Neil Venketramen

“What brings you here today?” I ask the couple in their early 30s sitting in my therapy office recently.

The wife reports while the husband stares at the floor, “Well, we bought into the get married, have two kids and live happily ever after fairytale. But really, the live happily ever after part just isn’t happening.”

“Tell me more,” I queried.

She elaborates, “He spends more time at work or after work with his colleagues, and on weekends with his friends, than with the kids and me. I used to be his lover and his wife. Now I’m the just the mother, the maid, and the babysitter. All I’m asking is for him to be home at a reasonable time and to spend more time helping with the children and around the house.”

“Humph,” he rebuts, “I’ll never get promoted if I blow off work stuff. Sure, I love my family and all that, but this is how it is. I want our marriage to work, and I bring home decent money, but I don’t set the rules of the workforce. I can’t be there every time my wife gets tired of changing diapers.”

Time out: I give them a task, an easy one. “Hire a babysitter Saturday evening, go out and have fun. The only stipulation is that you need to spend at least two hours alone together. Come back next week and tell me how it went.”

At the next therapy session, they reported back that they were unable to complete the assignment. The couple didn’t go out together. Instead the bought take-out and sat in front of the television watching a movie while the children slept.

I wondered, what’s stopping them from going out on a one-night date? probing with my customary, “Tell me more.”

The husband answered with logical assurance, “Well, I did the math. Paying for a babysitter and going to a reasonably priced restaurant would cost around $200 bucks. That’s a lot of money. We talked, and she agreed.”

Hm…There is more going on here I thought, so I pressed on, “Might there be cheaper date options? Perhaps a walk along the lake; Lake Michigan is beautiful in early fall. Maybe cut out the dinner part and just spend some time alone together outside of the apartment.”

“Oh, I that thought never crossed my mind,” the husband responded.

The wife interjected, “Well he spends money every night without thinking about it; drinking with his buddies thinking this is how to get ahead at work. He only whips out his calculator and does the math for the one date we planned in the last three months. I guess I’m not worth it.”

The husband shot back, “But you agreed. You suggested we stay at home. Besides, what’s the point of blowing $200, to go out and endure sitting in silence waiting for the last course, so we leave and go home.”

Aah… At that moment I realized that this man is anxious around his wife. His doing-the-math was his way of calculating himself out of spending quality time alone with her. I verbalized my observation.

He said, “Yeah when I’m with my buddies I get to be myself. We have a few drinks, and we have fun. At home, there’s always issues, and chores, and keeping score, and something with the kids. It’s not fun at all.”

She’s sobbing now, “Oh my God; this relationship is never going to change. I’m sentenced to a marriage prison, devoid of passion. Sure, I’m safe and financially secure, but locked out of intimacy. I didn’t sign up for this.”

This is how a marriage that lacks a strong emotional connection looks. Around friends and family, they appear happy. When alone, the tension settles in. They avoid being alone together because they have nothing in common. Realizing this is a sharp blow. Seven years and two children into the marriage, the impact is significant.

The husband, sounding defeated responds, “I don’t want to waste a lot of time and money for nothing. If we work on this relationship and start finding ways to connect emotionally, and we dig up some shared interests, and it’s all great for a few weeks, then what? Isn’t it kind of forced and contrived? What’s going to make it stick? Like really, is it worth the effort?”

That concern is why many couples get stuck in their relationship. They are afraid of trying, scared of taking the next step because deep down they fear they or their partner will never change.

This couple’s marriage lacks compassion, emotion, and intimacy. They are stuck. They don’t have habits for building intimacy. They need to cultivate them. Habit building starts with actions. It requires work to develop the muscle for the new practices to feel natural and for those new habits to overshadow the negative ones they are replacing.

By making themselves a priority, thinking about activities and actions designed to develop compassion, and emotional intimacy, over time these habits and actions will become part of their marriage DNA. Hopefully, it will not feel like a chore. Then they are on the right track.

Relationships are organic; they are not static. Sometimes we forget that, and we neglect to do what it takes to make each other feel important and do the things that matter to keep a relationship working. So, like a dead car battery, we jump-start it. We recommit and get back in the action of keeping the spark alive in a relationship that is meaningful and worth having.

Over the course of time, whether it’s a month, a year or a decade, our relationship skills ebb and flow. If poor habits are left unattended, we tend to experience negative feelings and can begin to drift away from our partner. 

 

The Mental Model  

One way to prevent that from happening is to create a mental model for your marriage. This will make your relationship happy in the short run, but will also ensure enduring success, as you will love and feel loved by your partner over the long term. 

I first heard the term “mental model” from billionaire Warren Buffet. Buffet is one of the world’s most successful investors, yet he lives conservatively in Omaha, Nebraska. Of course everyone wants to know his secret for success. According to Buffet, his “secret” is simple: he has spent decades developing a mental model of what elements make a company successful, and he seeks out that information by research, observation, and asking the right questions. When he finds a business that meets the criteria of his mental model, he invests. Using this process over and over has made him a billionaire. 

I decided to apply Buffet’s ideas in therapy with my clients. I think that feeling good and building a strong long-term relationship is no different than making a successful investment. Why can’t you build a mental model for your marriage? 

The first step in building a mental model is to focus your energy on yourself and your partner. Tell yourself a story about your life as it occurs. You can focus on problems and negative issues and tell yourself a story about an unhappy life. Or, you can concentrate on the positive aspects of your relationship, focusing on the good qualities, and you can tell a story about a strong union that stands the test of time. 

 

Changing the Mental Model 

Let’s look at an example. Kristen comes home every night exhausted from her long work day. She fixes dinner, tucks the kids in bed then tidies up the house. Once she has finished her household duties, she settles down to relax and drinks two glasses of wine. The story that Kristen tells herself is that she needs the wine to help her unwind, and it makes her feel good. That is her reward for making it through a hard day. 

On the surface it seems reasonable. It’s only two glasses of wine, and she doesn’t drink them before she has handled all her responsibilities. But has she attended to everything? What about her husband? He is her primary relationship, and he doesn’t seem to figure in Kristen’s story at all. 

The flaw in Kristen’s story is that she believes wine is the quickest way to get to the “reward” of feeling relaxed. In reality, the wine makes her too tired to interact with her partner, and she ends up falling asleep early. She wants to feel important and be heard by her spouse, but she tells herself that she really only has time for him on the weekend, when she is not so tired. Her mental model is that she needs wine to get through the work week and on the weekends she can connect with her husband. She puts her primary partner on the back burner then wonders why they aren’t as close as before. Kristen doesn’t have an awareness of her own story. 

But what if Kristen changed her story? What if she said to herself, “When I get home tonight, I’m going to spend 20 minutes practicing yoga after I get the kids into bed. I know I’ll feel great.” Or what if she replaced yoga with a bubble bath, meditation, or intimate time with her husband? Making that one change in her story can bring her into a deeper level of presence, and ultimately create more gratification in the relationship. 

Now what if both Kristen and her husband change their mental models? What if they decide to take the time to focus on one another for fifteen minutes every night? They can talk, take a walk, wash the dishes or even make love. Their relationship is going to flourish despite any problems they encounter during the day. The more specific the story they create, the more they focus on the positive aspects of their relationship, the stronger the marriage will become. 

 

Key to Success 

Over time, they will develop mental model stories about their children, parenting, their own love story – virtually every aspect of their lives. They will develop a unique blueprint that works for them. 

The key is not to struggle with changing a habit. It is very hard to do that, and frequently causes more stress than positive outcomes. For instance, Kristen cannot change that she will be tired at the end of the work day, but she can change the story she tells herself about what will make her feel happy and relaxed. She can replace the idea of drinking wine with meditation, a bubble bath, or extra intimacy with her husband. She tells herself a specific story that includes positive personal action, and this enables her to change her behavior. 

The mental models we create and the stories we tell ourselves enable us to change our behaviors. Falling in love and staying in love are behavioral activities. Creating specific stories that include positive personal action provide the best chance of encouraging behaviors that foster happiness. 

 

Questions to Ponder 

What is your current personal story? Are you focusing on the positive or negative aspects of your relationship? 

What are three positive actions you could include in a new personal story? 

If you have a habit you would like to change, like Kristen’s belief that wine was her best option, can you create a specific mental model that changes your current story? What new positive behavior will replace the current behavior? 

 

Dear Neil Venketramen,

My name is Shaun. I’m 28 years old and engaged to Nicole, the girl of my dreams. Our wedding date is eight months from now. I’m having second thoughts.

Nicole likes to hang out with her co-workers after work a few times a week. She will stay out late without calling; sometimes she’ll text. On the weekends Nichol spends a lot of time alone, shopping, catching up on chores and chilling out with her friends. She’s a very independent woman, and I admire that, but I want to spend more time with her.  We live together, but we don’t spend much quality time together.

I’m worried about these red flags, and I am not sure what to do? Can you help me?  Thanks.

 

Hi Shaun,

I am glad you decided to write. Not many guys spot relationship challenges early in their relationship.

It seems that what bothers you the most is not that she is independent, values her time alone or likes to go out with her friends. Spending time together is your red flag of most concern. You have what we call in my profession different attachment styles.

Whether couples are married or just starting out like you and Nicole, the ability to develop a healthy attachment with your partner is the foundation of a great relationship. Most married couples live for decades together supporting an unhealthy attachment style. Resentment builds and ultimately their marriages are in deep trouble. Then they attend therapy based on having poor communication, not realizing that their attachment styles are different. You and your fiancé are getting a head start on working through this issue before hostility sets in.

Aside from one’s independence, where the person is free from the control or influence of another, in any relationship, there are two kinds of dependency, where two people rely on each other, and they need to be in balance. When they are not, the power shifts to one of the partners. Think of an equal arms scale with the pans hanging below the beam. One is labeled dependence and the other interdependence. To balance the scale, you place weights in one pan to counter the load in the other pan. If one pan has more weight on it, the balance is off. Being off kilter might be what’s sending up your red flags.

When people or objects are interdependent, they are mutually reliant on each other. The flower feeds the honeybee enabling it to make honey, and the honeybee pollinates the flower. With couples, when one partner is sad or feels hurt, they rely on the other for emotional comfort and vice versa. You enjoy spending time with your partner together, and they feel the same way about you. You two make it a priority to spend quality time with each other.

Dependence, on the other hand, is more of an obligation or need to handle an aspect of the relationship.  A person who relies on another for financial support is dependent.  One may feel as though they need to spend all their time with their partner otherwise, they get anxious or feel abandoned. They are exhibiting dependency.

In your case, maybe you do not enjoy spending free time alone because you don’t know what to do with it.  You expect your fiancé to fulfill your need to be occupied and not feel anxious. Over time your partner may feel guilty that she does not satisfy your needs yet smothered by your neediness.

Still, dependence is not necessarily unhealthy in a relationship.  I am dependent on my wife to plan our meals together; she is dependent on me to manage the service and repairs of our cars.

There are many reasons why one becomes dependent on a partner. It can be like the example in my family where we are splitting up the household responsibilities. Maybe being dependent makes one feel loved in a relationship.

While you appear to be emotionally dependent and would prefer more time with your Nichol, it does not mean you have an unhealthy attachment to your partner. Your mission in your relationship is to balance the scale.

The first step is to talk to Nichol about your dependency and interdependency needs. What are both of your expectations for your relationship and attachment to each other? Identify the priorities for the week. How much time would you like to spend with her?

The second step is to broaden your circle of support, connecting more with your family or friends, and perhaps catch up on the hobbies that make you happy. It seems as though Nichol has found space for other interests that make her happy. You need to find your space for things that will make you happy.

Once you get to a point where you feel that the level of attachment is healthy for the relationship, and the juggling act between individual independence, dependence and interdependence is working for your relationship, you will start to feel good about your connection with your partner.

In conclusion, I must tell you how impressed I am. Most men that I encounter see asking for help and working on their needs in a relationship as a weakness. I see this as a sign of strength. You are taking charge of your happiness and developing the ability to master building your relationship from the start. Congratulations.

Sincerely,

Neil Venketramen