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Validate Your Mate

Written by Dan Seaborn & Peter Newhouse with Lisa Velthouse

 

 

The Necessary Nine 

This article is courtesy of HomeLife.

At any given matrimonial moment,  one spouse is upset and the other doesn’t have a clue why. One wants conversation; the other wants quiet. One wants to go out; the other wants to stay in. One wants to have sex; the other wants to remodel the basement. It’s one gigantic argument waiting to happen.

If you’ve been married more than a month, it’s fair to say you’ve begun a new era in which you notice things about your spouse that are a bit less than lovely. In fact, some of the things your spouse does can be absolutely infuriating.

Maybe last week her lipstick went through the dryer and ruined your favorite pants. Maybe he spends half his Saturdays watching football and yelling at the TV. The things you found endearing in the early days are the same things that drive you berserk now. Still, while your opinion of marriage might be more realistic these days compared to what it used to be, that doesn’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong.

Marriage is hard work. Navigating through the highs and lows of marital terrain is no small feat. The journey is long. Some days you feel as if your compass is busted. And at times, marriage feels as if you’re not only trying to survive together; you’re also trying to survive each other.

It doesn’t matter if you dated for 15 years or if you went to premarital therapy with the best counselors in the history of the world; you’re still going to have problems relating to and understanding your spouse. Why? Because you’re people. People who happen to have flaws. But mostly just because you’re people. And no two individuals will ever be able to completely agree on everything.

Many couples “solve” their disagreements using invalidations. Invalidations are behaviors that take value away from people. They span a broad range, including what we do, what we say, what we don’t do, and what we don’t say. Some of them are glaringly obvious; others are visible only to a well-trained eye.

Think back over the past month. In what way(s) have I invalidated my spouse? How often? Under what circumstances? In which locations? If I asked my spouse to answer the question for me, what would he or she say?

Now that you have your personalized list of invalidations in mind, you’re probably tempted to defend yourself. There’s a whole array of excuses you can give in attempt to explain away invalidating behaviors. With all due respect, every single one is secondary at best because there’s a much bigger reason going on here.

Your spouse wants to know that you find him or her worthy of special protection and reverence. A wife needs her husband to express her value to her. She needs to know that he sees worth in her — that she is precious, special, and important in his eyes. She wants to feel she is his prized possession, that he wouldn’t give her up for anything. Similarly, a husband needs his wife to communicate his value to him. He needs to know that she sees worth in him — that he is capable, special, and important in her eyes. He wants to feel he is her prized possession, that she loves having him around.

Every person has an innate desire to feel cherished. Failing to cherish your spouse cheats him or her out of having that desire fulfilled within your marriage. It’s precisely why invalidations are so dangerous — because they cancel out anything that seems like cherishing. Hurtful conduct between spouses easily trumps kindness. Wounding words erase the gentle ones. A single slap refutes hundreds of caresses.

Not only do invalidations ruin the cherishing process on the receiving end, but they ruin it on the giving end as well. If you treat your spouse as if he or she is of little value, over time his or her recognized value will decrease even more.

What couples often fail to realize is that almost any problem can instantly be made much worse when a few invalidations are stirred in. No matter what other troubles threaten a marriage — communication issues, financial woes, emotional baggage, problems in the bedroom, different personalities, or meddling in-laws — everything goes downhill.

When invalidations are thrown into the picture, they signal a couple is moving away from each other rather than toward each other. Instead of facing trials together as a team, spouses face each other, fighting as opponents. No longer are they focused on building their relationship together; instead, they’ve become distracted by their differences and disputes, caught up in defensiveness and retaliations. When one spouse fires, the other fires back: If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you.

In no time at all, the husband and wife are caught up in a cycle of revenge, trading invalidations. In time, their revenge begins to devour them. Nearly every marital spat becomes entangled in efforts to demean each other. Still, rarely does either spouse try to stop the cycle. After all, how could they? They’re both too busy keeping score.

Cherishing expects nothing in return. Nothing. Cherishing isn’t something your mate has to earn; it’s something you have to learn. Cherishing is a choice, and the choice is yours.

Adapted from The Necessary Nine by Dan Seaborn and Peter Newhouse with Lisa Velthouse (B&H), Copyright 2008. Used by permission.

 

 

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5 Ways Friendships Can Improve Your Marriage

Written by Shelley Kimmons Bacote

This article is courtesy of HomeLife.

You know the saying, No man is an island? Well, the same is true in marriage. A successful marriage doesn’t happen just between a husband and wife. Rather, it occurs in a community.

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 Relationship experts agree that although husbands and wives should consider their spouse to be their best friend, having healthy, same-sex friendships can enrich a marriage relationship. Why? Those friendships are good for the individuals in the marriage. And healthy individuals make up a healthy marriage.

So if it’s been a while since you’ve invested in your friendships, it’s time to change that. Not only will you be building quality friendships, you’ll also be building a better marriage. Here’s why:

1. Friendships provide a support system. Bob Lepine, co-host of the popular daily radio program “FamilyLife Today With Dennis Rainey,” says, “I think it’s critically important that a husband and wife have healthy, same-sex friendships so they aren’t relying on one another to meet all of their emotional needs.”

Lepine says he realized the importance of this after his family moved to a new town. When reflecting on how his wife, Mary Ann, felt after returning home from a visit with friends, he says, “I got a refreshed wife back because she had spent this time with other friends.”

2. Friendships help keep you grounded. Lorilee Craker, author of See How They Run: An Energizing Guide to Keeping Up With Your Turbo-Toddler, witnesses this in her friendship with a fellow writer. “I can relieve a lot of stress and anxiety and just feel a lot better about my life and my work by talking things over with her,” Craker says. “That way, I don’t just drop everything on [my husband] when he comes through the door.”

Women and men think and communicate differently. Sometimes women need to be around other women who understand what it’s like to be wives and mothers, friends who can offer spiritual guidance and healthy perspectives. And men need to be around other men who will offer both accountability and companionship.

3. Friendships indicate balance in our lives. “Not having quality friendships could be a symptom of an overload in other areas,” explains Claudia Arp, co-founder with husband, Dave, of Marriage Alive International, Inc., a non-profit, marriage and family enrichment resource. “One of the first things to go when you’re in overload are your gender-specific friendships. If you look around, and you don’t have any friends, it’s an indication that you probably need to slow down your life a bit.”

4. Friendships give you encouragement. LaShon Whitfield has a special appreciation for the friendships she developed while adjusting to being a newlywed approximately nine years ago.

“My girlfriends probably don’t realize how much they encouraged me and confirmed that I wasn’t going crazy,” Whitfield says. “When we talked, our main focus was to share, not give advice. It was to let one another know we weren’t alone in the ‘cleaving’ process.” Through her friendships, she found out firsthand what it means to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

And when individuals in a marriage are encouraged and energized, they can give to their spouses out of that overflow. The more encouragement a husband and wife share, the more energized and fulfilling their marriage will be.

5. Friendships improve your health. A considerable number of medical studies have been shedding light on the health benefits of friendships.

Research has shown that a lack of good social relationships was a major risk factor in both men and women for poor health, in the same way as blood pressure, smoking, and obesity. They’ve also shown that keeping involved in social activities seems to reduce stress, strengthen immune systems, and result in longer life expectancy. And longer lives obviously lead to longer marriages.

The next time you’re tempted to skimp on friendships, rationalizing that your spouse and family need you, remember that they also need you to be supported, grounded, balanced, encouraged, and healthy, too. So make your marriage better with a little help from your friends. Your spouse just might thank you for it.

Shelley Kimmons Bacote is a freelance writer living in Glen Ellyn, Ill.