My Marriage Plan

So in this class on marriage that I am taking, one of our biggest assignments was to take the material that we studied, and the insights that had come to us through the semester to build a personalized marriage plan that would pertain to our real future.

To make a plan for my someday marriage is an interesting undertaking for someone like me. It’s an assignment that I would have undertaken dreamily as a Mia Maid or Laurel, or, let’s be honest, even as a Rick’s College co-ed. As a newlywed, it would have been a more difficult assignment, because I was quickly being taught what resistance would look like when it came to building and nurturing our marriage relationship. Not too many years had gone by before I accepted the fact that being married to my husband would be about picking my battles, and that the energy that it would take to enforce boundaries around my husband's behavior would have to be my main focus if I was going to keep our family together. But my efforts to hold everything together were ineffective and costly.

I saw the most profound illustration of dysfunction when I was watching a show called “My Cat from Hell” on Netflix with my kids one night. The show follows a man named Jackson Galaxy, a kind of cat whisperer, who solves problems between cats and their owners when other people would say that the only solution to the extreme hostility or non-compliance the cat displays is to put it down. Well in this particular episode, Jackson was being introduced to a very hostile cat by its owner, who demonstrated how she would put on homemade shin guards that she had made out of knee-high socks and duct tape, and walk around her apartment backwards to avoid being sneak attacked by her precious kitty who would dart out from under furniture and bloody up her legs with its claws.

As Jackson watched the strangeness of this ritual with wide eyes, he made a comment about how this was the very definition of dysfunctional coping. We come to a situation that we don’t have any experience dealing with, and in our desperation, we invent the strangest means of living with it! We are so focused on making things work at any cost, that we don’t even see how strange our behaviors or coping mechanisms have become! As I watched this, the idea stuck to me, but I didn’t fully understand why. I was only beginning to see how dysfunctional my relationship with my husband had become, but I had a feeling that in ways I didn’t even recognize yet, I had been walking around my own home backwards, with duct tape shin guards, for some time.

Now that my marriage has ended I have found a measure of peace and happiness that I haven’t felt in a great many years. It is so satisfying to have the degree of chaos and hostility that he threw at me on a daily basis gone! I’ve found a way to keep things afloat, and even though its tough going and very imperfect, I so much prefer it to the way life was when I was married!

And yet, I am still willing to try this marriage thing again.

So here I go, a single mother of four children, looking back at the lessons of a sixteen year marriage, and doing my best to look forward and put together a ‘marriage plan’. I guess most of my plan revolves around this idea from John Gottman- “the key to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not in how you handle disagreements but in how you are with each other when you’re not fighting.” (Gottman 46) My plan has come to me as a series of commitments. They might even be regarded as affirmations. They are steps far away from the dysfunction that was in my life and in my marriage. So here is the list that I came up with from my own refection, and here are quotes that relate most of them to the material we have studied this semester.

I cannot save anyone else, and I will not try to. I can only take care of my side of the bridge.

“Until you accept your partner’s flaws and foibles, you will not be able to compromise successfully. Instead you will be on a relentless campaign to alter your spouse.” (Gottman 185)

I will not give up the job of loving me to someone else.
“If you maintain a sense of respect for your spouse, you are less likely to act disgusted with him or her when you disagree.” (Gottman 65)

I will know myself and share myself honestly and freely- I will not hide.
“A crucial goal of any marriage, therefore, is to create an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about his or her convictions. The more you speak candidly and respectfully with each other the more likely there is to be a blending of your sense of meaning.” (Gottman, 245)

“The basis for coping effectively with either kind of problem is the same: communicating basic acceptance of your partner’s personality… If either of you feels judge, misunderstood, or rejected by the other, you will not be able to manage the problems in your marriage.” (Gottman 149)

I will always look for fresh starts and new adventures.

I will choose to live my life with someone who values the things I value.
"To care about someone does not mean sacrificing one's time and energy for that person. It means devoting them to the person and taking joy in doing so; in the end, one feels richer for one's efforts, not poorer." Tzvetan Todorov

“Research shows that a husband who can accept influence from his wife also tends to be an outstanding father…This new type of husband and father leads a meaningful and rich life. Having a happy family base makes it possible for him to create and work effectively. Because he is so connected to his wife, she will come to him not only when she is troubled but when she is delighted. When the city awakens to a beautiful fresh snowstorm, his children will come running for him to see it. The people who matter most to him will care about him when he lives and mourn him when he dies.” (Gottman 110)

I will hold on to hope.


I will embrace change as a necessary part of maintaining balance, and I will live and love with a full range of expression and emotion.
“The couples we studied who adjusted to high levels of negativity (irritability, emotional distance) in their marriage ended up less happy or satisfied years later. Those who refused to put of with lots of negativity- who insisted on gently confronting each other when, say, contempt or defensiveness threatened to become pervasive, wound up happy and satisfied years later.” (Gottman 262)
“talk about issues in your relationship while they are still minor, before they build up steam and become combustible.” (Gottman 262)

“if they don’t work to find a compromise on the issue it’s likely that they will become increasingly resentful and entrenched in their positions. The conflict could deepen and take on more symbolic meaning. In other words, it could evolve into a gridlocked, perpetual problem.” (Gottman 135)

I will love him with my mind, body, heart, and soul- every day.
"Rather than looking at marriage as a skill issue, let's consider it as a heart matter. Most adults communicate quite well with other adults when their hearts are soft and they respect one another." Doug Brinley

“emotionally intelligent couple are intimately familiar with each other’s world. I call this having a richly detailed love map- my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about hour partner’s life… They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, each other’s hopes.” (Gottman 48)

“But if you don’t start off with a deep knowledge of each other, its easy for your marriage to lose its way when your lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.” (Gottman 49)

“Because they were in the habit of staying deeply connected, Ken was able to keep up to date on what Maggie was thinking and feeling.” (Gottman 50)

“if you frequently have the experience of being calmed by your spouse, you will stop seeing your partner as a trigger of stress in your life and instead associate him or her with feeling relaxed. This automatically increases the positivity in your relationship.” (Gottman 180)

“He makes a detailed map of his wife’s world. He keeps in touch with his admiration ad fondness for her, and he communicates it by turning toward her in his daily actions.” (Gottman 109)

“…real life romance is fueled by a far more humdrum approach to staying connected. It is kept alive each time you let your spouse know he or she is valued during the grind of everyday life… Turning toward one another is the basis or emotional connection, romance, passion, and a good sex life.” (Gottman 80)