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Marriage Problem Advice

Marriage and Self-Expansion
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Self-expansion in marriage: learning and growing together and as individuals.“I just outgrew you,” he said to her in my office.  But as we talked, I was not convinced that he had actually “outgrown” her.  But it was clear that neither felt supported in their own personal growth.  He said, “You stifle me,” and she answered, “You never care about my interests.”

And both were right.

But both missed the opportunity — self-expansion as a part of the relationship.  They could both grow, both explore, and still stay married.

Recent research has shown that one of the leading contributors to unhappiness in marriage (and risk for infidelity) is a lack of opportunity for self-expansion in the relationship.

Great term, “self-expansion.”  In a world of “self-growth” and “self-development,” the idea is a bit broader.  Self-growth/development focuses on psychological or spiritual change.  But what about just exploring the world and widening your horizons?  Well, self-expansion encompasses both self-development and trying new things out.

Does your relationship support both of your opportunities for self-expansion (within the boundaries of the relationship)?  Is there room for growing?  Support for growing?  Sharing new experiences together?  Sharing your passions for individual interests?  Those are the elements of self-expansion within marriage.

Learn more in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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System to Save Your Marriage

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A Swiss Cheese Approach To Marriage Crisis
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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What swiss cheese has to do with your marriage: multiple causation theory.It may be an odd preoccupation, but I pour over the scuba accident reports.  I like to see how the accidents happened, what led to the accident, and how it might have been prevented.

The same approach is taken to studying scuba accidents as is applied to airline accident and medical accidents.  And it should be applied to marriage crises.

There’s a theory of accidents in systems that is called the “Swiss Cheese Theory of Accidents.”  Another description would be “multiple causations in spite of prevention systems.”  Imagine a bunch of slices of swiss cheese.  Usually, a slice with holes in it won’t line the holes up with another slice.  If you stack them together, there are no holes all the way through the stack.

But if the holes line up, something could pass right through.  Something like an accident.

In scuba, aviation, medical, and industrial fields, there are multiple checks and balances in place (slices of cheese) to keep an accident from happening.

Marriages also have these safety zones:  love, priorities, attention, affection, boundaries, communication, etc.  The bigger the hole in each system, the bigger the chance that the holes match up.  And the bigger the chance of a marriage crisis.

To put it simply, there are multiple causations that go into a marriage crisis.  To go a bit deeper, listen to my podcast below.

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Another Podcast On This Theory
Importance of Connection
Importance of Boundaries
System To Save Your Marriage

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