Dr. Val FarmerDr.Val
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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

Not Compatible? Here's How Couples Can Start Enjoying Each Other Again

August 27, 2001

Couples grow apart because of individual lifestyle choices, parenting demands and work responsibilities. They don’t have that much in common, stop enjoying each other’s company and find it easier to fight when friction occurs between them. What was once a relationship that gave them great pleasure has become a source of pain or disillusionment.

Why we make poor negotiators. Psychologist Bill Harley, Jr., of White Bear Lake, MN, believes that poor marital habits develop when decisions are made during one of three conditions. One condition is when one partner, during a state of emotional intimacy, attempts to please their partner out of self-sacrifice and at their own expense.

A second condition occurs when decisions are made during a state of conflict. These decisions are not usually fair and benefit one spouse at the expense of the other. Worse yet, often during conflict, disagreements can be full of demands, disrespect, and anger.

The third condition is withdrawal. When confronted with a spouse’s self-centered and thoughtless behavior, one or both parties decides to withdraw and become emotionally distant. The withdrawn partner protects him or herself from being emotionally vulnerable and stops making efforts to meet their partner’s emotional needs.

Policy of joint agreement. In all three conditions or states of mind, spouses are not good negotiators and do not produce fair agreements. Harley feels that couples need a rule that produces fair agreements when their short-sighted instincts encourage them to be unfair. He calls this following a policy of joint agreement. The policy of joint agreement is, "Never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse."

That means that all decisions have to meet the test of making both you and your spouse happy. Decisions have to be in both your best interests. It gives you and your spouse veto power over decisions that cause unhappiness.

A policy of joint agreement prevents bad habits from getting started. It targets for elimination existing habits and hurts that cause unhappiness. It forces a solution to marital conflicts by encouraging couples to take each other’s feelings and perspective into account simultaneously - even when they don’t feel like it.

The more compatible a couple is, the easier the negotiating process will be. Harley believes that if a couple follows this policy for a year, they will become compatible and replace their old bad habits with good habits.

Guidelines for successful negotiations. Harley believes certain ground rules are necessary for negotiations to be safe and pleasant.

- Smile and be as pleasant and cheerful as possible.

- Avoid selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, angry outbursts, dishonesty, threats, and thoughtless remarks.

- If you reach an impasse or cannot be pleasant or safe, stop negotiating and come back to the issue later.

- Engage in active listening. Understand and respect each other’s perspectives before attempting to find a solution.

- Brainstorm with abandon.

- Choose a solution both of you can be enthusiastic about.

Overcoming objections. The policy of joint agreement forces people to make compatible decisions that take both spouses into account. Couples have to dig deeper, be more persuasive, be flexible and search for new solutions that meet the test. Harley believes that this policy is precisely what people are doing who have great marriages.

Harley believes that a couple should spend at least 15 hours a week in "couples" time. This should be the best and most enjoyable time of the week. Couples choose to do things together that are mutually enjoyable. They can make up lists of activities and negotiate for enthusiastic agreement.

Couples should start by picking smaller, more inconsequential decisions to practice on before moving on to more emotionally-laden conflicts. He recommends going to a grocery store and filling the cart with food items you both agree on. Vetoing an item doesn’t mean control or making someone do something they don’t want; it means helping each other be thoughtful about how decisions affect each other.

By using this policy, people change careers, lifestyles, states they live in, homes and put new life into their marriages. Past decisions that haven’t worked for both parties can be renegotiated. They can bring back that compatibility that brought them together in the first place.

Goals of marriage. Harley’s emphasis on how to negotiate for compatibility isn’t the only concept he teaches couples. He believes that marriages benefit from an attitude of couples committing themselves to being each other’s greatest source of happiness. They meet each other’s most important emotional needs. Both spouses should be experts on each other’s emotional needs and willingly go out of their way to meet them. If they do that, wonderful things will happen in the marriage that will take care of most of the unpleasantness between them.

Another key concept Harley promotes is for couples to avoid being each other’s greatest source of unhappiness. In Harley’s estimation, 20 to 30 percent of marriages need to clean up the anger, disrespect, criticisms, demands and dishonesty that take away the feelings of love even when important emotional needs are being met.

These two principles are key to a good marriage because it is possible to live compatibly and still not be in love.