Relationships change after you have been together for a long time. The excitement during the early stage of infatuation often serves as a standard by which couples judge the later stages of their marriage. The hurts, quarrels, and petty frustrations stand in stark contrast to the euphoria of the courtship period. Many people can't relinquish their early image of what marriage should be like—which promotes later disillusionment with their spouse and the relationship itself.
Once infatuation wears off, you need to maintain feelings of loving and being loved. Cultivate and affirm that you have feelings of warmth and tenderness for your partner. Act like you care about your partner’s welfare, pleasure and pain. Express affection by saying “I love you” all the time and touching your partner in a loving way. Have an attitude of acceptance, accepting your partner in totality, as someone with weak points as well as strong ones.
Feeling accepted means you are comfortable and relaxed and you can “be yourself” around another person. Unless your partner is actually doing something immoral or illegal, don’t make them feel like they should change. If they are doing something immoral or illegal, you need to try to help them and then forgive them.
Even though you want things from your partner, you need to be loving all the time, even when you don’t get what you want from them. Be empathetic, feeling your partner’s good and bad emotions, yet still maintaining a boundary between your partner’s feelings and your own feelings. You need to be sensitive to your partner’s "hang-ups” even though they are irrational. Be understanding, accepting the other person’s perspective even though it is different from your own perspective. Practice companionship, such as spending time together on the proverbial “date night.” Be emotionally and physically intimate. Share what you are thinking and feeling; don't keep your thoughts and feelings a secret. Treat your partner like a friend.
Please your spouse; do things just to please your partner that you would otherwise not want to do. Be supportive, entering your partner’s subjective state rather than acting detached and objective. You cannot expect your partner to always be independent. Sometimes they need to lean on you and depend on you like a child. Closeness means constantly checking in with the other person and making sure you both feel “connected,” not detached.
People bring strong expectations into marriage, but one partner often does not communicate these expectations to the other and may not even be aware of them. In many cases, the husband or wife either cannot or is unwilling to relinquish the original expectations. Further, these expectations are likely to revolve around symbols—of love or rejection or insecurity—which by their very nature are inflexible.
Don't "frame" your partner with a negative quality. For example, the global, overgeneralized conclusion that your wife is “always” manipulative. Once the partner is framed, almost any action she takes will be viewed through this frame. In the “manipulative” example, if the wife did something really kind and considerate, the husband would think, suspiciously, “What is she up to now, what’s she trying to get from me?” even if there is no basis to believe the wife is actually being manipulative in this particular instance.
When a couple is courting, the man and woman both try to please each other, and each partner practices nearly constant altruism and empathy. One of the reasons each partner acts this way is that the relationship is new and exciting. Another reason may be that doing whatever you can to please another person seems like a small price to pay to end the frustration of not having someone to share your life with, the fear that you will spend the rest of your life alone and the sadness that is a result of your loneliness. But once you become used to being in a relationship, you return to your temperamental set point. You no longer feel lonely. You no longer have a strong desire to please your mate. Now you do things for your mate because you believe you “should” do them, and you also think your mate “should” do things for you. When your mate is not doing the things they “should” do for you, you think it is unfair and you feel angry. You have a different mindset than you had in the beginning.
After you have been in a relationship for a long time, you are likely to have automatic thoughts that are wrong—cognitive distortions.
Tunnel Vision. For example, if you think “we fight all the time,” and then you take a week-long vacation during which you have one fight that lasts for one hour, you might think to yourself “we fought the whole time. Our vacation sucked.” It is totally normal to get into a single, one-hour-long fight during a one week vacation. Instead of being sad, you could just as easily be happy that you had a great vacation. Another example is if you say to yourself that you didn’t have any fun at a party, because your partner arrived late, “as usual.” This is a distortion, because there is no reason why your partner arriving late would prevent you from having fun at a party.
Selective Abstraction. Let’s say your husband tells the following story at a party. “I never knew that ‘K of C’ meant Knights of Columbus. I remember the first time I heard that phrase. Our car broke down, and we asked a pedestrian where the nearest garage was. The pedestrian said, ‘maybe you can get some assistance at the K of C.’ I thought: ‘KFC? How is a Kentucky Fried Chicken going to help me fix my car?’” The people hearing the story laugh. You think to yourself: “He still holds a grudge, because I didn’t take the car in for maintenance when it had an oil leak, and then we broke down while we were driving.” In fact, that wasn’t the point of the story at all. You could have been happy that your husband told an amusing anecdote in a social situation, and you and your friends are having a laugh, but instead you are angry for no reason at all.
Arbitrary Inference. Your wife is sitting silently in the same room with you and you think, “She must be angry at me. She’s giving me the cold shoulder.” In fact, she is getting ready to file the family tax return, and she’s trying to calculate in her head whether the family had capital gains or capital losses this year on stock sales. You are getting upset for absolutely no reason.
Overgeneralization. You have a plan to meet your partner somewhere. She’s late and she does not call. Then she arrives late without apologizing. You think, “She’s always late, and she never apologizes.” In reality, she is not always late, when she is going to be late she usually calls, and when she arrives late, she usually apologizes. In this particular case, she completely lost track of the time. Also, what you actually said was, “Let’s meet around 6 or so,” not “it is important to me that we meet at exactly 6.” Also, there is no urgency to meeting exactly at 6, and spending half an hour alone will not create any hardship for you. You could have spent a pleasant half an hour without your partner, but instead you are fuming because of a false belief that your partner is “always” late and “never” apologizes.
Other examples: Almost everyone lies sometimes. If your partner lies to you one time or lies about one type of thing, you should not jump to the conclusion that your partner is a generally dishonest person who always lies about everything. If your partner can’t stand your favorite movie, that does not mean that you and your partner “have nothing in common.”
Polarized Thinking. Your partner asks you to do something that you don’t want to do, and you feel obligated to do it. You think, “I am going to have to spend the rest of my life being my partner’s slave.” In reality, you only occasionally have to do things for your partner that you don’t want to do. Your partner does not treat you as a slave, and depending on the situation, you may be free to say “no” when your partner wants you to do something. Your partner is not more “controlling” than average, even though it is true that there are some things that are very important to your partner that your partner would like to maintain control over. You could feel good about yourself, because you are doing something for someone you love, and that person appreciates what you are doing. But instead, you are angry, because you have falsely adopted “all-or-nothing” beliefs.
Magnification. Your partner lies to you about working late, when he actually went out for a drink in a bar after work. You think, “I can never trust my partner about anything again. He is probably an alcoholic.” In fact, he lied about one thing one time. That does not mean that he always lies about everything. It may be that if you had asked him why he lied, he would have said that he was embarrassed to admit that he wanted to go out for a drink with a friend instead of coming home, and you might have said, “You don’t need to be embarrassed about that. You could have just told me what you were doing, and I would not have minded.” You refuse to forgive him, even though he apologized for lying. You are angry and afraid, when you could have the feeling of being forgiving and generous and appreciated.
Other examples: You think to yourself, “We’ve spent the last hour in the same room together and have not said anything to each other—this means our marriage is dead.” Not true. Or you think to yourself, “We had an argument in front of the kids; we have traumatized them.” Not true.
Biased Explanations. You ask your wife to pick up your prescription at the drug store on the way home from work and she forgets. You think, “She did not pick up my prescription because she just didn’t feel like experiencing a slight inconvenience. She’s lazy, and she doesn’t care about me.” In fact, she just followed her normal routine and drove straight home and forgot to do it. There is no basis for ascribing a bad motive to her actions.
Negative Labeling. Your wife really wanted you to do something, and you didn’t do it because you didn’t want to. Now, she is noticeably disappointed. You think, “She is punishing me for not doing what she wants. This is proof that she is a manipulative person.” You tell her that she is being manipulative, and then she becomes angry that you labeled her in that way. In reality, you know why she is disappointed, and if you asked her, she would tell you that she feels disappointed because you did not do what she wanted. She is not being mean to you because she is a manipulative person. She hasn’t done anything “manipulative,” and you have made a slightly negative situation much worse by falsely accusing her of being spiteful and manipulative. You could have just thought, “I am sorry I disappointed my wife by not doing what she wanted me to do. But I did want I wanted to do, which demonstrates that I love and respect myself. This is an important and valuable quality, even though it sometimes creates conflict with my wife.” You could have expressed these thoughts out loud, or not, depending on which option would be more helpful.
Personalization. Your husband likes to sleep with a “white noise” machine, because that helps him sleep. You would prefer to sleep with as little noise as possible. You think, “He knows I prefer silence. He is putting on that machine just to annoy me.” You are taking his actions personally, without any basis. Instead of working together to resolve a conflict, you are becoming angry, because of your false belief that your partner is intentionally and maliciously creating a problem for you. When your partner says she is “sick and tired,” it is easy to think she must be sick and tired of you, but in fact her feelings likely have nothing to do with you. Just because your partner is angry, your partner is not necessarily angry at you.
Mind Reading. You think, “I should not have to tell my husband what to do. He should know what I want. I should not always have to ask.” Wrong, he doesn’t know what you want, because the thing that is important to you is not important to him. If you tell him what you want, he will do it because you are important to him, but if you do not tell him what you want, it would not even occur to him to do it.
You ask him if he wants to go skiing, and he says no. You think, “He doesn’t want to go skiing with me today, because he hates spending time with me and the kids.” In reality he knows he will feel car sick driving to the mountain, he is afraid of getting injured, he knows he will feel nauseous in the ski lodge because of the stale stuffy air, he is worried that he can’t afford it, and he is anxious about some other things he needs to get done. He would be happy to go sleigh-riding at a nearby hill with the kids, and then go for a walk in the evening and watch the sunset after getting done all the things he needs to get done. Your belief that he said no to skiing because he hates spending time with you in the kids is erroneous. Instead of trying to read his mind, you could have just asked, why don’t you want to go skiing?, making it clear that you were open to understanding his reasons without any negative judgment that would discourage him from being honest about his reasons.
If there are things that he dislikes about spending time with you and the kids, try to understand what they are, because it may be possible to eliminate the things he doesn’t like, and then you could both get what you want. If he disagrees with your opinion, you cannot conclude that it is because he doesn’t respect you.
Although spouses often attempt to mind read, and ascribe unworthy motives to their partner, they are in truth blind to the partner’s actual thoughts and attitudes. Thus, many grave marital battles are staged by two blind combatants fighting against fantasized images they have projected onto each other. Though directed at the fantasized image, the attacks pierce the real person.
Subjective Reasoning. You think, I am very anxious and worried about my children. Therefore, my wife is not doing enough to take care of the children. This could be true, if your wife is neglecting the children. But if your children are safe and are experiencing normal childhoods, it is not true. The fact that you feel anxious and worried does not mean that your partner is doing something wrong.
You may think, I feel lonely. Therefore, my partner does not pay enough attention to me. Not necessarily. You might feel lonely even though your partner pays an average amount of attention to you. Your partner is not doing anything wrong just because you feel lonely, especially if you never express to your partner that you want her to pay more attention to you.
Marital problems are exacerbated by angry fights. In addition to reducing the frequency of anger caused by your own cognitive distortions, there are other ways to lessen the frequency and intensity of angry conflict. Instead of being sarcastic, simply ask for what you want. You may be treating your spouse the way one of your parents treated the other parent, even though this way of acting is obviously not working.
When you feel angry, you feel the natural biological urge of “fight or flight.” Unless you are actually being physically threatened, this natural response is often ineffective. What is effective is to calmly assert what you want with a rational acceptance of the reality that you can’t always get what you want. Even though you cannot always control your feeling of anger, you can control yourself from saying or doing angry things. It may not be helpful to tell your partner you are angry, but telling your partner you're angry is okay, because that is not the same as saying or doing something angry. Get out of the habit of saying, “You are making me angry, because you are doing X.” Instead, simply say, “I feel angry, because I am not getting X, which is something I want.” It is not true that the other person is making you angry, because it is possible that the other person could be doing what they are doing and you would not be angry. In reality, you are making yourself angry.
When you are in a fight, you need to stay focused on understanding why the other person is angry and acknowledging what is true about what the other person is saying. You need to ask questions until you can demonstrate to the other person that you understand how the other person feels. Completely disregard the other person’s negative statements, don’t retaliate, don’t say or do anything angry yourself, don’t give any thought to who is “right” and who is “wrong,” don’t try to control your partner and don’t walk away. Don’t tell the other person what the other person is thinking or feeling, but do ask them what they are thinking and feeling. Say positive things such as “I love you” and “I want you to be happy.” Say “I don’t want to fight with you."
If you are the one who is angry, do NOT tell the other person that the other person is making you angry. Instead, refrain from saying or doing anything angry, but use the words: “I feel angry because...” Don’t tell the other person what the other person should or should not be doing or saying. Instead, say “I want X.” Be assertive without acting angry.
Your gut reaction might be, are you nuts? You mean to tell me that when my spouse is angry and ranting and raving and cursing at me, I should just sit there and take it and not fight back? The answer is yes, if you don’t want to fight, don’t fight back. If you want to fight with your life partner, you may want to ask yourself why you want this. Are you getting anything of value out of it?
One reason bad relationships don’t improve is the false belief that a bad relationship cannot change. Here is a list of beliefs that are usually false. You believe that just because something is not the way you want it to be, it cannot possibly be the way you want it to be. You believe that you or your partner cannot change. You believe that you cannot improve your relationship if your partner stays exactly the same. You believe that a relationship cannot be good if you have to work at it. You believe you shouldn’t have to make something worse in the short-run to make it better in the long-run. You believe things cannot be good in the future because something bad happened in the past. You think that is doesn’t matter what your partner does if your partner has the “wrong” thoughts and emotions. You believe that a bad relationship is okay because it is “normal.” You think you have to act the way other people would act in your situation. You think you “just can’t” do something that you literally could do. You think you can’t do something that is "unfair." You think the relationship cannot get better because the bad relationship is “all your partner’s fault.”
Do not be honest all the time. Be diplomatic. You “honestly” believe really nasty thoughts about your spouse when you are upset them, but not when you're calm. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
Different people have different conversational styles. You might rub your partner the wrong way because you are not polite, and your partner might rub you the wrong way because your partner is too indirect. Just accept these small differences in style. Make an effort when you are talking to your partner, the same as you would with a stranger at a party.
Whenever your partner says something, respond to both the literal meaning of the words and also the feeling that the person is expressing.
Most people want to have fun, to play and to laugh. If your relationship is devoid of fun, playfulness and humor, you need to figure out ways to stop being so serious all the time.