows she’ll be up late working, feels her anger surge when she opens the refrigerator and discovers nothing but Strawberry Snapple. “There’s no food!” she yells. “I can’t believe you didn’t go to the supermarket like you promised. What’s wrong with you?” The real question is what’s going wrong between Todd and Stephanie. The answer is that they are bringing their work stress home, and it is sabotaging their marriage.

Scheduling formal griping sessions can prevent the spillover of everyday stress into your marriage. There’s no doubt that work stress has become an increasing factor in marital dissatisfaction. Today’s couples work an average of one thousand hours more each year than people did thirty years ago.

There is less time for talking, relaxing, eating, and even sleeping. No wonder the days of the cheerful “Honey, I’m home!” are history for so many families. Most likely “Honey” is working too and has come home with a stack of papers she needs to prepare for tomorrow’s presentation to a client. Or maybe she’s been waiting tables all day, and the last thing she wants to do is to wait on her man.

Solution

Acknowledge that at the end of a long, stressful day you may need time to yourselves to decompress before interacting with each other. If you are feeling suddenly outraged by something your spouse did, realize that the incident may be overblown in your mind because you’re feeling so tense. Likewise, if your spouse comes home with a cloud over his head and your “What’s wrong?” gets answered with a snarl, try not to take it personally. He or she probably just had a bad day. Rather than making the situation worse by lashing out, let it go.

Build time to unwind into your daily schedule. Make it a ritual, whether it entails lying on your bed and reading your mail, going for a jog, or meditating. Of course, some couples find that the easiest way to relax is to enlist each other’s help. If so, try the soothing techniques described in previous lessons. Once you’re both feeling relatively composed, it’s time to come together and talk about each other’s day. Consider this a sanctioned whining session during which each person gets to complain about any catastrophes that occurred while the other is understanding and supportive.

Relations with in-laws

The task:

Establishing a sense of “we-ness,” or solidarity, between husband and wife.

Sometimes, family tension is more frequently between a woman and her mother-in-law. I do realize this is one of those outdated traditions and the trope of many Hollywood rom-coms. Invariably the differences between the two women’s opinions, personalities, and life views become evident the more time they spend together. A decision to go out to dinner can create dissension over such minutiae as where to eat, when to eat, what to eat, how much to spend, who gets the check, and so on. Then, of course, there are the deeper issues of values, jobs, where to live, how to live, how to pray, and whom to vote for.

Although such conflicts usually surface quite early in a marriage, in-law difficulties can be triggered or revived at many other times, such as when children are born or pass major milestones in their development, and again as the parents age and become increasingly dependent on the couple.

At the core of the tension is a turf battle between the two women for the husband’s love. The wife is watching to see whether her husband backs her or his mother. She is wondering, “Which family are you really in?” Often the mother is asking the same question. The man, for his part, just wishes the two women could get along better. He loves them both and does not want to have to choose. The whole idea is ridiculous to him. After all, he has loyalties to each, and he must honor and respect both. Unfortunately, this attitude often throws him into the role of peacemaker or mediator, which invariably makes the situation worse.

Solution

The only way out of this dilemma is for the husband to side with his wife against his mother. Although this may sound harsh, remember that one of the basic tasks of a marriage is to establish a sense of “we-ness” between husband and wife. So the husband must let his mother know that his wife does indeed come first. His house is his and his wife’s house, not his mother’s. He is a husband first, then a son. This is not a pleasant position to take. His mother’s feelings may be hurt. But eventually she will probably adjust to the reality that her son’s family unit, where he is the husband, takes precedence to him over all others. It is absolutely critical for the marriage that the husband be firm about this, even if he feels unfairly put upon and even if his mother cannot accept the new reality.

This is not to suggest that a man do anything that he feels demeans and dishonors his parents or goes against his basic values. He should not compromise who he is. But he has to stand with his wife and not in the middle. He and his wife need to establish their own family rituals, values, and lifestyle and insist that his mother (and father) respect this boundary and relationship rule.

For this reason, creating or renewing your sense of solidarity with your spouse may involve some rending and tearing away from your primary families. That’s the challenge David faced when his parents came for a weekend visit to his new home, a visit that led to what he now calls the Great Osso Buco Crisis.

Here’s what happened:

His wife Janie had made Saturday dinner reservations for all of them at her favorite Italian restaurant. She was very excited about showing the restaurant off to her Italian in-laws, especially because she often felt upstaged by her mother-in-law, who was very knowledgeable about cuisine. But while she and David were out running errands, the older woman went to the butcher and the supermarket and prepared David’s favorite dish for dinner–osso buco.

When David and Janie arrived home, the savory aroma of garlic and veal wafted through the air. Janie was furious–but not surprised—when David’s mother said she “forgot” about the reservations. David was face to face with a dilemma. The veal looked delicious, and he knew how hurt his mother would be if he didn’t eat it. He really wanted to tell Janie to cancel the reservations.

Although this hardly sounds like a major crisis, it led to a turning point in David and Janie’s marriage. Janie had dreaded her in-laws’ visit to begin with because she felt her mother-in-law always acted as if Janie was sweet but incompetent while she was the great savior who would set their household right. Janie was always polite but distant with David’s mom. Privately she would give David an earful about what a control freak his mother was. David always insisted Janie was imagining or exaggerating slights. This just made her angrier.

Now Janie held her breath as she watched David survey the feast his mother had prepared. He cleared his throat, put his arm around his mother, and thanked her for cooking such a wonderful meal. Then he insisted it would keep for another day in the refrigerator. He explained that it was important to him and Janie to share with her and his dad how they liked to spend Saturday night together as a couple at their favorite restaurant.

His mother looked highly offended. She got teary-eyed and made a bit of a scene. (David let his father deal with that.) But it was worth it to David to see Janie look so happy and triumphant. In the end, David’s message was loud and clear: She comes first, Mom. Get used to it. “That’s when our real marriage began,” Janie recalls. “When he let his mother know that I was now first in his heart.”

An important part of putting your spouse first and building this sense of solidarity is not to tolerate any contempt toward your spouse from your parents. Noel and Evelyn’s marriage was heading for disaster until Noel learned that lesson. After their son was born, it was very important to Noel that his parents view him as a good father. Although he was a very busy lawyer and didn’t get to spend much time with the baby, every other weekend he would bring the baby with him for a visit with his parents, who lived in the next town. This gave Evelyn some desperately needed time to herself.

Often Evelyn would join them at the end of the day. From the moment she entered the house, she felt like an outsider, as if she had been cut out of the baby’s life. Noel’s parents pretty much ignored her. They’d make a big fuss over the baby and go on and on about what a great father Noel was. At times they were even sarcastic toward Evelyn–issuing snide comments, for example, about the fact that she was still nursing the baby at six months. Since Evelyn knew that Noel wanted her to wean the baby, she suspected that Noel was complaining to his parents about her behind her back. In our laboratory we helped the couple talk about this issue, and it turned out she was completely right. In an effort to impress his parents, Noel was sacrificing his “we-ness” with Evelyn by badmouthing her.

Once Noel realized that his need for his parents’ approval was playing out against Evelyn and their marriage, he was able to change. He began to spend less time at his parents’ house with the baby, so that his parents saw their grandson mostly when they were on Evelyn’s home turf. When his mother expressed concern that the baby wasn’t getting enough to eat, Noel piped up that Evelyn had just taken him to the pediatrician, who declared him perfectly plump and healthy. When his father suggested that the baby needed a heavier snowsuit, Noel told him that Evelyn was the mother and knew better than anyone else what was best for their son. At first Noel’s parents were miffed by his new attitude. But as time went on, they came to accept the change. And Noel and Evelyn found that their marriage flourished. They finally developed a sense that they were a team. They had mastered the task of building “we-ness.”

Exercise 1: In-law Problems

If you are having ongoing in-law problems in your marriage, filling out this brief questionnaire can help. It will let you focus on your relationships with each other’s kin so that you can determine whether your sense of “we-ness” as a couple needs to be strengthened when it comes to a particular relative.

You should both jot down your answers to this form on separate paper or in a journal.

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Think of your relationship with various members of your spouse’s family. If you feel that your spouse isn’t necessarily on your side in any of these relationships or that there are ongoing issues with a particular family member.

• Spouse’s mother
• Spouse’s father
• Spouse’s parents
• Spouse’s stepparents
• Spouse’s siblings
• Spouses’ parent’s siblings
• Or other family member

Describe the successes so far:

Describe the conflicts that remain:

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Think about your spouse’s relationship with your family. If you feel that your spouse isn’t necessarily on your side in any of these relationships or that there are ongoing issues with a particular family member.

• Your mother
• Your father
• Your parents
• Your stepparents
• Your siblings
• Your parent’s siblings
• Or other family member

Describe the successes so far:

Describe the conflicts that remain:

Now get together with your spouse and read over each other’s responses. Discuss what can be done to increase the amount of support and solidarity you are getting from each other. Try not to be defensive if your spouse perceives a problem and you don’t. Remember that much about relationships has to do with perception. So, for example, if your wife believes that you side with your own mother against her, that’s something you need to work on in your marriage, even if you don’t agree with her perception of the situation.

Money

The Task:

Balancing the freedom and empowerment money represents with the security and trust it also symbolizes.

Whether their bank account is teeming or they’re just scrimping by, many couples confront significant money conflicts. Often such disputes are evidence of a perpetual issue, since money is symbolic of many emotional needs–such as for security and power–and goes to the core of our individual value system. But when a simpler, solvable financial problem arises, the key to resolving it is to first understand a marriage’s task in this area. While money buys pleasure, it also buys security Balancing these two economic realities can be work for any couple, since our feelings about money and value are so personal and often idiosyncratic.

I find that solvable financial differences are usually the province of newlyweds rather than longer-term couples. That’s because as a marriage goes on, these issues either become resolved successfully or develop into perpetual problems about money’s symbolic meanings. However, long-term couples may also find themselves facing a solvable money issue as their circumstances change. Differences of opinion over job changes, financing the children’s education, planning for retirement, and caring for elderly parents are common sources of friction in mid life.

Solution:

Some clearheaded budgeting is called for. Below are some simple steps you can take to get a handle on how much you’d like to be spending–and on what. Keep in mind, though, that managing complex financial matters is beyond the scope of this book. If you need extra help with financial planning and investing, you’ll find plenty of resources at your local library or bookstore. In particular I recommend Get a Financial Life by Beth Kobliner (Fireside Books, 1996) and Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (Penguin, 1992). What’s most important in terms of your marriage is that you work as a team on financial issues and that you express your concerns, needs, and fantasies to each other before coming up with a plan. Make sure you don’t end up with a budget that forces either of you to become a martyr. This will only build up resentment. You’ll each need to be firm about items that you consider nonnegotiable.

Step 1: Itemize Your Current Expenditures

Use a form, spreadsheet, or personal finance software to record how you have spent your money over the last month, six months, or year, whichever is most appropriate to your situation. You may be able to do this just by reviewing your checkbook and credit card statements.

• Expenditures
• Food
• Mortgage or rent
• Vacation rentals
• Remodeling
• Property taxes
• Condo maintenance fees
• Home office supplies
• Utilities
  • Electricity
  • Gas
  • Heat
  • Water
• Phone
• E-mail, Internet
• Household maintenance
• Housecleaning
• Laundry
• Dry cleaning
• Supplies and equipment (vacuum, bathroom cleaner, etc.)
• Clothes
• Personal care (Haircuts, manicures, sundries)
• Car
  • Gas
  • Maintenance and repairs
  • License renewal
  • Insurance
  • Parking, tolls
• Payments
• Other Transportation
• Bus, train, ferry fares
• Trips
• Business expenses
• Visiting family
• Other vacations
• Recreation
• Eating out or takeout
• Baby-sitters
• Dates (movies, plays, concerts, sports)
• Home entertainment (video rentals, CDs)
• Health
• Insurance premiums
• Doctor
• Pharmacy
• Health club membership
• Other (eyeglasses, massages, counseling, etc.)
• Appliances and electronics (tv computer, answering machine)
• Gifts
• Charitable contributions
• Interest on loans, bank charges, credit cards
• Life insurance
• Investments and savings (stocks, etc.)

Step 2: Manage Everyday Finances

Write down every expense from the list above that you consider essential for your sense of happiness and well-being.

Look carefully at your income and assets. Now try to create a budget that allows you to manage everyday finances and other “essentials” based on your means.

Come up with a plan for paying bills on a regular basis. Determine who writes the checks and when, and who balances the checkbook.

Discuss your separate lists and plans with each other. Look for common ground between your two approaches. Decide on a workable strategy that allows both of you to meet your “essential” needs.

Agree to sit down and revisit your plan in a few months to make sure it’s working for both of you.

Step 3: Plan Your Financial Future

“This book was written decades ago. Please accept my apologies. It was written at a time when a person making a modest income could afford a house and the basic necessities. That is not a realistic view of the world we now reside in. People’s financial fears now include, loss of their partner, loss of their job, and medical emergencies. Bear in mind, in most areas of this country, you need to be earning a minimum of $150,000.00 per year to afford your own home (well maintained, safe, clean, healthy). That is likely due to inflation, higher interest rates, and underlying greed.” ~ James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, LCMHC.

Strengthening Your Conscious Self

Imagine your life 5, 10, 20, or 30 years from now. What would be your ideal circumstance? Think of things you want (house, and so on) and the kind of life you would ideally like to lead. Also think through the kinds of financial disasters you would most want to avoid. For example, some people’s greatest financial fear is not having enough money to retire. Others fear not being able to fund a child’s college education.

Now list your long-term financial goals, taking into account what you most desire and what you most fear. For example, your goals might include buying your own home or weekend home, as well as having a well-funded retirement account.

Share your lists with each other. Look for similarities in your long term goals. Discuss your perspectives.

Come up with a long-range financial plan that will help you both meet your goals. Be sure to revisit this plan every so often—say every year–to make sure you’re still in agreement.

Following these steps has helped couples with a wide variety of financial differences come up with workable solutions. For example, Linda loved stylish clothes and working out at the health club near her office. Devon considered both of those frivolous wastes of money. He far preferred to spend his money on lunches out with friends and two skiing vacations every year. To Linda, his pleasures were overly indulgent. After they each filled out the form, they could see exactly how much money they had. They talked about their finances as a couple and arrived at a temporary compromise budget. Neither of them wanted to give up on their favorite pleasures, so they decided that they would open three savings accounts, one for each of them plus a joint account. They agreed to put a portion of each paycheck into their joint account to save for their children’s education and other major expenses down the road. Then they individually would save for gym memberships and ski trips. They decided that in six months they would talk over this arrangement again to determine whether their new budgeting system was working for both of them.

Tina and Gene had a different dilemma. Their oldest son Brian was just two years away from college. Although they had saved enough for him to attend the local community college, Tina wanted to send him to the more rigorous (and more expensive) state university, which offered far more science courses. Brian had always been an exceptional student. His dream of becoming an aerospace engineer seemed like a realistic goal. But to pay the higher tuition this would entail, Gene would have to postpone his dream of buying a cabin in the mountains. Although Gene cared deeply about his son’s education, he also worried that if they didn’t buy a home now, they’d get priced out of the market and would never realize his lifelong dream. Gene wanted Tina to go back to work full time so they could afford the college tuition and the country home. But Tina was resisting because her very elderly mother lived with them and depended on Tina for her daily care. Gene and Tina were at this point having almost daily fights over the issue. Gene thought it was time for Tina’s sister to take over her mother’s care. But Tina’s sister worked full time and said she wasn’t able to do that. The other option was to put her mother in a nursing home, but Tina was dead set against such a decision.

When Tina and Gene filled out the budgeting form, a simple solution did not present itself. But the process of looking through their expenditures together transformed the emotional climate between them dramatically Rather than arguing about the issues, they felt like a team again. They made lists of the various pieces of information they needed to find out about student loans and scholarships. In the end, Gene accepted that he would have to postpone his dream for a few more years. Tina did go back to work, but only on a part time basis. Gene was able to shift his work hours so that he could be home with his mother-in-law while Tina was away and Brian was able to take out enough student loans to allow him to go to the state university.

The problems and solutions encountered by these couples are unlikely to match yours. The point is that whatever your disagreement over finances, you’ll defuse the tension by working as a team to devise a plan you both can accept, even if it doesn’t give you everything you want right now.

Sex

The Task:

Fundamental appreciation and acceptance of each other.

No other area of a couple’s life offers more potential for embarrassment, hurt, and rejection than sex. No wonder couples find it such a challenge to communicate about the topic clearly. Often they “vague out,” making it difficult to decipher what they’re actually trying to tell each other.

Here’s a classic example from a couple we taped in our lab:

She: Think about your feelings two and a half and three years ago, and how we dealt with the problem and how we felt. I mean, think. It was much more a problem then in my eyes than it is now.

He: I think we’re more secure together now than we were then. I don’t know. I would say the actual problem we haven’t dealt with anymore, any differently since then, I don’t believe. I don’t know if we’ve really changed.

She: Do you feel any differently about it, though?

He: How do you feel?

She: Well, I guess I feel that the problem two and a half and three years ago, I viewed it as something that could ruin our marriage. I was real worried about us not making it. I don’t really worry about that anymore.

He: I never considered it a threat to our marriage. I know you did, but I never did.

She: Okay And maybe I’m feeling more secure now, is why I don’t.

The “problem” this couple is discussing is that he has always wanted sex more frequently than she does. In this snippet of conversation she is trying to get him to agree that it’s not a problem anymore. She wants his reassurance. He thinks the problem still exists, but he avoids telling her that directly.

So often when a husband and wife talk to each other about their sexual needs, their conversations are like this–indirect, imprecise, inconclusive. Frequently both partners are in a hurry to end the conversation, hopeful that they will miraculously understand each other’s desires without much talk. They rarely say things like “I love it when you stroke my breasts for a long time the way you did last night,” or “I really need you every day,” or “Mornings are my favorite times for making love,” and so on. The problem is that the less clear you are about what you do and don’t want, the less likely you are to get it. Sex can be such a fun way to share with each other and deepen your sense of intimacy. But when communication is fraught with tension, then frustration and hurt feelings too often result.

Solution

Learn to talk to each other about sex in a way that lets you both feel safe.

That means learning the right way to ask for what you want, and the appropriate way to react to your spouse’s requests. Because most people feel so vulnerable about whether they are attractive to their spouse and a “good” lover, the key to talking about sex is to be gentle. A lovemaking session that starts with one partner criticizing the other is going to end faster than a “quickie.” The goal of sex is to be closer, to have more fun, to feel satisfied, and to feel valued and accepted in this very tender area of your marriage.

Nothing is guaranteed to make your spouse want to touch you less than if you say, “You never touch me.” It’s better to say, “I loved when we kissed last weekend on the big couch. I’d love more of that, it makes me feel so good.” Likewise, instead of “Don’t touch me there,” you’ll get a better response if you say, “It feels extra good when you touch me here.” When you talk to your partner about sex, your attitude should always be that you are making a very good thing even better. Even if you aren’t satisfied with your current sex life, you need to accentuate the positive.

If you are on the receiving end of your partner’s request, try very hard not to see it as an implied criticism of your attractiveness, sexual virility, lovemaking skill, or innermost being. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree to all of your partner’s requests. It is up to both of you to decide what you feel okay and safe doing and what you don’t. Sexuality is incredibly malleable, so it is really possible to make accommodations to each other’s desires that will be pleasurable to both of you. For example, Mike wanted to have sex several times a week, but Lynne thought once or twice was enough. As a result, Mike felt frustrated and rejected. Over time he became more insistent that they increase the frequency. He’d bring home books and all sorts of erotica in an effort to turn Lynne on. But this just made Lynne feel pressured, which backfired. As Mike’s frustration grew, Lynne’s desire dwindled.

By the time they came to our workshop, Lynne and Mike had no idea how they could work out this issue. We suggested that the person with the least interest (currently Lynne) needs to feel in control. We shifted the focus from sex to sensuality. Lynne loved massages, so we suggested she go to the bookstore and select a book on massage that appealed to her. We suggested that she be in charge of the couple’s sensual experience. She directed their evenings. While there was no sex per se, there was a lot of holding and touching. Gradually, Lynne’s sexual desire heightened, and they began to have sex more frequently–about once a week.

Often expectations get in the way of an optimum love life. Not all sex has to be of the same quality or intensity. Sometimes it will feel like you’ve touched each other to the core of your souls. Other times it will just be pleasant. Sometimes sex is slow, sometimes it’s brief. Variety can and ought to exist in a sexual relationship. But there do have to be times when sex is an expression of love. Obviously, the more often this occurs, the better.

The best way to enrich your love life is to learn about each other’s likes and take the time to remember and memorize these things, and to use this knowledge in the way your fingers and lips touch each other. Make sure that this knowledge is really available to you when you are turned on sexually, and make this knowledge live in your body and in your sensitivity to your partner’s bodily reactions. This will mean tuning into nonverbal behaviors of your partner as you are beginning to make love. But try to develop the idea that words are also acceptable as ways of communicating even during lovemaking.

A major characteristic of couples who have a happy sex life is that they see lovemaking as an expression of intimacy but they don’t take any differences in their needs or desires personally.

Your sexual life will be further enhanced if you feel safe enough to share your sexual fantasies with each other and even act them out together. This is a very delicate area. Although fantasies are the home of imagination, variety, and adventure in a marriage, very few couples are able to share their fantasies and then find some way of honoring them within their sex life. If you are able to share your fantasies, the result will be great intimacy, romance, and excitement. Try to cultivate the idea that within the boundaries of your marriage, all wishes, images, fantasies, and desires are acceptable.

Nothing is intrinsically bad or disgusting. You can say no to your partner’s request, but don’t disparage it. Expressing a fantasy requires a great deal of trust, so take care to be tender when you hear of a fantasy your partner has. If it’s not one of your own, but it’s not a turn-off, then agree to it. Don’t take it personally if your spouse wants you to pretend to be a stranger, a nurse, or a pirate. Just consider it play The idea, the desire, the fantasy is usually not understood at all by the person expressing it. No one knows why particular fantasies are erotic to certain people, they just are.

There are some open manhole covers in the area of sex that you should know about. The greatest of these is a lack of basic knowledge about sex. It leads people to base their expectations for their own performance from informal and unreliable sources, mostly those heard from friends during adolescence. The result is often that we judge ourselves quite harshly and feel that we are not very good in bed. For example, many men think that they have to always be able to get an erection whenever the situation calls for it. If it doesn’t happen, it is common for great self-doubt to set in. These and many other expectations are things we carry around with us without being very aware of them.

Another problem with the lack of basic knowledge is that we presume we know about one another’s anatomy and sexual physiology when we have never learned about these things anywhere. Fortunately in this day and age manuals and books about sexuality are readily available in bookstores. Just don’t assume that you already know about sex without reading about it. Purchase whatever appeals to you.

Household Responsibilities: Division of Labor

The Task:

Creating a sense of fairness and teamwork.

Joanne was fed up. For months she had been asking Greg not to throw his dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. For months he kept forgetting, just like he kept forgetting to vacuum the carpet and wash the dishes every night, even though he agreed that these were his jobs. Both of them worked full time, but Joanne usually got home first and would end up picking up after Greg. As she ran the vacuum or rinsed the dirty dishes that were still in the sink, she would be seething. When he got home, she’d give him the silent treatment or make sarcastic remarks about being the maid. He’d insist that the problem was that she was a terrible nag. “Maybe if you’d leave me alone about it, I’d be more likely to do it,” he’d tell her.

Greg didn’t realize how damaging his attitude toward housework was to his marriage until the day he arrived home to the sound of banging from the bedroom. He walked in to find his wife, still in her business suit, nailing his dirty boxer shorts to the oak floor. “They’ve been there for three days,” she told him. “So I figured you wanted to make them a permanent part of the decor.”

Joanne and Greg eventually divorced, so I’m not suggesting that the solution to housekeeping conflicts can be found at the nearest hardware store. The point is that men often don’t realize how deeply women care about keeping their home in order. There are certainly exceptions to the gender differences in this area, but as a general rule, in the Odd Couple spectrum of cleanliness, women skew more toward the fastidious Felix and men toward slovenly Oscar. When a husband doesn’t do his agreed-upon share of the housework, the wife usually feels disrespected and unsupported. Inevitably this leads to resentment and a less satisfying marriage.

Many husbands just don’t understand why housework is such a big deal to their wives. They may not be slackers on purpose. But many were raised in traditional homes where their father did no housework at all. A husband may pay lip service to the notion that times have changed and that it isn’t fair for his wife to work a second shift when she gets home while he pops open a beer. But old ways die hard. On some level many men still consider housework to be a woman’s job. When the husband helps, he feels he should be applauded–but instead his wife keeps demanding he do more, which makes him defensive and likely to do less.

A major cause of this unfortunate dynamic is that Greg, like most men, tends to overestimate the amount of housework he does. This has been documented by British sociologist Arm Oakley. I know this is true in my own home. When I complain that I’m doing all of the housework, my wife says, “Good!” because she knows that means I’m actually doing half.

Solution

By now the key to resolving this issue should be clear: Men have to do more housework!

Sometimes men shirk their responsibility in this department due to a sheer lack of motivation. Let’s face it–no one wants to trudge out the recycling bags in the snow. So maybe this little fact will spark a husband’s enthusiasm for domestic chores: Women find a man’s willingness to do housework extremely erotic. When the husband does his share to maintain the home, both he and his wife report a more satisfying sex life than in marriages where the wife believes her husband is not doing his share.

The benefits to these marriages extend beyond the bedroom. In these relationships the women also have significantly lower heart rates during marital arguments, which means they are less likely to begin a discussion harshly and so avoid triggering that whole downward spiral of conflict involving the four horsemen and flooding that leads to divorce.

I’m not suggesting that every husband must do a straight 50 percent of the housework if he wants to save his marriage and see his sex life improve. The key is not the actual amount he does but his wife’s subjective view of whether it’s enough. For one couple this could indeed mean an even split of chores. But in another marriage the wife may be just as satisfied if he takes care of some chores she hates–like cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming–or even if he agrees to budget for a weekly housekeeper to lighten both their loads. The best way to figure out how much housework a husband needs to do is for the couple to talk over the following list. By itemizing exactly who does what, you’ll finally have an objective basis for determining who should do what.

Use the list to describe to each other first your perception of how things are currently handled and then how you would like them to be. This list extends beyond actual cleaning to other domestic chores—like family finances and various aspects of child care–that can also be causes of conflict if the distribution of labor is seen as unfair.

Please allow me to summarize this section for anyone, regardless of gender identity, gender expression, or gender presentation. “Cleaning up after yourself and contributing to the household in a meaningful way is not a ‘gender role’ it is a part of being an adult in relationships.” The most basic idea for the division of labor (physical, emotional, and social) is to assign or assume roles and responsibilities that align well with your strengths and limitations, capacity, and abilities. James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, LCMHC

Strengthening Your Conscious Self

You may find that certain patterns emerge. As I said, men often believe that they are doing a larger share of domestic chores than is actually the case. In many marriages the husband does more of the “brute strength” tasks like washing the car or mowing the lawn, or the abstract jobs like financial planning that don’t have to be done on a daily basis or on a strict timetable. The wife carries more than her share of the mindless, daily drudge work–like cleaning and picking up–which leaves her resentful.

Who Does What List

• Running errands
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Taking clothes to the cleaners
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Washing windows
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning the food menu
  • Now:
  • Ideal
• Going grocery shopping
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Cooking dinner
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Setting the table
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Cleanup after dinner
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Cleaning the kitchen
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Cleaning the bathrooms
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Putting out clean towels
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Keeping counters clean
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• General tidying up
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Getting the car serviced
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Putting gas in the car
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Sorting incoming mail
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Paying the bills
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Balancing the checkbook
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Writing letters
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Taking phone messages
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Returning phone calls or email
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Saving money
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Taking out garbage and trash
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Recycling
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Doing the laundry
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Folding the laundry
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Ironing
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Putting the clean clothes away
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Sweeping kitchen and eating areas
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Vacuuming
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Washing and waxing floors
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Changing light bulbs
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Repair of appliances
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Making the beds
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Defrosting and cleaning refrigerator
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Shopping for clothing
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning travel
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Home repair
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Remodeling
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Home maintenance
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Buying furniture
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Redecorating home
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Buying items for the home
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Buying new appliances
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Sewing and mending
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Straightening kitchen cabinets
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Yard and garden work
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Lawn, tree, and shrubbery maintenance
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Errands to the bank
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• House plant care
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Straightening and rearranging closets
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Getting house ready for guests
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Party preparations
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Buying children gifts
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Taking children to school
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Picking children up from school
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child care after school
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child meals and lunches
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Pediatrician
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child Homework
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child baths
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child discipline
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Bedtime with kids
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Dealing with a sick child
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Handling child crises
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Dealing with a child’s emotions
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Teacher conferences
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Dealing with the schools
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Special children’s events
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child birthday and other parties
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child’s lessons
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Child’s play dates
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Shopping for children’s stuff
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Buying presents
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Keeping in touch with kin
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Preparing for holidays
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning vacations
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning getaways
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning romantic dates
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning quiet evenings at home
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning weekends
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Initiating lovemaking
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Planning dinner out
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Family outings, drives, picnics
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Financial planning
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Major purchases (cars, etc.)
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Managing investments
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Talking about the relationship
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Get-togethers with friends
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Keeping in touch with friends
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Doing the taxes
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Legal matters (e.g. wills, advance directives)
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Coordinating family’s medical care
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Drugs and other health areas
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Exercise and fitness
  • Now:
  • Ideal:
• Recreational outings
  • Now:
  • Ideal:

Now you should have a clear sense of which tasks you currently share and which fall into each partner’s domain. Depending on what you consider ideal, it may be time to re divide domestic tasks so that the load is more equitable. Remember, the quantity of the husband’s housework is not necessarily a determining factor in the housework = sex equation. But two other variables are. The first is whether the husband does his chores without his wife having to ask (nag). A husband who does this earns enormous points in the emotional bank account. The other factor is whether he is flexible in his duties in response to her needs. For example, if he sees that she’s especially tired one night, does he volunteer to wash the dishes even though it’s her turn? This conveys that all-important honor and respect for her. Helping his wife in this way will turn her on more than any “adults only” video.

Becoming Parents

The Task:

Expanding your sense of “we-ness” to include your children.

“A child is a grenade. When you have a baby, you set off an explosion in your marriage, and when the dust settles, your marriage is different from what it was. Not better, necessarily; not worse, necessarily; but different.” So wrote Nora Ephron in Heartburn, her roman a clef about the breakup of her previous marriage. Virtually every study that has looked at how people make the transition from couple hood to parenthood confirms her view. A baby sets off seismic changes in a marriage. Unfortunately, most of the time those changes are for the worse. In the year after the first baby arrives, 70 percent of wives experience a precipitous plummet in their marital satisfaction. (For the husband, the dissatisfaction usually kicks in later, as a reaction to his wife’s unhappiness.) There are wide- ranging reasons for this deep disgruntlement–lack of sleep, feeling overwhelmed and unappreciated, the awesome responsibility of caring for such a helpless little creature, juggling mothering with a job, economic stress, and lack of time to oneself, among other things.

The big mystery is not why 67 percent of new mothers feel so miserable, but why the other 33 percent just seem to sail through the transition to motherhood unscathed. (In fact, some of these mothers say their marriage has never been better.) Thanks to the 130 couples we’ve followed from their newlywed stage to as long as eight years afterward, I now know the secret to keeping a marriage happy and stable even after the “grenade” explodes. What separates these blissful mothers from the rest has nothing to do with whether their baby is colicky or a good sleeper, whether they are nursing or bottle feeding, working or staying home. Rather, it has everything to do with whether the husband experiences the transformation to parenthood along with his wife or gets left behind.

Having a baby almost inevitably causes a metamorphosis in the new mother. She has never felt a love as deep and selfless as the one she feels for her child. Almost always a new mother experiences nothing less than a profound reorientation of meaning in her life. She discovers she is willing to make enormous sacrifices for her child. She feels awe and wonder at the intensity of her feelings for this fragile little being. The experience is so life-altering that if her husband doesn’t go through it with her, it is understandable that distance would develop between them. While the wife is embracing a new sense “ofwe-ness” that includes their child, the husband may still be pining for the old “us.” So he can’t help but resent how little time she seems to have for him now, how tired she always is, how often she’s preoccupied with feeding the baby. He resents that they can’t ride their bikes to the beach anymore because the baby is too small to sit up in a back carrier. He loves his child, but he wants his wife back.

What’s a husband to do?

The answer to his dilemma is simple: He can’t get his wife back — he has to follow her into the new realm she has entered. Only then can their marriage continue to grow. In marriages where the husband is able to do this, he doesn’t resent his child. He no longer feels like only a husband, but like a father, too. He feels pride, tenderness, and protectiveness toward his offspring.

How can a couple ensure that the husband is transformed along with his wife? First, the couple need to ignore some popular bad advice. Many well-meaning experts recommend that you consider marriage and family a balancing act, as if your lives are a seesaw with the baby on one end and your marriage on the other. Couples are counseled to spend some time away from the baby and focus on their marriage and outside interests: talk about your relationship, your job, her job, the weather, anything but the baby at home. But marriage and family are not diametrically opposed.

Rather, they are of one cloth. Yes, the couple should spend time away from the baby occasionally. But if they are making this transition well together, they will find that they can’t stop talking about the baby, nor do they want to. They might not even get through that first meal without calling home–at least twice. Too often, such couples are made to feel as if they have done something wrong because they have made their own relationship seemingly secondary to their new roles as parents. The result is that they feel all the more stressed and confused. But in fact, they have done something very right. The important thing here is that they are in it together. To the extent that both husband and wife make this philosophical shift, the parent-child relationship and the marriage thrive.

Here are some more tips to help couples stay connected as they evolve into parents.

Focus on your marital friendship. Before the baby comes, make sure that you really know each other and your respective worlds intimately. The more of a team you are now, the easier the transition will be. If a husband knows his wife, he will be in better tune with her as she begins her journey to motherhood.

Don’t exclude Dad from baby care.

Sometimes, in her exuberance, a new mother comes off as a know-it-all to her husband. While she pays lip service to the idea that they should share the baby’s care, she casts herself into a supervisory role, constantly directing–if not ordering–the new father and even chastising him if he doesn’t do things exactly her way: “Don’t hold her like that,” “You didn’t burp him enough,” “The bath water’s too cold.” In the face of this barrage, some husbands are more than happy to withdraw, to cede the role of expert to their wives (after all, their own fathers never knew anything about babies, either) and accept their own incompetence. The sad result is that they do less and less and therefore become less and less accomplished and confident in caring for their own child. Inevitably, they begin to feel more excluded.

The solution is simple. The new mother needs to back off. She needs to realize that there’s more than one way to burp a baby If she doesn’t like her husband’s way, she should remember that the baby is his child too and will benefit from experiencing more than one parenting style. A few baths in tepid water are a small price for an infant–and a marriage–to pay for the father’s ongoing commitment to his family If the mother feels her husband’s approach is really unsafe, she should direct him to their pediatrician, Dr. Spock’s tome, or some other edifying baby-care guide. Some small, well-timed doses of gentle advice-giving are fine (don’t forget to use a softened startup), but lectures and criticism will backfire.

Feeding time can be especially difficult for the new dad.

Penis envy may well be a Freudian myth, but breast envy is alive and well in almost every home where the wife is nursing an infant. Fathers can’t help but feel jealous when they see that beautiful bond developing between their wife and baby. It’s as if the two have formed a charmed circle that he just can’t enter. In response to this need, some baby-care catalogs actually offer devices that allow men a close approximation of the nursing experience. There is, for example, an attachment that you can strap onto your chest that delivers warm milk to the baby through plastic breasts! But most couples don’t need to resort to extra equipment to help the man feel included. Instead, they can find a role for the husband in the ritual of breast feeding. For example, it can be the husband’s job to carry the baby to the mother at feeding time. He can also be the official “bur per.” He could also make it his custom to sit quietly with his wife and child during feeding times, gently stroking the baby’s head, for example, or singing to his baby

Let Dad be baby’s playmate.

Some men think that they don’t feel much connection with their baby until the child gets older and can walk, talk, and play Unfortunately by then their distance from family life has created fissures in their marriage. The reason men may take longer to “bond” with their children is that, as countless studies have confirmed, women tend to be more nurturing toward children while men are more playful. And since most men assume you can’t really play with a helpless baby, they don’t feel engaged by their child for much of the crucial first year.

But dads who spend time with their young babies will discover that they are not “blobs” who do nothing but cry, nurse, poop, and sleep. Even newborns can be great playmates. Babies begin to smile at a mere three weeks. Even earlier than that they can track movements with their eyes. Soon they are chortling, kicking their legs in delight. In short, the father who gets to know his babies by bathing, diapering, and feeding them will inevitably find that they love to play with him and that he has a special role in their lives.

Carve out time for the two of you.

Part of the transition to parenthood entails placing a priority (albeit usually second place) on the marriage itself. So you should use a baby-sitter, a relative, or friend to get some time alone with each other. But remember, you haven’t failed if you end up spending a lot of your “dates” discussing the baby–you’ve succeeded. As the baby grows into a toddler and then becomes school-aged, you’ll find that your conversations when you’re alone together won’t always gravitate toward your child and your role as parents.

Be sensitive to Dad’s needs

Even if he is a good team player and is making the philosophical shift toward parenthood along with his wife, the man is still going to feel somewhat deprived by the baby’s overwhelming and seemingly endless need for her. Even if, intellectually, he understands that the baby’s needs supplant his own in priority, he’s going to miss his wife. The more his wife acknowledges what he has given up and lets him know how central he still is to her life, the more understanding and supportive he will be able to be. If she never has any time for just the marriage, he will have a tendency to withdraw from the relationship.

Give Mom a break.

For all the daily wonders a mother experiences during the newborn stage, she is also likely to be exhausted. It will help their marriage if her husband will modify his work hours so he can come home earlier and on the weekends take over for her now and then so that she can get a needed break to sleep, see a friend, or a movie, or do whatever else she needs to feel part of the world again.

Couples who follow this advice will discover that parenthood doesn’t drag down their relationship but elevates it to a new level of closeness, understanding, and love for each other. In this lesson you have been given practical advice to help you solve some common marital problems. But sometimes, no matter how diligently you try to end a conflict, it just can’t be done. If that’s the case, you are dealing with a perpetual problem. Avoiding or breaking out of gridlock over such a problem is one of the chief challenges all couples face. My next principle will show you just how to save–or protect–your marriage from your irreconcilable differences.

Seek help from either of your parents, siblings, relatives, friends, family members, or other mother’s. Imagine a group of parents who occasionally watch each other’s children, on a barter system. If you can find the resources, time and energy to organize a support network, I encourage you to do it. The time and energy it takes to get it organized could pay off healthy dividends in the future, and save you more time and energy. James Fitzgerald, MS, NCC, LCMHC

Strengthening Your Conscious Self