The Couples Tool Kit
Working together as a team of three — by Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Specialist in Couples TherapyArchive for Andropause
Midlife and The Coupledom: Part 2: A Toolkit of Strategies To Make The Midlife Coupledom Work: Prevention for Younger Couples is Key
The Coupledom Through The Life Cycle: Tools are needed throughout relationships to deal with “change”. In the beginning of the committed relationship couples believe that they share goals, values and styles. The notion that personalities remain static is unrealistic. Development proceeds throughout the life cycle. Just as children shift and morph who they are, so do adults. The early pictures of “growing together as a couple” need to be reviewed and updated.
Hormonal changes are only one of the many variables that impact the “maturing Coupledom”: parenting changes: careers change; in-law needs change; locations change; health and economics change; cultural messages change. All these variables criss-cross the body of the relationship in unexpected ways, leaving a pattern of trails and tracks that cover over the traces of the younger Coupledom, making it difficult to recall what was once there. The more these variables are identified and discussed along the way, the better the prognosis for the Coupledom.
Aging Isn’t Easy Under Any Circumstances: Whether It Is the Journey To Adulthood, Or the Journey Through Adulthood: We are all conversant with the concepts of the terrible two’s or the adolescent years, times associated with growth and challenge. But what needs to enter every day parlance is the concept of A Lifetime of Changes and Challenges for the Maturing Coupledom. Adjustments to aging are not gender specific. They are universal. Men who saw themselves as the young hot shot at work are now the older not so hot shot. Women who had powerful roles as mothers or professionals witness a loss of significance and momentum. Mirrors know longer seem like portraits of the present but frightening warnings of the future. Erection challenges, pretty new neighbors, a friend’s much richer husband or a child’s success or failure all converge to destabilize self-esteem, self-image and relationship security.
Same Sex Couples: Midlife challenges are not limited to heterosexual couples. Same sex couples experience all the same variables. Whether there is more empathy because of shared gender is an intriguing question for which I have no answer; but certainly individual sensitivities, visions and goals need careful exploration and consideration. Visions will change, and all the pressures of facing a future together demand the same careful attention and communication as with heterosexual couples.
The ToolKit of Strategies: The Art of The Mature Conversation.
The All Important Basic Rules of Decency (BROD): Before you embark on sensitive topics such as menopause, andropause, dreams and goals, rules of decency have to be established. Intimacy can breed contempt but all couples have to fight that tendency. Whether it be the annoyance of listening to snoring night after night, bathroom behaviors, or disgust at the sloppiness of one and the compulsive neatness of the other, insults, words of contempt, superiority and ridicule are foul play. To approach sensitive conversations, rules of decency are required. Below are some rules to follow.
Differences in the Details: Making light of your partner’s concerns is taboo. Whether it is a defense or lack of imagination, poo pooing a spouse’s focus on a 4 pound weight gain, a few less hairs, or wounded feelings, is destructive and hurtful. Instead try to understand. Walk around in your partner’s “moccasins” for a bit. After all, this is how we parent. As parents we try to imagine how it feels to be a two-year old when she tries to master a new skill but can’t get it at first, or a teenager who has just been rejected by a boyfriend or lost a soccer game or received a rejection from the college of his choice. We need to use that same imagination with our partners. What might seem trivial is in fact representative of much larger issues.
Imagination and Empathy are Tools of Love: These strategies build bridges and weave threads of connection between people. Do not be dismissive or mocking, no matter what thoughts leap to mind or tickle your funny bone. These very thoughts might really be the defense of humor triggered more by fear or embarrassment than pleasure. Details or minutiae have larger themes, representing something far more significant for your partner than you may at first recognize. They are telling you something. Restrain Yourself. And be smart.
How Vulnerable And Open Can I Be?: Can I, as the husband, really share with my wife some embarrassing worries about my virility and attractiveness, or that I failed to become the man I envisioned ? My disappointing earning power: my fear that whatever I earn, she will spend on others. I don’t want her to see me as a wimp or make fun of me. Can I as the wife share how helpless and ashamed I feel with all these mood swings, forgetfulness and muddled thoughts. I don’t want to be the butt of his macho jokes. Once the rules are agreed upon, fears can be shared safely. Tread lightly on soft surfaces.
The Conversation: First step is to ask yourself what do I want my partner to understand about what I am going through? Once you identify the essential issues, then establish the Basic Rules of Decency with your partner. Should those rules be broken, agree to suspend the conversation for the moment, and reschedule it. Don’t over react and make the “conversation” the problem. Just regroup and begin again.
The Language of Conversation: It is always best to speak in the first person “I” when talking about feelings. “I feel” works a lot better than “You make me feel”. “I would like you to understand” works better than “You don’t understand what I am going through”.
As the listener, if you cannot take it all in, or feel overwhelmed or stymied as to how to respond, ask for time to think over what you just heard. “I may need some time to understand all that you have shared”. Set that up as an option in advance. Time is a friend. Use it.
Problem Solve as A Team Even With The Most Intimate Concerns: Concerns regarding sexual comfort and performance can be brainstormed together. And if no answer seems available in the moment, again take the time to seek out an expert, or go online, and make sure to continue the conversation together with shared information and suggestions. If your concerns are about fitness and attractiveness, formulate a mutually satisfying schedule to work out, together, or by taking turns with each covering for the other. Agree on dietary changes or take up a new outdoor hobby. Become good friends again. Help each other out.
Shared Visions Conversation: Do We Share a Similar Vision of Our Future?: Always Be Curious, Never Assume you know your partner’s mind. Ask! Describe what you would like as a future together. Offer your idea as one option, not “the” option. Have this conversation in the beginning of the relationship and often over the years. If time is a pressure and decisions for the future have to be made, but the visions clash, always look for that “third option”.
There is Always a Third Option: Someone wants a sports car, and the other to redo the bathrooms. OK. Take some time to look at options. Visit some car showrooms and tile stores. Someone is dreaming of retirement in Florida and the other wants to stay close to family. Take out a map, check distances, climates and costs. Perhaps the dream of a Porsche is postponed for a steam shower in the new bathroom. Or a sports car is expanded to include a trip through the Napa Valley together with the top down. Something that both can enjoy. Stay open, playful, imaginative and do not let any one conversation be the final one….until you are both comfortable with its outcome.
Surely It is Worth It: During any conversation where the stakes are high, reactivity may soar. Buttons get pressed, but remember this is just the beginning of a series of exchanges over the shared lifetime. Crank down the “threat level”, listen and learn. No quick decisions, just process, reflection and empathy. For one moment, ask yourself, “what is it like to be her, to be him?”. For just a moment. Take Your Time.
Surely It Is Worth It.
Epilogue: That Couple mentioned in Part 1 did listen, and came up with a mutual vision, a “third option” to their life view, that healed enough of the hurt, deepened the bond and allowed them to move forward with their shared life. Each one took responsibility for their role in the “perfect storm”. No one bad guy. No one bad gal. Just two people who forgot to trust for a moment in the process of sharing what was hurting the most. Temporary solutions were sort outside the marriage, for both of them, and nearly cost them the marriage. It Ain’t Worth It.
©jill edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2010
Midlife and The Coupledom: The Perfect Storm, Part 1 of a 2 Part Series
A Collision of Hormones: Much has been written and talked about of the impact of perimenopause and menopause on the lives of women and their relationships. The Huffington Post published an article on February 10, 2010 by Staness Jonekos entitled “Will Your Marriage Survive Menopause? , a good question that deserves more than the typical “gender bashing” often seen online in comments or chats. Instead, what is needed is an informed and sincere exploration into the many variables and solutions to the midlife collision of biology and culture.
Biology: Andropause, the male companion piece to menopause, refers to waning testosterone and is associated with an increase in health problems such as heart disease, weak bones, subtle attitude and mood changes, fatigue, loss of energy and libido (sex drive). Similarly the reduction of estrogen in women can produce a plethora of uncomfortable symptoms, weight gain, hot flashes, sleep problems, mood and cognitive disturbances and vaginal dryness amongst other unpleasantness. Both menopause and andropause can deliver a wallop to the self-esteem, self-image and life time dreams.
The Outing of Menopause: A New Coupledom Weapon of War? After the publication of research linking hormone replacement therapy to some types of breast cancer, millions of American women were advise to abandon their HRT treatments, while others were dissuaded from beginning them. Since then, women entering mid-life have once again been at the mercy of very distressing symptoms. Consequently, menopause has become a rallying cry for many American women to join with their sister sufferers in shedding the shame regarding the “changes” and take this topic out of the closet and into the mainstream media, the coffee klatches, soccer games and supermarket aisles. That is the good news. The not so good news is that this very freedom can be accompanied by the notion that men should understand their partners’ multi faceted experience with empathy on demand. An unfortunate side effect of the menopause “outing” is that it can morph into another Coupledom Weapon of War by both sexes. A tool of campaign against the other.
Andropause, Does it Exist? There is excellent scientific evidence and even more anecdotal evidence that men experience a similar though less intense “change”. The desire for a sports car, more attention from wives, or the onset of worry over sexual prowess, the growing paunch, receding hairline and diminishing earning power is playing a part in the psyche of a man who seemed free from such concerns only months ago. Men are more likely to repress these fears or avoid putting language to them because they see this as weakness, unmanly and humiliating. Instead, they may act them out, becoming angry, demanding, or creating impossible triangles by asking their wives to meet their needs before those of their children, aging parents, work or volunteer jobs. To combat the “aging” process, looking outside the home for a mirror to reflect “youth” can deliver the final blow to what was once a viable marital relationship.
The Perfect Storm: Midlife which spans the ages 40-60 plus (ever-increasing with longevity and a vital boomer generation determined to stay fit) challenges both sexes to deal with real losses that deeply effect self esteem, self image, sexual stamina and dreams of glory. The irony here is that men may not want to admit that anything is “waning” while women may need to have their struggles acknowledged. Here is a collision of sorts, with one half of the Coupledom saying, look at what’s happening here and the other messaging, don’t look, it’s dangerous. What is happening to you may also be happening to me.
A Case in Point: Infidelity, The Empty Nest and Retirement Dreams: Many years ago, prior to the complete “outing” of menopause, I met with a couple who were grappling with the husband’s infidelity. Peeling back the layers of history, with an exploration of emotional and physical variables, what emerged was a powerful convergence of midlife pressures culminating in an infidelity on the part of a pretty decent spouse. There was no one bad guy or gal. Just a train wreck of sorts.
Whose Dreams Are We Living Anyway: This couple had married years earlier, a second marriage for both and were able to blend their children together to make a vibrant family. They were very proud of this shared achievement. At the crossroads of mid-life though, the wife had begun to experience pain during intercourse from vaginal dryness. Unaware that this was a common occurrence during menopause, she began to avoid sexual closeness. The husband perceived this as a rejection and was hurt and angry.
An Emerging Storm: A further complication was the husband’s view that the past sacrifices of time and money poured into raising their blended family were sufficient to allow him finally, to focus on a future retirement south. That was his dream. However, his wife believed that she had not finished her job as mother and now grandmother in launching their family. Weekends were spent working on the children’s new homes, putting up cabinets, loading laundry. Essential to this effort, the husband saw both his time and his money (which was especially biting), consumed by his wife’s goal to secure a future for their children, which she believed was still dependent on both of them playing an active role. That was her vision. Powerless to convince her otherwise, her husband became resentful and hurt. His wife felt the impossible pressure of having to choose between her husband or her children. He saw his dream of retirement washing down the kitchen sinks of his children’s new homes. The only thing missing here was the challenge of caring for older parents. Throw that into the mix, stir with hurt, season with anger, and stand back. The Coupledom, that special domicile where the relationship resides, suffers an 8.5 earthquake and comes tumbling down. Rubble everywhere.
PART 2: A Toolkit of Strategies to Make the Midlife Coupledom Work: Plus Prevention is Key For Younger Couples.
Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.
©jill edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2010
