Dealing with Some Problems in a Marriage

Michael Gurian
August 17, 2005

These extracts from "What Could He Be Thinking?" by Dr Michael Gurian discuss some problems that can arise in a marriage. They are posted with the author's permission.
Robert Griffith, Editor.

A Map for Marriage

In presenting a marital map that emphasizes biological development, I hope I've presented a recognizable picture of human love. As you look at it you might think, "Do most of today's couples ever live out the whole journey?"

This biology-based map of marriage is not obvious on the candlelit table in romance, yet it is the map we commit to when we commit to each other. Religions often hope to help us commit to it; priests, ministers, and rabbis standing before us when we marry, saying, "Do you, Michael, promise to take care of Gail the rest of her life?" Most people, even in responding affirmatively, do not realize there are at least twelve biological stages of marriage to commit to in the first place; yet as couples make a home together, they begin to lay the map of marriage out on the kitchen table: Their early discussions of marriage are replete with plans for the future.

We can do better than this once we understand the actual biological map of a marriage. Unless we do better, as a marriage progresses, what little we know of our own biological development as a couple may get lost or buried under a bed, a carpet, an old dream. We may get stuck in a power struggle, distancing; disdain may take over human love, the candle-lit dinners and wonderful sex, and mutual dreams and the map of love are just memories a few years down the line.

When men and women feel sadness (neural depression) at the disillusionment that sets into their struggling marriages, they remember lost intimacy quite vividly. As they remember, the hippocampus and temporal lobes become engorged with neurotransmission. The candle light, the sex, the long conversations, the commitment to marry, and all the other moments of closeness and intimacy rise up for them as on a movie screen. They begin to remember times of distance during the romance phase. They think, "Oh, look - the relationship was already disintegrating; I just couldn't see it." Or, "If I'd only been smarter, I'd have realized he didn't love me like I thought."

After five or ten years of marriage, we are looking back for solutions to the first stage of the partnership: romance. When our mate comes home or we sit at the dinner table with him, we'll feel the anxieties and tensions of the power struggle. For perhaps five or ten years we are locked in the first season of human love; locked in this season, we are conditioned to project onto our present, complex love the romantic expectations for closeness and intimacy with which that love initially began. We are still not focused on the whole map of marriage, the whole biological blueprint of who we are.

She Says: "I Feel Fat," What Should He Do?

A couple came to see me in my marital practice. They had been married twenty-two years. Among the issues they faced was this one.

He:
Sarah said the other night, "I feel fat and unattractive. Sometimes I just want to give up." As you know, she's in perimenopause, and she's gained weight. She used to do weight bearing exercise and do aerobics, but she no longer does those activities. She has become more sedentary than she was, and she's gained about thirty pounds.

When she told me how she felt I said, "I can see what you mean. It does kind of seem like you've given up on yourself. You've gained weight."

"You're still attracted to me, though, right?" she asked. "Sexually, I mean."

I told her the truth. Maybe this was a mistake, but we've been married twenty-two years and we've talked about this topic before. I said, "I love you as my mate for life, so I'm not going to stray on you, if that's what you mean. But I'm definitely more sexually attracted to you when you're not overweight, when you're working out. You kind of glow when you're active and in charge of yourself. When you're not, that glow isn't there."

Sarah got really mad at me and cried and said I was completely unsupportive and hurt her feelings. I guess, in this case, the truth wasn't a good idea.

She:
The other night I said,"I feel fat and unattractive." I wanted Trace to tell me I looked fine, but he was in one of his "brutally honest" moods and told me he didn't find me sexually attractive anymore because I don't work out as much as I used to. I've gained a few pounds, but I don't look bad. I was so offended, so hurt, by what he said. He was basically telling me he didn't want me anymore. It's been a week, and I don't know if I've forgiven him yet. He keeps insisting he's trying to help me, or motivate me, or something. I just feel like he ran over me with a truck. I wish he could be supportive of me.

Many of the biological differences between men and women are revealed in this incident. Both males and females can separate love, commitment, and sex when they functionally need to, but they do this very differently. Men, more often than women, will choose a strategy that brings independence or a seeming lack of intimate support to a relationship; women, who are oxytocin driven, find this very confusing. Yet there is a wisdom in what the male brain is doing.

Trace was indeed being honest when he said he didn't find Sarah as physically attractive because she didn't have "the glow." This phrase encompasses his sense of what is attractive in his spouse, what stimulates him sexually. As couples get older, males who are in love with their spouses adjust to their spouse's growing and changing body. Still, males have an internalized range of what they find attractive. When a spouse moves out of that range for a long period of time - gaining perhaps twenty pounds would not spur Trace's comment, whereas thirty pounds might - the male becomes less sexually attracted. In some romantic alliances, including marriages, this can contribute to his "looking elsewhere," especially if it goes on for many years.

This is a biological fact that we cannot hide from. Males and females, if married to a spouse whose appearance significantly changes, can stray sexually from that spouse. Sexual and physical attractiveness are locked into our brain stems. When Trace spoke of it honestly, he was practicing intimate separateness. He was saying, "I'm intimate with you, but I'm not you - I'm me, and as me, I agree that you are looking less attractive."

When Trace said that he loved his wife but did feel less sexually attracted, Sarah heard this as a complete rejection of her, a complete abandonment. It is hard not to feel sympathy for her point of view. If Trace had said, "Honey, what are you talking about, you look fine," a response that would have carried a blanket intimacy, at least on the surface, she would have probably felt not only much better about herself but also about the romantic alliance. However, Trace did not say those things. He valued honesty and, from a male point of view, was being supportive. He tried to motivate her by making her feel bad so she would want to change things - which is a very male strategy, one men often use with their mates when they perceive that their mate's own strategies have not worked.

Practicing Intimate Separateness: Turning Marriages Around

In the last decade of teaching nature-based theory, I have been lucky to help turn my own marriage around and to help facilitate positive changes in many other marriages. As Gail puts it, "Understanding what each other was really thinking saved our marriage."

Our love for each other is still a mystery, and there are parts of each other that will always remain unknowable; but we understand each other, and the happiness of our marriage is based more on that one effort than any other. Gail and I have been able to break down illusions about each other - especially illusions about how things should be between a woman and a man. During the last eighteen years, we have come to see each other, and we made the decision to like what we saw. The compassion our marriage needed came to us from the world of science-brains, hormones, bodies, minds - and from that compassion came the daily acts of love that every marriage needs in order to flourish. When we fight, or need time apart, or go through life passages that are stressful, we return to sanity and common sense by considering the key we both hold to the doorway of a happy marriage: an understanding of human nature. While I enjoy focusing on Gail's nature as a woman, she enjoys focusing on my nature as a man.

In our roles as marital therapists, Gail and I have been able to help many other people. Here are testimonials from people who have enjoyed turnarounds in their marriages.

Joyce, thirty-five, said:
We fought a lot. He was emotionally distant. I left him once, which shocked him. It was like he couldn't see it coming. He decided to work hard to give me what I needed. It's not like he's a bad man. He's the father of my children. But he just didn't come through, and I didn't know what to do.

I took your advice and decided to stop waiting for him to figure things out. I took it upon myself to figure things out. The "ah-ha" came for me when I learned about the male brain. My husband and I changed our lives, working together on our marriage as a "project." This worked for him. Men like projects. It took us over a year of work, but things really turned around.

We're the same people now, but we have a very different relationship. I think our love shines through. You told us we deserved to be happy, and you were right.

Carrie, forty-four, from Minneapolis, wrote:
My husband and I are religious people. We believe in staying married no matter what. But we just couldn't get along. We talked about divorce, which was terrible. I went on medication for depression.

When we heard about the so-called "nature-based" approach to marriage, we looked it up. We heard you speak and realized what you're talking about. You're talking about getting to know who the other person really is, the soul of the other person. The soul of my husband is what I've been trying to understand all along. I thought I had understood it. Now I think I really do. We're much happier.

Layne, forty-seven, said:
I was a radical feminist, then I had a son. I'm still a feminist, but I know how different boys are from girls. There is such a difference! But I still didn't want to admit how different a man is from a woman. Or maybe it's just that I knew it but didn't want It to be important. I tried to be open-minded. But I've struggled in my marriages. I go through phases of blaming the men. Now I'm older; I understand that blaming and shaming get me nowhere, but that still didn't help me. And it sure didn't help men understand me.

I'm with someone now whom I really love. A friend told me about this nature-based approach to marriage. I was skeptical at first, even angry about it. I'll admit I figured you were just saying old, patriarchal stuff about men and women. But I'm hooked now. There's a kind of superficial reaction a lot of women have to the idea that they have to understand their husbands in order to be loved by their husbands. But living it is something else, it really works! My husband and I have been together six years. This is the most equal partnership I've ever had.

Putting the Transaction to Work

Having made the case that marriage can be happy even when the man is not skilled in relational intelligence, I do not want to make the case for marriage in which a man does not do his part in the transaction. He can remain relatively unintelligent in an emotional sense, but he can fulfill responsibilities for the stability of the marriage in his deeds, even if not in words.

In my marital practice and seminars, I often ask men to agree to a list of "marital needs." The list follows. I hope you'll modify this list, during a date night, perhaps, on which you take on the task of making the marriage a very conscious, and uplifting, transaction.

I, as a man, agree to:

1. Do my part to provide for the family.
2. Do my part to help you and the children feel safe.
3. At least one of three times, respond to what you've said with, "I hear that," or another paraphrase, before I problem solve, critique, or talk about myself in relation to the issue.
4. Participate in couples' ritual times with you: talking together after kids are in bed, going on dates.
5. Show I love you in sensual ways - such as by giving you flowers - at least five times a year.
6. Give you time off from your responsibilities to enjoy yourself in solitude or with your friends.
7. Call home every day when I am away on trips and speak to you and the children at least briefly.
8. Participate in the children's lives as a father, not as a mother.
9. Remain loyal to you, understanding that this loyalty is a show of respect for you.
10. Find opportunities to tell you that I value what you do for me, the children, and the world.

Most men can agree to these terms of the transaction. Can women agree to let this be enough? As women and men come together to make these transactions, it is useful for women to make a list of their own responsibilities in the transaction. Some will mirror the men's, but some won't. Husbands will be called upon not only to agree to the reasonable terms of transaction, but, like women, to agree that the meeting of those terms are enough.

We shall post further extracts from Dr Gurian's book in the coming weeks. You can buy his book on-line at Amazon; just click here.

Source

• Michael Gurian. What Could He Be Thinking? : How a Man's Mind Really Works. 1st edition, September 2003. St Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10010

Related Links
Michael Gurian Home Page
Introduction: What Could He Be Thinking?
The Stages of Marriage
Healthy Relationships

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