Engagement Rings Advice : Wedding, Marriage, Anniversary

In the third session, the spouses ask each other questions which must be answered by “Yes” or “No” and nothing more. If attempts are made to qualify or explain the answers, the value of the session is decreased. The spouse whose turn it is to lead asks two questions of the other, waiting for a reply to the first before proceeding to the second:

Do you believe that this marriage of ours can be improved? Apparently we have to do a lot of work and perhaps give up some things in order to improve the marriage. Do you think our marriage is worth the enormous effort?

When these two questions have been asked by spouse A and answered by spouse B, then the roles are reversed. B asks and A answers the same two questions.

The next step is for spouse A, speaking out loud, to ask a series of questions of himself, answering each in turn by saying “Yes” or “No.” Spouse B listens. The questions are as follows:

1. During the last few months, have I ever said, “If only you [the other spouse] would do so and so, our marriage would be much better?”
2. In the last few months have I often stated, “If you [the other spouse] had a different personality, I would be much better off and the marriage would be a much smoother one?”
3. Have I in the last few months used past history against you?

Have I brought up your past errors and ways of behaving, things I didn’t like about you in the past, in order to prove a point, or to intimidate you, or to get some degree of control over you?

[Remember, these are all to be answered by the spouse who is asking the questions.]

1. In the last few months have I generalized about some fault of the opposite sex? Have I done this either out loud or in my own thinking? [Here the speaker should try to recall whether he has indulged in the common tendency to play the game of the battle of the sexes. It is easy to forget that our biases are reinforced constantly, and are thus enlarged, unless we become aware of this danger and learn to look around and think for ourselves.]
2. In the last few months have I felt vulnerable in relation to you? [Only by avoiding a sense of vulnerability can one be open, fully trusting, and non-defensive. The speaker should try to remember if he has withheld loving behavior for fear that it would be interpreted as approval of some of the disliked behavior of his spouse.]
3. In the last few months have I used the children against you at any time?

While spouse A has been asking and answering these questions, spouse B has been sitting silently. Now the procedure is reversed. Spouse B asks and answers the same questions, while spouse A listens.

After this has been done, the same questions are used once again, only in this instance, we start off with spouse A asking the questions of spouse B. For example, spouse A will ask, “During the last few months, have I ever said, “If only you would do so and so, our marriage would be much better’?” Spouse B answers with “Yes” or “No.”

The procedure is then reversed; spouse B asks and spouse A does the answering.

Answering the questions is a sufficiently arduous task for one session. The reason for requiring a simple “Yes” or “No” is that it is important, at this time, for the spouses to avoid discussing the content of the questions. The urge to enlarge on the answers, and thus to become both defensive and aggressively destructive, is very great, and at this stage such behavior must be made impossible because one cannot truly evaluate marital interaction unilaterally: if A thinks that B is at fault, he is not considering how his own effect on B may have helped bring about that particular action.

During the next week the spouses are to think about the questions which they asked and answered, but they are not to discuss them between themselves-or with anyone else.

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