Advice : Wedding, Marriage, Engagement, Anniversary

Both our own research and a review of publications by many social scientists have led us to the conclusion that spouses who have been married for more than three or four years rarely state spontaneously to an interviewer that they are in love with one another. They are more apt to speak in utilitarian terms or to make unilateral statements like “John is a good provider” or “Jane is a good mother to our children.” Yet in many marriages, especially discordant ones, each partner tenaciously and stubbornly believes that he is a loving individual-more loving than his spouse.

Each partner strongly feels that he is trying, with courage and self-sacrifice, to make the marriage work; and that if there is friction; the other partner is causing it. Each may cite specific episodes which demonstrate that he is loving, patient, and good (and that the other is selfish, unkind, and unreasonable).

In many cases, spouses who believe their behavior to be generous and loving, are unwittingly lying to themselves. A large percentage of what they believe to be loving acts are in truth profoundly destructive acts, the expression of an unconscious hypocrisy. The spouses usually are not aware they are murdering their marriages and mangling their partners under the guise of love.

The pattern, in brief, is this: Spouse A believes (consciously) that he is behaving in a loving, benevolent manner to spouse B. In reality (unconsciously) A is behaving in a harmful manner. If B labels the behavior as harmful rather than benevolent, A is hurt and replies, “I was only trying to be helpful.”

The accusations, misunderstandings, and fights now begin.

Here are three examples.

1. Michael Young (who was a bachelor until he was thirty-two) is a marvelous cook and an efficient housekeeper. His wife, Martha, knows almost nothing about domestic science. She has lived abroad most of her life. Her family had servants for all chores. Michael is unhappy over Martha’s low-grade performance in cooking and home maintenance.”I will show you how to do it,” says Michael. “I will teach you.” On weekends Michael puts on a brilliant performance, cleaning the house with efficiency and speed, and concocting gourmet meals effortlessly. He repeats the act whenever there are guests present (”because that’s when Martha needs help most”) and frequently reminds her that he is helping her.Actually he is showing her up, nagging her, making her feel even more helpless and incompetent. He is making her afraid to try to learn, and is convincing her that no matter what heroic efforts she makes, she will be a failure. He is unconsciously persuading her that she will never be able to equal his own performance and satisfy him. But he says-and believes-he is helping her and being loving.
2. Joan Dalrymple is a great cook. She majored in domestic science at a women’s school and later studied cooking in Paris and Vienna. Preparing things to eat-the fancier the better-is the passion of her life. She bakes her own bread, makes her own mayonnaise, grows her own herbs, and livens up vegetables and meats with rich egg and cream sauces. Her desserts are famous. People are eager to be invited to the Dalrymple home.Joan is proud of her skill. She has elaborate dinner parties regularly, which she regards as her way of exhibiting her love for Howard and of helping him in his business. She forgets how much she enjoys receiving the praise of her guests, and their requests for recipes.
3. Howard is getting fatter by the month. His blood cholesterol is up; his physician wants him to lose weight. But Howard’s health requirements do not take precedence over Joan’s determination to nourish her own ego by impressing others with her skill as a cook and as a thoughtful loving wife, nor over her wish to advertise how much she is helping Howard professionally.Howard tries to follow his doctor’s advice, but finds it hard to refuse eating in front of guests; or to appear difficult after listening to Joan enthusiastically describe how she drove twenty miles to a farm to obtain absolutely fresh cream.Howard may, with tired despair, eat the food and hope to reduce in other ways. Paradoxically, Howard believes he is being loving when he does so, because he doesn’t wish to hurt Joan’s feelings-especially in front of guests. In this way he is compounding Joan’s deceit and destructive behavior. He is not only permitting Joan’s “loving” actions and attitudes to destroy him; he is assisting her.
4. Joe, who has been married about three years, works hard in his advertising office. He comes home at night extremely fatigued. At his moment of arrival his wife greets him effusively and insists on “relaxing him and taking care of him.” During the summer she always meets him at the garden gate, kisses him affectionately, puts her arm around him, and leads him to the chaise longue in the shade beneath the apple tree. There, waiting for him, are a glass of freshly made lemonade and two aspirins.”But, Marie, I don’t want to …”"Now, darling, you’re exhausted and nervous, and I know what’s good for you. That’s my sole function in life-to take care of you…

Observed objectively, this dialogue sounds like part of a comic opera, but variations of it occur daily in thousands of homes.

Joe may be flattered, but he is also irritated. What he would like to do is have a martini, a hot tub, and about a half hour of quiet. But Marie insists, and Joe usually gives in. Yet each evening, driving home from work and thinking about the reception he’ll receive from Marie, he feels extremely angry. Sometimes he even wishes his wife would die: “If she were dead, I could get into the house without being molested.” This thought recurs so often that Joe finally feels he is losing his mind, and goes to a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist interviews both Joe and Marie.

Here is part of his private report: “Marie is a ’sweet’ person who has firm ideas about what a wife should do for her husband. When her determined benevolence violates her husband’s concepts, Joe resists and tells her to stop managing him. Marie responds by bursting into tears, clinging to Joe, and pathetically sobbing that he is rejecting her and does not love her.”

And indeed after several years of Marie’s “benevolence” Joe does reject her and dislike her. Marie has “loved” him into a nasty divorce.

Joe’s friends are shocked. How can he leave such a loving wife?

Joe shakes his head with the unmistakable air of a man misunderstood. “Yes,” he is able to reply, after several months of seeing the psychiatrist, “Marie worked hard to make a good marriage. She worked so hard she forgot about me as an individual.”

There are many other examples of behavior which appears to be loving but is really selfish. Consider, for instance, the spouse who “loves” the other so much that whenever they are separated he frets, phones, telegraphs, writes his partner to distraction. Or examine the behavior of the individual who believes he wishes to make the other proud of him-but really desires to exhibit his fine intelligence and talents. In a group with the spouse, he will dominate all conversation, answer all questions addressed to the spouse, and even steal all the punch lines, all with the air of being supportive and helpful, of trying to make “both of us” look intelligent.

The husband who picks out a new car and gives it to his wife as a surprise birthday present is proud of his generosity and his loving behavior. He looks ahead for the Hash of joy which will light her face when she finds the car with her initials on it waiting in the garage. But this desire for an enthusiastic response, a look of joyful surprise, is selfish-he is nourishing his own ego. Were his wife’s happiness and pride as significant to him as his own, he would have told her to pick out the automobile which she wanted, giving her the pleasure of choosing the make, model, color, accessories, and so forth. Or he would have suggested that they both go out and look at cars together. We do not mean to imply, however, that the occasional, spontaneous acts of giving which occur in marriage are harmful.

The generalized recommendation to “be loving” offered by counselors is too vague to be helpful and often simply makes the worried spouse feel guilty about being human and occasionally unloving. And when giving is spontaneous rather than forced, it brings joy to both the giver and the receiver. And when a so-called marriage counselor recommends a “loving” act which one spouse performs independently (without discussion and mutual agreement), he is leading the spouse into debilitating behavior. The “loving” spouse is here unilaterally deciding the nature of the marriage relationship. This kind of behavior unequivocally leads to trouble.

Yet just such behavior-which we call loving self-deception, is recommended by many writers on marriage in newspapers, magazines, and books, and by many marriage counselors, some of whom have an M.D. or a Ph.D. after their name. The advice goes something like this: “If you want to make your wife happy, send her roses once a week.” But the wife may resent the spending of seven dollars a week on flowers. She may prefer to spend the money at a beauty parlor or on new clothes. Consider the following (paraphrased) remarks of a nationally syndicated marriage counselor to a woman who seeks advice on how to behave toward her husband, whom she has just caught making love to another woman:

Dear Madam:

It is obvious that you have not been providing your spouse with sufficient stimulation at home. How long has it been since you’ve had your hair restyled? Do you wear a dirty wrapper to the breakfast table.–:-your hair still in curlers?

I suggest you say nothing about the situation to your husband.

Simply make it a practice to arise a half hour before he does in the morning and start his day off right by being a charming, attractive wife.

It is not obvious why the expert chose appearance as the focal point for his cure, but he is treating the situation as if it were solely the wife’s fault. There are many reasons why his advice is unfortunate-if not actually harmful-including such obvious possibilities as the following:

1. The husband’s fondness for his paramour may indicate not sexual dissatisfaction, but a desire for intellectual companionship; he may already feel his wife is too vain and resent her lack of interest in intellectual activities. The columnist’s advice, in this case, will only increase their problems.
2. If the wife is suddenly “loving” and charming and the husband is feeling guilty for having behaved badly, what will he think of his wife’s inappropriate behavior? He may easily imagine that she is simply biding her time before letting the ax fall-by secretly making legal arrangements for separation or divorce. In the meantime, with no honest communication between them, his suspicions and guilt and her suspicions and anger will only drive them further apart.
3. Most important, how does this advice aid the couple to examine their total relationship-which is, after all, the key to the reasons for any form of infidelity?

Thus behavior which appears to be loving may in reality be a form of one-upmanship, selfishness, and lack of consideration. Deception of oneself and others is destructive, and accelerates the disintegration of a marriage.

All human beings perform unilateral and selfish acts. To do so is not always bad; it sometimes can be wholesome if the individual knows what is happening. But under no circumstances can these acts be regarded as loving, and the first requirement for a workable marriage is to live and relate on a basis of reality, not of myths, obsolete and meaningless traditions, and self-deceit.

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