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Does Marriage Counseling Work?
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Each year, many thousands of couples go to marriage counseling all over the world.  But does marriage counseling work?

That’s the big question, isn’t it?  People go, pay for help, and hope they are going to receive it.

For the past quarter of a century, I have been working with couples to save and improve their marriage.  I was trained as a marriage therapist.  And for the first few years, I worked hard to help couples.  But when I looked around, I became disturbed.  Marriages were still failing.  People were not improving their relationship.

So, I started looking at the research.  The research that asked that very question, “does marriage counseling work?”

What Does the Research Say?  Does Marriage Counseling Work?

Well, the research found in various journals is pretty clear.  In many studies, marriage counseling was found to be one of the least helpful versions of therapy.

Roughly, 50% of couples who went to marriage counseling still ended up divorced.  That matches the statistics for marriage, in general.  More than that, 25% reported being worse-off after therapy than before.  And only 15-18% reported any improvement in their relationship.

So imagine going to a doctor and having the doctor say “You need a procedure.  The mortality rate is 50%.  There is a 25% chance that you will be worse off after the procedure.  And really, there is only a 20% chance that it will help.”  Would you be rushing out to have the procedure?

I would not be ready to jump in.

Why Doesn’t Marriage Counseling Work?

The Therapist Issues

To be sure, there are caring and gifted therapists everywhere.  In my experience, therapists are really wanting to help.  There is no question that almost all therapists are committed to helping.  Many, though, do not have the tools or training to help.

More than that, many couples enter marriage counseling when they are absolutely at the end of the relationship.  What might have been a slight “course correction” in the early days of the problem, has become major surgery on a near-death victim.  Sometimes, too much damage is done.

But the reality is that many therapists have not made the necessary shift in process to be helpful in a marriage.  Therapy is an excellent tool for individual growth and development.  And in individual therapy, the therapist knows exactly who the client is — which can be a bit more confusing when there are two “clients.”  The therapist is trained to respond to the individual.  And without a paradigm shift or specific training, the therapist becomes less clear about the client.

So part of the reason why marriage counseling often doesn’t work is a matter of perspective and training.

Also, many therapists have long bought into the idea that communication is the issue.  The goal becomes helping a couple to communicate better.  But communication helps very little if there is a great deal of animosity and misperception between the couple.  Clearing the misperceptions and creating the connection is much more important.

The Couple Issues

Part of the problem comes from the couple.  Here, a number of factors affect the outcome.

First, many times, one person drags the other person into the process.  The resistant spouse is reluctant to enter into the process.  And with only half of the relationship, at best, joining the process, the potential for healing in therapy drops drastically.

Second, in this culture of experts, we are used to having someone else do the “hard work.”  A doctor is responsible to figure out what is wrong with you and give you a treatment.  And we seem to prefer a treatment that is easy for us.  For example, while exercise is helpful in many health problems, most patients will choose to pop a pill rather than take a walk.

We are used to an expert giving us an easy solution. And when we leave it to the therapist, we remove our own responsibility to take action.

Couples who are waiting for the therapist to fix their problem, whether this is a conscious or unconscious desire, place the burden on a therapist.  When this happens, at the end of unsuccessful therapy, the couple says, “Well, we tried marriage counseling and it didn’t help.”  They never realize that they failed to take action or responsibility.

The medical model of care is changing.  Patients are, more and more, partnering with their doctor.  Patients look for information to help understand the problem and treatment.  The same proactive approach would benefit couples counseling.

When Does Marriage Counseling Work?

Marriage counseling does work for many people.  There are several ways that any couple can increase the likelihood of counseling helping.

First, couples should take the time to find the right fit with a therapist.  If I am having brain surgery, I am simply wanting the best surgeon for that surgery.  After all, I will be asleep while the doctor is working.  But therapy is based in relationship.  When the therapist/client relationship is not good, the couple will simply resist the best efforts of the therapist, even if the advice is in the couple’s best interest.

Second, couples should ask about training.  Is it specialized in marriage counseling?  And how does the therapist understand the client?  Does the therapist understand that the client is really the relationship?  Any other idea misses the point.

Third, couples should take full responsibility for their outcome.  The best therapist cannot help a couple that refuses to take action.  And sometimes, the worst therapist can’t stop a motivated couple from getting better.

Couples who work on their relationship, find information that is helpful, and take full responsibility for getting their marriage unstuck are likely to benefit the most from therapy.

Alternatives to Marriage Therapy

There are a number of other options, rather than just marriage counseling.  Couples can attend retreats and workshops.  Couples may find it helpful to work with a Relationship Coach.  Other couples can find help in home study courses, books, and other resources.

If your marriage is in trouble, there is no reason to see marriage counseling as your only option.  Even if you both choose to enter into therapy, be sure that you take responsibility for building something great.

Many couples have found my Save The Marriage System to be an excellent replacement for marriage counseling or an adjunct to therapy.

Let me invite you to grab my program and get started saving your marriage.

Save Your Marriage: End Limiting Beliefs
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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“What can I do?,” cried Sharon, “I can’t do anything!  I don’t even know where to start!  I want to save my marriage, but he refuses to even think about it.”  And with that, Sharon launched into a discussion that lasted at least 25 minutes, telling me why nothing could be done, why her marriage was a lost cause, and how she was useless.

After several attempts to slow down the avalanche of hopelessness, I finally got Sharon’s attention:  “Okay, so there is nothing you can do.  This is helpless.  And your marriage is over.  Is that correct?,” I asked.  Sharon, looking out through tearful eyes, blurted “Yes!  It is useless!”

“Then why are you here?,” I implored.  “You know I work to help people save their marriages.  So my guess is you have some hope.”

“Hope, no.  Maybe wishful thinking,” Sharon replied.

“Well,” I noted, “your first problem IS your thinking, but it is not particularly wishful.  You already have placed limits on yourself.  You have very limiting beliefs.  And that is your first problem.”

Sharon had no idea what a limiting belief was, and had less understanding on what it mattered.  So I explained.

save your marriageWhat are Limiting Beliefs?

Below our conscious thinking, we have a built in group of beliefs that actually form and create our thoughts.  They are filters that allow us to see the world in certain ways and blind us to seeing the world in other ways.  Our built-in beliefs flavor our daily life, our thoughts, and our actions in ways that we are only slightly aware.

These beliefs can be aspirational or fearful.  They can be freeing or restraining.  Some beliefs show possibilities and some show limitations.  Most are only partially correct or entirely false.  Your beliefs about how to save your marriage are usually limiting.

Our fearful beliefs are powerful, and dangerous, for one important reason:  they operate invisibly — at least until we identify and name them.  These same beliefs lose their power when daylight is cast upon them.  When they can be examined, they evaporate.

Aspirational beliefs, on the other hand, grow stronger by being seen in the light of day.  They begin to move us in stronger and more powerful ways when they are understood and embraced.

So bringing fearful beliefs into the open destroys them and bringing aspirational beliefs into the open strengthens them.

Which raises the question of why we don’t bring them into the open more often?  First, many people fail to notice these beliefs in operation.  Second, we have to poke around a bit in areas that make us fearful.

But if you want to save your marriage, you need to examine those fearful beliefs and let them go.  They do not serve you!

Think of the limiting beliefs as chains that keep you stuck to the ground, bound to one place.  Think of your aspirational beliefs as freeing — cutting the chains to allow you to fly!  They allow you to shift to new places and new possibilities.

Where Do Limiting Beliefs Originate?

Our limiting beliefs are built over a lifetime.  It is a result of what we witnessed with our caretakers, how we were loved and cared for, how our siblings and friends related to us and us to them, and how other relationships in our lives have progressed.

Here is the interesting thing, and very important to know:  Our Aspirational Beliefs and our Limiting Beliefs (fear-based) are mirror images of each other!

What you most hope for, and what you most fear — mirror images.  You may, for example, hope for a loving and caring, well-connected marriage.  What you fear, then, is a marriage that is unloving, uncaring and disconnected.

This next point is equally important:  when that Limiting Belief is made conscious and examined, the Aspirational Belief grows and the Limiting Belief dims.  It is like the negative side of the mirror steams over and cannot be seen anymore.

Why Limiting Beliefs Can Stop Your Attempts To Save Your Marriage

If you want to save your marriage, you need to be much more clear about your limiting beliefs.  For example, if your limiting belief is that someone cannot truly love you, you will unconsciously rebuff the attempts of somebody trying to love you.  Over time, the other person will tire of trying to prove his/her love.  This makes it even harder to save your marriage, as your spouse has become frustrated with the process.

Or what if you say you want to save your marriage, but you do not believe your marriage can be saved.  Your actions to save your marriage will be short-lived.  You will take some action to save your marriage, become frustrated, reinforce your belief, and give up on your efforts to save your marriage.

In other words, your limiting beliefs will sabotage both attaining the marriage you want, then work against your efforts to save your marriage.

The next posts will point to some common limiting beliefs.

But now it is your turn.  What do YOU see as YOUR limiting beliefs?

The Last Time. . .
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Well, the school year has ended.  My son has completed his Sophomore year of high school.  Next week, he will cross another growth threshold.  He will get his drivers license.

I realized that it was too late.  I missed the last time.  Do you know that feeling?  That realization that you just passed a threshold, and did something for the last time?

What I have realized, time and again, is I pass those points and don’t even realize it until the moment has already passed.  It seems I didn’t even have a chance to savor it.  It passed, and I didn’t see it coming.

The threshold I am talking about, the last time, is not a big one.  Life seems to be made up of lots of little last times (and first times, too).  For many, it would mean little.  But I will miss it.

For the majority of my children’s school careers, I have had the pleasure of taking them to school.  I got to spend a few minutes in the car on the way to school, and got to see them off to the start of their day.

This past year, my daughter left for college.  So after a year of being off the school drop-off duty, I was back on this year.  Just my son and me, and since we live close to school, not even a long trip.

My daughter returned from college, and for the last few days of the school year, I took him to school, then delivered her to her summer job.

That’s when I realized:  my last time to take him to school, just him and me, had passed.  No celebration, no fanfare — he probably didn’t even notice it.  But I did.  Yet another point that I realize that life is shifting and changing.  Next year, he will drive himself.  One more place where a parent moves into obsolescence.

This is not to say that the change is a bad thing.  My son is growing up.  He is branching into the world.  But that is still a loss for me.

So what, you might wonder, does this have to do with someone working to save your marriage?

Sometimes, life races by.  We get desperate to do something out there, in the future.  And in the desperation to get somewhere, we miss where we are.  We lose the daily moments that make life wonderful.

Work on saving your marriage, but remember to savor the moment.  Focus on where you are and what you are doing.  We never know when we are doing something for the last time.  So we can either savor the moment or regret the moments we missed.

A single focus can be a very dangerous thing.  And nothing is more representative of that than trying to save a marriage.  It can feel so overwhelming and can occupy all of your thoughts, if you let it.

But there is more to life than any single element.  Even your marriage.

One of my clients for years was abandoned and left by her husband almost 30 years ago.  She spent the next few years in a depressed and alcohol-numbed trance.  Her three children grew up during those days.  And she missed many of those last times (and first times, and lots of other time) tied to a crisis that had passed, but kept her captive.

In the end, she gave up the majority of her life for the grief of a single event.  She spent years trying to find a way to win him back, then spent years regretting what she should have done to keep him, then spent years loathing the person she became.

That process robbed her of a life.  More accurately, she robbed herself of a life.  She tied herself to a single event, and reduced herself to that one point in her life.  The promise of more for herself and her children was destroyed by actions of which she had no control, then choices that were hers to control.

Realizing it or not, she made choices to stay connected to an event, a hurt.  She could never let it go.

Strangely, we humans go in two different directions.  Sometimes, we act as if this is all just a dress rehearsal.  We act as if we are preparing to get started, and in the meantime, we lose out on living.  Others act as if some single event makes or breaks our life.  We get so focused on that one event, we lose out on living.

Life is made up of savoring the moments, whatever they are, as they come.  We never know when they will be the last.

Save Your Marriage In 3 Simple Steps
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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“So, how DO you save your marriage?” asked the frustrated voice on the other end of the call.  “Eric” had been working to save his marriage for some time.  And it seemed that no matter where he looked, all he saw was conflicting advice:  “fix your communication,” “make her jealous,” “use reverse psychology,” and lots of other “gems” out there.  But it left Eric no closer to saving his marriage than when he started.  “Why is it so hard?,” wondered Eric.  I had to agree.  Since I created SaveTheMarriage.com, see all the information out there.  It is almost too much.  Pretty quickly, you get overwhelmed and feel like giving up.

But just for a moment, imagine that it is not a difficult process.  In fact, imagine for a moment that the process is actually quite simple.  Like many things, we tend to complicate things.  Often, unnecessarily.  In fact, almost always unnecessarily.

In my Save The Marriage System, I spend a good bit of time helping people to create a plan.  Once they have a plan, I suggest they use the “3 C’s” to stay on-target.

The 3 C’s of Working Your Plan To Save Your Marriage

C-alm

Staying calm is critical.  Fear is the enemy of effective efforts.  In fact, when acting from a point of fear, the process is almost doomed from the start.  But moving from a calm place changes everything.

But staying calm can be a challenge.  So I suggest you carefully follow a plan of self-care.  Eat well, exercise, and find a trusted person to share your pain.  Resist responding from hurt, fear, and anger. (I cover this in the Save The Marriage System.)

C-onstant

Equally important is to remain constant in your efforts.  This means that you are continuing your efforts on a regular basis.  In other words, reaching out to connect on a frequent (but not too frequent) basis.  Too frequent is a symptom of anxiety.  It is usually caused when someone is reaching out to connect out of fear — desperate to hear back and get reassurance from a spouse that is unwilling to respond or reassure.

(I teach how to reach out without the feel of desperation in the Save The Marriage System.)

C-onsistent

Finally, as you are calmly and constantly reaching out to connect, you want to make sure you are consistent.

Remember all of that conflicting advice?  Here is where it is truly dangerous.  If you keep shifting your approach, you will only end up confusing your spouse, all while trying to save your marriage.  Yep, in the effort to save your relationship, you create more confusion.

How?  By shifting from one approach to another.  One moment, you are working to connect.  The next, you are working to make your spouse jealous.  Or one moment, you are sending one way texts (a technique I teach in my Save Your Marriage System.)  Then you shift to attempting to get a response.  Or you write a “marriage path” letter, taking your share of the responsibility, and then start blaming your spouse (the letter is another part of the System.)

Those 3 C’s are about how you go about your plan — how to carry out your plan to save your marriage.

But what, exactly, are you doing?  Well, that is what is much more simple than people make it out to be.

So here are the 3 steps.

3 Steps To Save Your Marriage3 C’s Of Saving Your Marriage

C-onnect

The simple truth is that marriages become stressed and troubled by a lack of connection.  We humans are designed for connection.  And when we do not get the connection we need, we feel like we are starving for attention.

And the longer the disconnection goes on, the more a relationship suffers.  A feeling of distance becomes a feeling of disdain.  All from disconnection.

But the path back is simply rebuilding the connection.  In fact, the heart of reviving the relationship is just that:  reconnection.

Problem is, you are likely out of practice, perhaps a bit angry, and feeling hurt, yourself.  None of that leaves you wanting to reconnect.  Yet this is the way out of the mess.  Connection revives the marriage.  Continued disconnection starves and strangles the marriage.

It is about this point in my conversations when people say “what about me?  Why doesn’t my spouse have to reconnect with me?”

The answer I give is far more pragmatic than fair:  “You are the one that is with me, and who is working on saving the marriage.  So for right now, focus on reconnecting.  When you reconnect, your spouse will eventually follow.”

If you are working to save your marriage, at least for the time-being, you have to set aside your own wishes and hopes for connection coming your way.  Focus on providing connection.  Practically speaking, someone has to take action.  Take that on as your task.

C-hange Yourself

Just like Eric, on the other end of the line, you are somebody I do not know.  So whatever I say, please do not take it personally.  Instead, it is based on nearly 1/4 of a century of helping couples.  I know from experience what needs to happen, even if I don’t know you.

So, step 2 in saving your marriage is change yourself.  Grow and develop into a higher caliber person. . . regardless of where you are now.

Let’s be honest:  we all have places where we can improve and grow.  We all have places where we are not maximizing our potential, where we are not “showing up.”

Something happens to all of us when we “settle down.”  We stop growing and developing.  And as we do this, we begin to lose ground.  Eventually, if someone is not careful, the attractiveness that our spouse once saw, begins to wane.  We slowly move toward a state of stagnation.

It is at about this time that people start screaming, “but why should I have to keep trying to attract my spouse?  Why can’t my spouse just love me?”  Again, a good philosophical question.  But I am a practical man.  Practically speaking, if you are trying to save your marriage, you want to become more and more attractive to your spouse — not less.  Simple pragmatism.

Unfortunately, our philosophical side can kick and scream and demand that “it’s not fair.”  But then, for a moment, notice that the philosophical side is really just that child’s voice crying out about unfairness.  And as my parents used to tell me, “life’s not fair.”

So, back to the task.  In the process to save your marriage, you will want to change yourself.  Grow.  Develop.  Become more of what you know you need to become.  In the end, you will be more satisfied with life.  And the more satisfied you are, the better your chances of saving the marriage.  You become, in the process, more attractive to your spouse and to yourself.

Step 2 in saving your marriage is Change Yourself.

C-reate A New Path

Marriages fail because couples disconnected.  Marriages fail because individuals stop growing.  And finally, marriages fail because the individuals that make up the couple never knew where they were headed.

So the final step is to create a new path.  Imagine where your marriage could head, and what your marriage could be.  Don’t just ponder it for a moment, but really consider it.

I deeply believe we do a great disservice to couples when they marry.  We spend lots of money, time, effort, and energy into celebrating a short service — then we send the couple out into the world, congratulating them and wishing them the best. . . but without telling anyone of what they are trying to do.

At the point of marriage, two people are trying to form a team, a unit — a WE, as I describe it.  But if a couple does not know this is the goal, how are they ever going to get there?

“You and Me” is the start of a relationship.  But if a couple does not understand, and does not get to “WE,” then they will eventually drift into “You versus Me.”  Destruction of the relationship follows, for the simple reason that nobody knew better.

One of my central attempts in my material on how to save your marriage is how to build the relationship and how to become a WE.  It is a roadmap to becoming a team

Save your marriage by following these 3 steps.

That’s it.  That’s all you need to focus upon as you work to save your marriage.  Follow those 3 steps, and you can save your marriage, even if you are the only one that wants to work on it!

Save Your Marriage By Being A Fan(atic)
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Sports teams, rock stars, actors, and even authors have fans.  And I mean raving fans!  Remember, “fan” is short for a “fanatic.”  Do you know people who fall into that category will root for that team or person, regardless of the current situation?  Team on a losing streak?  A true fan sticks by, not just hoping for a winning streak, but as supporters of the team.  The star makes very public mistakes?  True fans look for reasons and understanding.  They know that there is a good and decent person in there, somewhere.
Fans are committed, regardless of what it looks like.  Good days, bad days, and “meh” days, true fans are just that:  true to their team or star, loyal to the team or person.

My mother-in-law had a remarkable trait:  she was incredibly loyal.  If she was on your side, she was ON YOUR SIDE, no matter what.  If good news surfaced, she reveled in it.  If bad news surfaced, she looked past it to see something good in the person.  And she was unwavering.  There was no talking her out of her loyalty.  If she was in your corner, she stayed in your corner.  And she was protective.  You had better not say a bad word about someone that had her loyalty.  She would quickly correct you, and remind you of the greatness of that person.

What a lost trait!  Too quickly, when bad days come, we turn aside.  A team starts losing, fans stop coming to the game.  This, despite the fact that 50% of the participants in any game will go home the loser.  A star stumbles, people look for deeper character flaws.  This, despite the fact that stars are really just people trying to get by, just like the rest of us.

So what, you may ask, does being a fan have to do with your marriage?  If you are trying to save your marriage, perhaps everything.

When relationships are stressed and people are hurting, we often pull back from simple approaches that can help soothe the hurt and ease the stress.

One of the joys of my work over the years has been to work with couples who are preparing for marriage.  It is a far different work than dealing with marriages on the verge of falling apart.  Pre-marital couples are full of optimism and hope.  They cannot see that anything will ever go wrong.  The only foresee “smooth sailing.”  It is not my job to deflate their sails.  My task is to prepare them as best I can for navigating more difficult waters that I know will be coming.

Because of this, I have several “rules of navigation” I try to share.  My hope is not that they will remember what I said, but that they remember someone gave them a bit of advice that helps them heed the warnings and avoid the problems.

save your marriage as #1 fanOne of those rules I try to impart is “Be each other’s #1 Fan!”  If a spouse has a fan club, I suggest that they fight hard to be the president.  Do whatever it takes to be THE #1 fan of that spouse.  My hope is that each will become the #1 fan of the other.  My hope is that no matter how tough or how good things are, each continues to pull and pull for the other person, always rooting them on and supporting.

Fans come in different stripes.  Some are loud and are always cheering.  Others are more quiet, but always there to push them onward.  I am less concerned about how someone is the #1 fan of their spouse, and more concerned that they are — and that their spouse knows it.

Which raises the question:  what does it look like to be the #1 fan?

According to the arbiter of all information on the internet, Google, the word “fanatic” is defined as “A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.”  I am not so much worried about excess here.  More about consistency.  Consistently pulling for your spouse and your marriage, with zeal and excitement — that is what I mean as a fan.

Do you only speak well of your spouse and ask others to do the same?  Do you represent your spouse to the world in positive ways?  Do you look for the best in his or her actions?

Here are some traits of fans:

Loyalty.  There are “fair weather fans” that appear when the team is headed for the championships, but disappear when the loses are mounting up.  The same is true with marriages.  There are those that are “in” when things are easy and pleasant, but disappear when things get tough.  Which do you do?  Being your spouse’s #1 fan requires loyalty.

Commitment.  Let’s face it, there is no more committed relationship than marriage.  If you followed the typical Western vows, you promised each other to be there in “good days and bad, rich days and poor, in sickness and health.”  I would say that pretty much covers the potential of the days.  That is a pretty high commitment.  True fans are committed to the team and the efforts of the team.  Are you committed to the team, the WE of a marriage, and the efforts of the team?

Through Thick and Thin.  Whether sports teams or stars, there are going to be rough days.  Fans stick it out, cheering and rooting for their team/star.  When the team makes a bad choice or the star takes a bad direction, a true fan sticks it out, still cheering.  A fan may express disappointment, but always with a hope of better days.

Speak Highly, Even When Feeling Lowly.  Even fans, and maybe especially fans, feel the pain when things are not going well.  But a true fan still speaks highly of their team/star/spouse.  It doesn’t seem to matter if the championship was lost by a mistake, the tabloids show the irrefutable pictures of the star, or a spouse has really made a mistake.  The fan sticks by the side and continues cheering.  Sometimes, it seems that by sheer will of the fans, the team/star/spouse decides to keep on trying.  And that is the thing about a fan:  knowing they are on their side, a team/star/spouse can keep on trying, improving, and winning.

Look Toward Better Days.  Ever sit around and listen to a group of fans of the down-on-their luck team?  They talk about the next season.  They discuss the strategy the team should try.  They look toward greater possibilities than the ones happening right now.

Remember Better Days.  And when they cannot think about what might be, they recall what has been.  Fans recall that glory game, great concert, wonderful role, and other better times from the past.  This reminds the fans that things haven’t always been this rough.  And it reminds them of why they are fans in the first place.

Your turn!  What do you do to be your spouse’s #1 Raving Fan?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

How To Save Your Marriage: Control, Boundaries & Standards — The Conversation Continues!
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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How To Save Your Marriage In my last post, I talked about controlling behavior. Evidently, this hit a nerve. I received a number of emails that asked me to explain what I meant by “controlling behavior.” Several emails asked me for specific examples, and others told me that they were not the controlling ones, but their spouse was. Clearly, controlling behavior is an issue in many marriages.

So, I wanted to follow-up in this post by looking at controlling behavior, boundaries, and personal standards. I wanted to clarify some of what I was saying in the last post on controlling behavior, then extended and expand on standards and boundaries.

I remember, a number of years back, when I first encountered this controlled/controlling behavior with a couple in my office. Every answer the man gave, he looked to his wife to see if it was okay. He crossed his legs, and she nudged him that he was not sitting well. His tie was flipped up, and she straightened it out. He told a story, and she corrected everything he said. Fairly quickly, I realized that this was a pattern that they both had established, that had at some point served them well, but was at the end of its capacity to lead them through this marriage. The man had realized that he had an opinion. The woman was tired of being responsible for everything.

This is just one example of controlling behavior, but at the extreme. Lots of controlling behavior takes place in less obvious ways. The underlying dynamic is, however, the same.

A marriage requires two ingredients for it to be successful and healthy. First, there must be a strong relationship. By strong relationship, I don’t mean that the couple always has to spend every waking moment together. But, they have a connection that sustains both of them and boundaries in place to protect the relationship when the connection falls.

A marriage also requires two individuals, each with a strong sense of self. I don’t mean a strong personality, an overwhelming personality, or big personality. In fact, these are often symptoms of a lack of self; it is someone trying to appear as if they have a sense of self, by projecting something bigger into the world.

What I mean by a strong sense of self is an awareness of the self. They are aware of how they are thinking, feeling, and acting in the world. Also, they have a sense of growing, of developing, and of becoming more and more of who they are. Whenever somebody tells me that they don’t have any room to grow, I know they are in trouble. We all have places of growth. The nature of life is to always be growing and developing. People with a strong sense of self are okay with this fact, and know they will continue to change over the years.

People with a strong sense of self also have a sense of direction, of a place they are headed in life.  In other words, they are not stagnant, but have a sense of direction and growth in their own lives.

Controlling behavior comes from a weak sense of self, in the midst of a weak relationship, where the connection is not trusted.  Also, controlling behavior is based in a place of shame and fear.  It is something we bring with us from the family in which we grew up.  Shame-based families create people who either control or let others control them.

As I said in my previous post, controlling behavior is always about fear: that you will not get what you need or want in life. This controlling behavior is on a continuum. The continuum stretches from allowing others to control us to controlling everyone else. Predictably, in the middle is the point of health.

Controlling behavior is about having it “my way,” and micromanaging those around us. We may micromanage our spouse, our children, our coworkers, and our life situation. In the process, we nullify the other person. We decide that we know what is best, and that the other person does not. Controlling behavior is based on the belief that the controller’s way is the better way, the correct way.  If that was not believed, on some level, it would not be controlled.

In fact, I would argue that people who control really do believe they do it for the best — of themselves and others.  They are not out to just be the one in charge, but truly believe they have the necessary answer and direction.  Unfortunately, it comes at a disregard for others.

Some people asked me to give specific examples of controlling behavior. I hesitate to do this, because this will become the yardstick. Some people will say, “see, I don’t do that, so I’m not being controlling.”  Controlling behavior comes in so many shades and types that just a few examples will not cover the spectrum.

However, there are some common places in a marriage where this happens. For example, often, controlling behavior arises around money. One person makes all of the financial decisions, decides how to pay the bills, decides how to invest the money, and decides how much somebody gets to spend on anything. Money is merely the means of control, not about the control. Control around money issues is rooted in the fear about money. It may be rooted in not having enough money, or in not trusting that the other person will make good, sound financial decisions. But whatever the cause, it’s based in fear.

Controlling behavior often shows itself in a marriage around the issue of sex:  when to have sex, how to have sex, when not to have sex, are all examples of controlling behavior around sex. Sometimes, sex is used as a reward for good behavior, and a punishment for “bad behavior.” In other words, if things don’t go the way one person wants, the other person is not going to have sex with them. This ends up controlling the sexual relationship between the couple.

Notice that sex and money are two primary places where couples can play out a sense of WE, or get stuck in a pattern of playing you/me.  In other words, controlling behavior can often be found in the very areas where they could most connect as a couple.

For another example, sometimes controlling behavior takes place around the issue of parenting. One person deems their way of parenting as the “correct way” and the other person does it incorrectly. This undermines the parenting of both parents, but particularly the parent with the “incorrect” way of parenting. Similarly, many couples find controlling behavior in the household duties. One person is convinced that they know the correct way of carrying out the duties of the household. This always leaves the other person as having the incorrect way.

Behind all of these areas, there is a common theme of criticism from the one who believes they have the right way. The method of chastising the other person is through criticism, or correcting, or doing it over.

This brings us to very important point: controlling behavior is based in shame. It is based in fearing how we will be perceived, about appearances. This is learned behavior, and it comes from families where there is perfectionism, blame, and reactivity. Unfortunately, when there is controlling behavior, the same traits are passed on to the next generation. People learn they have to do things perfectly, or they will be rejected. They learn that any shortcomings will not merely be mistakes, but will cause blame.  The way these two lessons are learned is through emotional reactivity. In other words, somebody gets upset, angry, or has some other strong emotional reaction. This is internalized, and the person feels that they have missed the mark, and are blamed for it.
This is why I said earlier that while it looks like the person who is controlling has a strong sense of self, controlling behavior actually comes from the very weak sense of self. While someone may act self-assured, beneath the surface, he or she is afraid of how the world will view and judge him or her. It’s about appearances. Correctness or wrongness, perfection or imperfection, are all fears from a weak sense of self.

Usually, the person who is controlling has also either lost a sense of boundaries or misunderstands them.

So, to clarify, let’s talk for a minute about standards and boundaries. A standard is what I expect of myself. A boundary is what I will not let happen to me.

Standards are something that only you can own. It is yours to keep. It is not something you can give to anyone else. You can try to teach it, but you can’t make somebody have your standard. I say this from a purely practical perspective, not philosophical. For example, I may hold as a standard that I will be honest with people around me. Whether I do that or not is irrelevant. That can be my standard. I can have a standard that I will be honest, but I cannot transfer that to anyone else.

For example, I may say that I’ll be honest with everyone else, and do that. I may never tell a lie, stretch the truth, or  misrepresent. That would be my standard. And I may have a boundary that if somebody lies to me, they cannot stay in my life. That would be a boundary. But I cannot enforce that somebody else has to be honest with everyone around them. That is impossible for me to monitor. So a standard is something that I hold for myself. A boundary is what I will not let happen to me.

I like to think of a boundary very much like a fence in my backyard. If I have a normal-sized fence, one that comes up to my waist, it just marks my space. People can cross the fence, but if they do, I can walk outside and tell them that they are on my property. They would know that, because I have a fence line. It doesn’t keep them out, but I can send them to the other side of the fence. The reason I like this analogy is because it points to the fact that boundaries are about what people do towards us. Not how they act in general, but how they move towards me. Usually, there is some aggressive side to a boundary violation. Somebody who crosses a fence to get into my property has chosen to come into my space that is clearly marked. It’s the same with personal boundaries.  Somebody has moved against us, towards us in an aggressive way.

This is important, because when this is confused, we can interact in controlling ways, thinking that we were just protecting our boundaries. For instance, I had someone who wrote me to tell me that her spouse was violating her boundary. In the middle of a conversation, he would walk away. When he walked away, it shut down the conversation. She felt like this was a boundary violation, and was trying to figure out how to enforce the boundaries of making him talk to her. If she had done this — forced him to talk, I would say that she had moved to controlling behavior. He was moving away from her, as is his right as a person. We all have the choice, helpful or unhelpful, to have a conversation or avoid a conversation.

My suggestion was for her to not try to force him to talk with her at that point, nor try to make it into a boundary issue.  Instead, I suggested that she let him leave. She might understand that at this point, he felt the need for space, and was perhaps overwhelmed with the conversation. In other words, trying to continue the conversation would not just be useless, but counterproductive. It would likely devolve into an argument or an angry discussion. Instead, I suggested that she follow-up with him a little while later, saying “hey, I need about 10 more minutes of your time to finish up that last conversation.” This would give him some time to cool off, and when said in a neutral tone, was an invitation to continue the conversation.

It might be said that the man, in this case, would also being  acting controlling by walking away and refusing to talk. I would guess that over the years, they had developed the pattern where this happened repeatedly. So, when the man controlled the situation by walking away, it was rewarded with the fact that the issue at the heart of the conversation was left to die.

This makes another important point. Controlling behavior is often unwittingly reinforced. When one person tries to control, and the other person lets them, it rewards the behavior. Since controlling behavior is based in fear, it is used to control things that make someone feel fearful, as a way of trying to feel more secure and less fearful. When this is reinforced, it makes it look like the fear was real and necessary. It makes it feel like it really was necessary to avoid the discussion, or the behavior. So unwittingly, it is reinforced for both people.

We live in a world of uncertainty, which can make us feel fearful.  Fear can often fuel behavior that is counter-productive to our lives, especially when we have not nurtured a sense of self and have not worked to monitor our own boundaries.
Whether you feel that you are controlling or being controlled, your task is to examine and claim your own standards (what you expect of yourself) and protect your boundaries (what you will not let someone do toward you).  The stronger your sense of self, the less the need to react around issues of control.

Oh, and let’s be clear:  life is an ongoing project, where mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow.  Mistakes are NOT the same as failure, unless we allow ourselves to be captured there.

How To Save Your Marriage And Stop Being Controlling
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

Are you trying to save your marriage after hearing a spouse tell you that you are always controlling.  How can you save a marriage when a spouse has given up, due to your controlling behavior?  Hang in there, and we will explore that question.

I hear from people almost everyday, telling me that their spouse has just revealed how angry and hurt they are by the controlling behavior – many on the verge of divorce, because of this dynamic.

Many people tell me that they did not even realize that they were being controlling. However, in reflection, many are finally ready to admit that they, indeed, are controlling.  Sometimes, it comes at the stake of having to save a marriage that is on the verge of falling apart.

So what does cause controlling behavior? Why do some people seem to need to find a way of controlling others? Why is it that many people find themselves constantly seeking to have the outcome the way they wanted, eliminating anyone else’s outcome or opinion?

Controlling behavior has a central theme to it. In fact, there is one central cause to controlling behavior. The reason behind controlling behavior is very important to understand if you want to change that behavior. In fact, until you fully understand how much this one emotion affects you, you will be constantly working and striving to control the situations around you, even if that is a losing proposition.

(And I promise you, trying to control a spouse, a child, or almost any situation, is a recipe for failure. It is also a recipe for misery, not just yours, but everyone else around you.)

So what is that one emotion? The answer is very simple. In fact, it may seem too simple. Hear me out. I think you will agree that the one reason for controlling behavior is . . . FEAR. That’s the emotion. That’s the emotion that will get you to shift to being controlling, even when things are going well.

The interesting thing is that some people have elevated their controlling behavior to the point of trying to pass it off as an okay trait, even a positive attribute. I have heard many people say “I’m a control freak,” “I just like to have things my way,” or “I’m just that way.”  The way it is said betrays the fact that they are, deep down, rather proud of this fact.

Whenever we elevate a negative trait, we know we are headed for trouble. We have managed to justify our own behavior, and force it on other people.

Sure, we all want things our way, but sometimes, we get to the place where we can’t have it any other way. We won’t even allow others to have an opinion. And if they try to do something, and it is not up to our standards, we take over and tell them what to do, or even do it ourselves. When this behavior gets ingrained, then it has shifted to a dangerous level.

This often happens in a marriage. And unfortunately, when there is a marriage crisis, it’s even easier to become more and more controlling. This is because fear is getting activated on a regular basis.

You are fearful that something could happen, that you will lose this relationship, and so you control more and more.

Fear. That is what drives controlling behavior. Even if you are unaware of the fear and anxiety.  Even if you are aware of it.

The fear comes from two places.

One is the fear of being out of control. This is the fear of not being able to control your environment, a thing spinning in ways you don’t want them to, and of feeling and inability to move things in the direction you want.

The second is related. This is the feeling of fear that you will not get what you want and what you think you need. When we’re afraid that we are not going to get what we want, we can to try to control the situation, our attempt to get what we want.

That fear can cause problems in a relationship. Because in the midst of trying to get what we want, we are probably affecting what somebody else wants in a negative way. In other words, if I am trying to force the situation so they get what I want, you’re likely not going to get what you want.

But let’s be clear at this point: control is an illusion. It does not work. It is not effective. And it only creates resentment on the part of those around us.

So why do we do it? Because on the few times that it does actually work, at least short-term, it convinces us that we CAN control the situation.  We get positive reinforcement for something that doesn’t really work. Then, when it doesn’t work, we keep remembering the time that it did work, and decide we just need to try harder. When we do that, we just become more controlling.

Sound familiar? Is this a place where you sometimes find yourself? Can you relate to what I’m saying?

You see, built into the control is the belief that we are right. If you didn’t think you were right, you would not be trying to control things. Control can come from the best of intentions, and still destroy a relationship.

Over time, controlling behavior causes resentment on the part of the person who is being controlled. Over time, it also forces the person who is controlling to always be right and to always be responsible. In that set-up, both people lose.

In a marriage, when there is a controlling person, or controlling behavior, the other person has to allow him/herself to be controlled. The couple sets up a dynamic of control/controlling between them, and it begins to eat away at the relationship.

What often comes from these relationships is a parent-child relationship between spouses. And whenever there is a parent-child relationship, that child will eventually hit the teenage years. At that point, you suddenly have a rebellious spouse on your hands, even if they have benefited from the controlled/controlling relationship.

A controlled/controlling relationship is not about being a WE. It is a you/me relationship, where one person’s opinion is lost to the other. One’s opinions and actions are negated by the other. That is where the real harm is done.

An important point about controlling behavior is that it is based in one person’s standards. A standard is something that you expect of yourself.  It’s the standard of your expectation for how you will be in the world, how you will treat other people, how you will fulfill your duties, and how you will interact.

Unfortunately, we often expect others to have our same standard. This is not the case. The problem comes, not from our own standard, but when we try to place it on somebody else, and are upset when they do not fulfill our own standard. Practically speaking, it is not possible to give your standard to someone else.

Again, this is not a philosophical statement, but a practical statement. For example, you may have a standard that you will be honest with people around you. However, you cannot expect those people to be honest with you. To be clear, there may be consequences if someone is not honest with you, but you cannot force them to be honest.

This often happens with parents and children. Parents will place their standard on a child, but the child will do otherwise. Which is why I say this is not a philosophical statement. It would be nice to be able to make sure that our children follow our high standards. But it is not within our possibility. For example, with the standard of honesty, you may have consequences for someone if they are dishonest with you, but they may be lying to everybody else around them. There is nothing you can do to stop that. Practically speaking. Again, this is not philosophical.

Yet when we are in our controlling spot, it is often because we were trying to get our standard fulfilled by somebody else. For example, many couples fight about housekeeping. One or the other will perform a household duty that will not be to the standards of the other person. The person with the higher standard, and higher frustration, treats the other like a child. They try to teach them, coax them, coach them, or force them to do the duty correctly.

This is not, as it is often phrased between the couple, a question of doing it correctly or incorrectly, but a difference in standards. However, it is manifest in controlling behavior.

So what do you do about your controlling behavior? If your spouse is telling you that they can no longer tolerate the controlling behavior, how do you solve this issue?

I have some suggestions for you.

1.     Acknowledge what you are doing. Notice the times that you feel the need to take over. Notice the times when you either coach or coax someone to do something your way.

Acknowledge that fear is driving you. Then consider what this fear might be about evokes a fearful response for you? What feels at risk?

Then notice that the behavior is truly worthless. And usually ineffective. Couples have the same arguments over and over, throughout the years. Rebellious behavior is often the answer to the controlling behavior. In the end, at best, you get a stalemate. At worst you get conflict, anger, resentment, and finally disdain.

2.     Breathe. Seriously, breathe. Remember, controlling behavior is based in fear. Fear happens deep in your brain.

Threats are perceived long before you are consciously aware of them. Your unconscious brain detects the threat, and put you in fear mode. Breathing is a way of short-circuiting the process.

But you have to breathe correctly. You want to learn how to belly breathe, if you do not know how to do it already. If you don’t know how to do this, it’s easy.  Lie down on a bed, place a hand over your chest, and place a hand on your belly button.

Now begin to breathe, so that only the hand over your belly moves. The hand on your chest should be completely still. When you do this, it is relaxing breathing that tells your brain there is nothing to fear. So, when you feel yourself getting anxious and uptight, and feel the need to correct how something is happening, or force an outcome, belly breathe. Breathe slowly and consciously, and your brain calms down a bit.

3.     Be mindful of the interactions. Identify out where you become controlling. With whom do you become controlling? What circumstances trigger you to become controlling? Began to be mindful of those moments.

Watch yourself as you move into those circumstances. Observe your thinking, and what happens to your thinking.

Your goal is to recognize, more and more, when these moments occur. As you notice these moments, you’ll be more mindful of the response it elicits in you, and can decide on a more conscious reaction.

4.     Begin to develop your emotional awareness. For many of us, when we are fearful or anxious, we stop noticing our emotions and start acting on our emotions.

But you may find that if you just sit with your emotions — not react to your motions, but just sit with them, they are not dangerous, nothing will happen, and you can choose not to act or react to the emotion.

Emotional awareness is not about changing the emotion, but realizing the emotions as they are, and realizing that it does not require any particular action on your part. This is when you can decide to sit with your emotions, rather than react and respond to your emotions.

5.     Be open to other possibilities and potentials. Are there other ways of parenting a child? Are there other ways of loading the dishwasher? Are there other ways of dealing with the bills? Are there other ways of deciding what should be done and what should not be done on the weekends?

If you get away from the assumption that there is a wrong and a right, you are left with the possibility of other options. Things may not be done your way; that does not mean it’s the wrong way. Richard Carlson, the author of Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, was famous for saying that you can either be happy or you can be right, but you can’t be both. Which do you want to be? Being open to possibilities leads to happiness. But only after you get for your anxiety and fear.

One final thought for you: don’t suddenly and without notice do the opposite of controlling. Don’t go from being controlling to suddenly giving up all control. That’s not fair either. As is often true, health is a place in between. It’s where both people are responsible, and make decisions, and share perspectives.

Imagine for a minute that you’re the trapeze catcher of a trapeze team. Your partner has for years released the trapeze bar and lept into your arms, waiting to catch your partner. The two of you have done it over and over and over. For years you have done this. So much so, the both of you know exactly how to do it, even with your eyes closed. In fact, with the flips that your partner is doing, your partner doesn’t even see your hands, but grabs them every time. Each time your partner jumps, you catch. Then one day, without any notice or warning, you just quit catching. Your partner is left flailing through the air, without a clue as to what has happened.

This is what happens when somebody goes from being very controlling to refusing to do anything, giving up all points of control. Both people are off-balance, and neither is going to land safely. Be clear about the places where you decide to give up control, and be clear about how to share that responsibility.

Controlling behavior comes from fear, but a fear that is unwarranted, and useless. The threat is not real, nor will catastrophe befall most of the issues around which people control.

Today is the day to give up your control, and come to a partnership. It’s time to start a WE and make a shift to a new partnership.

How’s Your Attitude?
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

How To Save Your Marriage, It is All In Your HeadNothing can stop a person with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help a person with the wrong mental attitude.
–Thomas Jefferson

Is it time for an adjustment?  Are you needing to make a mental shift?

Today, as I am writing this, it is the 3rd day of overcast, dreary, rainy days.  I must admit, I have a bodily response to this kind of weather.  I find my mood dropping a bit.  Creativity is a bit more tough to come by.  I stare at the blank computer screen and  hope for some inspiration to write something that may be helpful to you.

Earlier this morning, I stood in my basement and had a long discussion with myself.  Do I work out or take a break?  My sabotaging mind began to tell me about how my shoulder is a little tweaked this morning.  “My legs are a little tired,” it said.  “Probably it won’t be a good workout.  Maybe I should just do a little, then take a rest,” my mind kept telling me.

“But today is a workout day.  Today will pass quickly, and if I don’t get busy now, I will not have the chance to get it done,” my mind answered.  Later, the phone will be ringing.  Emails will need an answer.  So, I do what I always do.  I decided to get busy.  And about 10 minutes into exercising, my sabotaging mind finally quieted down (not silent, but quieter), and I got sweaty.

At the end, I realized that my exercise time had been real quality.  I had really gone after it.  Not 100%, but mid 90%’s.

The next challenge is writing time.  My mind starts again:  “Perhaps another cup of coffee will get me going.”  “Maybe I should check email again,” my sabotaging mind says.  Then I remember the advice of an elderly professor when I was not writing my dissertation, but should have been:  “Put some glue in that seat, sit down, and write!”  So, I sit down and write.

Then the question I pose to myself this year comes back, “Am I showing up?”

Each person in my family always chooses a word to live into for the year.  We reveal the word on New Year’s Eve.  This year, I cheated.  I wanted two words, so I just hyphenated:  Show-Up.  That is my word.

When I say “show up,” I don’t mean just dragging my body along through the day, sort of being there.  I mean really Showing UP!  Bringing myself, all of me, into the present and into the presence of the moment.

Woody Allen said “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.”  Unfortunately, many people have used this as an excuse to just be somewhere, to be physically present — hoping that will be enough.  That is not showing up.  In an interview, Allen revealed that the life lesson he was talking about was the need to do what you were doing.  If you wanted to write a book, you had to close the door and write — not do all the distractions that come from that.  If you wanted to learn the clarinet, you had to actually show up and practice.

“What,” you may ask, “does your mental attitude have to do with ME saving my marriage?”

Ah, there is the important point of this article.  I think YOUR mental attitude is a huge determinant of your capacity to save your marriage.  Let me be clear:  you may have a great mental attitude but still not save your marriage.  But I guarantee that if you have a poor mental attitude, you will NOT be able to save your marriage.

Fortunately, you do have control over your attitude.  You may not have control over whether your mind keeps tossing out the sabotaging thoughts.  But you do have a choice in whether you buy into those thoughts.

Your mind is simply doing what minds do:  creating thoughts.  Minds do that.  Some are useful and constructive.  Others are useless and/or destructive.  Fortunately, your observing mind gets to make a choice — listen to the constructive, ignore the destructive.

The real problem is not your mind thinking; it is when you buy into the thoughts as reality.  Sure, my shoulder was a bit tweaked this morning.  So, I needed to be mindful of that while exercising.  But it did NOT necessitate me avoiding the exercising.  It was simply a matter of examining the thought for what was useful and ignoring the useless.

When you have made a decision to save your marriage, you have to make a shift to a new mindset.  Your mind will constantly send you thoughts about why you can’t/shouldn’t/won’t save your marriage.  But that does not make those thoughts true.  It is just your sabotaging mind at work.

The story has yet to be finished, even if your mind has written the ending.  In fact, your mind probably has written any number of endings.

Which ending is true?

The ending of the story has yet to be written, so don’t believe that sabotaging mind!  Time for a readjustment.  It is time to tap into a different attitude.

Here are some ways to do this:

1)  Consult your plans, not your emotions.

This is a quote my wife often uses (she is also a therapist).

We often stop following our plan, but instead start allowing our emotions (caused by the thoughts of your sabotaging mind) to guide our actions.  Your emotions are not reasons for actions.  They are the results of your thoughts.  And the longer you linger on those thoughts, the more power those thoughts/emotions gain.  And the more power those emotions gain, the stronger you grow to believe your thoughts are true.

Might your thoughts be true?  Sure.  But they may also be false.  Or at least exaggerated.  At the very least, when you get lost in your thoughts, you lose your capacity of noticing the difference.  When you consult with your plan, you stay on-course.

Notice, though, that there is a need to have a plan to consult!  If you have not created your plan to save your marriage, you may find some help with my Save The Marriage System.

2)  Make a decision to Show Up.

Do a self-check here and there.  Are you really present?  When you are with your spouse, are you really there?  Are you really listening?  Are you stuck in the past, in what has happened?  Are you convinced that you have “been done wrong,” and there needs to be a shift on the part of your spouse?  Are you ready to let go of your complaints?

Sometimes, instead of really being present, we let that internal “script writer” really take control.  Then, the conversation with a spouse is less about what is really being spoken and more about creating the script you think should be spoken.  Yep, that mind is a great (almost Academy Award worthy) creator of the conversation that “should” happen.  Unfortunately, your spouse is also creating a script, with an entirely different writer.  Neither of you will stay “on script,” either your own or your spouse’s script.

So instead, try to really show up and focus on the words being spoken.  Ignore that script-writing mind that tells you about the words that “should” be spoken.  Respond from the deeper place of having truly listened to your spouse.

Presence is powerful.  Your presence can only happen in the present.

3)  Recognize the difference between your thoughts and you.

Our mind is just the creator of thoughts.  The same mind that takes humans to great heights also pulls us to great depths — but only when we forget that our mind is just thinking.

The fact that we are thinking is never the issue.  The fact that we forget we are thinking is the real problem.  A quick reminder to myself that I am just thinking is often enough to give me a little space.  Just enough space to see the thoughts are not reality.  Just a thought.  Then I have a choice to stop believing that thought.

We all have the “observational mind,” capable of stepping back to watch the voiced mind talking and talking.  Once you shift to the observational mind, the voiced mind is shifted just a little away from pretending to be reality.  It is suddenly quite clear that the voiced mind is just thinking.

Just to remind you, not every thought is false.  Remember, my shoulder really was sore this morning.  So there was an element of truth.

This is important, though:  Not every thought is true!  We tend to err on the side of believing every thought.  We tend to stop noticing how critical and sabotaging our minds can be.

You are not your thoughts.  You are having thoughts.  You are observing your mind at work.  It is up to you to decide just how much you will believe those thoughts.

4)  You CAN shift your attitude!

We live in a world that seems to have bought into the belief that we are slaves to our emotions.  Our emotional life is given way too much power and authority.  People say “I can’t help how I feel,” not as a statement of their emotions, but as a justification for their actions.

Emotions are often beyond our control.  There are lots of impactors on our emotional life.  Thoughts certainly play a key role on that front.  The environment also is a factor.  I know that gray days are going to gray my mood.  But you know what?  I have spoken with people who actually LOVE the same weather that leaves me feeling low.

Hmmm.  So, those feelings are not because of my environment, but how I respond/react to my environment — and how I think about that environment!

Okay, so I will admit that we are not able to stop our emotions.  And I would not want to do that.  I am not wanting to create a “plain vanilla” existence.

I just want to draw a distinction between how we feel and how we choose to act — how we choose to Show Up!

So, how DO you choose to ACT differently than you FEEL?  Well, it is probably something you have done repeatedly throughout your life.

When I was younger, from my early teens to late teens, I was a performing magician.  I started doing tricks even earlier and got hooked.  In fact, at one time, I was convinced I wanted to be (don’t laugh!) a professional magician.  What started as curiosity soon grew to a job.  I was fairly in-demand for parties, both children and adults.  I did a ton of shows.

During those years, I learned a great deal that still teaches me today.  I cut my teeth on public speaking by doing birthday parties and other events.  And one of the things I learned is that if I did not bring the energy for the show, there would be no energy.  It did not matter if I had a bad day, if my parents were upset with me (or I with them), if I was upset about not being able to get a date, or any other manner of teenage angst.  I was being paid to perform.  So, I showed up.

I discovered that even if I didn’t feel the energy, I could create the energy.  I could step onto stage and BE the energy that needed to be there.  I could set aside my emotional mindset and embrace my “show-up mindset.”

What I learned is that there is no situation where that is not possible.  I can always make a choice to pull from deep within and really show up.  That doesn’t mean that I always do.  But I always know that I can, so if I don’t show up, it is really my own fault.

5)  Adopt a PMA.

One of my passions is scuba diving.  I spend far too much time breathing air above the surface when I would rather breathe it below the surface (in the tropics, please) of the water.  I enjoy it so much that I decided I wanted to teach others to love it, so I became a certified scuba instructor.

But long before that certification, I went through the basic certification as a diver.  My instructor (and now we co-instruct) is a long-time diver.  In fact, he was certified at about the very beginning of any certification.  He still dives and is very active.  And he was an excellent role model as I was moving through certification.

I remember the very first lecture, poolside, in my first class.  Ray announced to the class that there would be some challenges in the training process.  He expected one thing from us.  Not perfection, and not successfully completing each task.  But he expected us to have a PMA — Positive Mental Attitude.

During his discussion, Ray noted that a PMA included an assumption that we could do the activity.  It was a willingness to learn, to try, and then to practice each skill.  Ray simply asked that we never say to ourselves, “I can’t do that.”  Instead, we were to keep reminding ourselves that we COULD do it, then work at it until we could.

There are many times during my years as a coach/therapist where someone has said, “I can’t. . . .” and fill in the blank with any number of things they believed they were incapable of.  I would always end there phrase with “yet.”  I didn’t mind someone saying “I can’t [fill in the blank] yet.”  Then we could explore how to get past the limits and make it happen.

Again, just to remind you, not every marriage is going to be saved.  But to start with an attitude that your relationship cannot be saved locks you into that, with no other option.  I would rather you choose a “wait and see” approach to what happens to the marriage, while saying “I CAN work on this relationship.  I can work to reconnect, to build a stronger relationship.  I can work to be a better person, to forgive, and to be forgiven.”

Step into your own PMA, and recognize you get to choose the attitude you carry around.

6) Disconnect from the outcome.

This last point may confuse you a bit.  Your goal is to save a relationship, right?  So why disconnect from the outcome?

Because you have no control over the outcome.

You may do all of the right things, you may have a great PMA, you may be a great person that would be a great spouse.  And still, your partner can opt to leave the relationship.

If you are tied to an outcome, you will only be okay if that outcome is achieved.  And yet the outcome is not in your control.  It is always a losing situation to have your well-being tied to something for which you do not have control.

So what do you have control over?

You have control to choose to work on the relationship.  You have control to choose your attitude of how you will approach life.  You have control to not believe everything your mind cooks up.  You have control to choose a course of action, regardless of the emotional storms that hit you.

The outcome, you have no control.  The process, you have full control of how you enter into it.

7)  Show Up.

Make it your goal to show up more and more in life.  Be present.  Bring yourself into the moment.  Leave your fears to the side.  Choose to show up in all of your awesomeness!

Are You Committed to Your Marriage or Your Complaints?
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

Every week, I have the privilege of working with a very talented group of Relationship Coaches.  They are on staff for one purpose:  to help you learn how to save your marriage.

But I get the benefit of their talent as we all learn from each other.  Since we are spread all over the map, our meetings are by phone.  And this past week, on that phone call, I got a gem of an insight I wanted to share with you.

Annette told us that she asked a client, “Are you committed to your relationship, or are you committed to your complaints?”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Where is your commitment?  Is it to being right, to hold your spouse’s perceived shortcomings, mistakes, missteps, and failures up for the world to see?  Or is it a commitment to building a loving marriage you both can treasure?

Here is a fairly universal truth — we all secretly believe that we are right, and our beliefs are true.  Oh sure, we may have some moments of doubt, but in the heat of a moment, we lead with our secret belief — not our humility.

This is true, even if you are working hard to save the marriage.  Even if you are here, looking for advice on how you can turn your marriage around, this is a question to ponder.

You see, over the years, I have heard from the spouse who is trying to save a marriage and I have heard from the spouse who wants out.  The difference between them is not a belief in their personal innocence and rightness, but that one still wants to move forward and the other does not.

I am blessed with a loving wife and a strong marriage.  Yet this still applies to me.  A few years back, my wife and I got into a “heated discussion.”  The content, like almost every other argument, is long lost to time.

During this particular discussion, we were in the midst of daily life in our house.  So, the argument would go for a few exchanges, then we had to get something done.  During one of the lulls, my wife had to go downstairs to take care of something.

Standing there in the kitchen, my mind kept playing out the discussion we were having, and a commitment grew in my mind about how right I was!

As that little scriptwriter in our mind often does, it created a script that I just knew would win the debate.  In my mind, my wife would see how right I was and how wrong she was.  So, against the better judgement of my neo-cortex, I followed to the basement.  I was just warming up to deliver my argument.  My wife turned and said “Before you say anything, if we are going to be together for our entire life, is what you are about to say going to help?”

I gulped down my words.  I thought about what she said, and apologized.  The argument ended there.

When I went to the basement, my commitment to my complaint was stronger than my commitment to our relationship.

Is that ever true for you?

Do you find yourself more committed to defending your beliefs than to defending your relationship.

Do you find yourself more committed to pointing out the “needed areas of improvement” in your spouse than you are to being in a loving relationship?

Do you find yourself more committed to scoring points and keeping score than to connecting and building connection?

Let me invite you to have a stronger commitment to your relationship than your commitment to your complaints.

Can Every Marriage Be Saved? Will YOUR Marriage Be Saved?
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

how to save your marriageI am in the process of trying to provide more resources to help people who want to know how to save a marriage.  So, I turned to the experts in that area:  you!  I sent out a request to some people by email, asking them to take a very short survey.

First, I was shocked in how many people jumped in to give me some ideas!  I offered nothing, other than a promise that I would work on developing more help.  And still, many people responded.

But second, in the process, my heart ached.  I asked for some ideas on what I might have missed and one reply really made me sad:  “You make us feel bad that we can’t save our marriage.”  Wow!  That one got me.  Every day, I work to help people to save their marriage, but I NEVER want someone to feel bad when that does not happen.

Marriage is one spot where you only partially have control.  The other person still holds a trump card.  As I have told many couples, staying married is like a vote — but one that requires unanimous support.  One vote to stay and one to end it will often end it.

In every state in the United States, it is possible to divorce, even if one person does not want it.  In fact, the “no fault” movement of a couple of decades ago made it easy to leave, even if one person still wants to fight for it.  Sure, it did allow many people to leave marriages of abuse or infidelity.  (Which, by the way, is not a “no fault.”)

But it also made it possible for one person to take action, and over the protests and efforts of the other, get divorced.

My intention, over the course of my professional life, has been to save as many unnecessary divorces as possible.  But more than that, it has been to build incredible marriages, strong enough to thrive in a fairly heartless world.

To that end, I have always tried to provide assistance and sources that will do just that:  save marriages and rebuild them.

I have never been so optimistic as to believe that EVERY marriage can be saved.  Only that MANY could be saved.

And many times, I receive an email asking “will MY marriage be saved?”  Because that really is the root of the question, isn’t it?  It doesn’t matter if many marriages can be saved.  The “rubber hits the road” with YOUR marriage.  And unfortunately, here is the truth:  I cannot predict, from this distance, whether your particular relationship is retrievable.  I do know that many use my principles and are successful in reestablishing a relationship, rebuilding a crumbling marriage.

So my question is this:  “do you want to try?”

There are few guarantees in life.  But you do have a choice in your attitude.  Will you be hopeful or hopeless?  Will you see your life plan as meaningful or meaningless?

For myself, I always tend to be hopeful that a relationship can be saved, and I find it meaningful for people to work on improving a relationship.  How about you?

I also recognize there are limits.  The limits are around what we can and cannot control.

You cannot control:Your spouse’s reaction.  Your spouse is going to react however he/she reacts, and there is no way we can control that.
The influence of family and friends.  Your spouse may find poor counsel with family and friends.  Those people may push your spouse to continue the process of disconnection.  You have no control over that.
Your spouse acting out or committing infidelity.  Sometimes, we all take responsibility for actions of another.  While I am clear with people that infidelity happens in disconnected relationships, that is not the same as being responsible for or causing the action.  A person, at some point, chooses to act out or commit adultery.  It is not in the control of the spouse.
Your spouse having an addiction.  I could go on for quite a while about this, but let me be clear:  the person who is acting out the addiction is 100% responsible for the addiction — and for ending the addiction.  The spouse is NOT responsible, nor do they cause the addiction.  But it can certainly derail the attempts to reconnect a relationship.
Your spouse’s mental health.  If you have a spouse with depression or anxiety, or a spouse who suffers from some other mental illness, it is not you causing it.  And you cannot make the other person get treatment (at least until there is a risk to life).  This is a statement of practicality, not philosophy.  People have to find their way to treatment when they are ready.  But again, it can make reconnecting very difficult.
Your spouse’s willingness to forgive.  This is a big one.  A marriage has to be partially built on a willingness to forgive, given the intimate nature of marriage.  People are just going to hurt each other when they live that close.  No way around it.  But sometimes, people misunderstand the nature of forgiveness and refuse to forgive (sadly, since that means they must continue to drag the pain around).

All of those pieces, you cannot control.  Your spouse has to find his/her own way through those issues.  They can certainly keep you from connecting, but you can do little but watch.

That said, there are some things you CAN control:Your own reaction.  This is not an absolute.  Sometimes, a reaction sneaks through that we cannot stop. (Thank goodness for apologies!)  But for the most part, we have control over how we react.  Have you ever noticed that there are some people that you will react in ways that you would NEVER react with some other person?  For instance, you might yell at a friend for something that would keep you silent with a police officer or a boss.  In other words, there are times when we pretend that we reacted because there was no option.  But there often is.
Your Boundaries and your Standards.  Boundaries are what you WILL NOT let someone else do to you.  For example, you may have a boundary that someone cannot yell at you, curse at you, hit you, push you, etc.  Standards are what you expect of yourself.  You may say you will be honest with other people, that you will treat people with respect, that you will forgive and move on, etc.  The danger is trying to put your standard on someone else or forgetting to hold your boundaries.  Nonetheless, you do have control over both.
Your own addictions and health.  Again, not an absolute.  Sometimes, our health is not in our control.  But whether we get help or not, and whether we address our issues or not, that is always in our control.
Taking care of yourself.  Yep, pretty much in your control.  If you eat poorly, rest too little, exercise too little, and forget to attend to your own needs, that is your issue, and in your control.  And you may notice that when people do not take care of and respect themselves, few others do.  So even in the midst of a marriage crisis, make it a priority to take care of yourself.
Focusing on a fuller life.  When we are in a crisis, we often become uni-dimensional — focused only on that one aspect.  Our life begins to become a one-track emphasis on a piece of life.  But life is about fullness and meaning.  It is about growing and developing.  So even if your marriage is in trouble, be sure you are multidimensional in your approach to life.

You are NOT your marriage crisis!