Facing Gridlock In Your Marriage Conflict?

What is gridlock? It is when you and your spouse encounter a conflict which you just can’t seem to resolve.

You are both completely set in your viewpoints, and the same argument seems to come up again and again with neither of you ever budging.

These discussions are hurtful and distressing for both of you, and you each may feel that the other is disrespecting or not listening to your point of view.

There is nothing wrong with you and your spouse disagreeing on things, and many couples experience gridlock from time to time. But sometimes gridlocked issues can start to erode away a marriage.

Eventually, these conflicts become free from any humorous or affectionate pretences and start to take a real emotional toll, with the worst result being that spouses emotionally withdraw from one other.

Couples can become gridlocked over many different types of problems, big or small. For example, one person wanting to have children now, and the other not feeling ready for children. One wanting to spend money freely, the other wanting to save for a house or for retirement.

Today I’m going to be sharing with you some great advice from psychologist and best-selling author John Gottman on how to overcome gridlock in your marriage.

Gottman has spent over 16 years observing married couples and identifying what makes a marriage last, and can predict whether or not a couple will divorce with 91% accuracy, after only observing them together for around 5 minutes. Amazing, I know.

Working through gridlock in your marriage

The first vital point that needs to be made about gridlocked issues is that you and your spouse may never see quite eye to eye on these.

Therefore, the aim of working through gridlock is not necessarily to SOLVE problems, but rather to learn to live with them without hurting each other. This involves moving from the point where you are both dead set on your own position, to being able to openly discuss the issue and come to a compromise.

What underlies gridlock is that you and your spouse have dreams which are clashing, and aren’t being fully understood or realized by the other. You may have a sense that your spouse is not addressing or respecting your point of view.

The dreams behind your side of the argument are made up of hopes, aspirations, and wishes you are holding, which often come from your own childhood experiences of family life. For example, from observations of your parents relationship, and what you liked or didn’t like about your family environment.

So what it takes to overcome gridlock is for you and your spouse to first be able to identify what your dreams are and give each other the chance to explain these, without judgment.

Sometimes all it takes is letting yourself see an issue from someone else’s perspective, in order to finally understand and stop feeling negative and defensive about their point of view.

5 steps for overcoming gridlock

1. The first step to overcoming gridlock is to actually write down what the gridlocked issue is in your marriage, and your clashing viewpoints on the topic.

Now it is time for each of you to write down an explanation of YOUR dreams surrounding this issue. Include your feelings, what it is you are actually wanting as an outcome, and where this need comes from.

Be sure to be respectful of your spouse in your written explanation. You are writing about how YOU feel and YOUR needs, not about what your spouse wants, or what they are doing wrong.

2. Once you have both written about your dreams behind the issue, it’s time to share these with each other. For 15 minutes at a time, one person is the ‘speaker’ and the other person is the ‘listener’.

During this time, the speaker needs to share their written explanation with their spouse, being completely open and honest about their feelings surrounding the issue and their reasons for feeling this way.

The role of the listener is to actively listen to their spouse, without criticizing, judging or butting in. They can ask questions about the speaker’s feelings, wants and needs around this issue, but not any questions which contain judgment. Remember, each person will have their chance to speak and be heard.

Again, this discussion is not aimed at FIXING the problem - the goal is simply for both parties to find out and understand the reasons why the other feels so strongly about this issue.

It is essential that both of you make the other feel that you understand and are supportive of your spouse’s dreams underlying the gridlock, even if you don’t believe these dreams can necessarily come to life.

3. As sharing these dreams is likely to be fairly stressful for both of you, the third step of this process involves soothing each other.

If you’re feeling quite worked up, let your spouse know if you need to take some time to calm down before you continue the discussion, or ways in which they can help you to relax.

And if you know of ways in which you can help your spouse to soothe and become more relaxed at this time, try using these.

4. Once you are both calm and feel that you have had your dreams heard, it’s time to both think about the parts of this issue you are able to be flexible on, in order to come up with a compromise with your spouse.

This means trying to meet somewhere in the middle where both you and your spouse are having part of your dream realized. This may involve adjusting some timeframes or priorities, in order to accommodate each other’s needs as much as possible.

Once you have reached a temporary compromise, try this out for two months, and then review how it is going.

This compromise should help you both be able to live with this problem a lot easier, although it might still come up from time to time. But through this exercise, you will have hopefully learned how to discuss this issue openly, without experiencing the level of pain you used to feel.

5. Once you have come to a mutually agreed-upon compromise, the final part of the process is to show your appreciation and love for one another, and finish on a positive note. You can do this by telling each other 3 things you really appreciate about one another.

By completing these steps, you will hopefully have found any negative feelings towards your spouse have been reduced, and instead you have gained deeper feelings of trust and understanding.

Real-life gridlock example

Mary and Grant became gridlocked in their marriage, over a problem that might not even seem like much of an issue to someone looking from the outside. But it was. The problem was that Mary wanted them to spend more time seeing their friends in the weekends, and Grant wanted them to spend more time together alone.

They spent many nights bickering about this issue, and could not see eye-to-eye. Mary accused Grant of being too controlling over her, and wanting to cut out her social life. Grant accused Mary of never wanting to spend time with him.

They ended up being unable to enjoy each other’s company in the weekends as they both felt so much bitterness and frustration. In order to avoid the problem, they began to talk to each other less and less.

To try to stop this problem from deteriorating their marriage further, Mary and Grant went through Gottman’s 5 steps for overcoming gridlock.

Here are the passages they wrote explaining their dreams beneath the conflict:

Mary
I want us to be able to go out and socialize with friends. I always have a great time when we got out together, and I feel like we are isolating ourselves when we decline offers to social events.

I love Grant and I love our friends. I want to keep things fresh and fun in the marriage so we don’t get sick of each other. It feels like we waste the weekend when we just stay at home – and I’m scared we will lose our ‘spark’ and lose our friends if we isolate ourselves all the time.

My parents never seemed to go out much, and they often argued at home and seemed bored with each other, growing more distant as time went on. Eventually, they got divorced. I never want this to be the case with me and Grant.

Grant
I want us to be able to spend more time together alone, because I feel like this is when we connect most as a couple.

I feel like when we’re out with other couples, we aren’t really spending quality time together, and I really want to preserve the special time I have with Mary on the weekends. We’re both really busy during the week with work and don’t have much time or energy to do things together in the evenings.

My parents never seemed to have time for each other as they were so involved in other things, and seemed to lose their connection as a result. When Mary wants to spend time just with me, it makes me feel wanted.

When she wants us to go out all the time and see other people, I feel like I’m not enough for her anymore. I do enjoy seeing our friends occasionally, but I want to put quality time with Mary first.

Once Grant and Mary finally took a step back and actively listened to what each other’s true needs were underlying this issue, they finally realized why it was that they held those views.

In reality, both Mary and Grant actually had the best interests of their marriage in mind (both wanting to keep the spark alive). But what was causing the clash was that while Grant thought the key to keeping the spark alive was alone time, Mary worried that too much alone time would make the spark burn out. As well as this, Mary identified a need for more social stimulation outside of marriage.

From there, Mary and Grant were able to come up with a compromise which met each other’s needs to some degree. They agreed to have one night every weekend in which they would spend time out with friends or family, but also make one weekend night a ‘couple night’ where they would just spend quality time together doing things they both enjoy.

As a final part of this healing process, Grant showed his appreciation for Mary by telling her how much he appreciates her warm personality, her beautiful eyes, and how passionate she is. Mary told Grant how much she values his affection, his loyalty, and how safe he makes her feel.

With understanding comes acceptance. And once acceptance dawns, you will be able to look at better ways of managing any issues you are facing, although they may remain to some degree. For instance, Mary would still prefer to have more time with friends than Grant, and Grant would prefer for them to have more alone time.

But with their new plan of action in place, and both of their viewpoints now fully understood, they were able to move on with their lives and end the persistent arguing about this same topic.

Brooke Ryan,
Author
SaveMyMarriageToday.com

Validating Emotions In A Healthy Marriage

“Why can’t you just be happy?!”
“How can you be feeling angry about that?!”
“You’re so sad all the time”.

When you are experiencing problems in your marriage, you and your spouse are likely to be feeling a lot of different emotions. And the thing is, we can’t help but be affected by how our loved ones are feeling.

Emotions are powerful – and hearing from our spouse that they are ‘not happy’ can make our stomachs churn with dread.

When we hear something like this, it is often that our first response is to become defensive, invalidate our spouse’s emotions, and ‘fight emotion with emotion’.

Take this example. Todd says to his wife Laura, “I’m just not happy at the moment”.

Laura, who is immediately hit with a wave of fear about what this means, exclaims angrily, “How can you not be happy right now? There is nothing you should be upset about. We’ve just bought a house! You’re just tired from everything that’s been going on at work”.

To this, Todd responds with even more anger; “You’re not listening to me! It’s not about the house or work!”, and storms out of the room.

What happened here?
Todd told his wife Laura that he is not feeling happy. And Laura, rather than accepting that Todd is not feeling happy, got angry herself and told him that this couldn’t be the case and brushed it off as simply being ‘tired from work’.

In doing this, she avoided talking about the real issue, as the fact that Todd may be unhappy in the relationship was likely too painful for her to fathom.

And often, we DON’T want to hear it. We don’t want to accept that our spouse is feeling unhappy, sad, angry, disappointed, or hurt.

Often, during disagreements, we invalidate our spouse’s emotions.

The reason we often react so defensively and deny our spouse’s negative emotions comes down to the fear that these can arise inside us. For example, fear of abandonment and marriage break-up. Fear that your spouse no longer loves you. Fear of being alone.

Hearing that your spouse is feeling (or not feeling) a particular way can feel like a personal attack.

You immediately start making assumptions about yourself being the reason behind these feelings, and then can start thinking defensively that they ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be feeling like this, and try to invalidate this emotion. For example, by saying that they have no right to be angry, or they should be happy about something.

Because your spouse feels like you are invalidating the emotions they are feeling, they can become even more angry, frustrated or resentful, such as Todd did in the example above.

In turn, this may cause you to become all the more defensive yourself, and thus the argument continues to escalate. Not to mention that nothing gets resolved, and neither party feels like the other really listened to them.

The thing that can be hard to accept is that feelings are neither right nor wrong, and emotional reactions are not something a person can control. It is the actions that we take as a result of these emotional reactions that are under our control and therefore can be judged by others, not the feelings themselves.

It is up to us to work out WHY we, or our spouses are feeling a certain way, and be able to constructively work out ways that will allow these negative emotions to be reduced.

What you need to do first when your spouse tells you how they are feeling, especially if it is one of these emotions you don’t want to hear, is acknowledge and accept that they are feeling this way, without judgment. And then reflect this understanding back to them.

“Okay, so you’re not feeling happy right now.”
“I understand that you are feeling frustrated”.

Now, the key here is to resist the temptation to add a “But…” onto the end of that sentence.

Because as soon as you add a “But” to the equation, and list off why you don’t understand why they are feeling like that, or why they shouldn’t have reacted that way, you are again invalidating their feelings. And are straight back to square one.

Once you have acknowledged that your spouse is feeling a certain way, it is time to bite the bullet and ask them the reasons why they are feeling this emotion.

“I understand that you’re not feeling happy right now, and I’m sorry you’re feeling like this. Can we talk about why you’re feeling unhappy?”

Once the problem has been identified, you can ask your spouse how they feel this problem could be solved, in order for them to stop feeling angry, sad, or any other negative emotion they may be feeling, and start feeling more positively again. “What would help you to feel happy again?”

Of course, it can be really hard to keep your cool while doing this, when your own emotions are going to be involved. But no matter how much you may disagree with an aspect of your spouse’s behavior, their reasoning, or something they say, you cannot disagree with the EMOTION they are feeling.

Your spouse may even be feeling this emotion as a result of something else that is going on in their life, not their relationship with you. So make sure to always to give your spouse the chance to reflect on why they are feeling a certain way, and try not to jump to any conclusions.

This involves active listening, and allowing your spouse to explain their side of the story completely before it is time to explain yours.

Think about it in reverse. You’re going to be a whole lot more able to have an effective conversation with your spouse if they can accept that you are feeling frustrated without being judgmental. Rather than if they tried to tell you that you shouldn’t be feeling frustrated, or that what you are feeling isn’t actually frustration.

If they can listen to you and try to understand your perspective without interrupting with their own, you’re going to feel like they actually care and are making an effort to understand how you are feeling, even if it is hard for them to hear it.

Therefore, the conversation is likely to be a lot calmer and it is much more likely you are going to get any issues resolved.

Obviously, in a perfect world we would always be feeling happy and loved in our relationships. But that’s not the way it works, is it?

Brooke, Ryan
Author,
SaveMyMarriageToday.com

Is Your Marriage In Trouble? Try These 3 Marriage-Saving Tips

A few weeks ago, we received an email from Claire, a freelance consultant from Ohio, who told us that her marriage was in bad shape. She says:

“Last month, my husband and I had a huge meltdown in the car while we were on an out-of-town trip. Apparently, he’s been harboring a lot of resentment towards me and the minor argument we had during that time sparked his outburst. It was just horrible; our kids were with us with when it happened.

When we got back home, my husband continued expressing the frustration that’s been simmering within him for the past few years. He said that I was constantly absent in our marriage and that I wasn’t attentive to his needs.

Feeling shell-shocked, I countered that he wasn’t doing his part either, thus forcing me to “pick up the slack” in our relationship. Since the incident, we’ve been stuck in a sort of stalemate – getting through each day has become a real struggle for us.”

In marriages such as Claire’s, the onset of relationship issues can really deplete a couple’s morale. When you feel at your lowest, it feels like there’s no reason to even bother trying to turn things around.

If you feel like this, you need to realize that it's only the weight of your problems are keeping you from thinking clearly.

But as we’ve discussed in the previous blog post, you have the choice to nurture negative thoughts or throw them out.

Instead of mulling over the fact that you have marital problems (just like all couples), you can choose to focus on doing certain things to improve the state of your marriage:

#1: Accept Responsibility In Your Marriage

If you’ve ever been in Claire’s shoes, it may seem insane to even consider the possibility that your unreasonable spouse may have a point. When you’re upset and feeling righteously indignant, admitting your part in the problem is the last thing you’d want to do.

After all, your partner has their own faults – who are they to accuse you?

But as we said, your emotions can affect your objective judgment. If you allow it to overrun your thinking, you’ll only entrench yourselves deeper in your situation.

As hurt as you may feel, playing the blame and shame game is not the solution. Instead, try listening with an open mind and understand where your spouse’s feelings are coming from.

Remember that resentment and the resulting problems take months or years in the making. You can’t afford to brush off your partner’s side of the story if you want to get to the heart of your problems.

Otherwise, you’ll risk ignoring the factors that are fueling your marital conflicts. Thus, accepting your shortcomings and acknowledging your spouse’s own position is more important than the satisfaction of “being right”.

#2: Show A Genuine Desire To Fix Things

After you’ve mustered the humility to own up to your faults, you’ll be empowered with the sincerity to improve your marriage.

The problem with some spouses is that they only appear to take their partner’s side seriously and make empty promises to do something about their issues. In the long run, this will only come back to haunt them when their recurring issues flare up again.

To avoid this cycle, you’ll need to show your sincerity through tangible actions and offer a solid plan to get your marriage back on track.

For instance, create a weekly date schedule, propose couple exercises to help bring the love back. If needed, you can also set an appointment with a qualified counselor.

What’s important is that you’re not only making verbal commitments, but also following through with them.

#3: Power On Through

Viktor Frankl, author of “Man’s Search For Meaning”, talks about how people can surpass challenges. He says:

“Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.”

In other words, things are not as bad as they seem. Your emotions are a powerful force that may cause you to attract a stream of negative thoughts which will snowball out of control.

If your spouse says that they no longer have any romantic feelings for you, this is actually a normal part of the evolution that all marriages go through.

Having high levels of infatuation is expected in the beginning; however, it’s also normal for these feelings to fade a bit over time. It may hurt to hear your partner say that they’re no longer in love with you, but remember that they’re just evolving within the relationship.

Disillusionment is inevitable; the feeling of being “in love” is meant to fade.

Rather than giving in to your spouse’s sense of hopelessness, you can be a good example to him or her by equipping yourself with the skills needed to heal your marriage. Instead of giving up, work towards creating an atmosphere of acceptance.

When you learn to accept each other for who you are, the initial rush of romance will be replaced with a deeper sense of love.

But none of this is possible if you give up. By seeing your problems through, the relationship can move on to its other stages.

Another way to convince your spouse that you’re changing for the better is by working on yourself. While this isn’t as direct as working on your marriage, attending to your own needs will keep you calm, focused and ready to take care of your family.

Setting The Bar In Your Marriage

Think about it this way: would your spouse rather be with someone who’s angry, bitter and hostile…

…or someone who’s positive, pro-active and willing to put their relationship ahead of their pride?

Wallowing in self-pity and animosity is not a constructive path to take. When you refuse to let your fear or other emotions take control, you can be more committed to improving your marriage and yourself as well.

Just because you’re experiencing negativity from your spouse, it doesn’t mean you should stop doing your part. Your thoughts and feelings are separate from theirs – being optimistic is your prerogative, regardless of your partner’s own state of mind.

How to Argue All The Time and Stay Together

In my last post The Key to a Happy Marriage, we talked about how Dylan and Sarah’s clashing opinions couldn’t be remedied by simply saying yes all the time. Instead, they reached a compromise by introducing the willingness to be influenced in a relationship.

While a lot of couples may have different positions on an issue, it doesn’t mean they can’t meet halfway. Taking the initiative to show this willingness sets the right tone and helps you be a good example to your spouse.

Today however, let’s focus on arguments, particularly with their frequency and intensity.

Let me ask you: do you believe that happy couples argue LESS than those who are headed for divorce?

Furthermore, do you think that couples who are focused on listening to each other are going to stay together compared to those who aren’t?

Well, the truth of the matter is that the stability of your marriage doesn’t depend on the frequency of your disagreements, or on a particular way they’re handled.

With the wrong mindset, there’s little to keep you from attacking each other during an argument – no matter how seldom or often you fight.

Neither will listening with empathy prevent you from cutting each other down – or worse, drift apart emotionally.

Instead, the longevity of your marriage depends on the foundation of friendship you’ve built over the years.

Think about this: things said during an argument can be interpreted either positively or negatively. It all depends on the general level of friendship in a marriage.

For instance, if your partner expresses her frustration over your scattered clothes that are lying just outside the laundry hamper, it can be seen in two ways:

a) She’s nagging you because she wants to give you a hard time

b) It’s been a long day and her complaint wasn’t really directed at you

Ideally of course, you should see it in the second context. But how do you cultivate the right kind of atmosphere which will keep both of you in the right frame of mind?

Saving Up For a Rainy Day

In our book, “Save My Marriage Today”, we encourage couples to invest in something we refer to as their “Love Bank”. This concept is based on the amount of good emotions that are stored up which will help you weather tough times.

If the balance in your Love Bank is high, you’re less likely to fly off the handle whenever you get into aggressive discussions with your partner. Moreover, a well-funded “account” will bail you out no matter how often you have disagreements.

Otherwise, even the slightest difference in opinion over trivial things could trigger a full-blown fight.

Getting Started

The quickest way to make “deposits” to your Love Bank is through small, everyday acts of kindness for your partner.

The problem is that some couples are focused on doing something drastic, like booking a weekend getaway for a luxury cruise. While this sounds like a good idea, it doesn't always translate into a big deposit.

It would be hard for a couple to spend the weekend together if there’s a high level of animosity between them. Without a solid foundation of friendship to rest on, they’ll probably get on each other’s nerves the whole time!

So a lot of what we see on television or in the movies doesn’t really apply in real life. A vacation is definitely something all couples need, but what about the other days of the year?

Seemingly “boring” stuff like doing your spouse’s least favorite chore or making sure they have something to eat at work isn’t exactly movie material, but the real-life impact is profound.

Think about how you are with your other friends. You're “on the same page” with them and get along well because you’re in a back-and-forth exchange of kind acts.

There is one caveat though: while doing things for each other is needed to build friendship, never keep score. When you start computing in your head and keep track of who’s giving more, it undoes the purpose of making deposits.

The point is to build goodwill and make an effort to truly understand what makes each other happy. Deposits are done selflessly to develop an intimate knowledge of what makes your partner tick.

Making Long-term Investments

Doing nice things from the heart gets you in the ballpark, but winning the game means going a bit deeper into your relationship.

Ask yourself: how well do you know your spouse?

Are you intimately familiar with the things that drive them? Do you know what’s been bothering him or her lately?

Do you know where your spouse sees him or herself – and the relationship – in a few years’ time from now?

Couples who don’t really know or care about what’s going on in their partner’s head will have a harder time understanding where they’re coming from. And like I said before, this will really come into play during arguments.

Without the proper perspective, statements said in a fight can be totally misunderstood and it will next to impossible to end such discussions on a constructive note. How can you not take it personally if you can't see each other as friends?

However, the good news is that you can start making changes today by simply asking them what their dreams are. Think of questions which revolve around how you can better re-discover what makes your partner tick.

A person can change so much in five or ten years; you might think you already have your spouse figured out, but their inner world may have changed significantly since you last checked.

Stay on top of what’s going on in their heart and mind. When the moment allows it, go up to your partner and ask, “What are your dreams?”

If you’re not comfortable with such a direct approach, initiate casual conversations that help answer this essential question.

Even brief discussions throughout the week will open your hearts to each other. Eventually, you’ll be able to narrow the gap which may have developed over the years.

By reacquainting yourself with your partner’s emotional state, it will bring you closer to him or her. In the long run, you’ll form a durable layer of friendship to deflect the blows of marital conflicts.

A Stronger Future

At the day’s end, doing selfless deeds and re-discovering your spouse’s inner world are two excellent ways to strengthen your Love Bank. High amounts of friendship (i.e. a healthy Love Bank) is a safety net against the inevitable bad times in your marriage.

In other words, it makes it easier to take conflicts in stride when you know in the back of your mind that you love your spouse.

In the greater scheme of things, a well-maintained account will help you endure arguments throughout the duration of your marriage - no matter how frank or frequent they may be.