The Bottom Line on Marriage Success
Here is a summary of all the “Bottom Lines” at the end of each chapter in Strong Women, Strong Love: The Missing Manual for the Modern Marriage.
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Vulnerability Glues Us Together
In the following blog post from The Huffington Post, Terry Gaspard, MSW, LICSW, reveals the pivotal role of vulnerability in sustaining a marriage:
In my over 20 years of counseling couples, I’ve come to realize that vulnerability is the key to a lasting union and that shame and fear are two of the main reasons why couples get entrenched in power struggles that can lead to divorce. Opening up to our partner can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, but it is the most important ingredient of a trusting, intimate relationship. One of the biggest challenges that couples face is being vulnerable with a romantic partner. After all, with over 40 percent of adults growing up in a divorced family, healthy templates for intimacy may have been in short supply. In other cases, many of us were raised in homes where showing vulnerability was seen was a weakness.
What drives our fear of being vulnerable? Dr. Brene Brown, a distinguished author and researcher, informs us that vulnerability is often viewed as a weakness, but it’s actually a strength. In her landmark book Daring Greatly, she explains that vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. She writes, “To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe that vulnerability is a weakness is to believe that feeling is a weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living.”
In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Given this definition, the act of loving someone and allowing them to love you may be the ultimate risk. Love is uncertain. It’s risky because there are no guarantees and your partner could leave you without a moment’s notice — or betray you or stop loving you. In fact, exposing your true feelings may mean that you are at greater risk for being criticized or hurt.
Continue reading at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-gaspard-msw-licsw/relationship-vulnerability_b_3999535.html
Strong Women Mistake #2: Brutal Honesty
You should be brutally honest with your husband, right? You should tell him exactly what you think and feel so he always knows where you stand, right? And, if the truth hurts a little, that’s just life, right?
Wrong. Sort of.
Hmm…where do I start? Well, let’s take a look a the words “brutal” and “honesty.” Brutal and honesty should never be paired together in a relationship. In fact, neither brutality, nor any other type of aggression, have any place in a relationship whatsoever…unless you are actively seeking a way to make your partner distance emotionally, withhold affection, and distrust you.
When you are angry at your partner, you are more vulnerable to unknowingly slipping into more aggressive communication. What is aggressive to one person may not seem that way to another. For example, you may hope to work through problems by giving your husband a list of all the complaints you have of him. You truly hope this feedback will provide him sufficient information to change the course of his behavior. He, on the other hand, may experience this communication as an emotional assault aimed at telling him that he is ultimately a failure in her eyes. Ouch!
Honesty is important in a relationship because it is vital to building trust, resolving problems, and clearing the air. However, it is critical to always pair honesty with qualities such as sensitivity, gentleness, compassion, and grace.
Contrary to popular thought, the truth does not have to hurt. Even when what you have to say may be tough for your partner to hear, if you have the sensitivity to wrap the message in some kindness and respect, your husband will not be wounded and may even appreciate your words.
To make sure that your honesty is something that will strengthen your marriage, ask yourself the following questions before letting the words slip out of your mouth:
- Is what I am about to share intended to make our relationship better?
- If I were on the receiving end, would I be able to hear the message without being deeply hurt?
- Especially when you are angry, ask yourself: “Am I being honest, or am I just being mean?” Answer truthfully to yourself.
- If you are revealing something that you know will be difficult for your spouse to hear, ask yourself: “How will my husband benefit from what I am about to tell him?” Be sure the benefits outweigh the potential emotional strain.
- Is this the best time for me to be honest, or do I need to wait? The timing of your message can make a big difference.
So, go head and tell the truth if it seems important, but make sure you do so in a kind and respectful way, always bearing in mind the potential impact of your words on your partner and the marriage.
Employers Can Do More to Support Work-Life Balance
Families typically struggle to maintain some semblance of work-life balance. In most cases such balance can never be achieved and is a tremendous source of strain on a marriage. See how this article from The Huffington Post describes an amazing employer’s innovative approach that results in a win-win for everyone!
8 Reasons Why Employees Never Want To Leave This Amazing Company
For years now, SAS, the Cary, North Carolina-based tech company, has made pretty much every list of best places in the universe to work. So it got us thinking, what’s really so great about this place? We would take it as a given that SAS — the world’s leading business analytics software vendor — offers a nice paycheck and first-class medical, dental, and vision care for the whole family, but surely there must be some other reasons they consistently wind up as the company with the lowest turnover rate in the tech sector (and voted best place to work in IT by ComputerWorld.) Sure enough, we found them: The not-your-every-day-variety of benefits (we don’t just mean free Gatorade) that make a difference. Here are some of our favorite perks they offer because, as we know, it’s the little things that count:
1) The subsidized cafeteria includes a kids’ menu with hot dogs shaped like octopuses.
SAS encourages parents to have lunch with their kids. The children are walked over from the on-site subsidized day care that is also offered. Eating lunch with your kids helps workers stay connected to them during the work day. Plus the kiddos get to see where mom and dad go every day, because they go too. As for the hot dogs shaped like octopuses, we are told the cafeteria takes the extra step to splay the ends and create the octopus look. Presentation matters, you know.
As for those employees who would prefer not sharing lunch with the little ankle-biters, there are plenty of other dining options. SAS has four on-site subsidized gourmet cafes, coffee bars that serve Starbucks; there’s a free breakfast every Friday, and fresh fruit is delivered to all break rooms on Mondays. There are free snack and drink stations on every floor. The cafes also cater and can whip up a nice last-minute birthday cake to take home to your room-mate.
2) Can you count to 37.5? That’s the maximum number of hours SAS wants you to work in a week.
SAS is big on work-life balance and puts its money where its time clock is. It is staffed to a level so that people aren’t routinely working late or long. Sure things come up and you might have to work on the occasional weekend, but just adjust your schedule and keep it to 37.5. Flex time rules.
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The full article can be found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/best-places-to-work_n_4240370.html
Strong Women Mistake #1: Micromanaging Your Spouse
Have you ever been micromanaged by a parent, boss, teacher…or your spouse? If so, you know what it feels like…they’ve asked you to do something, but while you’re working on it, you’re being constantly monitored and judged to see if you are doing the work correctly and fast enough! Did having someone breathing down your neck motivate you or make you resentful of being controlled?
Now, be honest. Do you routinely micromanage your spouse? For example:
- Do you ask your husband to do something, and then follow up to make sure he has started and is doing things right?
- Do you ever “assign a task” and then hover over him, giving him all sorts of “helpful suggestions?”
- Do you get mad and redo work your husband already completed because it doesn’t meet your standards, and you know you can do it better?
- Do you have trouble relaxing and staying out of the way when your husband is in charge of taking care of something?
- Do you feel like you can’t trust your husband and must follow up on everything he does because he’s not very detail oriented?
The ability to actively control details may sometimes be useful when managing people, projects, and deadlines at work. However, you must be careful not to emasculate your husband by attempting to micromanage his every move at home.
If you don’t watch this behavior, chances are he will feel:
- You don’t trust him
- Disrespected
- You think he’s stupid
- Resentful
- Unmotivated to do his best
End result: he’s turned off from you and is less likely to help!
If you are seeking a true partnership with your spouse, respect and boundaries are critical. Here are a few tips to stop micromanaging behavior in its tracks:
- If it’s not yours, don’t touch it. If your husband is working on something, remove yourself physically and mentally from the task. Work on your own tasks and leave him alone to complete his as he likes.
- Remember there’s more than one way to do something. People have different approaches they bring to the same situation. Be flexible. It’s not the end of the world if he didn’t do it your way.
- Turn negatives into positives. When you feel like criticizing, intruding, or giving a “helpful hint,” breathe and either walk away or say something encouraging. You have to catch destructive behavior in its tracks before it hurts your marriage.
- Relax! if you can truly break the micromanaging habit, your spouse will probably become more confident and competent, allowing both of you to truly share the numerous household and childcare tasks that present themselves on a daily basis.
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