Everybody knows you have to change the oil in your car and take it in for regular service. Most people subscribe to the idea of a regular checkup with your internist, and likewise with your dentist.
The idea is that problems can be caught when they are small and easily fixed. Adding a statin is easier than the eventual heart attack, and a small cavity beats a root canal every time.
In marriages the same reasoning applies, but few people know it.
According to John M. Gottman, Ph.D, an expert in the field of marital stability, the average lapse between the first problems in a marriage and the couple actually seeking help is seven years. Over the course of those seven years very small and easily fixed problems become larger and more intractable.
Why the Delay?
To be fair the man in the relationship is usually to blame. Some 80 percent of the time in a troubled relationship it is the woman who insists on seeking help, according to Gottman. Ironically however husbands are just as satisfied as their wives with the results of therapy.
Why the Initial Reluctance?
Men imagine a touchy feely treatment in which they are blamed for whatever failings there are. Naturally nobody wants to sign
up for becoming the scapegoat for whatever is going wrong. Of course the partner in the relationship may imagine that they will be the “blamed” party, and therefore do their own share of foot dragging.
Modern marital therapy is not about assigning blame or taking sides. A better metaphor would be that is like a dance class.
Partners who used to enjoy being together now are stepping on each other’s feet. They cannot negotiate getting from here to there without somehow hurting each other, at first slightly and occasionally, after many years more regularly and painfully.
The marital therapy tune-up is about interrupting and downward movement in the relationship, and more importantly restoring the spirit of mutual enjoyment and appreciation which characterized the marriage in its early days.
Research has shown which styles of interaction are destructive, and which styles of interaction are helpful. In this sense the marital tune-up is more like taking a few lessons from the tennis pro to dramatically improve mixed doubles results.
After all, who wouldn’t like to restore the excitement and harmony of the early days of the marriage? This can be done, and done quickly, in the early stages of difficulty. That’s why it’s important to seek a marital tune-up before problems escalate and potentially destroy the relationship.
Phil Lee, M.D. and Diane Rudolph, M.D. are the co-heads of Marital Therapy at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. They have offices in Greenwich and New York City and can be reached at 212-734-3424 or [email protected] and [email protected].
