I finished my book tour for my most recent book, "Love Shrinks: a Memoir of a Marriage Counselor's Divorce", and I was on around fifty radio stations talking about my divorce and divorce in general. My own divorce seemed so idiosyncratic to me that I didn't imagine so many people relating to it, but I found out I was wrong. Many of the listeners said they had divorces that were a lot like mine. They also had no sex for years and a deep attachment despite that. They also had horrible fights and some very good times all the way through. They also had generally bad will and unfailing optimism at the same time. And, many divorce-bound marriages were very different--there was no fighting or the divorce came on suddenly or there was an affair that ruined the marriage. But there was a main core that we all had in common, the marriage-dooming behavior, and I'll explain it here.
As a marriage counselor, I have an important basis for my work that I use with all my couples. I train them to think in threes: What's good for you, what's good for him and what's good for the relationship?
Take the case of the intrusive mother-in-law. She calls at 9 a.m. on Sundays and in the middle of dinner. She must talk to her son four times a day, and she won't take the hint. The wife screams, "It's your mother. It's your problem. Do something now." The husband screams, "Leave me alone. Your mother calls, too." The husband does not want to deal with it or he's afraid to deal with it. The wife does not know why it is so hard for him. She is on "explode" every time the phone rings. He is on the defensive and ready to take cover.
Using my model of "what's good for you, what's good for him and what's good for the relationship," the story would unravel like this: What's good for the wife is to have the husband deal with it. It's his mother. What's good for the husband is to leave it alone--to do nothing. But then you have the third lens: What's good for the relationship? With this lens, the problem must be dealt with as it's causing a lot of fights and tension in the marriage.
Therefore, a third line of inquiry is required. Maybe the wife should call, maybe they should call together, maybe they should go over and talk to the mother, maybe they should agree to do nothing, to leave things as they are...it doesn't matter what they do. The point is that they revisit the problem in a new way and do what is good for that third entity, for the relationship.
When couples think in three's it calls for an entirely new set of behaviors that rely on cooperation. They are acting for the marriage instead of for the individual in the marriage.
This "thinking in threes" is what the talk show listeners and I did not achieve. We didn't do it. Looking back, since I use it in my work, I certainly tried to use it at home. The problem is that both partners require a cooperative spirit. You can do it on your own for a while and your partner may eventually jump in. You should give that a try before throwing in the towel. But you can't have a good, working marriage on your own. Eventually, both of you must think in threes whether you call it that or not.
And that, my friends was my big universal find on my book tour and my big loss in my marriage.