Before You Decide Your Marriage Is Failing, Try These 4 Small Changes A Clinical Psychologist Recommends
SHOTPRIME | Canva I know, I know, you're sick of hearing about empathy and validation and better communication and working to rekindle your intimate life, and you're thinking I need results now, not this slow-moving stuff. Fine, I say, amiable as ever, while secretly being offended. But before you decide your marriage is failing, as a clinical psychologist, I'd like you to try these changes first.
Now, to use these tools, you have to be a superhero of marriage. You have to really, really be committed to change. Research has suggested you have to get rid of your defenses and your history of resentment and bitterness, and you have to be as motivated as you are when, say, sleep-training your kid. Or coming up with excuses why you don’t want your mother-in-law to help you design your baby’s nursery. Whatever analogy resonates with you. So, let’s move on to the actual list.
Before you decide your marriage is failing, try these 4 small changes a clinical psychologist recommends:
1. Forgive your spouse truly for the worst thing they have ever done
Researchers call this lapse on your spouse’s part an empathic failure. It is a time when your spouse completely did not understand or care how important something was to you and acted horribly, in your estimation.
Many of these, I have seen in my practice, are around what a husband did when a wife was in labor or had a newborn baby (e.g., being absent emotionally or physically during a difficult time surrounding the birth or in the weeks after). For men, often it is a blatant rejection that leaves them feeling humiliated or as though their wife thinks of them as an object of contempt or disgust.
You can do this forgiveness within your own head, but bonus points if you share it with your spouse. You must truly get inside your spouse’s head to do this (there I go with the empathy again, sorry). It has to be genuine.
For example, you could think, "As a guy in his late 20s, with no friends who have had babies yet, I can see how my husband may have truly thought that going to a bachelor party in my 9th month of pregnancy was an okay decision. His friends probably had no idea about relationships and made him feel stupid for considering not going. He did not mean to miss the birth, and the reason he probably acted defensive about it was how ashamed he felt."
You’ll be going deep into your reserves of empathy here. But we are talking radical change, and you don’t get an omelet without breaking some eggs.
2. Get your spouse a really, really meaningful gift
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The point of this present is not that it is expensive. The entire point is that it must be something outside your comfort zone. So the only way an expensive present would be ideal is if you’re generally a huge cheapskate, and this is the bane of your spouse’s existence.
Here are some good ones:
- A gift certificate for bungee jumping if you’re an anxious wife who always tries to limit your husband’s risk-taking tendencies
- A weekend away with friends for your wife if you’re a husband who, to be honest, usually does not do much in the way of taking care of the kids
- A poem, if you’re a guy who is not very verbally expressive, which you know leaves your very verbal wife feeling lonely.
No, this present idea will not on its own change your marriage, but studies have shown it is a meaningful gesture that shows you hear and understand your spouse and want to work on changing your own worldview in a way significant for them in the long term.
3. Change your focus from the kids to your spouse
Sit down and seriously calculate how much time you spend focusing on each, and then flip-flop them. If this means canceling some dance classes or soccer, then so be it. It is a lot more important to have your kid see a happy marriage than to go to soccer, and you know this in your heart. Get some babysitters in the mix, join a gym daycare, whatever you have to do.
If you usually spend from 4-8 pm attending to your kids’ every need and from 8-10 pm with your husband, flip it to spending from 6-10 pm with your husband (the kids can be around also, but your focus is not solely on them) and from 4-6 pm focusing only on the kids. Try it for a week. You can always switch back, but this experiment may make you realize you need your priorities to shift.
4. Every day, tell your spouse something you appreciate about them
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No sarcasm if you’re fighting at the time. This is a non-negotiable. It will likely lead to a very different sort of interaction during the day. Everyone thrives on being recognized for what they give to the relationship, and this may change your dynamic from terrible to neutral, or neutral to good.
If you want bonus points (in your own mind — the point isn’t for your spouse to tell you how awesome you’re being), show the emails or texts to your kids. Won’t that be an awesome lesson about how to act in a loving marriage?
I challenge you to try at least one of these starting today. Can you do it? Of course, you can, because you’re totally committed to your relationship and you own your part in whatever problems you may be having. Stop squirming.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice, Best Life Behavioral Health.
