Making Marriage Work: New Rules for an Old Institution by Lynn Toler

Author:Lynn Toler [Toler, Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-11T08:31:04+00:00

And if your spouse starts bringing up other stuff, you need to have a response that helps you stay on topic. Something like: “I hear that you have an issue about B. We can talk about that later. Let’s agree we are going to stay on A so we can get it resolved.”

This rule is, of course, hard to comply with if the topic of the day involves a pattern of behavior. And if that is the case, you have to make sure to identify the problem correctly. But don’t do it by saying “you always” or “you never.” Those words signal an attack, and they are not conducive to getting your partner to look at what she’s doing in a productive light. It is better to start with the word “I” followed by a description of what you perceive and how it makes you feel. Then an inquiry about what the other person intended might move the conversation along.

RULE NUMBER 6.9: Learn to exit well.

No matter how the conversation ended, or how loud you got, you need to make a point of deciding how you leave it. Mad or not, you can tell your spouse that you love him. Having won or lost, you can still reach across and touch your spouse’s hand or wink at her. This is something that you decide to do no matter how you feel. Have a parting gesture as part of your marital plan and use it regularly. Take a moment between the last angry word you said to remind yourself: argument notwithstanding, you still love this person. Then do something that conveys it.

Seven

Ladies and Gentlemen

Let’s get this out of the way first: This chapter is loaded with assumptions, and filled with far-reaching gender-based generalizations. Not all women are the same, nor is every man. For every gender-based statement I make in this chapter there are a boatload of exceptions. What’s more, being a man or a woman is not a black-and-white affair. We all exhibit a range of masculine and feminine traits. Still, men and women do have tendencies born of biology, fed by society, and hardened by habit. These tendencies dictate our thoughts and actions far more often than we would like to believe. And since I can’t speak to each and every one of you personally, I have to speak to the generalizations that have held up over time.

What I am talking about here is the basic gender divide that everybody acknowledges. It is the “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” dynamic that we have known about forever. It is what we talk about among ourselves when any group of either gender discusses the other. It is a thing we readily acknowledge in theory, but remain confounded and surprised by when confronting in the moment. Despite everything we understand about how different we are from one another, we often get angry when we meet this reality in our mates. It is a consistent theme on Divorce Court and among my friends.

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