Giving Thanks: Cultivating Gratitude in Our Relationships & Parenting

As a parent to a preschooler, one of my pet peeves has been teaching my daughter to say: “Thank you.” I mean no disrespect to “please,” “excuse me,” or “bless you,” all of which I’ve also espoused. But expressing thanks strikes me as the foundation of politeness and a key to strong relationships with others.

A recent study from the University of Carolina at Wilmington affirms the power of gratitude, but has me reconsidering my assumptions about expressing it.

According to Cameron Gordon, the study’s lead author:
 “[E]xpressing gratitude to your spouse doesn’t seem to be very strongly associated with…relationship satisfaction…[But] if you feel grateful, your spouse is more likely to rate being happy in the relationship.”

I had to read that quotation twice to get the gist because, frankly, it shocked me to learn there was no correlation between a spouse verbally expressing gratitude and relationship satisfaction. Instead, the crucial finding was:

Relationship satisfaction and a spouse’s feelings of gratitude are linked. Our spouse’s emotional state of thankfulness impacts us more than their words.

Why the power of feelings over words? For starters, words are more open to interpretation: Is he really grateful or buttering me up because he wants something? Is she genuinely appreciative or do I sense sarcasm? Is that a reflex or a sincere thank you? (Check out my post on sincerity.)

In contrast to the ambiguity of words, when our spouses feel grateful for us, we’re likely to sense their emotional attitude. In turn, their positive feelings for us impact our appreciation of our relationship with them.

None of this is prescriptive: Fulfilling relationships might inspire more feelings of gratitude as much as gratitude enhances relationship satisfaction.

Yet, even if that holds true, there are important lessons here about:
(1)  The positive impact of felt-gratitude upon those we care about; &
(2)  The power of understanding how our loved ones like to be appreciated.

Perhaps, the reason that the link between expressed-gratitude and relationship happiness isn’t as strong as the link with felt-gratitude is that our style of saying thank you, in words and actions, is often filtered through our preferences.

If that old standard “thank you” is open to misinterpretation, it might be worthwhile to do a little research and ask our spouses how they most like and want to be appreciated by us.

Once we recognize that we each express and receive gratitude uniquely, and that “thank you” might not always strike a chord, we can tailor gratitude to our spouse’s preferences, and also give them a chance to express their appreciation in a way that resonates for us.

Below are a few questions to help explore gratitude in a deeper way. Not only can you ask these questions of your spouse, but you can answer them and share your responses with him or her:

When do you feel most appreciated in our relationship?

What are the best ways for me to show my gratitude for you?

If I were to express my appreciation for you just 10% more than I do now, what might I do or say that would be meaningful to you?

Thinking of non-romantic relationships in your life, who makes (or made) you feel most appreciated? How did they do that?

Paying attention to how we express and receive gratitude isn’t just a boon to our relationships, it also dovetails with parenting.

Thanks to the University of Carolina research, I’m trying to be more conscious of feeling grateful whenever possible, including when I say “thank you.” For my sake, for the sake of the person I’m thanking, and for my kids, I want my words to be genuine, not automatic; I want to feel grateful when I say I’m grateful.

I also believe that the more we work with our spouses to better understand each other—including better understanding our individual experiences of gratitude—and the more we accommodate our differences respectfully and kindly, the more our kids will learn those skills, too.

In the end, they’ll thank us for it, if only and especially in how they feel about us.

The Language of Relationships: Why Silly Nicknames Aren’t Silly

I’m a nickname person. I love calling friends and family abbreviated versions of their proper names. I also relish using endearments, both common and made-up.

I wasn’t always a fan of romantic or expressive endearments. I remember going to New York in my 20s to visit a pal who was living with her boyfriend; I also remember cringing every time they called each other “babe,” which they did a lot.

I’m sure there were compelling reasons for my discomfort, but they don’t apply anymore, at least not to me. These days, I, too, lapse into “babe-ing” my wife.

Turns out, my communicative shift might be good for our marriage. I laughed when I read the first line of an article about couples’ “insider language:”

“Lovey-dovey language—even your own—can be so corny it makes you want to puke.”

Yep. See reference to NYC trip above. But here’s another perspective:

Pet names and made-up terms help nurture playful, happy and resilient relationships.

One study found that relationship satisfaction is higher among couples that use a lot of silly names and code phrases with each other.

Just to be clear, we’re talking about language that our spouses want to hear, not unwelcome nicknames or code words. Those terms can be detrimental.

For those among us who remain on the fence about using “insider” language with spouses, here are some reasons to introduce it (or ramp it up if we’re fans):
-       Endearments enhance intimacy and mutual appreciation;
-       Code phrases or private language are efficient communication;
-       Insider language helps us bond when we’re in public;
-       Playful communication & inside jokes ease conflicts;
-       Spousal playfulness has a positive “spillover” effect on our kids.

Not able to overcome the nausea or embarrassment this kind of communication prompts in you? No worries. You don’t have to use it. The research isn’t prescriptive; it just means there’s a correlation between endearing language and relationship fulfillment, not necessarily a causal effect.

Plus, that old standby, “I love you,” still remains the fastest way to ramp up positivity in our relationships, without the need for cutesy or made-up embellishments.

No matter what your opinion about using endearments or code phrases with spouses, or I might add kids, the research reminds us that what we say (not to mention, how we say it) is important.

Remaining aware of the impact of our words—and doing our best to ensure that impact is positive—can only enhance our relationships with co-parents.

The Shame of Childcare & Housework: How Parents Can Shift Household Conflict

I read an I-can’t-put-it-down-book last week entitled, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It’s Not): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power. The title notwithstanding, Brené Brown’s book is, primarily, about shame.

If you just had a visceral response—and not a good one—while reading the word “shame,” you’re not alone. Most of us have an aversion to shame: our own, someone else’s, just the word “shame” itself.

Brown defines shame as:
“The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”

“Guilt” refers to feeling bad about or regretting something, which can propel us to change. Guilt can, then, be a transformative force in our lives.

Not so with shame, which is all about the deficiencies and faults we believe define us. Shame makes us believe we can never change.

While most of us were raised in a family or society (or both) that fostered shame—and taught us, overtly or subtly, to shame others—we lack a cultural, personal, and relationship vocabulary to manage shame’s destructive effect.

Why address shame in a post about parents‘ relationships? For starters, a lot of women experience motherhood as a shame trigger (whether or not we have kids). Parenting, too, is among the top shame categories, according to Brown.

The remaining categories are: Appearance & Body Image; Family; Money and Work; Mental and Physical Health; Addiction; Sex; Aging; Religion; Being Stereotyped and Labeled; Speaking Out; and Surviving Trauma. (FYI, we don’t necessarily experience shame in every category, but I’d wager we could all point to at least one that triggers our shame and our judgment/shaming of others.)

These categories apply to men, too. But, Brown notes, women’s shame is layered and often contradictory e.g., be sexy yet not too sexy. Men’s shame, instead, is often about threats to masculinity, e.g., weakness, fear, failure. While not specifically tied to marriage or fatherhood, how men define what it means to be “a man” impacts their approach to being a husband and a dad. In other words:

Failing to meet gender expectations can trigger shame in both men and women.

The role of shame in our lives is pervasive and complex. Many relationship issues can be addressed through the lens of shame. So much so that I encourage all of us to spend some time assessing how our shame (in the categories cited above) might be impacting our relationships and parenting.

Yet, as I was reading Brown’s book, I kept circling back to an issue that’s always near the top of heterosexual* parents’ conflict list: Childcare and Housework. (BTW, while I focus on straight relationships in much of this post, these–and related–issues apply to some gay and lesbian parents, too.)

Why focus on that stress-point? My hunch is that—despite strides in women’s rights, despite the prevalence of dual-income families, and men’s increased parenting and household roles—if masculinity is at issue for many men, and motherhood is at stake for a lot of women, then it’s probable many couples play out shame dynamics around childcare and housework.

The thing is: (1) We’re not always (or often) aware of our shame triggers; and (2) What we consciously think—e.g., I’m a man who’s cool with housework or I’m a woman who likes my hubby to clean—and what we feel might not match.

I’m not only thinking of some men’s conscious or unconscious resistance to childcare or housework, I’m also thinking of some women’s mixed messages and judgmental responses to their spouses when they do try to help.

Many moms feel the pressure of “doing it all”—working in or outside the home, caring for children, taking care of a household, supporting and remaining attractive to spouses—and that pressure can easily morph into shame when the reality hits that we can’t do it all, or at least not for long.

Some men’s shame might, then, be triggered by doing certain types or amounts of childcare/housework that challenge notions of masculinity, or by being asked by wives to help more, which might feel emasculating. Plus, just as women hold themselves to unattainable standards, so too might their spouses, who sometimes judge them for not handling everything child- and house-related.

Likewise, some women’s shame might be triggered by having to ask for help—by admitting they can’t do it all—and by their spouses’ assistance, which those same women might judge harshly if they’re already judging themselves or are concerned about the judgment of others.

I genuinely believe that the men and women who say they want more equitable relationships really do want them. I also believe that what we want and what we act out in daily life don’t always sync up, especially when shame is triggered.

How can we decrease shame’s impact on us as individuals and on our relationships?

A great place to start is to increase awareness of how shame feels and what triggers it, especially around issues that most affect our relationships with spouses and kids.

Most of us experience shame physically. In my case, my throat clenches, I feel nauseous, and I simultaneously feel paralyzed and defensive.

To explore your experience of shame, click to download Brown’s “shame worksheet.” In addition to increasing our shame awareness, Brown suggests 3 tools to reduce shame’s impact, all of which can be explored with spouses (and our older kids):

(1) Contextualize: Shame is often taught or reinforced by social, religious, educational, media, government or other influencers. Recognizing the degree to which our shame is reinforced by larger cultural forces helps us…

(2) Normalize: Shame is a lonely experience, yet we all feel it. Whatever shame categories trigger us, there are many women and men who, also, feel shame in these areas. We’re not alone, which is why it’s important to…

(3) Demystify: Speaking out about shame with those we trust to respect our vulnerability can be supportive, if scary. Plus, it reduces shame’s sting.

Feeling ambivalent about looking at shame? I get it. I do. But we’ll all benefit from considering shame’s impact on us…and our kids. As Brown writes:

“Parenting is a shame minefield. Not only do we hang our self-worth on how we are perceived as parents, but we hang a big part of it on how our children are perceived.”

Unless we decrease shame’s effect on us, we’re poised to pass it on to our kids. Since they’ll get a good dose of it elsewhere (e.g., in school, sports, at a dance), it’s up to us to lessen its impact on our lives. Doing so will benefit everyone, including our spouses and kids.

There’s no shame in that.

* Interestingly, research shows that lesbian and gay couples don’t battle about housework to the degree that straight couples do. Research among lesbian parents indicates that while gay moms argue about childcare, it’s usually about wanting more time with their kids, not more assistance caring for them. See my article on gay and lesbian parenting at
http://bit.ly/h3jERV
.

Saying What We Feel: Sincerity & Trust in Marriage & Parenting

Last week, my wife and I hosted a birthday celebration for my mom. Before our guests arrived, I tried to wrangle my 3 yo out of her PJs and into a party dress. Tried is the operative word.

I smiled brightly as I told S that wearing a dress would be fun. I did my best to make a game out of changing. I promised her she could revert to PJs when guests departed.

As each of my efforts failed, I felt the tug of disappointing my mother who, I knew, would relish seeing S in a party dress. Yet, my wife and I had agreed months ago that it wasn’t worth taking a stand over clothes when S insisted on wearing pajamas to preschool. This was a variation on that theme.

So I sat down on the floor and told S it was fine that she wear her PJs. If you’d asked me at the time, I would have claimed that my words to her were gentle and genuine.

My perceptive daughter promptly sat on the floor next to me and said:
“Don’t be disappointed, Mommy.”

Yikes! While S might not have heard my inner dialogue about disappointing my mother, she sensed that her not wearing a dress = disappointing me. S had pegged my insincerity.

I took a moment to remove my mother from the equation and realized I was fine with S’s PJs. So I thanked her for helping me understand there was no reason to feel disappointed and I apologized for my earlier response. Now, I said, I really did feel fine about her not wearing a dress. I said it like I meant it. S’s smile and hug told me she believed me.

It wasn’t lost on me that I could have easily—perhaps, more easily—resisted S’s comment and claimed that I wasn’t disappointed. But the cost of my denial would have been high.

There have been times in the past when I’ve been on emotional autopilot and told S that everything was fine when that’s not how I felt. Or I’ve contradicted her perception of my mood because it seemed easier to do so, or I didn’t know how I was feeling.

When I’ve negated what S’s finely tuned intuition tells her, not only have I lied to my daughter, I’ve eroded her trust in me. Also, by denying my emotional truth—even if that truth is not being aware of my feelings—I’ve reduced my ability to trust myself.

The more I thought about the dress-interaction with S, the more I realized I’d lapsed into 2 modes that often go hand in hand: insincerity and objectification. My insincerity was obvious: What I said and felt didn’t match.

Objectification happens when we try to get others to do things with little regard for them. I didn’t really care that S preferred PJs; I was intent on getting her into a party dress, on having her play the part of compliant daughter and granddaughter to serve my needs.

I’d turned my child into an object.

Objectification is often combined with insincerity. When we’re treating others in a mechanical way—meaning, when we focus on what we want from them—we often resort to disingenuous tactics, like false compliments or other forms of manipulation.

I’ve learned a lot about the dangers of insincerity and objectification from Leadership and Self-Deception, a business book. Unlikely as it seems, given its corporate focus, this is an excellent book on individual and relationship change. Seriously. Here are 2 quotes:

“No matter what we’re doing on the outside, people respond primarily to how we’re feeling about them on the inside.” 

“Whatever I might be ‘doing’ on the surface….either I’m seeing others straightforwardly as they are—as people like me who have needs and desires as legitimate as my own—or I’m not….One way, I experience myself as a person among people. The other way, I experience myself as the person among objects.”

In other words, when we force a smile to cover anger as we try to make spouses help more with housework and childcare, when we utter compliments to inspire sexual intimacy, when we do or say anything that doesn’t match how we’re feeling, or with the unspoken purpose of having others do our bidding, we’re being insincere and objectifying.

Is it any wonder, then, that we don’t get what we want, or when we do that we suspect we’ve sacrificed something important in our relationship to get it?

There are a host of reasons we resort to insincerity and objectification with spouses and kids (and colleagues and everyone else) and, thus, sacrifice trust in the process.

Most commonly:
(1)  We’re unaware that what we say and feel are out of sync;
(2)  We believe masking feelings &/or treating others functionally are how to best get what we want;
(3)  We don’t know how to get what we want without these tactics.

If we’re not aware of what we’re feeling, how can we limit the impact of lying to others and ourselves? 

One approach is an after-the-fact remedy: If spouses or kids challenge what we say we’re feeling, or suggest we might be feeling something we’re not admitting, instead of resisting their perception, take a moment and consider their claims. Literally, pause and do an internal check-in.

If we notice defensiveness or resistance, it’s likely they’ve struck a cord. Consider copping to our internal response. If we’re not sure of our feelings, say so. If we still believe we’re not feeling what others sense, genuinely tell them so.

If insincerity and objectification are the only, or the best, ways we believe we can get others to do our bidding, what’s the alternative? 

This is, of course, a bigger challenge than lack of emotional awareness. One way to shift this dynamic is to admit it to our spouses (and kids, if they’re old enough to discuss it).

In addition to copping to the tactics we sometimes use to get what we want, we can ask them for suggestions on how to better get our needs met, or better navigate differences in what we need and what they need.

Why bother discussing this? Because our family’s trust in us, and our trust in ourselves, is far too precious and central to relationship and individual fulfillment to sacrifice to the convenience of insincerity and objectification.

We deserve our family’s trust. They deserve our trustworthiness.

Moody Relationships: Staying Connected When Postpartum Emotions Pull Us Apart

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece for PlaningFamily.com entitled, “Mood Swings & Relationship Swings During Pregnancy.” My post focuses on helping couples manage the relationship impact of pregnancy mood swings.

These days, my wife and I are all too aware that hormonal mood swings also show-up postpartum. After all, her body has had to adjust rapidly from the hormonal fluctuations of gestation to the demands of lactation. (BTW, our son is 1-month old today!)

Beyond J’s hormones, other factors impact both of our emotions, and affect the mood in our home: e.g., sleep interruptions, exhaustion, our 3 yo daughter’s ups and downs as she tries to integrate a baby brother into her world.

In other words, mood swings rock the boat of our postpartum lives on a regular basis. How can we steer through them with as little relationship and family wreckage as possible? Ask me in a few months!

In the meantime, I want to expand on the suggestions I made in my article for PlanningFamily.com:
(1) Normalize: Whether pregnancy-related, or due to postpartum hormones and sleeplessness, or tied to other daily stressors, emotional shifts are part of the parenting journey. Unless mood swings are truly extreme (which might require medical attention and, in some instances, might also be a subjective determination–see below*), one of the best ways to ease the impact of moodiness on our relationships is to acknowledge and accept that it’s a normal part of life-as-parents, especially when there’s an infant in the house.

(2) Cultivate Patience: Just as it’s important to bring patience to the fore during pregnancy, it remains valuable in the months (and years) after we become parents. Becoming parents and adjusting to our kids’ growing pains at each new phase of development, ensures we’re in a constant state of flux. That flux can create emotional challenges with our spouses, which is where patience comes in, especially postpartum.

(3) Name ‘Em and Tame ‘Em: While we aren’t always aware of our own moodiness, there are times when we feel “Bitchy Bertha” or  ”Frustrated Fred” coming on. Giving our moods silly names and then calling them out to our spouses (and our kids, once they’re old enough to understand) lessens their impact, and empowers us to shift away from them more rapidly.

(4) You Name ‘Em, I’ll Tame ‘Em: It can also be productive to encourage our mates (and older kids) to call them out when they sense our less-than-helpful moods coming on, as long as we keep our sense of humor close at hand and our defensiveness at bay.

(5) Take the Temperature: Given that gauging our own and our spouse’s moodiness can be subjective—what’s good for the goose might not be for the gander (or the other goose in my case)—devoting time for each of us to take the “emotional temperature” in our relationship and household is worthwhile.

Ground rule 1: It’s only worthwhile if neither of us is in “a mood.”
Ground rule 2: We need to agree to accept our spouse’s different temperature reading—especially if it’s much higher or lower—as his/her valid reality. If we both think moodiness is running hot and agree that lowering the emotional temperature is a good idea, consider asking each other these questions (if only one of you is concerned about what’s happening, then the one who’s not can ask the same questions):

What’s important to you about changing our emotional climate?

How do you think we can start to shift the climate while still respecting each other’s emotional realities?

Mood swings on the part of one or both spouses can definitely affect our relationships, especially during the haze of postpartum life. That’s why it’s worth finding ways to ease their impact on our connection with each other, and to shift away from them more quickly.

* For the purposes of this article, mood swings refer to “normal” emotional shifts that don’t require medical attention. If your emotional state, or shifts in your moods, feel extreme to you or to those who spend a great deal of time with you, please consult a medical/health professional.

What’s a Parenting Team? Part 1 of Rhona’s interview with Parents with Angst

My son was born last week, weighing in at an impressive 8 lbs, 15 oz. Suffice it to say that we’re in lockdown mode and my brain is barely functioning at half-mast. Long way of saying, no new post this week, but that doesn’t mean no new content for you to read.

A couple of weeks ago I gave an interview to Parents with Angst, a wonderful resource by Harold Stephan and Amelia Gewirtz, who also happen to be an incredibly talented singing duo. They’ve divided our chat into two segments, the first of which focuses on the concept of a parenting team, on domestic roles, and the concept of “deep democracy.” You’ll find Part 1 of the interview here.  I also encourage you to download one of Harold and Amelia’s songs (see right column on their site).

The Business of Marriage: Money, Relationships and Parenting

I recently read an article by Liz Weston, a personal-finance writer, in which she encourages couples to reduce money conflicts by viewing marriage as a business, and a potentially lucrative one at that.

Weston cites a study out of Ohio State University that found that those who stayed married built nearly twice the net worth as those who remained single. While marriage is a financial boon, divorce is not. On average, post-divorce net worth is about 77% of the net worth of a single (never-divorced) person.

Weston argues that marriages would do better (money- & otherwise) if couples “think more objectively about finances and how they [are] going to handle them.” That’s great advice. Yet, I’ve noticed two things about parents, myself included:

(1) How we save and spend money before we have kids sometimes differs from how we do so after kids arrive.

The pendulum can swing either way: Spouses who were savers when childless sometimes spend like freewheelers on kids, while those who were financially flexible before having children sometimes horde pennies and nickels as parents. These shifts in spouses are unremarkable, unless they contrast with our own money styles, in which case they can spark arguments.

(2) Even if our spouse’s money habits stay the same after we become parents, our attitudes about them sometimes change (meaning, worsen).

The financial behaviors we once found acceptable, or slightly troubling, in mates can become major issues, and sources of ongoing conflict, after we have children.

Parents who cite money as among their Top 5 relationship challenges would be wise to deal with financial conflicts sooner than later. Why rush to do so?

A compelling study out of UCLA found that money conflicts are uniquely toxic to relationships. The challenge posed by money—and related issues like spending, salaries, savings, or expenses—is that couples who argue about money spend more time, on average, fretting about these issues than they do on other topics.

Even more than other issues,e.g., housework, money-conflict is both highly recurrent (it comes up a lot) and often deferred (we shove it aside a lot). The study’s primary author, Lauren Papp, claims that because money problems take more time and effort to resolve than other relationship issues, the frequency with which money-conflicts arise, and are shelved, erodes our relationships.

So how do we best pay the piper, so to speak, in service of our relationship’s financial issues? One approach is to discuss our attitudes about spending (and spending on children), with particular attention to the ways in which our perspectives are in sync with, or a contrast to, how we were raised.

When persistent money arguments prompted my wife and me to broach our differing toy-buying styles—minimalist in my case, generous in hers—we discovered that I was unconsciously repeating how I was raised, while she was reacting against her upbringing.

Neither approach was wrong, but our autopilot behaviors meant that our spending contrasts turned into arguments. By understanding where each of us was coming from, we began to appreciate each other’s our toy-buying style of choice and the importance of our divergent philosophies.

Because we tried to hear each other out and understand each other’s perspectives, we now do our best to find a toy-buying mid-ground. That mid-ground not only includes negotiations on toy-quantities, but also toy-costs. Plus, while we’d prefer our new approach to be a done-deal, turns out we need to revisit it regularly, e.g., on birthdays and holidays, to ensure we stay aligned.

For those of us who are less than keen on compromising our spending patterns, the results of a recent study from Brigham Young University might offer habit-shifting inspiration.

The study found that when one or both spouses are very materialistic in attitude or expectation, they boast more financial problems and reduced relationship satisfaction. What’s unique about this study is that it focused less on spending habits and more on attitudes about money.

Financial and marital problems are as impacted by how we think about finances as by the ways in which we spend money.

Like other habits, shifting how we think about money, and the acquisition of stuff, isn’t easy. But the pressure to buy stuff for ourselves or our kids (which often means working harder to pay for that stuff) means some parents not only put relationship satisfaction at risk, we also lose sight of life’s non-material pleasures, like emotional connection and enjoying the moment.

Bottom line: If our relationships suffer from disagreements about money, we owe it to our marriages and our families to get down to business and resolve our financial issues. If we don’t, we’ll all pay the price sooner or later.

Relationship Intimacy and Connection: How Can Parents Get Some?

According to psychologist, John Gottman, the 2 main reasons that couples divorce are: (1) High levels of conflict; and (2) Loss of intimacy and connection. In other words, intimacy and connection contribute to relationship happiness.

For some of us, intimacy is less about what we do with each other and more about how we are with each other; for others, intimacy is closely related to sex. Yet, if sex can enhance intimacy (and intimacy can enhance sex), when busy parents look for ways to connect, finding the time and energy for sex is just one of our options.

In the National Survey of Marital Strengths (2008), a study that polled more than 50,000 respondents, none of the Top 10 Strengths of Happy Couples mention sex specifically. Yet at least 3 point to intimacy and connection:

#1 I am very satisfied with how we talk to each other.
#2 We feel very close to each other.
#6 I am completely satisfied with the amount of affection from my partner.

What does the #1 strength—I am very satisfied with how we talk to each other—have to do with intimacy? According to the study’s authors, David Olson and Amy Olson-Sigg, “communication and intimacy are closely interrelated.” Olson and Olson-Sigg go a step further and claim that the one communication skill paramount for building and sustaining intimacy is listening.

In other words, the best way to talk to each other might be finding the best way to listen to each other. Here are two quick tools to improve listening skills:

(1)  Put the kibosh on interrupting and before jumping in during an intense conversation, ask: “Are you finished speaking?”
(2)  Get curious and practice open-ended questions. Those that invite more than yes, no or maybe as a response. Open-ended questions start with what or how: e.g., “What’s important to you about that? “How can we resolve this?”

The #2 strength—We feel very close to each other—speaks directly to intimacy and connection. Like so many other experiences, though, what makes us feel close to our spouses can be subjective. Consider asking each other:

What verbal or physical experiences help you feel close to me?
What verbal or physical experiences work against you feeling close to me?
If there were 1 thing I could do to increase our closeness, what would it be? 

Like closeness, the 6^th strength—I am completely satisfied with the amount of affection from my partner—is more about individual than shared preferences. Ask each other:

How do you define affection?
What are your favorite ways to give affection?
What are your favorite ways to receive affection?

If the answer is sex, inquire:
What sexual acts feel most affectionate to you?
Which ones don’t feel affectionate?
In addition to sex, what other kinds of affection do you like?

The goal isn’t to agree with each other, but to get to know each other’s likes and dislikes. If we’re keen on connecting, the answers give us a heads-up on enhancing closeness and affection in line with our spouse’s desires, not just our own.

Interestingly, when it comes to sexuality, the #1 strength of happy vs. unhappy couples is I am completely satisfied with the affection from my partner. Put another way, affection and sexual satisfaction are intimately connected.

Certainly, there are other factors that impact relationship happiness when it comes to sexuality: e.g., feeling sexually fulfilled and satisfied, thinking our spouses don’t use or refuse sex unfairly, believing our spouses are sexually interested in us, and not worrying that spouses will cheat. We can definitely work on any or all of these areas to enhance our connection (sexual and otherwise) with our mates.

But when time and energy are at a premium, when we need to pick and choose among options for connecting with spouses, these approaches might just be our best bet:

Explore and increase closeness with each other.
Listen well, and listen more, to each other.
Explore and increase affection with each other.

Mars, Venus & the Galaxy: The Power of Differences for Marriage & Parenting

I attended a Bat Mitzvah recently at which the Cantor shared words of wisdom about peace. Peace, he proclaimed, is desired by all people, in all nations. Problems arise not because we don’t want peace, but because we each define it according to personal, cultural, religious, or other differences; same word, contrasting meanings.

Instead of subjective notions of peace, Cantor Maseng offered a more universal concept: True peace, he said, is about wholeness, and wholeness is only possible when we bring all our diversity, all our differences together. It’s easy to be at peace with those who agree with us; true peace is about connecting with those who don’t.

What does world peace have to do with marriage and co-parenting? When I work with couples, I always mention the importance of mutual understanding up front:

Mutual understanding is a major ingredient in relationship satisfaction and successful co-parenting. Understanding isn’t the same as agreeing; instead, it’s about getting curious about our differences, accepting them, and working with, not against, them.

In other words, relationship happiness depends on world peace at a micro-level. Understanding others’ differences can be difficult. Many, if not most, of us grew up in a family, community, country and/or world in which differences are grounds for intolerance and conflict, not compassion and cooperation. Meaning, while we might want relationship peace, we often define it as sameness. Then, we waste precious time failing to get others to comply with us.

In truth, even more than John Gray’s insistence that men are from Mars and women from Venus, we’re all from different planets. Understanding our spouse is, then, less about embracing presumed gender differences* (a challenge in same-sex relationships), and more about getting curious regarding our spouses’ unique differences from us.

Doing so truly allows us to “keep the peace” in our marriages and invites the wholeness noted earlier: Our relationships can be truly whole—i.e., peaceful, fulfilling and satisfying—not because we’re the same as spouses, or always agree, but because, together, we embrace, respect and work productively with and through our differences.

There’s no simple way to magically understand our spouse, but there are steps we can take to begin to do so. Marita Fridjhon and Faith Fuller, founders of Center for Right Relationship, created a wonderful technique called Lands Work, which starts from the assumption that every individual is like a nation unto ourselves, with our own cultural practices, cuisine, communication style, justice system, import and export policies, etc. While Lands Work doesn’t translate well to the written page, their starting point for the exercise does:

Imagine you’re an ideal tourist, guided by curiosity, openness, exploration, and a suspension of judgment. Now, imagine you’re visiting your spouse’s land as this ideal tourist, eager to learn more about their reality, their priorities and what’s important to them about what they believe, how they act, parent, etc.

If we can truly stay curious with our spouses, and suspend judgment, we can ramp up our understanding and compassion for them and, in turn, work with our differences, even if we don’t agree with those differences. In fact, genuine and sustainable compromises emerge out of mutual understanding.

One of Psychologist Harville Hendrix’s tools for increasing mutual understanding is The Imago Dialogue, which includes 3 steps:

(1)  Mirroring: When you have something important to say to your spouse always use “I” to express it. Your spouse paraphrases what you’ve said and then asks you: “Did I get that right?” Repeat these steps until s/he does get it right. To ground this, Hendrix suggests adding: Is there more? Or: Tell me more. I’d include: Tell me what’s important to you about this?

(2)   Validation: Once you’ve got mirroring down, add comments that indicate what your spouse has expressed makes sense to you, given their logic or priorities or concerns. As Hendrix notes, the idea is “to affirm the internal logic of each other’s remarks.” Here, it’s important to distinguish agreeing from understanding someone else’s logic; you can understand without agreeing.

(3)  Empathy: Hendrix’s final step involves acknowledging the feelings we know, or imagine, are behind our spouses’ remarks. This goes something like: “Given that you think I’ve done such-and-such (or that such-and-such has happened), I’d imagine you’re feeling x,y,z. Is that true?” If you’re wrong, ask: “Then what are you feeling?” And offer empathy for those feelings.

It’s no easy task to retrain ourselves to dialogue in the way Hendrix suggests and, in truth, even if we can learn to master Mirroring we’ll be ahead of the curve in our communication tools and our ability to begin to understand our differences.

If we’re truly committed to being in relationship with each other, we’d benefit by grabbing our passports or mirrors and traveling into our spouses’ experiences, so that we can ensure our teamwork is based on mutual respect and understanding.

Doing so doesn’t guarantee we’ll always end up feeling peaceful or with 50-50 compromises, but it does mean that whatever decisions or actions we make together truly include both our experiences and each of our differences.

* If you’re interested in how gender myths impact our relationships and families, read Same Difference, which teases apart research on which these myths are based.

Leaping into the Unknown…Again: Preparing Our Relationship and Family for Baby #2

My wife, J, is 8.5 months pregnant. She insists that the 0.5 matters when you’re the one carrying the baby, and I believe her. (Then again, as anyone who has lived with a pregnant woman knows, believing/agreeing with her are imperative to everyone’s survival; yes, I’m aware that most of my readers are current or former pregnant moms!)

Both of us have always wanted kids, plural. We’ve held on to that desire, despite my infertility and despite the physical, emotional, and financial demands of J getting pregnant the first time; our fertility doctor still refers to S, our daughter, as a “miracle baby.” We couldn’t agree more.

Like a lot of life decisions, our visions of the future—what we want as much as what we don’t want—play their part. As the youngest of six close siblings, J couldn’t imagine S not having a brother or sister. As a pseudo-only child growing up (don’t ask), I’ve yearned for a sibling who shares my family history. Plus, we’re both in our 40s—well into them in my case (J says she’s not yet well into hers and I believe her)—and we know that, no matter how we slice it, S will be relatively young when we die. While a sibling won’t prevent that, we imagine that sharing that loss will be helpful.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that S and her brother (yes, we’re having a boy) will get along. The focus on sibling rivalry in a lot of parenting books suggest they might not. Yet, we’re optimistic and prefer to believe those studies that indicate that, by their mid-teens and adulthood, if not sooner, most people really value their sibling relationships.

It’s not as if we didn’t talk about the real or imagined downsides of having a second child before J got pregnant again. We discussed: exponentially increased (not just doubled) childcare demands, expanded household tasks (e.g., more laundry!), even less alone time for us individually and as a couple, increased financial demands, more pressure on work-family balance, higher stress on our relationship, and so on.

As a coach who specializes in helping couples stay connected after kids arrive, I’m keenly aware of research on this topic and the fact that most new parents report a major decline in relationship happiness after the birth of their first child.

Interestingly, studies focus overwhelmingly on new parents, leaving the impact of subsequent children mostly to speculation, which often goes something like this: Though we haven’t studied the effect of additional children on relationship satisfaction, we anticipate it’s even stronger (meaning, worse) than with the first.

Those few studies that have looked at the impact of more than one child (e.g., by Arlie Hochschild or Rebecca Upton) reinforce the claim that  >1 child = yikes! Specifically, as Jennifer Bingham Hull, author of Beyond One, notes:

The birth of a second child commences the most difficult year in a marriage.

Individual happiness, too, seems to suffer, at least for moms (not sure if that means double-trouble with two moms). According to Hans-Peter Kohler, a sociologist at University of Pennsylvania, our first baby positively enhances individual happiness for mothers and fathers (especially if dad’s first baby is a boy), while a second child has a negative impact on moms’ individual happiness (and a neutral effect on dads).

Given all of this, plus research that suggests moms’ relationships with their first-born deteriorate after they have a second child, why would we, informed parents and spouses devoted to relationship happiness, still have another child? How did we weigh these compelling negatives against possible positives?

In truth, we didn’t, insofar as life decisions like whether or not to have a 2^nd or 3^rd or 10^th child are leaps of faith (unless, of course, faith is what compels us to have kids).

After all, how can we fully evaluate pros & cons when the outcomes are so unknown?

We won’t truly know how much a second child impacts our relationship satisfaction—negatively or positively—until after our son’s here; we won’t know if our son and daughter build a lifelong connection as siblings until they’re older; we won’t ever really know if our relationship with our daughter suffers due to the birth of our son, given that we won’t be able to gauge how she would have fared developmentally during that same period without his presence….

We’re willing to take these risks because we believe the perceived benefits outweigh perceived downsides. We’re also willing to leap because we’re committed to mitigating at least some risks, like relationship stress by, for example, booking regular date nights as quickly as possible after our son is born.

One of the things I always discuss with expecting couples is the presumption that, no matter how many friends we’ve seen experience relationship trouble after the birth of a child, most of us assume our experience with our spouse will be different.

No doubt, my wife and I are guilty of that, too. But there’s something else at work for us and for all couples who take time to better understand their own desires for growing their families, and the potential risks in doing so:

We’re going into this with our eyes, not just our hearts, wide open. 

Our expectations of what might occur include risks, as well as benefits. Studies by family life researchers, Philip and Carolyn Cowan, suggest that pre-baby expectations—yes, for new parents—are 1 of the top 3 factors affecting a couple’s satisfaction levels after they have a child. In other words, the transition to parenthood is more challenging for those with inaccurate or unrealistic pre-baby expectations.

Hopefully, having somewhat realistic expectations of the impact of a second child will also ease our transition to becoming parents for the second time. At the very least, we hope our perspective will if not lessen the challenges of having another kid, then, allow us to navigate them with some degree of grace, and the knowledge that we’ve chosen our family, risks and all, whole-heartedly. That alone warrants our joy and gratitude.