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Save your Marriage
Here are four steps that will make it easier for you to
resolve your conflict.
1. Set ground rules to make negotiations pleasant and safe.
Under no conditions should you be disrespectful or judgmental of your husband's opinions or desires. Your negotiations should accept and respect your differences. Otherwise, you will fail to make them pleasant and safe.
2. Identify the problem from the perspectives of both you and your spouse.
Be able to state each other's position regarding your conflict about recreational activities before you go on to find a solution.
3. Brainstorm solutions with abandon.
Spend some time thinking of all sorts of ways to handle the problem, and don't correct each other when you hear of a plan that you don't like -- you'll have a chance to do that during the fourth step.
4. Choose the solution that is appealing to both of you.
Among those solutions that are mutually satisfactory, select the one that you both like the most. When you use the Policy of Joint Agreement to resolve any of your conflicts, neither of you will feel controlled by the other, because you are not being forced to do anything. The only restrictions you will feel are those that prevent you from gaining at each other's expense. And that's not control, that's thoughtfulness.
The Policy of Undivided Attention:
Give your spouse your undivided attention a minimum of fifteen hours each week,
using the time to meet his or her most important emotional needs.
This policy will help you avoid one of the most common mistakes -- neglecting each other after marriage. I have tried to clarify this policy for you by offering three corollaries: Privacy, Objectives and Amount.
Corollary 1: Privacy
The time you plan to be together should not include children (who are awake), relatives or friends.
Corollary 2: Objectives
During the time you are together, create activities that will meet the emotional needs of affection, sexual fulfilment, conversation and recreational companionship.
Romance for most men is sex and recreation; for most women it's affection and conversation.
Corollary 3: Amount
The number of hours you schedule to be together each week for undivided attention should reflect the quality of your marriage.
Honesty and Openness
Those with a need for honesty and openness want accurate information about their spouses' thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities and plans for the future. If their spouse does not provide honest and open communication, trust is undermined and the feelings of security can eventually be destroyed.
Honesty and openness helps build compatibility in marriage. When you and your spouse openly reveal the facts of your past, your present activities, and your plans for the future, you are able to make intelligent decisions that take each other's feelings into account. And that's how you create compatibility -- by making decisions that work well for both of you simultaneously.
Physical Attractiveness
For many, physical attractiveness can be one of the greatest sources of love units. The question you should ask is, what need when met deposits the most love units? If it's physical attractiveness, it should not be ignored. For many, the need for physical attractiveness not only helps create a relationship, but it continues on throughout marriage, and love units are deposited whenever the spouse is seen -- if he or she is physically attractive.
Among the various aspects of physical attractiveness, weight generally gets the most attention. However, choice of clothing, hair style, makeup, and personal hygiene also come together to make a person attractive.
Financial Support
People often marry for the financial security that their spouse provides them. In other words, part of the reason they marry is for money.
How much money does your spouse have to earn before you feel frustrated about his or her paycheck? Your analysis will help you determine if you have a need for financial support, and if so, whether or not this need is being met.
Another point to remember is that when an important emotional need is met, love units are deposited in very large numbers. In other words, if someone were to meet this need for you, might you fall in love with that person? Does a person's income or wealth make him or her more attractive to you? And are those without money unattractive? If so, you probably have a need for financial support?
Domestic Support
Domestic support involves the creation of a peaceful and well-managed home environment. It includes cooking meals, washing dishes, washing and ironing clothes, house cleaning and child care. If you have the need for domestic support, when your spouse does some of these things, you feel very fulfilled, and when it is not done you feel very annoyed.
When does the need for domestic support explode? When the children arrive! Children create huge needs -- both a greater need for income and greater domestic responsibilities. The previous division of labor is now obsolete. Both spouses must take on new responsibilities -- and which ones will they take?
Family Commitment
Evidence of this need is a craving for your spouse's involvement in the training of your children. When he or she is helping to care for them, you feel very fulfilled, and when they are neglected you feel very frustrated.This is not just child care -- feeding, clothing or watching over children to keep them safe. Child care falls under the category of domestic support. Family commitment, on the other hand, is taking a responsibility for how the children will turn out, teaching them the values of cooperation and care for each other. It is spending quality time with your children to help insure happiness and success for them as adults.
Admiration
Your spouse may have the power to build up or deplete his or her account in your Love Bank with just a few words of admiration or criticism. If you can be effected that easily, be sure to add admiration to your list of important emotional needs.
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