Improving a Marriage Instead of Getting a Divorce

Introduction

This article is much longer than many on the Internet, but you may well find it contains lots and lots of helpful information. It's written slightly differently to most articles, but that doesn't make the information more difficult to follow.

What's it like?

Most of the self-help articles in this series each have a story at the beginning, and then the rest of each is like the main character in the story looking at self-help information and thinking, "That's interesting, this information says [whatever it says], ... and this information says [whatever it says]", and so on. Most of the articles explain what the information says as if it's the person thinking it through and coming up with ideas about how to get over their problems. The idea is that you take inspiration from what's written down in the form of their thoughts to work out your own self-help regime, setting yourself tasks to do that will help you improve things bit by bit over the coming days or weeks, based on the self-help information.

You don't have to do everything the article says for things to work, and you don't have to do the things you do do in the exact way the article suggests people do them. Just do what you like the idea of, and what you think will be of most benefit.

Imagine this article is somehow giving you privileged access to the thoughts of Anita, the main character in the following story/article about someone contemplating whether to stay in her marriage or get a divorce, and you plan to use the ideas she has about what might change her situation as inspiration to turn your life around.

The characters discovering the information in the articles in this series are fictional, but the events are true to life.

Contents of the Sections and Sample Subsections

The Story

The Way Things Are Before They Begin to Improve

Anita is fed up of her marriage and feels fairly sure she wants a divorce. The marriage seems to have disappointed all her expectations. She's tempted to leave, but part of her wonders whether it's possible to stay and improve the marriage instead.

She looks around for self-help material that will aid her in making a decision one way or the other, and finds something that seems to speak directly about her problems. It gives her more optimism that the marriage can work and get better after all.

Anita's Contemplation of Several Things she Hopes Will Turn her Life Around

She thinks:

Part One
Blaming, Holding Grudges and Forgiving:

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.
--H.L. Mencken, (A Book of Burlesques, 1916)

More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.
--Doug Larson

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.
--Catherine Ponder

True love is when you put someone on a pedestal, and they fall - but you are there to catch them.
--Author Unknown

The author of this book sounds a bit like me, in that she says she really wanted to divorce her husband at one point. I'll see what made her change her mind. ...

Oh. She says that what really changed her mind was that she realised that the problems in her marriage weren't all her husband's fault by any means, and that there were things she could do about them. She says that now, she's glad she didn't divorce her husband, because they fell in love again, and after she learned to do things differently, their marriage became a lot better.

Well, perhaps I'll have to admit that I've been partly responsible for some of the problems in the marriage. ... Well, at least one or two. ... Maybe. What she says sounds interesting. I'll read on and see if I think what happened to her could happen for me.

The book says the author describes some of the things that happened in her marriage and how she's improved it, to help others experiencing similar things.

Well, that sounds good.

Blaming Her Husband for All the Marriage Difficulties

The author says that at the time when she was thinking about divorcing her husband, she would blame him for all the problems in the marriage. She says she had a long list of changes she wanted him to make, and blaming him for the difficulties felt more satisfying than recognising her part in the problems. She even read self-help books and underlined the bits she thought he should take notice of, and gave them to him, without considering that she needed to change.

But she says that now she knows that part of the problem was that she'd grown hard-hearted because she didn't feel he showed enough love towards her, and she became critical of him, and was sarcastic about any efforts he made to improve things, as if he just couldn't do anything well enough. Now she realises that her attitude was ruining their relationship more than anything he did.

Not Forgiving Him for Anything

She says she would get angry with her husband for the smallest things, and so they often argued. She would say nasty things to him. Besides that, she'd lose her temper easily with her children and snap at other people like shop assistants for trivialities as well. And she mulled over little spur-of-the-moment comments that others made until they seemed like major upsets.

She says there were several reasons for that, but one of the most important was that she'd never learned to forgive.

Why She Hadn't Learned to Be Forgiving

She says she thinks there were four reasons why she found it difficult personally to forgive:

One was that she thought of herself as a nice person who didn't show unpleasant emotions like anger, thinking that not showing anger would keep the peace better; so she stored up petty resentments rather than commenting on them until there were so many that she was furious, and so her husband just needed to say one little thing, and she'd explode with a torrent of accusations that were nothing to do with the issue. And the arguments would go on for hours.

She says a second reason she couldn't forgive was that she often felt hurt about things and she thought someone ought to pay for that. Letting go of all the hurts and disappointments would mean that that wouldn't happen.

But when she started to reflect on all the things she'd done wrong herself, she realised she had no right to demand that others forgive her if she wasn't willing to forgive them. She realised she had actually done more than her husband to make herself and her marriage miserable, and that she wanted him to be someone who'd forgive her unconditionally and accept both her good and bad qualities as part of his love for her, since that was part of her idea of what an ideal husband should be like; but she was holding him to a different standard from the one she wanted him to hold her to. She wouldn't forgive him for the things he'd done wrong.

But she realised the relationship would never get better unless she changed. She came to think that mistakes and misdemeanours ought to be forgiven even when the person doesn't deserve it.

She says another reason she didn't forgive her husband is that he never asked her to.

And she says a fourth reason is that she wanted to feel like the victim in the failing marriage so she wouldn't have to take partial responsibility for its failure. She didn't have a problem with guilt as long as she could feel like the aggrieved victim and think that it was her husband who needed to change, not her.

But she says that this kind of attitude won't make a marriage healthier or make the person who holds the attitude any happier really.

She says she was doing a similar thing, thinking of herself as the victim so she could feel justified in being unpleasant and didn't have to feel guilty about her anger problems or the way she treated her husband. It meant she didn't have to look at what she was doing and take some responsibility for the state of her marriage.

The Problems that Being Unforgiving Can Cause

She says that some of the symptoms of an unforgiving attitude include:

• Losing your temper over seemingly trivial things.
• Making sarcastic remarks that are meant to hurt.
• Complaining about your spouse behind their back.
• Negatively criticizing or correcting them.
• Crying for no apparent reason.
• Unexplained headaches, stomach problems or fatigue.

Of course, those symptoms won't always be caused by an unwillingness to forgive. But it's interesting what she says. She says she couldn't become a nice person no matter how hard she tried until she resolved to be more forgiving, because she was full of resentment, disappointment, pride, bitterness, anger and hurt, and that showed in her behaviour. She says she was being hurt by her unwillingness to forgive more than her husband was. And she says she couldn't see the potential in their marriage and the person her husband really was, because she was so consumed with bad feelings about his past mistakes. It stopped them enjoying what there was still left in the relationship and was destroying what love was left.

She says when someone with an unforgiving attitude leaves a relationship, they'll carry their unforgiving attitude into any future relationships they have, so even if the new ones seem better than the previous one for a while, the old problems will start recurring. And friendships will suffer in the same way, because a bitter person will not only make themselves miserable, but they will have a negative attitude that others find unattractive.

One or Two Things That Can Make Forgiving Easier

She says that forgiveness won't always be easy and may take time, but when people forgive, they benefit themselves as well as the person they're forgiving, because the anger and hurt can be like a weight they're carrying around, and when they let go of it, they can feel it's lifted.

She says that one aid to forgiveness is thinking about the childhood of the other partner, which often won't excuse their behaviour, but it might sometimes make it more understandable. She says she was often angry with her husband for not showing greater love towards her. But when she thought about his childhood, she realised his parents hadn't shown a particularly loving attitude towards him, so he didn't have a loving person to model his behaviour on while he was growing up, so it wouldn't have come naturally to him to have been all that loving.

She says that at first, letting go of her husband's offences was difficult, since she'd grown used to cherishing hurts and bringing them up later as ammunition. And she says she still finds it difficult to forgive sometimes and it can take time, but it's worth doing, for her own well-being as well as for the marriage and her husband.

She says it's harder to forgive a misdemeanour if it keeps being repeated, but she finds it easier if she first thinks about how often she does the same old things herself and needs forgiveness for those.

A Few Qualities of Genuine and Fake Forgiveness

She says forgiveness is like cancelling a debt. When someone forgives, it means they let go of the right to bring the offence up to make the other person look bad in the future.

And she says real forgiveness is done freely, not with strings attached, such as the expectation of a lot of gratitude for having done it.

She says it can be nice to tell a husband or wife they've been forgiven, especially if they might feel guilty over something.

But she says that on the other hand, forgiveness shouldn't be used as a weapon. For instance, if someone said, "I forgive you for being inconsiderate yet again!", they would probably really be implying a criticism of the other person for supposedly being inconsiderate, rather than genuinely forgiving them. Even if they'd only thought the bit about the other one being inconsiderate rather than actually saying it, their real attitude would probably have come through in their tone of voice.

She says forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. It might be difficult to forget. But she says she finds it difficult to remember many of the things she once thought it was worth divorcing her husband over.

But she says the important thing is that people don't allow themselves to become preoccupied with resentful and other negative thoughts, but when they notice they're thinking them, they stop themselves and turn their attention to more productive things.

She says it was when she recognised that she was as much a part of the problem in her marriage as her husband, if not more so, that the marriage began to heal.

Ways of Going About Forgiving

She says that some people might feel a bit daunted by the fact that they've got resentment about so many things stored up that they think forgiving everything might take forever; but a good way to go about forgiving all the misdemeanours in the past is to forgive them all at once, rather than thinking of them one by one, maybe by doing something symbolic to represent forgiving them all altogether.

She says people she knows have come up with different ideas for symbolic things to do. She says one person destroyed a bit of paper to symbolise getting rid of a mental list of unforgiven things. She says someone else imagined her husband imprisoned in chains of her unforgiveness, and imagined cutting each link in the chain one by one to set him free. Someone else imagined drawing a line in the sand to represent a divide between the past unforgiveness and the future, and imagined stepping over it.

She recommends that after people have forgiven their husband or wife, they ask their spouse to forgive them for their own misdemeanours. She says using the word sorry probably won't mean much, since it may have been well over-used. She says that certainly her and her husband used to say sorry a lot when they didn't mean it; they were often just tired and said it because they wanted to end the argument and go to bed. So she recommends people ask, "Will you forgive me?"

She says people shouldn't have any expectations of being forgiven immediately, since their husband or wife might need to think about it for some time before they can decide whether to forgive them. The husband or wife might feel as much hurt because of things that have happened in the past as the one asking for forgiveness, and not trust the one who wants forgiveness until they've seen evidence that they mean to change their ways and be more loving. That shouldn't be seen as a problem. What's important is the long-term welfare of the marriage.

She says that after the person who's decided to become more forgiving and loving has resolved to change, sometimes, it might help if they do even radical things to help preserve the marriage. She says she changed jobs because she was tempted to flirt with a couple of people and wanted to take herself out of the way of temptation in case things got worse. And she stopped reading romantic novels, since she realised they gave her an unrealistic impression of what marriage should be like that was making her more dissatisfied with her own marriage.

Part Two
Some Ways of Controlling Anger:

The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
--Alan Patrick Herbert

Bad as I like ye, it's worse without ye.
--Irish Proverb

Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.
--Tom Mullen

The author says that one of her problems had been the way she dealt with anger. She says when she was a child, she'd had terrible tantrums where she'd kicked and screamed, but also even held her breath till she passed out. People used to talk about it with disapproval, saying she was spoiled and that it was shameful, and other bad things like that. For some reason, instead of getting the message that terrible tantrums were shameful, she interpreted what they were saying as meaning that anger was. So when she was grown up, she tried to hold her anger in, and not tell people when she was a bit annoyed. So she would keep her feelings in, until one day, she wouldn't be able to stand it any more, and something petty would happen and they would all come out, in the equivalent of one of the tantrums her relatives thought were so shameful before. She'd accuse her husband of all kinds of things. Then, she'd regret what she'd done and think even more that anger was bad, so she'd start holding it in again and the whole process would start off again. But she says the amount of time between the times she had angry explosions grew less and less until she was angry all the time.

She says there are several things she's learned to do to control her anger now:

Admitting to Feeling Angry

She says She's stopped thinking anger's bad in itself. She's realised it's the way people express it that makes the difference. She says that when she starts to feel anger now, she finds it refreshing to admit to herself that she's feeling angry, and accept it. Then, she asks herself what the anger's telling her about what's wrong in her life, and whether there are any constructive ways of fixing it, like requesting more help around the house or something. She says her anger motivated her to get a new job once, and when she had, she became much happier.

Other Emotions Could Be Triggering the Angry Feelings

She says another thing she's found helpful is asking herself whether another emotion triggered off her anger. She says when she's analysed the event that led to her becoming angry, she's almost always realised the anger was triggered off by another emotion, like fear. For instance, when her husband ignores her, she's scared he's angry with her. Or the trigger for her anger can be frustration at an impeded goal or an unrealistic expectation she has, like when she's trying to finish something and hasn't explicitly said she doesn't want to be disturbed, and one of her family asks her to help them with something and she thinks it might make her late for a deadline.

She advises people to think of what emotion or concern came before their anger each time, because she's found that when she thinks about what triggers hers off, the angry feelings often go away.

When Faulty Interpretations of Another Person's Actions Cause Anger

She says another thing she found helpful was recognising that her husband didn't cause her to be angry, even when he seemed to be provoking her deliberately; what did make her angry was her interpretation of the reasons he was doing what he did.

She gives an example, saying that she used to love to stop for donuts on the way back from church with her family. It just made Sunday seem special. But her husband would never offer to stop and she thought he should. She'd wait and wait for him to say something about it, but he wouldn't. After they'd passed the donut shop, she started to become mightily angry about it. She says her whole day was ruined because she thought he was stingy and thoughtless and mean.

She got over it when she began to think of things differently. She realised that when they left church, he was thinking about what to do with the rest of his day. Donuts were nothing special to him, so he never gave them a thought. When she started reminding him to stop to get some, he was happy to, and enjoyed the time together eating them as much as she did.

She says her anger was coming from her own faulty thinking processes where she was making judgments about what he was thinking, not from reality.

The Importance of Not Burying Anger

She says another thing that's helped her is dealing with angry feelings promptly, instead of letting them build up.

She says it can take courage to stand up for ourselves sometimes, but when we do, the results can be surprising.

She says she thinks not resolving little issues can cause resentments to fester and cause bad feeling.

Talking Over the Real Problem Rather Than Arguing Over Lots of Other Things Instead

She says little issues can be fought over sometimes because the important ones seem too difficult to tackle. She says she was scared to bring up the topic of money for years and would buy things they couldn't really afford without telling her husband, because she was worried he'd say she couldn't have them. But then she would feel guilty and it would lead to bad feeling.

So now, she's realised it's best to discuss matters with him sensibly. She says that just the day before, she'd told him she wanted a new computer, and she'd been worried he'd say the one she wanted was too expensive, but he didn't say that but discussed it with her, and after that she felt much better than she would have done if she'd bought it without telling him and then felt guilty about it and it had caused bad feeling in the relationship.

She says another thing it's important to do is to keep to the issue an argument started over. She says if anger has been buried, it's tempting once an argument has started to raise all the other issues resentment has built up over; but that just makes the arguments go out of control and the real issue tends not to be resolved.

Yes, actually, one thing I've started doing when I'm arguing with my husband and he brings up something that has nothing to do with what the argument started over is saying, "If you want to discuss that, let's discuss it later; right now it's irrelevant, because we're discussing" ... whatever it is."Let's finish talking about that first".

Having a Break in the Middle of an Argument

She says sometimes, it's important to have a break in the middle of an argument to postpone talking about the issue, either till matters have calmed down, or till one person has clarified their thoughts on the matter in their mind better. She says she needs to do this, since in the middle of an argument, she sometimes realises she isn't clear about what she thinks, and needs time to think through it more. Trying to think it through in the middle of an argument just makes her confused and more angry.

She recommends that if people do postpone their discussions, they have the courage to bring the issues up again if there's a possibility they'll lead to buried anger that causes problems later.

The Importance of Standing Up for Oneself

She says that burying anger for the sake of "keeping the peace" is counterproductive. She says that some people avoid conflict because they think they're peacemakers, and then get so fed up that they think divorce is the easy way out. But if they'd stood up for themselves a lot more, issues important to the marriage would have been resolved that wouldn't have gone on to become damaging.

She says that people can manipulate and hint instead of standing up for themselves and saying what they want, but unsurprisingly, their spouses won't understand what they really want.

She says a time when standing up for herself worked out for the best was one day after her and her husband had gone to bed, when her son who was just about to go to college phoned up because he was having a bit of a problem, and she wanted to talk about his problem with him. Her husband angrily told her to hang up and come to bed.

After the call, she thought she had two choices: either to defend her actions, or to say nothing and lie awake fuming about it for hours as she used to.

She chose to express her anger, and after a few angry words, her and her husband made up, and even felt closer than they had before. If she'd just kept silent and fumed about it, it would have driven them further apart.

The Importance of Choosing What to Express Anger About

She advises people to choose carefully what they allow themselves to get angry about, and make sure the other person really is at fault and it's not just to do with a faulty interpretation of their behaviour. She says becoming angry about every little remark or sideways glance she didn't like just created tension in their home and did nothing to change her husband.

She says that since then, she's learned to become far more forgiving, and her anger has slowly become much less of a problem.

Not Thinking of Feelings as All-Important

She says that people often act according to their feelings, and that can make things go wrong. She says there was a point when all her feelings were screaming at her to leave her marriage, but her mind was telling her that everyone, including her husband, her children and herself, would be better off if she stayed. She thought she wasn't in love anymore because she didn't feel any warm feelings of love. But she did stay, and her and her husband recommitted themselves to each other, resolved to make a new start, and found themselves falling in love again.

But they slipped back into old hurtful ways after a while. Things improved again after she learned a few more things, and now she says the marriage is a happy one.

She says one thing she's found helpful in calming her feelings and preventing arguments is to realise that other people don't cause us to have feelings. We might have them because of their actions, but we often get them because of what we believe about those actions, not because of the actions themselves.

She gives an example, saying that her husband's driving often makes her angry, because she thinks he drives too close to the car in front. But when she has examined her thoughts to work out why she's getting so angry, she's realised it's because she interprets it as meaning he's being uncaring, since she's told him it makes her uncomfortable many times but he still does it. But he isn't really being uncaring; he just doesn't think he does drive too close to the car in front. So she says it's really fear causing her anger, not her husband.

She says it'll often be the way that something within a person is causing their feelings, not really their spouse.

So she says people shouldn't always act on their feelings, but if they feel like behaving out of proportion to what's happened, she recommends they ask themselves what's really behind their feelings.

She says a friend of hers became very angry because her husband kept leaving the toilet seat up, even though he knew it irritated her a lot. She thought it was a sign that he didn't love and respect her, whereas really, it could have just meant he didn't see why it was a problem and was forgetful.

She says that sometimes, feelings can go back to childhood or adolescence. She says another time when she reacted unfairly with more anger than she should have done was after she decided she ought to do some weeding in the garden. To her surprise, she enjoyed it. She was proud of her efforts, and even decided to buy some plants. She planned what to get and where to put them, and couldn't wait to tell her husband, thinking about how proud he'd be with her for having done so much weeding.

He was pleased about that, but when she told him about her new plans for arranging the garden, he told her they wouldn't work. She says she was hurt and angry with him, far more than necessary. But after she calmed down, she had a think about why she had reacted so strongly, realising that he hadn't meant his comments to be hurtful. She realised that when she was told her plans wouldn't work, she'd started feeling like she had as a child, when her big sister, who was good at everything and thought it was her job to teach her, had often criticized her ideas and undone things she'd done and done them properly. So that had made her feel stupid, and her husband's comments brought back the old feelings. So really, she was angry with him for something that wasn't really anything to do with him.

She says another thing she used to do was to hold her husband responsible when she felt unhappy. But then she realised she could take more control of her own emotions and life. So she started doing things to make herself happier, going out with friends sometimes, sitting in the sun, visiting art museums, and other things.

Part Three
Communication Difficulties:

The first duty of love is to listen.
--Paul Tillich

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.
--Robert C. Dodds

A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.
--Dave Meurer, (Daze of Our Wives)

Trying to be Understanding, Willing to Compromise and Not Overly Critical

The author says that another cause of friction in her marriage was her unrealistic expectations of things, since if she thought that if her husband loved her, he'd do what she wanted, even though she hadn't told him what that was. For instance, they used to go for weekend breaks sometimes. He saw them as a chance to have fun in bed, get up early and go for long walks and visit museums. She, on the other hand, saw them as times to stay in bed late, talk about their problems and try to become closer. Because their two agendas clashed, they would snap at each other all weekend and their time would be unhappy. But she realised she wasn't being fair expecting her husband to do what she wanted as a matter of course and getting upset with him when he didn't. So now they ask each other beforehand what they want from the weekend, and go with an attitude where they're willing to compromise.

She says she came to realise that respecting her husband more would be good for her. For instance, she would continually have negative thoughts about him, thinking she did things better than him and not appreciating his good points. But then she realised that being so critical of him was only making things worse, and she wasn't appreciating what she had. So she resolved to try to change her thinking style, so when a critical thought came into her mind, she'd answer it with a positive one. To give a couple of examples, she says she doesn't like the way her husband cuts the grass, but when she thinks about it, she tries to remember to satisfy herself with the thought that at least him cutting it means she doesn't have to. She doesn't like the fact that he falls asleep in front of the television in the evening, but when she gets annoyed with him for doing that, she tries to remember that he makes her breakfast in the morning so she can sleep a bit longer, so she's more refreshed than he is.

She says that even when negative thoughts aren't spoken aloud, they can still be harmful to a marriage, because they create a disrespectful attitude which will show in the way people look at their spouses, interrupt them scornfully when they're speaking, interfere with the way they discipline the children, and so on. It can cause a downward spiral of worsening relations. She realised in her own marriage that a lot of the things she was critical of weren't actually things that deserved to be criticized, but just differences. In fact, in some ways, her husband was doing things better than her. For instance, he stops to consider a question before answering, and she can get irritated by not getting an answer immediately, but actually, his answers are wise, whereas she tends to answer off the top of her head and make a lot more gaffes. She says she's learning to recognise when their ways are just different but one's not necessarily better. And they do have quite a lot in common, so she tries to focus on that.

And their differences can actually compliment each other. For instance, she was strict with their kids, but his different attitude actually caused hers to soften, which she's glad about now.

She says another thing that's helped the marriage is learning to laugh together at some of their differences, even things that really used to irritate them, like her backseat driving.

She recommends that people compliment and thank their spouses for everything they do do right, for instance when they mend something, or when they say something wise or clever, or make a good decision, or dress well, or offer to help with something. She says encouragement can make a big difference.

She advises that when someone's spouse does little things imperfectly, the other one should ask themselves whether the issue is more important to them than the relationship, or whether it really matters, before criticizing.

She says the more respect people show their spouse, the more confident their spouse will grow in their abilities, and the more self-worth they'll have, so the more things they'll do that warrant respect.

Preventing Conflict Because of Misunderstandings By Giving More Explanation of Motives

She says her and her husband used to have communication problems because she would always say things before she'd thought them through, and he didn't always like to hear what she said. She says she finds she can clarify her thoughts more when she's spoken them out loud and got someone else's feedback, so that's why she says things out loud before she's thought them through.

She says she used to be able to have heart-to-heart conversations with friends this way where she'd talk through her worries with them, but when she tried that with her husband, he would respond differently, getting annoyed. For years, she thought there must be something seriously wrong with him, perhaps something to do with his upbringing. But then she realised that while her friends would sympathise when she said anything that could be perceived as a criticism of her husband, or they'd be happy to talk things through with her because they wouldn't be the ones who'd have to take the consequences of any decision she appeared to be thinking of making, her husband would be affected far more by what she said because it was far more relevant to him.

For instance, if she said she'd like to have their kitchen remodelled, her friends would be happy to let her talk about it, but her husband would become alarmed immediately because he would think it would mean a major drain on their expenses and a great inconvenience because of the time it might take; so rather than letting her indulge her thoughts, he'd tell her the idea wasn't practical because of all the money a re-fit of the kitchen was bound to cost. She was upset by that, because she'd only said it because she wanted to dream about it and sort through her thoughts on the matter with him, finding out how much they could afford and how practical it would be; and for some time, she interpreted his response in that kind of situation as meaning he didn't care about her.

Or if she said she was lonely, her friends wouldn't mind if they perceived it as a criticism of her husband and so they'd sympathise with her, but of course if her husband thought she was implying he wasn't doing his job as a husband properly, he'd get defensive. But she would only be saying it because she wanted him to talk about it with her so they could find a solution, like spending more time together.

In times of stress, misunderstandings could cause even more bad feeling. She says she used to accuse her husband of not caring about her or thinking about her, saying that she wished she hadn't married him. She said those things because she wanted him to see through them and realise she was upset and comfort her. But of course, he would perceive them as hurtful accusations and respond accordingly.

When she realised the problem was with the way she communicated, rather than with the way he did, she resolved to do things differently. She decided to try to remember to reassure him that she was just thinking of the possibilities before she told him about something she was dreaming of doing, like having the kitchen re-fitted. And she decided to make it clear to him that she was only saying what she said because she wanted to work things through with him when she brought up a problem.

Trying to Be More Considerate

She says another thing that caused communication problems in their marriage was the way she spoke to her husband when she was stressed.

She says it might take practise to start communicating more healthily, but with perseverance, the results can be encouraging.

She says another problem with their communication was that she used to feel obliged to tell her husband every little thing that was on her mind, all the reasons why she was unhappy. She says she used to think that that was what honesty in relationships was all about. But she realised that she wasn't being fair. For one thing, her attitudes to things could change with her moods or the weather or a number of other things. And she could never get her husband to do what she wanted.

She says that Recently, she's changed her ways, and before she raises an issue that she feels could be hurtful to her husband, she asks herself whether doing so will improve their relationship in the long term. If it won't, she keeps it to herself. This has made him more willing to change, and it's made some significant differences, since he said that before, he felt so overwhelmed with complaints that he didn't always know which ones to take seriously and which ones to ignore.

Being Straightforward About What You Want Rather Than Hinting At Things

She says she realises that another way she used to mess up the communication between them was that she used to hint at things rather than being direct about what she wanted, almost hoping her husband would read her mind. She would often feel hurt because he didn't take her hints. For instance, when she wanted him to take her out for dinner for the evening, she would say something like, "I'm tired; I've had a hard day. I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer; now what am I going to cook?" Since he didn't realise that that really meant she'd like to be taken out to dinner, he'd suggest she just thaw the meet out in the microwave. He thought he was being helpful; but she thought he was being cruel because he wasn't taking her out to dinner.

So she advises people to be direct about what they'd like their spouses to do for them.

Making Positive Suggestions Rather Than Complaints

She says one thing that often caused arguments in the relationship was when she would complain that her husband wasn't helping enough in the house. She never actually suggested anything she'd like him to do; she just complained that he wasn't doing enough. He would promise to be more helpful, but nothing changed. But one day she asked herself exactly what it was that bothered her so much, and she realised that just walking upstairs and seeing the bed unmade ruined her whole morning. So she simply asked him if he could make it every morning. One simple specific request instead of a vague complaint about not getting enough help made all the difference. She says now, he makes the bed every morning and she feels much happier.

Trying to Keep a Good Attitude

She says another thing she realises she did wrong was displaying a hateful attitude. She says her husband would sometimes accuse her of saying something she thought she hadn't said, and she would defend herself with great indignation. She assumed he wouldn't be able to read her mind, so he wouldn't be able to discern her hateful attitude. But he could tell it from her tone of voice and body language. So it didn't matter whether she'd said the exact words he was accusing her of saying or not; in any case, her attitude was by far more hurtful. So she learned she had to work on her attitude, becoming more forgiving and recognising her faults and being willing to change.

The Way Things are Phrased Can Make a Big Difference

She says that one thing that helped her learn to communicate for the better was learning to change the way she phrased things. She used to say things that provoked her husband, like,

"You make me angry."
"You never help around the house"
"You're always late."
"You are thoughtless."

She says statements like that are judgmental and would always put her husband on the defensive and irritate him, and when he was irritated, good communication would stop. She says that particularly irritating to him were words like always and never, since they're extreme statements that are very unlikely to be true. She says when she used words like that, her husband would remind her of times when he did do what she wanted, or wasn't late or whatever, so the real issue didn't get discussed, because that distracted them from it.

She found that when she started phrasing things in a way that didn't make them sound like accusations, it made a big difference. So instead of phrases that sounded as if she was blaming him for things, she instead said things like,

"I'm feeling angry."
"Will you empty the dishwasher?"
"I was worried because you were late."
"I'm feeling like no one wants to play with me."

Phrasing things that way stops things sounding so much like criticisms. It turns them into requests, or expressions of feeling that aren't necessarily implying that anyone's to blame for them. She says her husband started listening to her much more when she phrased things like that.

The Importance of Listening Properly

She says another thing she's tried to do is not to react angrily to criticism herself.

She says one thing that's very important is to listen, or spouses may give up talking about anything deep and meaningful with their marriage partners. She says her husband used to get irritated with her because she sometimes didn't pay enough attention to what he said, or would interrupt him, or she wouldn't wait for him to think of answers to her questions before she started talking again. But she learned to be more willing to listen patiently.

The Importance of Allowing People Their Personal Space and Time to Think

She says another important thing is giving your spouse enough space to think. She says it's important that they can have a place where they can go to be alone.

The author says many husbands don't like it when people seem to be going on and on at them. She learned that her own husband was like that.

Pros and Cons of Communicating Important Things By Writing a Letter

She says she learned in a class about improving marriage that writing a letter to a spouse can sometimes be a good communication tool when people have become over-sensitive to each other's tone of voice and body language. People can be more thoughtful about what they say when they put it in a letter. They have a chance to re-write it if they've decided their words are unwise, before they let their spouse see it.

But she says it needs to be thought about very carefully. She says a woman she knows wrote a letter to her husband about how unhappy she was, because she was afraid to tell him face to face, and her husband never mentioned it. Now, the woman's too scared to ask him why, and she feels very hurt because she thinks it means he doesn't care.

The author says she would have advised the woman to be there when he read it. She says people shouldn't say unexpected things in letters without being there, or at least arranging a time with their spouse to discuss them. She says people who receive that kind of letter often don't know how to handle these things. They might not be sure about how to bring the subject up, or they might ignore the problem, hoping it'll go away.

So she suggests that anyone who writes a letter makes a date with their spouse to discuss its contents, since although a letter can be a communication tool, it can't replace a good talk.

Part Four
Thoughts on Having Read That:

Well, I'm glad I read that. Some of it was hard to read because I know I've done some of the same things and so it made me feel a bit embarrassed and guilty. But there's no point in feeling guilty about the past because it won't achieve anything. The important thing is the future. I feel more sure now that I want to stay in the marriage and that things can get better.