Advice to The Newlywed: You Can Be Right Or You Can Be Happy

When my friends got married, I loved throwing bachelor parties. Many of my friends were in the mental health profession. And many of these therapists did couples and family therapy. Inevitably, someone would ask: “What advice do you have for the bride and groom?” One of the best pieces of advice that I heard was simply this: “You can be right or you can be happy.”

When I counsel couples, we inevitably get into a discussion of what is right and wrong. Usually, at least one partner is concerned about being right in an argument. Without fail, one or both spouses will turn to me to be the arbiter of what is right and wrong in their relationship, confident that I will rule in their favor. As a family therapist, I almost always disengage from such a role. One reason is that discussions about being right get bogged down in a circular argument over what is right instead of discussing what works or what will make the couple happy.

This problem goes back to the first couple. Why was it that Adam and Eve were punished so severely for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? One would think that understanding the difference between good and evil would be a good thing. Doesn’t our Creator want us to do good and avoid evil? So what is the problem with eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

The difficulty is that we interpret what is good and evil from the immediate perspective of what feels good or feels bad to us. For instance, let’s look at the story of the Zen farmer:

A farmer who has achieved his Zen enlightenment discovers a horse that has wandered onto his fields. His neighbor comes by, sees the horse and says: “Oh, you are so lucky. What a wonderful horse.” The Zen farmer replies: “Could be good, could be bad. I don’t know.” Soon afterward, the Zen farmer’s son tries to tame the horse, falls and breaks his leg. The neighbor visits and says: “I just heard about your son. I’m very sorry to hear about his bad luck.” The Zen farmer says: “Could be good, could be bad. I don’t know.” His neighbor walks away confused. A week later, war breaks out. The army comes through and conscripts all the able bodied young men. The Zen farmer’s son is rejected by the army because he has a broken leg. The Zen farmer’s neighbor comes by and says: “Oh, you are so lucky, you’re son doesn’t have to go to the army and fight.” The Zen farmer says: “Could be good, could be bad, I don’t know.”

The problem with eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is that we are seduced into believing the limited perspective of our circumstances. Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil intoxicates us with the narcissistic belief that we understand what is ultimately right or wrong.

Now, this is not to say that good and evil do not exist. My own estimation of good and evil is usually processed through my current physiological and emotional state. I see and hear and experience what feels good to me today. I won’t necessarily see good in what feels bad today, but might be good far into the future. So, that means that I have to rely on something outside of myself to wake me up when it doesn’t feel good to do good or avoid evil. And, I have to accept that I might not know what is coming in the future or that I don’t have all the facts to be able to judge the present.

The addiction to being right keeps individuals locked into their addictions and locked into the circular causality of their relationships. This addiction is more seductive and pernicious than the most powerful narcotics. The potential of the pure pleasure of being right whispers the promise that we can finally be vindicated and promotes the fantasy that we can be victorious over those who have hurt us. All too often I have seen alcoholics and drug addicts cling to their “Right to Drink” despite the damage it does to their health and relationships. Just as often, I see individuals (and I fall prey to this myself) seduced by the possibility of being right instead of the desire to make themselves and their partner happy. As a result, winning the argument of being right ultimately turns into the worst sort of losing.

I sometimes wonder why we have never seen a “Self-Righteousness Anonymous.” The answer is simple. We are still too busy eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to attend the meetings.

I-Statements

I-Statements are probably the best known, most effective and least properly used technique for improving communication, resolving conflict, and setting boundaries. They usually are composed of 3 parts:

1) When you _____, (Report a concrete observation of the other person’s behavior.)
2) I feel_________. (Report on how the other person’s behavior makes you feel.)
3) In the future, please_________. (Make a request.)

Dos

• Do report the other person’s behavior concretely, without characterization or judgment.
• Do report how you feel accurately and without judgment.
• Do make a specific request that is realistic, time-bound, concrete and doable

Don’ts

• Don’t exaggerate, use sarcasm, irony, innuendo, name calling, punishment, or blame.
• Don’t exaggerate or minimize how you feel.
• Don’t turn the I-Statement into a You Statement. (I feel that you…)
• Don’t substitute an evaluation for an emotion. Tell the other person if you are happy, glad, sad, irritated, angry, nervous, afraid, or hurt. Avoid: “I feel like…” or “I feel that…”
• Don’t leave out the request.
• Don’t make unreasonable, impossible or unclear requests.
  

Put This Tool to Work

At first, you might find that using this tool seems difficult, unnatural or fake. As with any tool, it takes time and effort before you get the hang of using it. Practice. Consciously make an effort to use I-Statements in low-risk situations at least 3-5 times a day until you do it naturally, without effort and without having to think about it.
Use I-Statements where they are needed. If you use them at work, be sure that you also use them at home or anywhere else they are needed.

Pre-Wedding Freak-out II: Parents

As I mentioned in a previous post, family and friends will tend to act-out just prior or even during a wedding. It’s important to remember that a wedding doesn’t join two individuals in marriage; it joins two families and two sets of friends too. Let’s examine this in a bit more detail by looking at the issues that parents often have around weddings.

Parental Jealousy

We like to think of ourselves as rational human beings. However, if I am honest with myself, occasionally I am far from rational. Sometimes this is a good thing. The strong loving bond between a parent and child is not rational. That relationship transcends rationality. If we placed parenthood on a balance ledger, and weighed the advantages and disadvantages of having children, it would logically appear that kids simply aren’t worth the trouble. Yet, despite the hassle and problems of being a parent, given the choice again, I would make the same decision to be a parent without a moment’s hesitation.

This evolutionary bond is powerful. This is why when we go walking in the woods, the rule of thumb is never walk between a large animal and it’s young. Even an unintentional invasion of this sacred space can provoke an attack if the animal believes their babies are in danger.

Now, I know this is not rational, but even through both my daughters are years away from dating, I’ve already started bulking up at the gym in order to make an impression on my eldest daughter’s first date! I went down to the local scrap yard three years ago to pick out a two foot length of lead pipe so that when my daughter’s young suitor comes to call, I can stand in the front doorway before he comes and ask (holding the lead pipe in my right hand and bouncing it on my left palm): “Where are you going? Who are you going with? When will you be back? Do you have any personal references? What is you parent’s phone number?” I have a dark irrational secret that I won’t admit to anyone, often not even to myself – I’m already jealous of my daughter’s potential suitors.

Remember, I love my two daughters. I have invested my life, career, fortune, time, emotions and even physical stamina in these two kids. I would give my own life for them. Inevitably, my children will grow up and probably want to get married. For 20 or more years they will have been a source of love, pride and joy. After twenty years of this, do you think I want some young, inexperienced little snot to come and take my daughters away from me. Why wouldn’t I be jealous? This is why we have that hackneyed aphorism: “Don’t worry, you’re not losing a daughter, you’re gaining a son.” Without a doubt, when this time comes, someone will say this to me. This is the moment when I and any other decent self-respecting parent will buck-up, put on a stiff upper-lip, smile and say: “Yes, I know. Don’t they look wonderful together?” The reason I will smile and agree is simple. Marriage is part of the natural order of life. My job as a parent is to launch my daughter into adulthood. Releasing my daughter at the appropriate time is part of that job.

Will I try to hide my jealousy? Yes, because I owe that to my daughters. It’s part of being a good parent. I hope that when my daughters catch a glimpse of my struggle to let go they will observe my stiff upper lip and know that my struggle with jealousy is just an indication of how strong that bond between us is.


Parental Loss

As I mentioned in my previous post, the marriage of a child inevitably produces a loss for the parent. It’s not that the parent doesn’t also perceive the benefits of the marriage like more free personal time, more expendable money, and more attention from their own spouse. However, the parent will inevitably have to mourn the own loss of their parental role in the married child’s life.

Narcissists

Some of us have a large narcissistic streak in us. You probably know the type. This is the person walks into the room and all the attention instantly turns to them. People who are narcissistic will resent being somewhere the attention is not on them. Weddings can be a hard place for a narcissistic parent as they can unconsciously be jealous of giving up being the center of attention for their kids.

Coping with Pre-Ceremony Parental Freak-outs

1. Don’t get confused by your parent’s jealousy and loss. They are struggling to be rational about the situation. If they have been responsible adults in the past, they will step-up to the challenge. Instead of confronting them directly, simply assume your role as the bride or groom and allow them the dignity of dealing with their irrational feelings in private. If they have a history of not acting responsibly, expect that they will act-out their feelings in the ways they have in the past and make allowances for this in your wedding plans.
2. Remember, you are marrying two sets of families, not just two individuals. Weddings are as much for the family of the couple as it is for the bride and groom. Give your parents well defined roles in the creation and execution of your wedding. This will give them important signals about their place in your new life as well as in your Wedding party.
3. If you have a narcissistic parent, early in the creation of the wedding, give that parent a specific and well-defined place in the event where they know they will be the center of attention. Make sure that you have contingency plans for how to get them off center stage in a decorous fashion if you think they will hog the attention.
4. Delegate two special friends for each parent to act as “go-fer” and emotional support a week before the wedding and the day of the ceremony. Preferably, at least one friend should be someone who is emotionally close to your parents. Their role is to help your parents with the final tasks of the wedding and give them emotional support so that you don’t get sucked into taking care of your parent’s needs when the demands on your time will be maxed out.
   
   Finally, keep it all in perspective. As my mother used to say, “God gives you family, but friends you can choose.” Once the ceremony is over, you and your spouse can go home, close the door, and get on with your new life.
   

Preventing Pre-Wedding Family Freak-Out

The thought of a wedding usually brings pictures of joyous couples exchanging vows, mothers joyously weeping into lace handkerchiefs and the couple happily exiting in a shower of rice. However, before the first invitation gets printed, I have seen many brides in my office sobbing hysterically, feeling torn apart by the demands of opposing mothers, fiancés, siblings and friends. Both large questions like: Is a priest or minister going to marry us? Who should we invite? Who gets left out? And seemingly small details like the texture of your table place card paper stock can trigger emotional reactions from family and friends that seem totally out of proportion to the task of organizing a wedding. Organizing a major event like a wedding ceremony is hard enough. Having your mother and mother-in-law both in hysterics while you are trying to make a decision can seem unbearable.

Amber, a 25 year old, came into my office complaining that both her mother and mother-in-law broke into an argument around the color of the limo that would drive them away from the ceremony. “This is stupid! It’s not the wedding I want. It’s not the wedding my mother wants. It’s not the wedding anyone wants! I don’t understand why getting married has to be so hard. It’s just a big party!” This is where most brides go wrong in their thinking. Amber is not joining two people in marriage; she is joining two families and two sets of friends. We are talking about a major change in the lives of not just the couple getting married, but their family and friends. There is no getting around it. A marriage is a major milestone in life. Major life transitions, whether they are joyful or not, produces change and change produces stress.


Expect Conflict and Deal with It

The best way to cope with pre-wedding family “freak-out” is to anticipate that weddings provide the crucible for two families to work out their differences. Knowing that there is a higher risk for conflict before a wedding can help you think things through and anticipate problems. Don’t think that you are going to prevent or avoid conflict. This stage of development in your family is all about learning how to work together. As difficult as conflict may be, it’s the appropriate resolution of conflict that will set an important precedence and style for working together in the future. Trying to avoid conflict will only postpone the inevitable confrontation until later.


Establish Your Territory as a Couple

Your marriage ceremony is a statement to your family, friends and community announcing the creation of the family that you and your spouse are building. The creation of your wedding allows you a first chance to establish your own territory as a couple. Don’t try to please everyone. This is an impossible task. Part of establishing your new identity as a married couple is being able to clearly say what you want. This also means saying no to what other members of your family and friends want.

Handling your wedding ceremony sets some important precedents regarding how you and your fiancé will handle conflict with both families. Each of your relatives will be looking to you for an indication of how you will handle conflict. They may not ask, but they will be observing you. Then, they will adjust their usual ways that they cope with conflict to your behavior. Work as a team with your fiancé. He or she may not have the same relationship or emotional baggage with your relatives as you do. Your partner may be able to communicate with a difficult relative in an effective and caring manner because they don’t have the same history with them as you do.


Styles of Conflict

The best way to think about this is to list all of the players from both families and think about how each of them handled stress and conflict in the past. Some people will sit and stew about a slight forever. Others may hold onto resentment and allow their irritation to build until some minor problem becomes “the last straw” and throw a fit about everything all at once. Some individuals may appropriately express their irritation in real time. While past behavior is not always a good predictor for future behavior, you might get some important clues about how to deal with potential “freak-outs”.


Establish Clear Roles, Tasks, and Authority

Once you and your fiancé and ask yourself what kind of wedding you both really want, you can communicate your desires to your family and friends. Clearly designate each family’s roles and authority. Figure out who in your family has the skills and strengths to be able to carry out your wishes. Remember, some people have the desire to help, but no follow-through. Others have the desire, but no skills. Take a clear-eyed look at each individual. Aunt Zelda might fancy herself a gourmet; but if you can’t stand her cooking, don’t take her with you to choose a caterer. Aunt Zelda probably has other strengths that you do appreciate. For instance, she might also have impeccable taste in clothes.

Let’s say Aunt Zelda is the sensitive type who would take offense to not “helping” choose a caterer. Find a different job for her to do that would still allow her to make a contribution to your wedding. You might say something like: “I know that you love to cook, but we need you for something that’s really important to me. Could you help me select my gown?”


Keep Your Perspective Loving and Respectful

While marriage is the most natural and wonderful of all human activities, the families of the bride and groom really do feel a sense of losing a son, daughter, brother or sister. Mom may comfort herself with the cliché: “You’re not losing a son, you’re gaining a daughter”. But the sense of loss is very real. Each family member’s life is going to change in some significant and subtle ways. The easiest and way to help your family members make this important transition is to let them know that you want to make that transition with them together. Let them know that they have a part in your new future. After all, there is life after a wedding.

What is Romance?

In the old days, miners carried canaries down into their mine shafts. If the canary lived, the mine was safe. If the canary died, the miners knew they were in trouble because of toxic gases. When it comes to relationships, romance tends to be the canary in the mine. When there are serious relationship problems, romance and mutual fun tends to die.

When couples patch their relationships together in therapy, one of the first dilemmas that couples face is how to get the romance back into their lives. They look back nostalgically at the beginning of their relationship, a bit sad at the impossibility of capturing the magic of their first meeting. While this sort of thinking can provide my clients with important clues about what made them excited and happy at the beginning of the relationship, these memories rarely help the couple recapture the magic.

According to Helen Fisher, a prominent anthropologist, romance is the civilization of sex. Viewed from a cultural perspective, this is probably true. This is probably why relationship books rarely go into much depth regarding the nature of romance. Typically, what you see is a lot of talk about the need for romance in a marriage and then a discussion of seduction and foreplay. As most couples will tell you, sex is not romance. However, most couples are hard pressed to tell you exactly what romance is.

As I mentioned before, nostalgically thinking about the way the couple behaved at the beginning of the relationship can offer important clues about the nature of romance.

Couples will generally report that at the beginning of their relationship, when romance was alive, they experienced:
1) The excitement of discovering someone new that you love.
2) A mutual feeling of being special or primary in the other person’s life.
3) A mutual feeling of being understood in a way that was different or more special than in other relationships.
4) A bond that transcended normal relationships.
5) Sexual excitement and novelty.

One or both partners in a troubled relationship will complain that they can’t possibly “recreate the romantic feelings they had when their relationship was new”. However, older, successful couples will actually report an improvement in the value of their relationship with their partner and an improvement in their sex lives over the years. This is because they acquire the trust that allows them to teach each other and learn new things about what gives pleasure to their partner in their daily lives. Couples who are not willing to learn what actually gives their partner pleasure and accommodate them tend to get stuck in their inability to be responsive to the other partner’s emotional requests. It is this lack of trust and the willingness to become vulnerable in expressing one’s needs or moving beyond one’s comfort level to accommodate a partner that keeps the couple stuck. Think of it in these terms. Healthy couples who are romantic are able to find novelty in their own relationships.

As I mentioned before, sex is just one ingredient of the feeling of romance. And certainly, in a healthy relationship, sex is an important element. Often, couples will become sexually bored and resentful because they are unwilling to communicate their desire for exploring new sexual territory. Often, sexual experimentation within the context of a committed relationship will indeed provide the excitement and novelty that both partners seek. However, there is a common dilemma that occurs when the romance has drained out of a couple’s life. If one or both partners feel resentful or hurt, proposing sexual exploration will provoke feelings of bitterness or vulnerability, making sexual exploration too hard a challenge for the couple. All too often, before this aspect of the relationship can be recovered, trust and respect have to be re-established.

So what is romance? If you look at the remaining four perceptions that describe the feeling of romance, we see that romance is the ability for both partners to reciprocally communicate their feelings of being mutually bonded and special to each other. If you are looking for the magic formula for romance, here it is. Simply say these words to cast your spell: “Darling, you’re the most important thing in my life. Nothing else comes close. I don’t care what else happens, we’re going to get through this together.” Then act congruently with this.

I will address how this is done in a future post.

REFERENCES

Fisher, Helen (1982). The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior. NY, NY: W. Morrow.
Fisher, Helen (2004). Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. NY, NY: Henry Holt & Co.