by Strong Women Strong Love | Feb 29, 2016 | In the News, Poisonous Patterns |
I don’t know you, but I’m willing to bet that both you and your husband have an extramarital involvement that’s affecting your relationship.
I’m not talking about other people (or at least I hope that’s not happening!). I’m talking about your phones.
There’s even a name now for ignoring your partner so you can pay attention to your phone: Pphubbing (partner phone snubbing).
And researchers are starting to look at the effect of pphubbing on relationships. Two marketing professors from Baylor University published a study on the phenomenon last fall.
“What we discovered was that when someone perceived that their partner phubbed them, this created conflict and led to lower levels of reported relationship satisfaction,” James A. Roberts, one of the researchers, explained in a news release about the study. “These lower levels of relationship satisfaction, in turn, led to lower levels of life satisfaction and, ultimately, higher levels of depression.”
As Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT and the author of Alone Together put it in a 2012 TED Talk, we’re prone to using technology to hide from each other or keep each other at arm’s length.
So how can you keep your phone from coming between you and your spouse?
First, pay attention to whether you’re engaging in any of the behaviors that participants in the Baylor study identified as pphubbing:
- Placing your cell phone where you can see it or keeping it in your hand when you’re with your partner.
- Glancing at your cell phone when you’re talking with your partner.
- Checking your cell phone during lulls in conversation with your partner.
See what happens when you commit to avoiding those behaviors and being more present with your partner.
To keep your phone use from affecting your relationship, you may also have to look beyond your personal habits. It’s not your imagination that demands on our time are greater than ever before — and our employers’ constant access to us via our phones is part of the reason why. If it’s possible in your work situation, try to set some stronger boundaries. For example, let colleagues know that they should call you instead of texting or emailing if something urgent comes up so that you won’t feel compelled to keep checking your messages. You could even work together with your colleagues to try to change your office’s communication culture so that all of you can get more restorative time away from work.
Finally, remember that your phone isn’t inherently good or bad for your relationship. It all comes down to how you use it. So as you look for ways to curb your pphubbing behaviors, also look for ways to use technology to enhance communication with your partner. In our busy lives, it’s easy for couples to put deeper communication on the back burner as your conversations become limited to what needs to get done that day (“I have a late meeting, so you’ll need to pick up the kids after soccer — oh, and did you call the bank like we talked about?”). Using technology to add some moments of connection — for example, sending a sweet (or sexy!) text message or sharing an article you know your husband will like with him on Facebook — doesn’t take much time but has big payoffs on the overall health of your relationship.
We get the most from our relationships we give our full attention to each other. Don’t let the siren’s call of your phone imperil that. You’ll find more ideas on staying connected in our busy lives in my book Strong Women, Strong Love. You can even read it on your phone — just not while your partner is talking with you
by Strong Women Strong Love | Feb 15, 2016 | Poisonous Patterns |
Uh-oh. It’s happened. Your husband has crossed one of the non-negotiable lines with you. He’s shown disrespect in a way you just won’t tolerate, whether that’s cursing at you, raising his voice in public, or another boundary-pushing behavior.
What do you do now?
Your first instinct when your husband crosses the line might be to strike back or run off. If you can, don’t do either one of these things. Try a more measured approach that is actually more effective in the moment and better for your relationship in the long term:
- Express your boundary calmly and clearly.
- Let him know you expect him to do better.
- Move on.
Before you do anything, take a deep breath and see if you can get calm and clear headed. Otherwise, your message won’t be as powerful.
When you’re ready, look your husband in the eye and let him know that the behavior he’s engaging in is one you absolutely will not tolerate: “Cursing at me under any circumstances is completely unacceptable. I would never do that to you.” Things will probably be a little intense during this initial confrontation because you are drawing a crystal clear boundary. Be calm, firm, and clear.
Next, set a positive expectation. Tell your husband that you expect better from him. You may want to say something like “I know you are better than that” or “That wasn’t the guy I married.” Choose words that work for your situation and your relationship, but hold open the possibility that he can be more respectful.
Then, move on, and give him some space. You want to be short, sweet, and to the point. Lengthy explanations usually just confuse the issue.
With a little time and space to reflect, most men will eventually feel sorry for crossing the line. If your husband sincerely apologizes, forgive him, but keep a watchful eye until you’re convinced he will not cross the boundary again.
If your husband shows no remorse about crossing the line, or worse, acts self-righteous about it, you may have a bigger problem on your hands. Although we are talking here about actions that go beyond everyday slip-ups, more dire and complex behaviors like addiction and physical or emotional abuse are good reasons for seeking professional assistance.
If you tend to fear conflict, all of this can be a little scary to undertake — even though you know in your gut that it’s the right thing to do. It may help to remember that taking a stand is ultimately the best thing for your relationship and for establishing the baseline for respect. Disrespect is something that simply cannot take root in your relationship if you want it to remain healthy. Research clearly shows that contempt is the No. 1 predictor of divorce.
A firm, clear and quick response can help keep problems from escalating when your husband crosses a line. You can learn more about constructive ways to argue or deal with trouble spots in your relationship in my book Strong Women, Strong Love.
Don’t forget to subscribe to receive new blog posts HERE and get a free report, “10 Easy Ways to Get Him to Listen.”
by Strong Women Strong Love | Jan 31, 2016 | Passionate Partnership |
What’s the most romantic thing you can do for your husband this Valentine’s Day? Planning a special dinner? Choosing the perfect gift?
Those gestures are wonderful, of course, but the most powerful thing for your marriage might actually be showing your excitement when he tells you he aced a presentation at work or that he hit his exercise goal for the month.
Recent research highlights the value of celebration, positivity and enthusiasm in creating a happy relationship. That might seem intuitive, but it’s something we often overlook. We tend to talk about the strength of a relationship in terms of how a couple weathers challenges or hard times together. But the way we handle the “for better” part of “for better or for worse” is just as important.
A UCLA study found that the way dating couples discussed positive events was more closely related to the health of their relationships than how they talked about negative events. Another study discovered that sharing good news with someone else and getting an enthusiastic response enhances the value of the good news to the sharer and strengthens the relationship with the responder.
And just last year, a brain-imaging study added more evidence for the power of positivity. New York Magazine’s Science of Us blog describes the study as showing that “the relationship satisfaction of longtime married elderly women is particularly related to the neural activity they show in response to their husbands’ displays of positive emotion, rather than negative emotion” and notes the possibility “that marital happiness goes hand in hand with sensitivity to our partners’ positive emotion.”
How can you use these findings to strengthen your own relationship? Christine Carter of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center recommends remembering to share your own good news with your partner and reacting with enthusiasm when he shares good news with you. The key word here is “enthusiasm.” A distracted “that’s nice, Honey” just doesn’t have the impact of genuine interest and excitement. We all have an innate need to be “seen” and cherished by the people who are important to us. When that happens in a relationship, the bond between partners strengthens. Also remember that all the seemingly little positive and negative things you do in a relationship add up over time. Responding enthusiastically when your partner has good news is a great way to make a “deposit” in the emotional bank account of your relationship — and ensure that you’re ready for any “withdrawals” in difficult times.
To learn more about infusing your relationship with positivity, check out my book Strong Women, Strong Love. And don’t forget to throw in a few high fives (figurative or literal!) for your husband amid all the hearts and flowers of Valentine’s Day.
by Strong Women Strong Love | Jan 18, 2016 | Persistent Pressures |
Have you and your girlfriends ever mused together about how “the male brain” only processes information about sports, sex and food? Or maybe you’ve heard comedians joke about how “women’s brains” have endless room for remembering men’s slip-ups so they can throw them back in their faces someday?
While the idea of brain differences between men and women has found its way into pop culture wisdom, it has actually long been an area of controversy among researchers.
A study released late 2015 casts new doubt on whether brains can be male or female.
Researchers led by Daphna Joel of Tel Aviv University published the study “Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic” in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers looked at the MRI exams of more than 1,400 men and women. Based on what they found, they concluded that “human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain.”
There are indeed gender differences in brains and behaviors, according to the study, but most of our brains are “comprised of unique ‘mosaics’ of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males.” Brains with characteristics that are purely “male” or “female” are rare.
The new research supports what I argued in my book Strong Women, Strong Love. In the book, I explained that, yes, there are some common ways that men behave and that women behave, but those aren’t the only ways. Research shows that there are more differences within groups of men and within groups of women than between the sexes. In other words, you can’t say that all men or all women do a certain thing. The behaviors you might blame on your husband’s “male brain” are more likely due to the messages he received growing up about what it means to be a man.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember, though, is that whether a person’s behavior is caused by a brain characteristic or what he or she learned from others, it’s always possible to learn new ways of being. After all, recent brain research has also demonstrated the power of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change in response to our experience.
How would you rate your own brain? Does it seem more female, more male or — as the researchers described most of the brains they studied — more of a “mash-up”? Share your thoughts in comments or on my social media channels.
by Strong Women Strong Love | Jan 2, 2016 | Quotes |
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving.
When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.
~Bell Hooks
