The Common Areas Of Friction In a Marriage, Explored.
While I am a big believer that working with the emotional tone of a marriage is truly the key to creating a fulfilling and lasting partnership, the content of arguments/friction often comes up in therapy, and sometimes couples want to get into the nitty-gritty. I have noticed there are 6 areas that cause couples friction within their partnerships - and that these areas can roughly be broken down into respective continuums.
I like to simplify things somewhat and frame it this way, so that couples can understand that:
A) there IS at least some overlap between them and their partner in terms of their ‘default’ preferences, and
B) that while these ‘defaults’ may not hugely change over a lifespan, that there are things that both parties can do to ‘flex’ towards their partner, and
C) that even though they may never be in the same place on the spectrum (even if each person is maximally ‘flexing’ towards their partner), the effort that they put in to be flexible for their partner is seen by their partner, which very often helps the partner be more flexible themselves - and in a great many cases, an upward/positive feedback loop can create a massive improvement in the dynamic long-term
1. Cleanliness / Tidiness
I think we all know this spectrum intuitively, although many of my middle/upper class clients don't really know what the nasty end of the spectrum really looks like.
‘Crack-house dirty’ to ‘Military mom, white-glove clean’, I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of people seem to assume that their values with this are ‘the right ones’ or ‘are how it is supposed to be’... this ‘my way is the right way’ attitude can develop into a big power struggle, as daily tensions keep ‘scratching the wound’ over and over. As with many of the things on this list - flexibility is key here.
Make a basic plan/set of negotiated expectations for each other and learn to let it go, then drop the day-to-day frustrations.
Pro tip: if you have a problem in the moment, tell your partner later that night or tomorrow once that spike of frustrated energy has dissipated - this will help them be more receptive.
2. Spender - Saver Dynamic
Fundamentally, what is money for? This can get pretty philosophical, but the long and the short of it is usually: does money provide security or safety (saver), or does money provide the pleasures and conveniences of life (spender). A stark difference between a couple’s values here can cause friction on a weekly or even daily basis when the ‘saver’ sees spending that he/she wouldn't have chosen.
There is always a conversation about how finances are split that can be helpful (ex. separate bank accounts for each other, or having a ‘fun’ account for one or both parties are a couple of options), or have a negotiation around what the ‘allowable limit’ for extra spending really is (and also what constitutes necessary vs. unnecessary spending), but fundamentally we need to honor the needs of the other and find a way to a middle ground or circumvent some of the issue by keeping (at least some) things separate to allow for autonomy.
Pro Tip: Honestly ask your partner some why questions - without judgement - about their perspective on money. What is it for and why? and why is that important? You may be surprised to find that their values come from a really difficult experience(s) growing up, or from a lifetime of ‘fun’ spending. There is no wrong answer here - but you do have a different history than your partner, so a critical starting place is awareness of that and some empathy.
3. Closeness to Family
In other words, how many hours of the week do you spend connecting with family? One 20 minute phone call every couple of months or an hour on the phone every day, plus dinner together most days? Or somewhere in between?
The differences can cause friction in many ways, most notably that a higher closeness with family means that inevitably those family members will influence that partner's thinking and decisions… which affects their spouse.
Often simple awareness and acceptance of culture, values, and why your partner is this way can be really helpful/transformative!
Pro tip: you aren’t going to change your partners’ values with this - so accepting it and making the best of it is the optimal approach here.
Also, sometimes we need something more, like boundaries….boundaries are tricky here because if we veer off into setting boundaries for our partners’ relationships we get into a territory called ‘being controlling’.... Which WILL lead to problems.
There is no easy answer here, so sometimes we need to really hash it out and look at small healthy boundaries when necessary/appropriate (ex. “Im just going to have a TV dinner alone at home for every second family dinner gathering”, or “please don't talk to me about your parents’ opinions”).
4. Parenting - Empathic and Protective or Teaching-Focused and Inflexible
In the most basic terms, there are a few traits that commonly go together which are often at odds with a co-parent who is not in the same place on the spectrum.
On one end of the spectrum, the parent who tends to:
Feel a lot of emotion themselves and conveys those to the child
Struggles to keep their own emotions in check (around parenting / their child)
Gets really distressed seeing their child in distress
Wants to protect their child from pain, and sometimes the challenges of life (which inherently involve some risk of emotional or physical pain)
Vs.
On the other side, a parent who tends to:
Avoid seeing and attending to emotions in their child
Uses practical strategies to ‘fix’ problems
Tends to lecture, persuade, and convince their child using arguments/logic
Is focused on teaching the child values
Is more confrontational, and often less flexible
Based on research findings and conceptualizations in Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), this continuum can be further broken down into 2 continuums - more on that later. For now, we can see and notice that there ARE going to be parenting differences, and that its extremely difficult for you to change your partners’ parenting style by convincing them.
Pro tip: notice the differences and focus on yourself and your parenting - do your best to ‘lean’ towards the others’ parenting style then consistently tell them about your efforts to parent a little more like they would, and why that's important to you! Them seeing/hearing this is powerfully disarming and will help them really hear your perspective (and be receptive to making some changes themselves).
A common ‘cause’ of issues married couples come into my office telling me about is how they see their partner moving further and further to the ‘other’ side of the spectrum… which causes a reaction to do the opposite… and both parents get more and more extreme (because the other is being ‘too soft’ or ‘too hard’), which leads to a big power struggle.
5. How much Enmeshment vs Differentiation
Put simply, how much ‘us time’ each week does each partner want? A notable difference within the relationship can lead to a constant feeling of a ‘chase’ within the relationship wherein one partner never feels fully connected to or satisfied … and their partner usually has some big emotions come up when they feel they have to constantly push for space.
There are many practical solutions with this, but some form of this is an inevitability within a relationship in the long term.
An awareness of this difference and a consistent, pointed effort is the solution; the partner wanting more separate-ness can ‘put effort in’ to provide more connection (either time or quality - yes, both of which can feel like work!) and the partner wanting more connection can develop some self soothing or distraction strategies (which requires self awareness + effort).
Of course, there is also a question of ‘quality time’ (ex. playing a board game, or going on a walk together), vs just time together (ex. watching Netflix while scrolling on your respective instagram accounts) but you get the idea.
Pro tip:
(for the person ‘wanting more’) - find a way to give your partner a little more space 1 night/week consistently - go out with a friend every week, have a video game night alone, etc. Let him/her know - we are gonna figure out some extra alone time for you babe.
(for the person ‘needing space’) - Find a way to add-in a little more uninterrupted, 100% focus-on-us-time each week. This can be 10 minutes every tuesday morning, or a whole proper date night each week. You’d be surprised when you get creative that there are probably many times during the week that this can happen. Set a calendar reminder in your phone and you bring the attention to them. Explicitly remind them how much you care about them every time.
6. Sex Desire Discrepancy
In a vacuum, how many times a week/month would each person have sex? Guess what, that number is pretty much always different between partners.
Sometimes this number will decrease for one partner in a subtle, hidden way after they start taking hormonal birth control or antidepressants.
Or this can change in a big obvious way for a time if a partner has an injury causing pain through the days or gets a diagnosis of a serious illness and has no energy for days/weeks on end for example.
In any case, how do we deal with this difference?
There are many strategic or practical ways that couples can help ‘solve’ this issue in a practical sense (a ‘sex schedule’ is a common one), but the key to this, in my view, is to attend to the underlying emotions that come up around sex.
How to attend to frustration is one aspect of this, but very often there is some attachment stuff that comes up when one partner has their sexual advances ‘turned down’ repeatedly over months/years - not feeling enough, not feeling desirable, feeling uncared for - these experiences can create big problems over time and need to be attended to when they happen.
On the flip side, the partner who feels ‘hounded’ by sexual advances does need space! Having ‘no sexual advances’ days each week can be helpful, or (advanced version) tracking your partners cycle and make more advances when ovulation is happening - there is lots of research showing a higher receptivity to advances, the female partner having more sexual thoughts, etc, during ovulation!
Like with all the items on this list - we want to work on ‘flexing’ towards my partners side of the spectrum, but for this one the answer is usually far more nuanced. So, I don’t have a universal pro tip because there is just so much variation between couples. If this is an ongoing issue - please reach out, I can help.
In conclusion…
All of the above are problems that come up commonly in couples counselling. While the awareness of these is often very helpful and transformative in itself, there are typically underlying emotions, attachment needs, and fears that govern why this is the way a person does it - and these underlying pieces are things I can help with.
A word of caution, after positive change there is always a risk of slipping back into a downward spiral wherein each person feels their needs/preferences are discarded by their partner and they start to double-down on their own needs - which will create a power struggle again. While I do need to stay in business as a relationship therapist, I strongly prefer to set-up couples for long term success without me… I half jokingly told my business coach that exactly 0% my business model relies on repeat customers. Hence, building in a way to prevent a ‘relapse’ into a downward spiral is a normal part of my couples therapy process, and is essential for long-term strength and resilience within a marriage.
