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Life Cycle Transitions: Periods of Vulnerability in a Marriage

“Change is the only constant in life.” An ancient Greek philosopher said that, and we still hold it as one of the facts of life. Things inevitably change, and relationships get shaken up.

There are three periods of change, life cycle transitions, in a marriage where a couple is at a heightened risk of divorcing. The first is 18 months after the couple has had their first child. The second, when the kids leave home in pursuit of independent lives, and the third is when couples retire and try to spend their golden years together.

Life cycle transitions are challenging for couples. The reality of having a needy baby to care for, or of living in the quiet of the empty nest with a refrigerator still stocked for feeding teenagers, or of the ever present retired spouse with a void to fill cause significant shifts in a couple’s relationship. The household dynamic is different. Former routines no longer suit the new situation.

And baby makes three

Ron and Sarah’s first born is 18-months old and since her birth has been their only focus. They’ve established a routine where they share the chores and baby responsibilities. Except for work they are together all the time with the baby.

Pre-baby days, Ron would spend time after work with his workmates a couple of evenings a week. Thursday was Sarah’s girls’ night out. As a couple, they connected over regularly scheduled dates and an occasional weekend away. Their lives had structure and balance. Now, with no alone time and no connection time, the “all baby all the time” routine is challenging their relationship.

Sarah and Ron are having an especially difficult time because they had never talked about how they were going to handle their relationship or expectations from each other. They just let things happen. Sarah is more of a homebody, content to be at home. Ron is an extrovert who feels stifled not being around others. They have been arguing and have little experience communicating effectively.

In haste and out of sheer frustration recently Ron lamented, “I wish we had waited longer to have a kid.” He immediately regretted saying that. Sarah is angry about his words and remorseful about getting married too quickly without considering their expectations.

The couple is struggling to adapt. All the love, attention, and energy in the household have been channeled toward the new baby. They stopped addressing their individual needs and needs as a couple. What connection they have, fragile and without communication fluency, is tenuous, leaving them unable to communicate about how to treat one another and define expectations for their marriage going forward as a family. They are at a vulnerable place.

All’s quiet in the empty nest

Tracy and Michael’s twins recently went off to college. Throughout the children’s formative years, Tracy and Michael’s life centered on their kid’s activities. Now the family dynamic has changed. Suddenly the energy level has been sucked out of their home, like the air out of a deflated balloon.

An eerie quietness has settled in around the house. Michael has thrown himself into his work and stays at the office later into the evening. Tracy catches herself grocery shopping for four and preparing enough dinner for a full house. She misses the children and calls them repeatedly throughout the day.

Without the kids around Tracy and Michael don’t know what to talk about. When they do, they have the same conversations over and over again. Small talk they call it. They don’t know how to relate to one another in a way that makes them feel intimate and connected. They are drifting in separate directions, Tim off to the golf course and Tracy to the mall or weekends away from home. Their relationship at this point is vulnerable.

Managing Life Cycle Transitions

There have been significant changes in the family dynamic of these couples. Couples are at greatest risk of losing their intimate connection with one another at times of life cycle change.

One way to deal with this is to recognize what is going on and plan at least one activity a week together as a couple. The act of building a habit for connection keeps a couple together in the midst of the family evolving.

As you transition from one stage of life to another, you are not the same people you were at the previous point in your relationship. You have changed, evolved and grown and have different needs. If you can let go of the old expectation and rebuild new ways of connecting and falling in love again, then you have a good chance of reconstructing a marriage that lasts. Remember, change is a constant in life. Embrace it if you can.

Double Whammy: The Challenge of Being Both Depressed and Having Marital Problems

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“I have a hard time sleeping,” discloses my client Steve. “ I get up two, three, maybe four times during the night. The next day, I’m beat.”

“Tell me more. What’s really going on when you feel this way?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I’m just exhausted. My work hours are the same. My routine is the same every night. It’s been going on for over six months. Emily and I are fighting all the time. Probably has something to do with that. The stress is getting to me.”

Steve is tired. His disrupted sleep patterns have taken a toll on his body. He’s achy and sore. His eyes have a glazed over look like he’s lost. He seems profoundly sad. Cracking a smile in therapy takes effort. I know that he and Emily have been fighting, and their marriage problems are ever present. He has been self-medicating. His usual one or two glasses of wine each evening has increased to three or four. The couple’s issues are not getting any better; neither is Steve. Steve is showing signs of being depressed. The thought of that label frightens him.

Depression creates havoc in a marriage. When one partner is depressed, the other often feels that this depression is standing in the way of fixing their problems. They may even blame their spouse for hiding behind depression, using it as an excuse for not working through their issues.

The depressed partner is indeed hindered by their condition. It pulls them deeper and deeper into isolation. They may try to stay present, exhibit a positive mood, and hear their partner, but they’re drained. To their spouse, they may appear disinterested and uncaring. However, feeling defeated, they are too spent to do anything about it.

A recent study by The University of Toronto, Flourishing after depression: Factors associated with achieving complete mental health among those with a history of depression, Psychiatry Research, 2016, reports “ Two in five adults (39%) who have experienced major depression can achieve complete mental health within one year.” In other words, they have an overall positive sense of well being and are free from suicidal thoughts and substance abuse for at least one full year.

The study further reveals, “Formerly depressed adults who had emotionally supportive and close relationships were four times more likely to report complete mental health than those without such relationships.” These results back up what therapists have believed for years. Problems get resolved faster and with greater ease if you have a supportive partner. A person can’t do it alone, trapped in their own head.

In Steve’s case, engaging Emily’s interpersonal support is critical for him to flourish. But the dilemma is that they are having marriage problems. Emily may be neither able nor willing to provide Steve with the support he needs for a full recovery to live depression free. This is where we must start.

In therapy, we are working on resolving the marriage problems and improving communication. Steve needs to get out of his head and be more connected with Emily if he is going to gain the support from her that he needs to get better within the marriage.

A goal for Steve is to establish new routines that get him out of his social isolation, overcome his physical health problems, and renew his focus, helping win the fight against depression. New routines trigger the neurotransmitters in the brain, keeping them firing so one can feel healthy again.

An hour a day of physical activity is helping Steve regain healthy sleep patterns. He’s weaning himself away from the nighttime wine ritual. He is making healthier food and beverage choices. Steve and Emily are making social plans with friends, and he has joined up with a group of guys who play handball twice a week at a park close to his office. He’s making progress.

Do you know someone with depression or have first-hand experience of it in your life? Depression is not a life sentence. There is evidence that managing this disorder, and even completely getting over it, is possible. The study cited earlier in this article, includes these encouraging words; “Those whose longest depressive episode lasted more than two years were just as likely to be in complete mental health as those who had had the disorder for only one month.”

Chronic Anxiety Makes Me Angry and Is Affecting My Marriage

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Most of us experience acute anxiety. This is the nervous feeling you get when speaking in front of a large crowd, or when you are hosting the entire family for Thanksgiving and you want everything to be perfect. Acute anxiety is your central nervous system’s response to a threat (real or imagined), and after a short period, those anxious feelings taper off and you return your normal baseline state. Chronic anxiety is something altogether different, and can be dangerous in any relationship.

Let’s look at the example of Mike and Elaine. Mike is attending therapy because his wife, Elaine, gave him an ultimatum. “Either you go to therapy or this marriage is over.”

Mike is all about blame. Typically, when he and Elaine have an argument, even about something small or insignificant, Mike tends to become defensive and shift the blame to her. Even when he is at fault and knows he should apologize, he often justifies his actions to make it appear as though Elaine is responsible for the problem. As a corporate lawyer, he is very skilled at this kind of deflection.

During an argument, Mike experiences the physical symptoms of anxiety. The tension builds in his chest; his muscles involuntarily tighten in response to the stress he feels. Mike does not have the tools he needs to calm himself. He is uncomfortable with the physical sensations, and will do whatever it takes to relieve the pressure. He wants an immediate resolution. More often than not, the result is an angry explosion, and Elaine doesn’t know how to short circuit his reaction.

When I dig deeper into Mike’s background, I learn that his father left the home when Mike was eleven years old. He and his mother were left in poverty, moving from home to home, barely surviving. His mother lacked healthy coping strategies to deal with her situation, and her extreme anxiety was expressed in loud volume confrontations. When she raised her voice with Mike, he learned to defend himself and turn the confrontation back on her. He never learned how to defuse a situation.

To avert the uncomfortable symptoms of his chronic anxiety, Mike tries to avoid conflict. He is nice to everyone in order to prevent a confrontation. Mike finds it difficult to spend more than thirty minutes with either of his parents; just being around them causes stress. His area of legal specialty is contract law, where he sits behind a desk and reviews paperwork. Although he rarely experiences conflict on the job, he unknowingly remains in a constant state of alert.

For Mike, chronic anxiety is like having background noise in his head at all times. He is constantly trying to avoid the sound, and he is always ready to fight it or flee from it. This is how he lives.

In this case, the background noise comes from his childhood experience with his family situation. When I help Mike understand this, I make sure to point out that there is no blame here; we are simply acknowledging the source. This source (negative family situation) is frequently the same across cultures, especially in the presence of poverty, substance abuse, violence, etc.

The first step in dealing with chronic anxiety is to get rid of the threat. In a relationship, it is critical to have the partner participate in this process. Since Mike’s anxiety is already creating a lot of noise in his head, talking is not an effective means of reducing his stress. Instead, we are using physical touch to make him feel safer. Whenever he and Elaine have a fight, she steps up and hugs him, at the same time asking him to give her a little space to think about the issue before they talk again. It has been difficult, but Mike is beginning to accept that Elaine processes conflict in a different way than he does, and he is getting better at giving her time to think. The physical reassurance of her hug reminds him that she is not rejecting him; they are simply having a difference of opinion.

Over time, Mike will learn to create healthy responses to conflict, which will ultimately reduce the level of his chronic anxiety. Removing the threat is the first step, and the comfort and encouragement implicit in Elaine’s hug helps him feel safe. Mike is ready for the challenge, because he does not want chronic anxiety to destroy his marriage.

When Your Partner’s Personality Trait Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in the Marriage

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There are many, many ways to become stuck in a negative marriage cycle, and one of the most common is the magnification of a partner’s personality trait. Once one partner becomes fixated by a habit or trait of the other partner, especially if it is considered negative, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Married couples seem to have many complaints in common:

A husband who is dominant or overbearing. He always gets his way in the marriage
A wife who is overly dependent upon her husband. She needs constant emotional support, which he may not be willing or able to give
One partner who has no desire for sex
One partner who has an addictive personality or is highly dependent on alcohol, sex, etc.

As a therapist, I look for traits so I can understand how they affect the relationship. I frequently find that over time, couples increasingly see their partner as one dimensional – they fail to recognize their spouse as a fully rounded individual. They begin to feel as though they are trapped in quicksand with no hope of getting out, because they have narrowed their expectations of the relationship.

Samantha perceives her husband to be dominant and bossy. Jake perceives Samantha’s requests as complaints. He is very irritated by Samantha’s comparison of him to his mother, who is a chronic complainer. When I asked if they each display these traits all the time, without hesitation they both said, “Yes”.

When asked if there were moments during the day that Jake was not dominating and Samantha was not complaining, they found it difficult to identify their spouse’s different behaviors. After thinking hard about Jake’s behavior the previous day, Samantha said, “I can’t think of any moment.” Jake identified a time period when Samantha was not whining. “When she was asleep. That’s the only time she doesn’t ask for something.”

If this couple isn’t aware that their partner has behaviors different than the ones they perceive, this relationship is doomed to fail. Talking about it during therapy won’t solve the problem. They need to believe that their partner has another side to his or her personality, a side that values, loves and trusts them. And the way to develop this belief is through experience.

Jake and Samantha need to see their partner’s personality traits as a “range of possibilities between extremes”, instead of an “extreme, generalized, stable trait”. To help couples deal with this challenge and begin to see their partners in a new way, Dr. John Verhulst developed the Smooth-Rough Scale.

The Smooth-Rough Scale is an exercise that any couple can do at home. It involves creating two columns on a piece of paper, with one column labeled “SMOOTH” and the other column labeled “ROUGH”. During the course of a typical day, each partner makes notes about the other’s behavior, and using a 10-point scale, rates each action. For example, let’s say that Jake makes coffee for himself and Samantha. Samantha may give that a “6” rating in the Smooth column, because it was a nice thing for Jake to do and she did not have to make any effort. Later that morning Jake sends her a quick text message to ask how her day is going. Again, she would give that a rating in the Smooth column, because it demonstrates his caring and emotional support. If they have a conflict that evening, Samantha would note that in the Rough column, and give it a rating. The most important aspect of this exercise is to write down how the other partner behaved during these moments, and the feeling that resulted. When Jake texted Samantha, she could note that it made her feel loved that Jake cared about her day. When they got into an argument, she could note that she felt devalued because he called her a name.

This exercise has two specific goals:

To help each partner realize that they have narrowed their perceptions, and that there is more to the other person than simply one or two personality traits; and

To help people set boundaries by identifying what makes them feel good and what makes them feel hurt or isolated.

Each partner should perform this exercise separately, and only share if both feel comfortable. It doesn’t take long before each realizes that the other has both smooth and rough moments, and that each person feels emotions at varying degrees. What might seem like a minor incident to Jake could be very hurtful for Samantha. When spouses are able to acknowledge these differences, that is when a couple can make real progress in addressing the problems in their relationship.

I will leave you with a caution: If you don’t feel that you are ready to share your ratings with your partner, trust your instinct and don’t do it. In this situation, I would encourage you to seek help from a professional. With the guidance of a therapist, you can work together to see your partner’s personality through a different lens. You can uncover your own triggers for the communication, intimacy and connection that you desire. In fact, this exercise can also be applied towards improving intimacy in your relationship by rating the most intimate and sexually stimulating experiences versus the things that turn you off. Again, this exercise should be undertaken with the guidance of an experienced therapist.

Broken Promises: Deal Breakers in a Marriage, or Not?

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How do you make a marriage therapist cringe? Ask him if he thinks you should stay married or get divorced. Therapists are not in the opinion offering business whether a couple stays or divorce. Their job is to help couples talk through their feelings and expectations so that they can make that decision on their own.

At the root of what drives couples struggling with the question of whether or not to terminate a marriage is usually a broken promise. Couples able to navigate around them ultimately make their marriages stronger. Others can’t find it in themselves to trust that their spouse will ever be able to keep a promise. Those marriages are over.

Broken promises in a marriage fall into three categories.

Broken promises around sex and intimacy

An agreement in marriage, generally assumed and sometimes unspoken, is that a couple will grow together in their physical and emotional intimacy. Somewhere along the way that may change. One partner has an extramarital affair. In another relationship, a spouse becomes distant or depressed, emotionally unavailable for intimacy. A partner who has not been forthcoming about their sexuality, for example, withholding that they are gay, lesbian or bi-sexual causes pain and a feeling of betrayal.

Erosion of Trust

Being caught in a lie is a sure recipe for erosion of trust in a relationship. Pretending to be deeply religious when in fact you’re an atheist; cheating on your partner and then continuing to have an emotional relationship with the other person; lying about being financially responsible without disclosing a bankruptcy will all leave your partner doubting your trustworthiness.

Loss of Respect

Being a fraud or withholding information about one’s health or character triggers loss of respect. A client bragged to his betrothed that he had been an attorney at a high profile law firm when he was a paralegal. Another talked about wanting children but had a tubal ligation. In these instances, the lying was unforgivable. Their spouses no longer respected them.

David and Isabella are dealing with a situation that has eroded trust in their relationship. David met Isabella, an attractive schoolteacher, divorced with two children, while separated from his first wife. Swept off their feet and in a fog of romanticism, they married before the ink on his divorce papers had dried. There was a lot they didn’t know about each other.

Isabella had no idea that David had not saved enough money to fund his 16-year-old daughter’s college tuition. Isabella had not disclosed to David that two properties she owns with her ex-husband are in foreclosure. Isabella’s schoolteacher salary is barely enough for her to take care of her children, let alone handle the financial fallout from the foreclosures.

One Sunday morning while mowing the lawn David was stewing over their financial situation when it hit him; “I made a promise to my daughter. She’s the person that matters the most to me. I can’t renege. She graduates from high school in two years. Isabella has dragged me into a mess. How am I ever going to scrap up enough money for tuition?”

Feeling exasperated and defeated, David sinks into a new reality. His otherwise happy new marriage is built on the foundation of an unforgivable unbroken promise. The couple comes to me for therapy. Are Isabella and David going to stay together or split?

We work on communication and understanding each other’s perspective and stepping back from their emotions to make decisions unclouded by bitterness. It’s not working. David loves Isabella but he can’t get over her withholding her financial situation. He doesn’t want to comprise his daughter’s future given the hurt she has gone through in the previous divorce. He’s not going to place this relationship in jeopardy.

In therapy, we are making some progress exploring ways of making and keeping promises. The relationship is stronger for the work they’ve done. David however, continues to have a difficult time accepting this. We are working on reaching a wise decision about staying married or divorcing taking into account the short term and long term implications to avoid regrets later. Making peace and finding solace in their decision is a priority.

I’m not sure whether David and Isabella will eventually make it. They are taking this relationship one month at a time, hoping for a miracle to happen and waiting to hear back about their liability for the property in foreclosure. Only time will tell whether they stay married or divorce.

This situation could have been prevented had the couple been upfront with each other from the start. Failure to disclose information about ones-self sets a relationship up on top of a broken promise. Erosion of trust and loss of respect are sure to follow. On-going communication keeps promises in the foreground, solidifying a healthy relationship.