Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. – Page 69 – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

Marriage Advice; Start Here!

https://savethemarriage.com/stmblog/wp-content/themes/corpus/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/669b7e375d93f77521ddaba08adb8063?s=96&d=blank&r=pg August 24, 2009 August 24, 2009

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 24, 2009

Let’s face it: 100% of marriages have difficulties and problems. It is the nature of such a close relationship. Two people living in close proximity are going to have marriage problems. Statistically speaking, about 1/2 of those marriages survive.

What keeps them together? What makes the difference? Is it more than a toss of the coin? Absolutely!

When Greg and Susan came into my office last week, they were trying to decide upon which side of the coin they would land. Should they stay married? Should they divorce?

Both wanted to tell me all about the faults and problems they had during their 11 years of marriage. Frankly, while I politely listened, where they had been was of relatively little interest to me. I was much more interested in where they wanted to get to!

Problem is, Greg and Susan had both decided that the solution to their problems was in their past. They thought that they needed help communicating better. Greg thought Susan was controlling and needed to change. Susan thought Greg was lackadaisical in his approach to life. More importantly, neither felt loved or appreciated.

So, I decided it was time to stop this cascade of pain and useless dialogue. “Greg, Susan, please stop shooting at each other! You both say you want a good marriage, but I have heard neither of you make a positive contribution to where you want to be!” Greg started to respond, but by the look on his face, I knew he was only going to make a defensive statement.

I stopped him, “Greg, hold on for a minute. I can tell you, if you want to know, what the secret is to saving your marriage, and to not only save it, but have a marriage you can treasure!”

Now I had their attention! My answer was going to be deceptively simple, but would take them a lifetime to work out. I continued, “The secret to a successful marriage is following the 2 ‘C’s.’ Fail in doing that, and you will be in trouble. Follow them, and I promise success.”

Greg and Susan had relaxed a bit, but I could tell they were listening intently. “Now, the 2 ‘C’s’ are not complicated, but they require some action and dedication. But mostly, they require you to do something you already said you would.”

By now, they were looking a bit perplexed. What had they already agreed to?

It was time to let them in on the best marriage advice I could give them. Two simple steps that would lead to a lifetime of happy marriage. I slowly told them about the 2 C’s: “The two pieces of the puzzle are Commitment and Connection. If the two of you accept your commitment to the marriage and work on being connected, you cannot fail!”

Let me say a bit about each. First, Commitment: this is the cornerstone of any marriage. It sets the backdrop to a marriage. In most weddings, we promise to stay committed to our spouse, regardless of what the future holds. So the first C is just following through on that promise. Even when things are tough, we rely on having made that commitment. That means we are faced with working it out when there are difficulties. After all, a lifetime commitment requires resolution.

Second, Connection: this is what keeps us wanting to be married. Commitment keeps us married. Connection is the joy. Nurturing connection is a daily activity. It is partly mental — thinking about a marriage and a spouse in loving and respectful ways. It is partly action — finding ways to carve space out during the day to connect and reconnect. This is where our priorities show. If we cannot make time to be connected (even 15 minutes per day!), then our marriage is clearly not at the top of our priorities.

Greg and Susan left the office more relaxed, recommited to working on the relationship, and with some thoughts on how each might work on connection.

What can you do today to deepen the commitment or the connection?

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

“How Dare You Tell Me To Save My Marriage!”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 19, 2009

. . . that was the opening line from an email I just received. The writer was clearly angry, feeling that I was pressuring her into saving her marriage.

So let me be clear, I DO NOT pressure people into trying to save their marriages. Obviously, I do think that marriages should be saved, but I leave the decision to do that with the couple. I am not on some crusade to save every marriage. I am, however, available to help people who want to save their marriages.

There are some who simply believe marriage is a bygone relic of past days. Those folks tend to be people justifying their behavior. Marriage has withstood the test of time as a way of 1) raising a family, 2) finding intimacy, 3) growing and developing, and 4) finding happiness and meaning. Not every marriage makes it that far, but the potential is there.

Should every marriage be saved? No, I am quite clear that I do not think people in abusive relationships should save their marriage. That said, the choice to discard a marriage seems to be taken very lightly these days. It is as if there are no consequences.

Yet study after study shows that children are negatively impacted by divorce. Earlier studies showing differently have been disproven.

The emotional toll on the couple is huge. In time, people do recover, but not without time and effort. That same time and effort would likely have yielded a happy marriage. Funny how that works out!

Financially, a divorce can be devastating. The average cost of divorce in the United States? $20,000. That is the average. Saving a marriage? Almost free!

Oh, and that doesn’t factor in the loss of equity in real estate, worth of retirement funds, loss of savings, child support, maintenance, and lots of other costs that people seem to lose sight of on the way out the door.

Do I force people to save their marriages? Absolutely not! Do I think MANY marriages that end could be saved? Absolutely!

Again, it is a couple’s choice on whether to work to save a marriage. I just know that when people are in pain, we become short-sighted and take what we think is the most direct approach to getting rid of the pain. Unfortunately, it often gets us to chase the wrong target.

If you want to know how to save your marriage, count me in. If you’d rather not, I wish you well.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

My Rough Trip. . . And What It Means To Your Marriage!

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 11, 2009

Last week, I headed out to Denver for a professional meeting. I left on last Tuesday. Now, I live in Louisville, Kentucky. As you may or may not have heard, last Tuesday a storm of rather historic proportions hit Louisville, dumping between 6 and 8 inches of water in an hour. It continued to rain throughout the day. The storm hit around 8:30am.

Did I mention my flight’s scheduled departure was 8:30am?

The pilot tried to get us out ahead of the storm. He couldn’t. Then, the storm stalled. We (a full plane of people and a cranky flight attendant) spent 3 hours sitting on the runway, unable to go back to the gate (the jetway broke) and unable to leave.

Needless to say, the emotions on the plane were fairly raw. People were trying to recline their chairs or use their phones early on, which the flight attendant would not allow. This escalated the tense situation. It set the emotional tone for the entire ordeal!

The flight attendant was just trying to do what she was supposed to (and when it became evident that we were not going anywhere, she did relax the rules). Those on board were simply trying to be comfortable.

We all missed our connections when we finally departed. We all were tense on the flight and getting off the flight. We all struggled to get to where we needed to be (it took me an additional 9 hours). I would imagine that many of us were angry.

So why am I bringing this up in a blog about saving marriages? Well, I wanted to be angry. Problem was, I couldn’t figure out who to be angry with. The pilots? They tried to beat the storm. The flight attendant? Cranky, but she didn’t cause the delay. The airline? The flight was not purposely scheduled during a storm. No, there really was no place for my frustration to go. But I still had the energy inside of me, rolling around. I also had plenty of time to let it dissipate without anyone being around to catch it.

But imagine how many times we all are carrying around anger and frustration, with nowhere to aim it, and it becomes misplaced. We take out our frustrations and anger on those closest to us (emotionally and by vicinity), even if they had nothing to do with it. That is misplaced anger.

When that happens, the misplaced anger finds a target, fair or unfair. Then we start justifying the anger at that person. While waiting in line to rebook (if this happens to you, call reservations. Trust me. It saved me an hour in line), I heard person after person take it out on the customer service folks. They had nothing to do with the weather, but they sure caught the frustrations!

Too bad we are less prepared to simply let go of anger that is misplaced. Too bad our wiring tends for us to hold onto that energy, looking for a target. That is how our biology and our brain works.

Good thing we have a mind that can keep working to find calm and to let go of the anger! Good thing that we get to choose our response!

During the trip, my daughter texted me and asked how I was doing. I told her that I was choosing to be aware that I was where I was, there was nothing I could do, and that I was OK with that. She asked me how that was going. I told her that every once in a while, I actually believed it! 🙂

Being angry or frustrated is not the problem. The problem is when we allow those feelings to be misplaced, and it causes harm to relationships we treasure. Next time you find yourself frustrated by work, traffic, whatever, remember to pause and make sure you are aiming at the right target!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Do You WANT Your Marriage, Or Are You Playing Tug-Of-War?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

July 31, 2009

I spend a good portion of my week responding to consultation emails and working with clients. This week, I had two cases that reminded me of a very important fact: we all have a tendency to play tug-of-war.

Let me explain with a personal example. A couple of years ago, I was at a conference. In the afternoon session, we were asked to turn and face another person, and place our arms in an arm wrestling position.

The instructions were simple: touch each others’ hand to the table as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

For the next minute, everyone in the room engaged in a strenuous match of arm wrestling. Few people got their count above 10, and that was mostly because of a mismatch in size and strength!

Then, the leaders pulled out a table and put their hands in position, but they cooperated! Each took turns having their hands hit to the table, and they were able to get over 90 touches in! They had given us the directions, but we were already poised to arm wrestle!

Now, back to saving marriages. When a spouse decides that he or she wants out, a tug-of-war can be set up. Our natural tendency is to pull in the opposite direction. In other words, they pull away, we pull toward the relationship!

So, this week, one woman told me how hard she was working to save her marriage. She also told me her husband had already had not one, not two, but three affairs! I suspect there were others! I told the woman that she needed to pause for a moment, and instead of trying to figure out how to save the marriage, she needed to ponder another question. She needed to decide on whether she could continue in a marriage with a philanderer. She suddenly realized that she could not do that.

The very next day, a woman started telling me about all her attempts to save her marriage, then noted the affair and abuse she had suffered through with her husband. Again, I got her to pause in her marriage-saving strategy and ask whether she wanted to have the marriage she was in. She is still thinking.

My point is this: are you just trying to save a marriage, or do you want that marriage? I am all about saving marriages, but I am also about having a marriage you want to have. Don’t get caught up in saving a marriage, and fail to see that if you did save it, you wouldn’t want it! Instead, focus on saving a marriage AND making it a marriage you can treasure!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Question: “What If I Don’t Feel Love?”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

July 21, 2009

A while back, I wrote a post about two feelings necessary in a marriage. It has gathered several comments. One was a question that was a bit off the subject, but very relevant. I decided to make the question and my response a separate post. First, the question:

“Hi Lee,

I ran across your site totally randomly while feeling desperate about my marriage. My wife and I are in counseling right now and have been off and on with counselors for the last year.

I don’t want to be in this marriage. (No there is no one else, no affair, etc.). There’s more here than I can explain so let me just get to my question or thought.

How can I help what I feel? Because I am religious, I am told that feelings don’t matter. So it doesn’t matter if I don’t want to have sex with her ever and I don’t want to be in the marriage and I don’t feel like I love her anymore. Love’s not a feeling it’s a commitment. That’s what I hear all the time. But trying to have sex with someone you don’t want to have sex with is awful. Saying I love you when you don’t feel it seems hypocritical. This has been going on for years. But if feelings don’t matter, then what else is there to do?

I feel lost and confused!

Thanks”

And my response:

Thanks for the questions!

First, let me be clear that in this post, I am talking about two specific feelings (feeling wanted and feeling accepted). I am not addressing the feeling or emotion of love.

I do not agree that feelings are unimportant, and there is only commitment. I do believe, however, that commitment should lead the day. Feelings are an important part of the relationship.

But feelings come and go. Commitment is the glue that holds the relationship together. “Love” is choosing to love someone, not just a feeling. I cannot create emotions, as you note. But I can choose to act lovingly when the emotions aren’t there.

And I can work on what is getting in the way of emotions. Often, what is getting in the way is one of several possibilities:
1) Anger and resentment built up over time, and not addressed.
2) Not staying connected, and therefore allowing the initial feelings to abate.
3) Someone else drawing attention away.

The solution depends on the problem. If there is built up anger and resentment, then it is necessary to deal with those feelings (which is why I have addressed this specifically in my system).

If it is about disconnection, then there is a need to reconnect (again, I cover this in the system).

If it is someone else, then it is important to stop that relationship. First, it is a violation of the vows you made. Second, relationships built on deceit are unlikely to survive. And third, you can’t resolve the situation with someone else present.

Are feelings worthless? Absolutely not! But feelings and emotions are fickle. They come and go. The marriage vows are built on commitment through thick-and-thin. We don’t make a promise to “love as long as I feel that emotion.” We promise to love through good and bad times, up and down times, healthy and sick days. . . there is not much left!

We make those vows because we know the emotion will not always be there, so we promise to work through that.

The question, then, is how to work through them!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Four “You’s” Could Save Your Marriage

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 19, 2009

Just a couple weeks ago, one of my clients gave me a bit of business advice that’s been directly applicable to saving a marriage. I wanted to share it with you.

My client, who is a businessperson, was telling me that there are four important “you’s” that are crucial for a business. They are crucial for any relationship. And they can be used in your marriage, starting today.

Here are the four “you’s:”
1. “How are you?”
2. “What can I do for you?”
3. “Thank you.”
4. “I appreciate/love you.”

Those are the crucial four “you’s.” Do you see the power in them? Do you see how you could use them in your marriage? Do you see how those are not happening in your relationship?

What would happen, if you don’t already do this, to have a conversation in the evening about how your spouse is doing? I don’t mean the quick “how are you?” I mean really wondering how your spouse is doing. I mean sitting on the back porch and asking how your spouse is really doing. How often does this happen for you? If you’re like most people, especially with troubled relationship, that conversation did not happen.

Or, what about asking what you can do for your spouse? Oftentimes, when relationships get into trouble, couples instinctively stop doing for each other. In good times, you may ask about what your spouse might like, what you could do for him or her. But when things get tough, the question often falls by the wayside. We start thinking “if you don’t do for me, I won’t do for you.”

Yet that is exactly what might get the relationship moving forward. When one spouse makes some forward motion toward the other spouse, often he or she responds in a similar manner. It might not happen the first time, but that does not mean you don’t do it again. In fact, you keep doing this one. As long as it takes!

Or how about. “Thank you?” Again, when the relationship is not well, this is something that we often stop saying. In fact, we stop even noticing that our spouse is doing doing anything for us. That only compounds the problem. When we stop noticing, people stop acting. So, in addition to doing for your spouse, look for what your spouse is doing for you. Then thank him or her.

The final “you” is about letting your spouse know that you appreciate him or her. You may not be ready to use the word “love” at this point, but can you let your spouse know what you appreciate about him or her? When marriages get into trouble, one thing that happens is that we feel completely unappreciated. We start acting in ways that continue that. In other words, if I don’t feel appreciated, don’t do anything to be appreciated. So, this one is letting someone know that they are appreciated.

By letting someone know this, the other person might begin to act in more appreciative and appreciable ways. At the very least, he or she will know that you are noticing what he or she is doing.

Many marriages could be saved simply if the other person felt appreciated and loved. The four questions can easily move you in that direction. Make it your habit to use these questions.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Marriage Is Tough

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 12, 2009

“Marriage shouldn’t be that hard.” That was the opening comment of my client this week. He was convinced that his marriage was doomed. He believe it was because his marriage had become difficult. He believed that this should not be the case.

I had to chuckle. Marriage is the most intense relationship that any two adults will have in their life. There’s no way around it. Two people living together that intensely, making decisions together, having sex together, making decisions together, and doing everything else that married couple do are going to have difficulties. No way around it.

I turned to him and said “why do you say that?” He told me he just figured that marriages should just work. They shouldn’t be hard work, and when there are problems, they should just be able to be solved instantly. Now, I don’t generally laugh at my client, but it was all I could do to hold back the laughter, and only let out a chuckle. “You have got to be kidding,” I said. “Marriage is tough, whether it is in good times or bad, marriage is tough.”

I continued on for a second, “every single marriage has problems, the question is whether you work through them out or not. It is not a question of whether you will have problems.” You see, I really believe that every marriage is destined to have difficulty. That is just the way it is. Statistically speaking, half of those couples will choose not to work on their problems. About half will find a way to deal with the problems. That does not mean that there were no problems, only that they discovered how to deal with the problem.

“Come with me,” I said my client. I walked my client to the window. We looked out onto the parking lot. I pointed to car and said “is that yours?” “Yes,” he said, “that’s my car. Looks pretty nice doesn’t it?” I had to admit, it with a pretty nice car. It looked like it was well taken care of. I asked, “did you just grab the car, or did you do some research? Did you, when you were getting ready to buy it, maybe buy a car magazine? Did you look up the price on the Internet, maybe even did you research on what other people thought about the car?”

“Yes, I sure did! I spent months looking at my options. I probably went to the dealer like 10 times.” He chuckled, “my wife was tired of hearing about that car.” So then I asked, “have you had any problems with the car?” My client thought for a second. “Well, yes. It made some funny noises.”

“What did you do?” I asked. He responded, “first, I looked it up on the Internet. Then, I bought a book about the model of car I had. I found out that it was a fairly common problem, and it only needed a little bit of tightening of a couple of bolts to stop it.” I continued, “and did you do it yourself? Or did you take it to the dealer?”

“I took it to the dealer. They are the experts on this.” “So, you didn’t sell the car?” I pushed him. “No. It was just a little problem.” I pushed a little harder, “I’ll bet you would have had bigger problems if you hadn’t fixed it, and let it go on and on.”

“Probably so… Doc, is this about my car or about my marriage?” He had me. He knew I was really talking about his marriage. “How long have you been having problems?” I asked. He thought for a second, then said, “probably four or five years. But we had some of the same problems even before we got married.”

“Did you get a book about marriage? Did you talk to a therapist? Did you go to a seminar? Did you do anything that might address the issues?” I asked. I knew I had him. Just like most people, he had a problem in his relationship, but he didn’t seek good advice. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only people he talked to were his drinking buddies. Not the best place to go for marriage advice.

Marriage is tough. It’s tough because it requires us to set ourselves and our ego aside for the betterment of both of us. In other words, we have to get outside of ourselves, and look at the greater good of both people. That does not mean that one person has to give up everything. But it does mean that it takes looking at the good of the relationship when making decisions.

Someone once said, “You can either be right. Or you can be happy, but you can’t be both.” This is especially true in marriage. If you insist on being right, you both will be miserable. Choose to be happy. And when there is a problem, recognize that is normal, then seek out some help in resolving it.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Overwhelmed by Conflicting Advice???

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 2, 2009

I just received a letter from someone with a great deal at stake: her marriage! Is that a similar situation for you?

Her question was this: she had acted on some advice in other sources, and now she wanted me to help her “mop up the mess!” And what a mess it was. She got the advice from several big “marriage saving” websites. Only problem was, it had made matters worse — MUCH worse!

First, she had gotten some advice to use reverse psychology. Her husband asked for a divorce, so instead of working to shift that, she gave him what he said he wanted. Reverse psychology is to state or suggest the opposite of what you want, assuming the other person will go in the direction you really want.

Imagine saying to a child, “eat your veggies.” That is direct, and the child may refuse. That could lead to a stand-off. Reverse psychology would be: “Susie, no matter what, don’t eat any of those veggies. Don’t even taste them!” Turn your back, and little Susie is scarfing down those veggies!

This may work, at least a couple of times, with a child. It rarely works on adults. More than that, what happened in the particular case I mentioned? She ended up divorced! Tought to save a marriage when you are handing over a divorce!

Strangely, there started to be some conversation and contact as the divorce process went through. So this woman got some more “advice” from the internet. This was supposed to work magic on bringing someone back. In it, you make the other person jealous, make them miss you. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” you might say.

So, the person writing me said she told her husband that there would be no contact for 30 days. This was bewildering to him. But instead of “driving him wild” to be back with her, he decided that she really didn’t want anything to do with him. With that, he began to date others.

With two pieces of careless advice, my client granted a divorce and stopped all contact — ALL IN THE NAME OF SAVING A MARRIAGE!

The moral of this story: never, ever, ever resort to manipulation or trying to make a spouse jealous as a route to marital bliss. Manipulation backfires. In the end, both methods were manipulation. So, if you look at a piece of information and think “that really doesn’t sound right to me” or “that is really not my morals,” don’t choke it down and say “but I guess I’ll try it anyway!” Hold onto your commonsense, even in the midst of a crisis!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Why Do We Drive Each Other Crazy?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

May 20, 2009

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of talking with a couple that I may never see again. The reason I will never see them again is because they are not ready to make a change.

You see, they were caught in “ME mode.”What I mean by that is they were not even able to see outside of themselves. They were not able to see how they were getting in the way of the relationship. Each one pointing the finger at the other. In fact, every conversation quickly went back to “what’s wrong with you.”

I couldn’t see how they could make any changes because they were so caught up in seeing why the other person was wrong. They were never able to see why they were wrong. What a catastrophe! I couldn’t believe that we couldn’t go even 30 seconds without one pointing the finger at the other end telling me how right he or she was and how wrong the other person was!

You see, even therapist get frustrated sometimes! I played referee for an entire hour! At the end of the time, I suggested that each one needed to decide whether they wanted to really make any changes, or just point out the faults of the other person.

Sadly, this couple could probably fix their marriage with little effort… IF they were willing to see that each one had fault. I just needed a little room. I didn’t need any major changes. All that needed to happen was for one or the other to decide that it was not just the other person’s fault.

So why do we drive each other crazy? Why are marriages so difficult? Because we are rarely honest with our spouse. More than that, we are rarely honest with ourselves. Over time, everyone of us builds up resentments. Over time, few of us share our resentments. Each one may be very small, but if you add them up, you’ve created a tinderbox that leads to marital distress, frustration, and ignited of anger.

I am not suggesting that we have to tell our spouse everything that is on our mind. In fact, that would be quite destructive to the relationship. However, we often refuse to even tell the few things that could make a real difference in our marriage. In this case, the man simply wanted to feel like he was liked. Oddly, his wife did like him. She just didn’t express it in ways that he recognized. Tragic!

For her side, she kept waiting for him to tell her exactly what he was upset about. Why didn’t he? Because in his family, the rule of thumb was to not fight, not argue, and not tell what you wanted. Her family? They fought it out, argued it out, and told you exactly what they wanted.

Two different families, two different roles. And spouses the didn’t talk about it. In fact, didn’t even recognize it. Now, a marriage is about to end because both people think they are correct, and are definite that the other is wrong.

My advice? First, couples need to get in the habit of talking about the little difficulties. We wait until they build up, they suddenly become very personal, very painful, and almost always intractable.

Second, we humans are a lot like animals. At least in how we train each other. If behavior gives us something that we want, we keep doing it! For example, my dog is one big Labrador retriever. His head can easily rest on our table. Every now and then, my son lets a piece of cereal fall out of his bowl and onto his placemat. It only took a couple of times for my dog to realize that he got a treat as soon as my son left the table. Now, it is very hard to keep my dog away from the table.

When we humans get rewarded for “bad behavior,” in other words, when our painful actions towards others gets rewarded, we tend to repeat the behavior, even if it hurts the other person. In fact, we often fail to see that it hurts the other person.

Couples train each other in what behavior works and what behavior doesn’t work. Be careful in how you train your spouse. For example, with the couple I saw yesterday, when she pouted, he came to the rescue. But the difference between pouting and looking angry is very slight. Over time, her pout began to look like anger to him. From then on, she was pouting for attention, and he was feeling rejected.

Would either believe me if I told them about this? After about an hour of trying to convince them, I can tell you that neither one will believe what I’m saying. They have already made up their minds.

Third, one thing that is often missing in a marriage is our attempt to not just understand but to accept our spouse. All of us have our faults, and when we forget that, our spouse has a hard time living up to our expectations. Suddenly, all we can see are their faults.

So, the threat is in expecting perfection in our spouse, or seeing only fault. So here’s the conundrum: we want to be accepted for who we are, but we have a hard time offering that to our spouse. “ME mode”is probably the most destructive pattern in any marriage. When we get caught up in ourselves, we forget the other. Marriage is all about WE. Remember that, and you have increased the likelihood of success in your marriage a hundredfold.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

What Feeds An Extramarital Infatuation?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

April 24, 2009

Yet another person sitting in my office, trying to explain why his marriage was doomed for failure, and his “new love” was right!

“Greg” is a good guy. He is successful, nice, well spoken. . . by all external accounts, he’s got it all. His wife of 18 years stays home and raises their two kids. Who would know that Greg is ready to “chuck it all,” as he told me?

You see, part of Greg’s job requires him to travel internationally. He loves the new places he gets to see, and for years, that has been the extent of his travels. But last year, Greg spent a good deal of time in Spain.

While there, he met someone. He didn’t mean to, but he did. They were working together and really hit it off. At first, she just offered to show him the sites of her town. Those afternoon trips eventually led to evening dinners. Soon, Greg was spending weekends touring Spain, but with his new “friend.” Eventually, they “crossed the line,” to use his euphemism. I would argue that a line was crossed WAY before then!

Now, Greg has a problem. He is back in the states, but his “heart is in Spain,” to tell it like he does. He finds himself thinking about this other person constantly. He told me “I hate to call it love, but that’s what it feels like.”

I don’t call it love. I call it infatuation. And Greg has fallen into a trap. It is a trap that is insipid and dangerous.

Affairs don’t just happen. And contrary to what some claim, it is not “just about the sex.” It is about the emotional and physical charge that is a part of infatuation.

I honestly don’t know if Greg’s marriage will survive this, not because it couldn’t but because Greg is lying to himself. . . and he doesn’t even know it!

Our brain plays tricks on us, and Greg’s is fooling him. We like to have everything “make sense,” even if from the outside, there is no sense to it. We like to find evidence that supports what we are doing. Social psychologists tell us that we, as humans, do not tolerate “cognitive dissonance” very well.

Cognitive dissonance is when we try to hold two mutually exclusive ideas in our heads at the same time. For example, pretty much everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. But people still smoke. A smoker has to hold two ideas, “smoking is bad” and “I like to smoke” in their head at the same time. To do this, smokers have to rationalize, look for “confirmation bias” (some piece of information that makes it OK, thank you Tobacco Industry!), or some other way of justification.

Greg is no different. His cognitive dissonance? “I am married,” and “I like this other person.” How will he solve this? Well, like many others who have been unfaithful, Greg relies on two justifications at the same time: “idealization” and “demonization/devaluation.”

First, idealization. Greg is idealizing this other person. Fact is, he is alone, in a beautiful and romantic location, and has no emotional baggage with this other person. That is a setup for problems. If nothing else, reality TV has demonstrated that strong feelings of attraction can be generated between people, given the right location and circumstances.

And Greg got sucked right into that one! He has idealized the other person so much that he has constructed an unrealistic picture of what life would be like with her. A life of sightseeing, sex in hotels, and seeing each other only at their best is not real life. It is not being tired after work, dealing with children, paying bills, seeing the mess someone leaves in the bathroom, or any other real encounter.

So, Greg has idealized this other person. He admits that. But it is harder to see that he as demonized and devalued his wife. Sure, they have disagreements. Welcome to 100% of married couples! But Greg has forgotten that. He now sees the disagreements of proof-positive that they are not meant for each other. Greg’s wife doesn’t meet all his needs. Again, welcome to marriage! But Greg takes the next step and begins to only see the faults. He fails to see the love his wife does show. He forgets about all the ways they have woven their lives together.

Once both sides are activated, idealization and demonization, recovering a marriage is very difficult. It requires complete and total cut-off from the other person (infatuation does go away). It also requires being open to seeing the love and connection that really are there.

Most of all, it requires commitment to work through the issues. That is what I am waiting for. Will Greg “step up to the plate” and honor his commitment, or will he continue to fool himself? Time will tell.

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