In this video, actor Hill Harper (CSI: NY) addresses common male misconceptions about marriage and commitment.
Q: My wife is always nagging me to do more housework. I work a full-time job; she stays home with our 2 kids. I try to pitch in with the real "heavy lifting" (yard work, repairs, etc.), but she wants me to help out more with everyday chores like dishes. I feel like I'm doing more than enough already, given that I work full time. I'm tired too at the end of the day ... how can I get her to understand?
A: Your life is full of commitments. You work and try to help out around the house. It seems like everyone wants a piece of you. Yet, it seems that whatever you do, it is never enough!
That paragraph could have been written about you or about your spouse. Each of you likely feels exactly the same way—too much work, too tired, not appreciated enough.
It is said that the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. When we work outside of the home we yearn for employment at home or for the “chance” to be home and to raise the kids. When our job is to be a multi-tasking domestic engineer, we yearn for the freedom to “simply” go out and work an eight-hour shift.
It is likely that both of you are exhausted in just trying to survive life. In the process of completing your job well and in attempting to assist one another, it is possible that both have become scorekeepers. “I did this, this, and this. What have you done for me lately?” We quibble over the point-factor of each item we have done versus what our spouse has done. If it appears to us that we are doing more than the other person, we want to call a foul. We assert, “It’s not fair!” Such as assertion will likely draw a similar reaction of identifying the relative high amount of work that the other person is doing. This type of arguing will go nowhere productive and will undermine an otherwise excellent relationship.
The first thing I recommend is that you acknowledge both the importance of and the difficulty in raising children and maintaining the household. Your wife completing those tasks is what allows you to go out and slay the dragons. Remember that the job of raising your children is a shared opportunity. You want your wife to be energized and enthusiastic in her career. One way you help her to have those traits is to recognize and appreciate her worth. Start your conversations with her with the words, “I love ..” or “I appreciate…” Finish your sentences with very specific behaviors or attitudes that you notice. What we notice will usually grow.
Second, identify the tasks that you generally do around the house and the tasks that she does. The division of labor in couple relationships is usually based on some combination of what we do well and what we believe to be “gender appropriate.” The second criterion is generally culturally defined. The division of labor is one of the top five things about which couples fight. Identify a few of the tasks that she usually does and agree with her to learn to do those tasks. In the Family Wellness curriculum called The Strongest Link: The Couple, learning your spouse’s chores/tasks is called “Cross Training.” Cross Training strengths a marriage because there is more flexibility and less rigidity in roles and responsibilities. When a husband provides his wife with relief from some of the tasks that she usually takes on, she will have more time for self-care. Research shows that a woman who cares for herself is more willing to engage in sexual intimacies with her husband. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!
Third, make sure that you take time for yourself. If you feel overburdened by work and home responsibilities, it may reflect that you have been caring for others but not taken time for yourself. If so, identify what energizes you, talk to your wife about this as specifically as you can, and negotiate with her about what you are willing to do in order to get the time that you need to care for yourself.
Finally, remember that the couple is the heart of the family. When you and your wife are each letting the other know what you’re thinking about, how you’re feeling, and trying to meet each other’s needs, your love, commitment, and connection will grow. Such a couple relationship will allow you to thrive as individuals and as a couple. Children are served best when their parents take good care of themselves as individuals and as a couple.
Joseph L. Hernandez, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist & Marriage and Family Therapist
Family Wellness Associates
www.familywellness.com
What sustains a relationship over 17 years?
For Glenn and Evelyn Gibson, the key has been coffee and conversation.
Their relationship steeped for six long months, spending hours in coffee shops getting to know each other. “After all that coffee, we were best friends,” Evelyn said. “It was easy to fall in love with him because he became my friend first.”
The communication skills mastered during those talks became essential when it came to blending their two families. Glenn entered the relationship with four grown children and Evelyn brought with her three younger daughters.
It wasn’t always easy. Although Evelyn’s daughters welcomed Glenn into their home, they didn’t initially welcome his new role in their lives.
Evelyn established her position early on insisting, “No, he is not your biological father. No, you don’t necessarily have to love him, but you must respect him because he is part of our family as the head of the household.” And out of that respect, the girls have learned to truly love him as a father.
The girls also have witnessed a ritual that affirms Glenn’s love for their mother—after all these years, Glenn and Evelyn still spend the first 45 minutes of their day together, chatting and drinking coffee.
“Although my stepfather has long since retired,” said Evelyn’s daughter Rhameka, “he still wakes up with my mother every day before she leaves for work to share a pot of coffee, discuss current events, and to ensure that she is prepared for work.”
Along with their morning coffee, Glenn and Evelyn mark each day with lots of hugs and kisses. “We had seen incidences where people left going to work, never returned home, and didn’t get a kiss before they left,” Glenn said “So we always kiss every time we meet or leave each other.”
So what makes a happy marriage? For Glenn and Evelyn, it has been common interests, a common faith and an uncommon commitment to really communicate.
“Nobody can read your mind,” Glenn said, “You might think they can, but they can’t. So say what you want and see if you get it. Then if you don’t, go on to something else.”
Glenn and Evelyn know life is too short to hold on to grudges. Time, they know, is better spent sipping a warm cup of coffee, conversing with your best friend.
Q: I keep seeing my friends' marriages fail. What can my fiance and I do before we get married to keep us from becoming another statistic?
A: Most people who are "IN LOVE" are optimistic about their future together. After all, every love song was written about them: "Love will keep us together," "All you need is love," etc.
You and your fiancé are committed to one another and dream about rocking into the sunset together. Yet, you worry about the reality of divorce and about what statistics say about marriage (nearly half of all marriages fail).
Because people who are in love do not believe that they will experience the marital problems others have, they rarely seek outside help unless they are required to do so by their pastor/minister, their church, or the person officiating their wedding. We know that couples who participate in pre-marital programs can reduce their chance of divorce by about 30 percent.
Pre-marital programs come in many forms and are presented in various modalities. They may involve individual or couple counseling or education, they involve multi-couple groups, they may occur in a house of worship, a school, a community center, or in a myriad of other locations. The program may be held on a weekly basis for several weeks or may be compressed into a weekend retreat. It may be facilitated by the officiating individual or by other people trained in helping couples prepare for marriage.
A good pre-marital program will teach people communication and problem-resolution skills. It will give people an understanding and appreciation of the differences between them. Similarities in a couple keep a marriage together while difference can keep it hot for the long haul. The best pre-marital programs are interactive, engaging participants in activities that will allow them to learn in a variety of ways. Ideally, such a class will be co-led by a male-female team that will elicit couple relationship issues through the curriculum and by the nature of their interaction with each other and with the group.
Beyond signing up for a pre-marital class, engaged couples need to look for good models. Because we tend to know people who divorce and come to fear a similar fate for our marriage, it is important to balance that perception by talking to successful couples about what makes their marriage work. Be curious and inquisitive about older people who have been married forever and obviously still love each other. It happens more often than you might think!
Besides talking to marriage “experts” and successful couples, be sure to talk to one another about your individual hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The reason most people say they want their spouse to be their best friend is that there is very little difference between the best of friends and a deep romantic/committed relationship. Both types of relationships require individuals to know a lot about each other and still love one another, both require trust, and both require increasing degrees of risk-taking within the relationship. In each type of relationship, individuals open themselves up for the possibility of rejection as well as for the possibility of deep emotional intimacy. Granted, there is a significant difference between friendship and marriage, namely physical intimacy.
Be strong and wise enough to seek information and counsel from marriage educators, successful long-term marital partners, and from one another. Agree to both “starting well” in your marriage and also to “ending well” in your life together. Marriage begins with a choice, a decision to be with one another. In desiring to be happily married over time, people generally begin by making a formal commitment to being (sexually) only with each other from here on out. People who break this vow invariably deal with huge personal and interpersonal pain. Often, these marriages end poorly. While such marriages can be salvaged, choosing to avoid such pain seems like a wise choice.
After committing to be with one another, individuals must determine “how” they will be in their relationship. Determining how a couple will cooperate in their marriage requires many discussions about what each person thinks about their perspective roles as husband or wife. The couple has to decide the rules within their marriage. They shape the power differential within their marriage. Whatever that marriage looks like is co-defined in healthy couples.
Besides committing and cooperating, a couple needs to stay connected with one another. Although some couples are so connected that each person loses their individuality, other couples are so independent that they never learn how to connect. A healthy couple finds a balance that seeks interdependence as a goal, thereby allowing each person to maintain their identity while forming a new, stronger, identity as a couple.
Before marriage, you can seek outside help to learn skills for communication and problem-resolution. You can learn from couples who are living “La vida loca,” (the crazy/good life). You can look deeply into each other’s eyes, hearts, and souls to make your commitment to one another, define your cooperation (how you will live with one another), and agree to stay connected so that you not only start well but also end well. If you both agree to share your lives in this manner, you give yourselves a great chance to beat the odds and have an awesome marriage.
Joseph L. Hernandez, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist & Marriage and Family Therapist
Family Wellness Associates
www.familywellness.com
Rozario Slack talks about how as a couple you can prepare for marriage.
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Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant: 90-FH-0001
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