On the Marriage Podcast for Smart People we don’t often talk about parenting. But when it’s impacting your marriage, then it’s our business!

Fighting over kids, or parenting issues is a very common source of marital conflict. It’s common, but it’s also really frustrating and it can be a tough rut to get out of.

A further negative of this fighting situation though, is that disagreements on childrearing can actually have negative effects on your children’s wellbeing. It’s not just a source of conflict between you and your spouse, but it can also put a burden on your children too.

To help you, as parents, align, and to make things easier on your kids, we have a few ideas for you to try that we know will help.

Show a United Front When Parenting

Research has shown that children react to incongruent parenting styles with various emotional and behavioural problems including anxiety, depression, aggression, and rule-breaking.[i]

Results of that study showed that when children perceive a lot of difference between maternal and paternal parenting, it has a negative effect on the child’s emotional and behavioural well-being.

These results display the importance of parents working together in the face of child-rearing disagreements to display a united and congruent front to their children. Kids are way smarter that we all think they are. They’re using their brains way sooner than we think they are, too. Developmentally, babies and toddlers are picking up on parenting differences before they can talk and possibly even before they can walk. A united front is essential with children of all ages.

You’re probably thinking, how can we show a united front when that is precisely the problem: we aren’t united!? Here are some ideas.

Flexible/Inflexible Areas Help Clarify Parenting Priorities

Caleb has used this intervention with many couples (including premarital couples only just thinking about raising kids) and it is a huge help.

It’s an exercise from Dr. Gottman, and we call it flexible/inflexible areas.

Take a blank sheet of paper, and on it draw a circle as large as you can. Inside that, you’ll draw another circle, about the size of the largest coin in your currency.

In the small circle write two words: inflexible area.

In the large circle, write two words: flexible area.

When you are disagreeing with your spouse, ultimately all of the content of your disagreement falls into one of these circles. The flexible area has all the little reasons you give but, at the end of the day, you would be willing to compromise on. The inflexible area is the core, essential thing you are trying to protect. This is something that you cannot and will not budge on.

Before we figure out how to sort things out, let’s look at why most people never get to the bottom of their parenting arguments:

They only talk about the details of the flexible area

They try to make the flexible area – things they would otherwise compromise on – as large as possible so that they can protect the inflexible area

They don’t talk about the inflexible area – the one area that they most need to discuss openly.

Or, they stuff as much of the flexible items into the inflexible area and make it seem so big that they are totally stuck, even on little things – and often come across as unreasonable during a disagreement.

If you want to start working together instead of against each other, you have to bring the absolute core of that inflexible area out into the light and share it with your spouse. That’s you saying something like, “I’m willing to be flexible on all sorts of things, but this is the one thing that I cannot see myself compromising on.” And then tell your spouse why – it’s probably something from your childhood that informs this inflexible area.

Here’s the key! You don’t have to have alignment or agreement on the inflexible areas, you both just have to agree to honour each other’s inflexible areas.

Now,

Episode #100! Wahoo!!!

Normally we focus on real-world, research-based strategies to help your marriage. Today, we’re mostly just going to stop and reflect on our podcast and www.onlyyouforever.com and talk a little about our future plans.

But, this being the marriage podcast for smart people, hosted by a research-guru…we couldn’t have no research! So here’s the research, and if you want all our nitty-gritty details, you’ll have to listen to the audio.

What Caleb and I do is called copreneurialism. An entrepreneur is a person who runs his or her own business. Copreneurs are when a husband/wife team start and run a business. So, that’s what we are!

According to the research, about 14% of households in the USA have their own business. Of those, about 30% are husband-wife teams.[i]

Here are some possible tensions for being in business together (and our responses in brackets). As I said, more details are on the podcast.

Underestimating the tensions (we’re guilty)

Boundaries (ok)

Conflict (a little)

Roles (a struggle)

Neglect of personal needs (didn’t exercise for 18 months)

Inequitable division of responsibility (feel that)

Time and financial pressures (for sure)

Loss of ability for the uninvolved spouse to act as a sounding board for new ideas or for ways to reduce work tension (not a problem).[ii]

That’s all the research for today. Short and sweet! If you want more details, or are curious about what’s ahead for www.onlyyouforever.com listen to episode 100 of the Marriage Podcast for Smart People.

But before I go, I just have to give you guys the credit. It’s exciting to hit episode 100, but if it wasn’t for you guys, we wouldn’t have made it. We give you the info, and sometimes push you WAY outside your comfort zone, but YOU are the ones putting it into practice in your marriage. You are the real heroes making your marriage something you love today and will treasure for a lifetime! Kudos!

[i] Glenn Muske et al., “The Intermingling of Family and Business Financial Resources: Understanding the Copreneurial Couple,” Journal of Financial Counseling & Planning 20, no. 2 (December 2009): 27–47.

[ii] Ibid.

Why does it seem to be so difficult to create time to spend together? We all want to spend more time with our spouse and do more together, but so often it doesn’t fit into the schedule and we don’t quite get around to doing it.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Today we’re going to give you two key strategies for creating more time with your spouse – what you can actually do to create the time together that you want to have. The first one is really helpful. The second one is also very helpful, but it could be rather painful…

The Importance of Making Time For Your Spouse

Numerous studies support the idea that spending time with your spouse is important to the health of your marriage. That’s no shock!

One study looked at 280 couples and how much time they spent together. They came back to those same couples fives years later to see how they were doing. The study found a positive relationship between shared leisure time and marital stability (the marriage enduring to the end of the five years). On the other hand, marital dissolution (divorce or separation) was associated with less shared leisure time.[i]

The two activities most associated with marital stability were recreation (active recreation activities such as bowling, swimming, skating, skiing, fishing, boating, camping, and pleasure drives) and TV Watching.[ii]

The first one I understand, but the last one surprised me! Caleb and I are biased against the consumption of TV. From what we hear listening to other couples though, it seems that some couples get really into the story of shows together and that becomes a point of common interest, discussion, interaction etc. But we don’t know!

What do you think? Do you find that watching TV is a positive, shared point of contact between you? What do you watch? What does that do for you? Let us know here or in the comments below.

Leisure time is also associated with greater marital satisfaction. Another study states that the most satisfied couples spend about 50 percent more waking hours with each other than the least satisfied couples.[iii]

These are just two studies but it is common sense and supported by the research that spending time together makes for a more satisfying marriage.

So What Makes Spending Time Together So Hard?

A study in 2011 looked at just over 4000 households to determine what household characteristics predicted couples’ time together. The results highlighted two areas that were significantly correlated with spending less time together:

long working hours, and

small children in the household.[iv]

Interestingly, they found that the differences between the ability for single-earner and dual-earner couples to spend time together was small – as soon as one spouse has to go to work, it becomes difficult to do things together.

Obviously, we can’t all quit our jobs to spend time with our spouse… so what can we do?

What You Can Do to Spend More Time With Your Spouse

Here are two strategies for you to think about. The first is to look at your roadblocks and then redefine them as opportunities. The second is to do the harder, value-laden work of deciding what is most important to you. That’s where we get to the more painful stuff.

Redefine Seemingly Unmoveable Restraints as Possible to Work Around

Every couple has “restraints” to work around. Restraints being all of the activities they are required to complete in a day – things like work, school, childcare, housework, etc. All these demands can appear inflexible and impossible to work around, but are they?

Fein said that couples can create more leisure time together by…[v]

Postponing housework

Arranging alternative care for children

Taking paid or unpaid leave

Doing nonmarket activities together (work that is unpaid such as housework and childcare)

Reassess who contributes to housework and other household demands

Connecting at different times. For example, Caleb would love to connect after supper,

My cousins boss and the boss’ wife went fishing one day. It was the first time in a long time they were doing something together rather than him working and being on the phone ALL day. Apparently, his phone rang so he answered it (which fellows, was the wrong thing to do!), so his wife grabbed the phone and pitched it as far into the ocean as she could throw.

Is the cell phone becoming a problem in your marriage? We certainly struggle with this! Thankfully it hasn't quite got to the point of throwing our phones into the ocean...

What Do We Know About Mobile Phone Addiction?

The research is just starting to come out and researchers are just beginning to understand the basics of mobile phone addiction, including how we develop this addiction and the impact it has on our lives.

Some of you younger ones probably don’t have any concept of a world without cell phones, but I still remember our first phone, and I still remember our first iPhone! These new technologies hit the market, met a need, and we rely on them so heavily. Only now are we starting to step back and ask how this is impacting lives beyond the convenience factor.

One journal article that was a literature review of problematic cell phone use concluded that mobile phone use may become uncontrolled or excessive which impacts daily living. It pointed out evidence to show a behavioural addiction is possible and this would impact social, familial and professional life.(Billieux, 2012)[i]

In that study, Billieux noted three typical areas of problems:

Dangerous use: tendency to use the mobile phone while driving

Prohibited Use: tendency to use the mobile phone in banned places

Dependence Symptoms: loss of control, negative affects in situations in which the use of the phone is not possible or allowed. People are actually losing it a bit if they can’t use their phone.

Another study connected mobile phone addiction with additional qualities found in substance abuse addiction including:

Tolerance: increasing frequency and duration of cellular phone use to obtain the same level of psychological satisfaction as earlier. (Taneja, 2014)

Withdrawal: feelings of nervousness and anxiety when away from one’s cell phone or when unable to use it (Taneja, 2014), using the phone to escape other problems and negative consequences in all areas of life.

Financial: the tendency to use the mobile phone to the extent it incurs enormous changes and financial issues for the individual (Billieux, 2012).[ii]

These are serious things. That’s why we’ve started saying that phone addiction is the new alcoholism.

Who Tends to Develop Mobile Phone Addictions?

Studies show that women use mobile phones more than men, especially when it comes to text messaging. Other studies have found that women are more prone to experience dependence on the mobile phone, while men have a greater tendency to use the mobile phone while driving.

Problematic mobile phone use has been associated with personality areas of neuroticism (tendency to be emotionally unstable) and extraversion (tendency to be sociable). It has also been associated with the trait of impulsivity. (Billieux, 2012)

Based on our personality types, some of us are going to have to be extra cautious about our cell phone usage. I am one of those people.

All the research so far has been about the general use of cell phones – not marriage research. However, we do have a study that discusses the impact of internet usage on marriage, and I think that it’s not unreasonable to extrapolate from internet use to phone use as most people have smartphones nowadays.

How Internet Usage Impacts a Marriage

Researchers studied 199 newlywed couples who had been married an average of one month. They looked at associations between frequency of internet use, compulsive internet behaviours, and various relationship factors such as loneliness, passion, intimacy, and commitment.

Sometimes we ask more philosophical questions about the future of our marriages. One of those is that age-old question, do opposites attract? It turns out they do – and they don’t... How confusing is that!

The research actually seems very contradictory over the whole opposites/similarities thing until you start to pull it apart carefully. Which is what Caleb loves to do… :)

This topic actually came from a concern from one of our listeners, and we’ve heard it echoed elsewhere – that uncertainty of “our marriage is struggling and we’re just so different. Can this really work out for us?”

Spoiler Alert: Yes, it can! It may just take a bit more work…

Do Opposites Attract?

Let’s try to answer this question. People say opposites attract but is that the case? Well, when it comes to the methods people use to choose their future spouse, some research suggests that people tend to look for individuals who are similar to themselves and who represent their ideal preferences for a romantic partner.

In 2003, 978 individuals completed a two-part questionnaire. They “first rated the importance they placed on 10 attributes in a long-term spouse and then rated their perception of themselves on those same attributes.”[i] These attributes were grouped into four categories: wealth and status, family commitment, physical appearance, and sexual fidelity.

The results showed that people looked for a spouse who was similar to themselves. This makes it look like people don’t attract opposites until you really look at the four categories.

These categories are based on values, appearance, and socioeconomic status. In those ways, we often do look for someone similar to ourselves.

What Happens When You Marry Your Opposite?

Despite the fact that the previous research supports a “likes-attracts rule”, many people end up married to someone who is their opposite. When we look at the research on whether opposites or similar get along better, there’s some interesting conclusions.

Unfortunately, there’s no straight answer to this question. Some research suggests that similar couples are happier and other studies suggest that too much similarity can lead to difficulties in the marriage. The research is conflicting!

Marrying Your Opposite Can Lead to Lower Marital Satisfaction

One study we looked at said that opposites don’t work as well. The researchers supported the idea that personality similarities are positively related to marital quality.

They measure marital quality and personality in a sample of 291 newlyweds.

Marital quality is the usual stuff like measuring intimacy, how they handle conflict, how agreed they are on different areas of life, etc.

Personality was measured using the Five-Factor Personality Inventory which looks at the five factors of:

Extraversion: level of sociability and enthusiasm

Agreeableness: level of friendliness and kindness

Conscientiousness: level of organization and work ethic

Emotional stability: level of calmness and tranquility

Intellect/autonomy: level of creativity and curiosity

The results showed a positive association between personality similarity and marital quality. So, the more similar these newlywed couples were, the greater their marital quality.[ii]

Dissimilar Personalities Can Lead to More Passionate Relationships

However, other research suggests that this is not always the case! A study from 2007 investigated three things in 137 couples: relationship onset (love at firs sight vs. gradually becoming involved), personality (same 5 measure as above), and relationship quality.[iii]

Results of the study showed that “partners who fell in love at first sight…showed more dissimilar personalities”.[iv] However, it also found that “individuals prefer to select partners with similar personalities as themselves, but that they only succeed in doing so when they have the opportunity and time to get to know each other.”[v] Also, “partners who fell in love,

Not every Christian couple feels guilty about sex, but a surprising number do. In fact, we’ve even been asked the question, “I’m married now, but I really, really look forward to and enjoy sex with my husband. Is that OK or is there something wrong with that?”

To give you some context here, our moral convictions are that sex is intended for married couples only but inside of that marriage bond, it is intended to be enjoyed and explored in a way that grows and deepens and becomes a richer and richer experience over the lifespan of one’s marriage.

So, we’re not here to try to help you get comfortable with extra-marital sex or polygamy or anything else that falls outside the bounds of healthy marriage sex.

Yet, in coming to this issue, we’re not only speaking to couples today to try to encourage you to embrace the full opportunity of being sexual with your spouse, but also to those who lead our churches and who teach about marriage and who speak to young people about chastity: we need to be very careful how we talk about sex to make sure that while we communicate the boundaries that God has placed on sexuality, we also communicate the blessing part as well.

Caleb talked to a guy who once said, “I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve had sex in our many years of marriage.” The issue there was the teaching that she had received that sex was dirty and wrong and bad, and when she finally found herself in a situation where it was legitimate, she just couldn’t flip that switch.

We’ve also heard from a wife in our survey telling us that she lives in a sexless marriage and it’s tearing her heart out. He’s a great guy but has the same hang up.

Something needs to change with regards to guilty feelings about sex. Let’s start by looking at the impact of religion on sexuality.

The Impact of Religion on Sexuality

Over the past few decades, many research studies have been completed on the correlations between religion and specific sexual attitudes and experiences.

In 1970, Masters and Johnson examined how religious upbringing affected sexual arousal, orgasm, sexual satisfaction, and pain during sex. Their results were published in the classic book Human Sexual Inadequacy and was cited by Woo (2012). They found that a “strict religious upbringing in Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism was associated with different types of sexual dysfunction.”[i] These sexual dysfunctions included:

Impotence: erectile dysfunction

Anorgasmia: inability to achieve orgasm despite adequate stimulation

Vaginismus: painful spasms in the vagina during sexual intercourse.

These are all very real issues. Other Christian sex therapists also point to strict, anti-sexual teaching from our pulpits as one of the root causes of these types of sexual dysfunction.

If you’re out there and you’re experiencing pain during intercourse, or you can’t get an erection or experience orgasm because of the feelings of guilt and shame that arise whenever you think about your private parts of feel attracted to your spouse, you’re not alone.

Not only are you not alone, there’s probably actually nothing physically wrong with you. You may have just been so burdened by unhealthy messaging that it’s affecting your body’s ability to respond appropriately to what is legitimate.

Maybe in your head, you can believe that sex with your spouse is good but you can’t get your heart and body to follow. Or, maybe it’s been so hammered into you, that you can’t even accept that sex is possibly a good thing, never mind one of God’s greatest gifts to married humanity.

The Problem of Sexual Guilt and Shame

What is the reason for these complications between religion and sexuality?

Woo et al (2007) set out to determine the bridge between religion and sexual desire. Their hypothesis was that feelings of guilt related to experiences of sexuality may be the reason that some religious individuals struggle with sexual desire.

Do you ever fight about who does what in marriage? Or, how decisions are made? Who has the most say, or power, or who can make the final call on some decisions?

Most of the time these disagreements come down to the model of marriage we hold to: and when that’s different than the model our spouse holds, conflict is inevitable.

Power structure is a topic that is fundamental to marriage. Rarely though, do we actually sit down to discuss our model of marriage when we’re dating or engaged or newly married. So, let’s look at the three models of marriage, how they impact marital satisfaction and then what we do and recommend.

Power Structures in Marriage

Christian authors have come to various interpretations on the Bible’s teachings about how men and women should relate with one another in marriage. Many of these interpretations center around the issue of gender roles and what the Bible means when it speaks of headship and submission. At the end of the day, it really comes down to power.

Various models have been created to explain how husbands and wives should function together in the areas of decision making, work, and leadership (which, when we’re distressed as a couple is usually not about leadership but about the much less noble but more pragmatic issue: power).

Here’s a rundown of three models of marriage.

View #1: Authoritarianism

Husbands hold unlimited authority and leadership.

Wives are expected to respond with unqualified submission.

As leaders and heads of the house, husbands have unlimited say in all decision and wives are not permitted to question the husband’s leadership in any situation.[i]

What we see happening in these marriages is that the wife gains power and influence in other ways: withholding sex, using Scriptures to manipulate, guilting her husband, etc. However, there are authoritarian marriages where both spouses buy into the model and both are very happy. It is easy to get judgmental of this kind of marriage, but if it’s working for two people and she has chosen this model as much as he has, who are we to take it away from them or say it’s wrong?

View #2: Complementarianism

Upholds the equality of men and women, while simultaneously recognizing the different roles, strengths, and weaknesses each gender brings to the marriage.

Men hold headship in the marriage while upholding their call to love their wives.

Women act as helpers while upholding their call to submit to their husbands. (Helpers is the word from the author, we do not endorse that word)

Decisions are made jointly, except in rare causes of an impasse when final decision making is given to the husband.[ii]

View #3: Egalitarianism

Men and women not only live as equals, but any hierarchy or headship in the marriage is erased.

Distinctions in gender differences are downplayed or removed completely in favor of recognizing our oneness in Christ and joint calling to do His work.

All decisions are made together.[iii]

In each of these models, roles are an issue, as is the degree to which we acknowledge or bypass gender issues. Decision making and power are also critical.

Beliefs vs. Practice

An interesting study was completed using data from the 1996 Religious Identity and Influence Survey to “examine the relationship between religious identity, gender ideology, and marital decision making.” The results of this study showed that:

Conservative Protestants profess a traditional gender-role ideology that the husband is the head of the family and the leader in making decisions, BUT the actual decision-making strategies they practice are similar to other religious groups who profess more liberal ideologies.

Theologically liberal Protestants profess a more egalitarian ideology in terms of decision making BUT the actual decision-making strategies they practice are not significantly more egalitarian than conservative Protestants.

When it comes to male headship (the idea that husbands a...

Did you know that some of the very things you do to try to save your distressed marriage are in actual fact destroying it? Seriously. What is even more shocking is that they exist in every marriage.

One of those things that we see everyday is called the pursue-withdraw cycle.

Very simply, you have:

A pursuer: I am going to keep coming at you because I am afraid of losing you. Negative emotional connection feels better than no connection.

And a distancer: I am overwhelmed, I can’t fix this. Maybe if I retreat (withdraw), it’ll be calmer and I won’t lose him/her.

See how they both are trying to keep each other?

Unfortunately, things don’t work out the way each spouse is hoping. The pursuer desperately wants connection, but instead prompts distance. The distance also wants connection (but with the calm, soft part of his/her spouse) and by withdrawing prompts anger and attacking.

For Caleb and me, this is what it looks like:

I flood Caleb with a ton of emotions. I don’t necessarily start out mad, but I’m usually loud and have tears. I just want him to understand how huge this is for me, and how much I hurt.

All he sees is the loud part of me, and he feels completely overwhelmed. He is just trying to process everything, and would love to find a hole to hide in until I blow over as he doesn’t like to see me upset.

He doesn’t respond, so I get louder and (usually, mad by now) try to break through his calm exterior.

It really is a spiral that can escalate quickly. We both want each other, but our ways to attain it are pushing each other away.

So, how does this demand-withdraw pattern work?

The Nature of the Demand/Withdraw Pattern

The demand-withdraw pattern can be defined in the following way: “One member (the demander) criticizes, nags, and makes demands of the other, while the partner (the withdrawer) avoids confrontation, withdraws, and becomes silent.”[i]

Eldridge et al (2007) studied this demand-withdraw pattern in 128 couples who were divided into three groups: severely distressed, moderately distressed, and nondistressed. The researchers used self-report and video-taped discussions of relationship problem topics and analyzed them to come to the following results:

The more distressed the couple, the more demand/withdraw tactics they used.

The pattern of wife-demand/husband-withdraw was more common than husband-demand/wife-withdraw.[ii]

There are a small group of couples that demand-demand or withdraw-withdraw. The first looks very volatile. The last looks like one nasty storm cloud that never actually does anything. It could also be just a plain/stony feel to the marriage.

So, typically, most marriages have a wife that finds herself demanding and a husband that withdraws. Hence the proverbial man-cave and the proverbial nagging wife. They’re proverbial for a reason: we all do this!

Research completed in 2009 gives further information on demand-withdraw patterns. The researchers studied “116 couples who completed diary ratings of instances of marital conflict occurring at home.”[iii] The results of these diary ratings were as follows:

The individual who initiated the conflict predicted the demand-withdraw pattern. When husbands initiated the conflict it led to the husband-demand/wife-withdraw pattern. When wives initiated conflict, it led to the wife-demand/husband-withdraw.

Demand-withdraw patterns were more likely when disagreements concerned the marital relationship, and less likely when it was disagreements about issues outside the relationship.

Demand-withdraw patterns were consistently related to greater likelihood of negative tactics (i.e., threat, physical distress, verbal hostility, aggression) and higher levels of negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anger, fear) and to lower likelihood of constructive tactics (i.e., affection, support, problem solving, compromise) and lower levels of positivity.[iv]

In other words, we all do this,

So, you want less sex than your spouse does. Is that a problem? Well, it turns out that’s a question for your spouse. But if it is a problem, today we’re going to help you navigate your way through this delicate issue.

Maybe you haven’t heard the terminology ‘low desire versus high desire’. Many marriages will have sexual desire discrepancies in which one spouse desires more sex than the other spouse. Often, but not always, the husband is high desire and the wife is low desire.

If your marriage is the other way around, and the wife is high desire and the husband is low desire, that’s fine too!

There is no judgment on low is bad or high is good, we just need to be aware that in almost every marriage there is a difference in sexual desire. That is not a bad thing. It just is what it is. It can be a pain point though, if we don’t know how to handle it or we think it is a bad thing.

The spouse with low desire often wants to meet the desire of the other spouse, but feels unable to do this when they just don’t desire sex. So what should they do? That’s the dilemma…

Let’s start by looking at the nature of sexual desire, then the problems that sexual desire discrepancies can cause in marriage and finally look at practical ways in which the low desire spouse can move forward.

The Nature of Sexual Desire

In 2003, Levine wrote an influential article entitled The Nature of Sexual Desire in which he defines sexual desire as “the sum of the forces that lean towards and away from sexual behavior”[i]. He states that sexual desire is made up on three components:

Drive – “a biological component which has an anatomy and neuroendocrine physiology.” This is just about how you’re made, how you’re wired, and how the chemicals in your body balance out. For example, we know that testosterone levels in men affects sexual desire. Testosterone levels, in turn are affected by things like obesity, depression and more.

Motivation – “the psychological component” which is influenced by three things:

Personal mental states such as joy or sorrow. Often we talk about “not being in the mood”. This is usually a reference to how our motivation is affected by our current emotional state.

Interpersonal states such as mutual affection, disagreement, or disrespect. How well are we getting along? Or how much non-sexual intimacy are we experiencing?

Social contexts such as relationship duration and infidelity – other factors from the circumstances of our lives.

All three of these affect our motivation!

Wish – “the cultural component that reflects values, meanings, and rules about sexual expression that are inculcated in childhood.” This can be huge for people of faith. We hear time and again of couples where a spouse was taught for the first 20 years of his/her life that sex was bad. Then they get married and are expected to become sexually active but cannot switch the belief that “sex is bad” over to “sex is good” because they made some wedding vows.

Issues can come up in one or multiple of these areas to lead to issues in desire: drive, motivation and wish (or beliefs).

The Cost of Sexual Desire Discrepancy in a Marriage

Now that we know the nature of sexual desire, let’s look at the type of issues that come up when we’re not aligned.

A study in 2014 of 1054 married couples looked at the associations between sexual desire discrepancy and four relationship outcomes (how satisfied the couple was with their marriage, how stable their relationship was, how much conflict they had, and how much positive communication they had)[ii].

The study compared how much sex couples actually had versus how much they wanted. They called the difference a sexual desire discrepancy. The difference is what is important – the discrepancy. The results showed that:

High discrepancy for either spouse was generally associated with less satisfaction, less stability, less positive communication, and more couple conflict.

What do you do when you want to fix your marriage and your spouse doesn’t think there’s a problem? Or maybe sees the problem but refuses to work on it?

This is a really tough situation to be in where you are really worried about your marriage but your spouse isn’t on board – for whatever reason – with doing anything about fixing it.

This is actually not an uncommon situation. In fact, the research shows that it is a common marital situation for an unhappy spouse to be married to a spouse that is not unhappy. Yes, that is a lot of “un’s” to keep track of! It turns out though that unhappy spouses are much more common than unhappy marriages.

So, you are not the only person out there going through this! In fact, we’ve been through it too. There was a period of time where Caleb was just dragging himself through life – in a cloud of mild depression all the time. I was the unhappy, concerned spouse. Thankfully, Caleb was able to come out of that and we re-engaged, but it was not a happy time for me when he couldn’t see that anything was wrong.

The Problem of Unhappy Spouses

In 2002, Waite et al completed an extensive study of unhappy spouses using the National Survey of Families and Households. They looked at 645 spouses in the USA who had rated their marriages as unhappy and then re-interviewed them again five years later.

They found that, “while Americans usually talk about unhappy marriages…unhappy spouses were far more common. Only about a quarter of unhappy spouses were married to a spouse who also reported being unhappily married.”[i] The implication being that ¾ of unhappy spouses are married to spouses who are satisfied with their marriages.

If you are the unhappy spouse, could you do us a favour and send us a note on our Get In Touch page? We’d love to hear what it’s been like for you – and I promise, if you write to us, we’ll write you back!

The statistics also showed that unhappy spouses are more likely to experience symptoms of depression, have lower levels of global happiness, a lower sense of personal mastery, and lower self-esteem than happy spouses. It’s not an easy situation to be in.

I think the most challenging part of being unhappy is the powerlessness associated with it. Like when you’re at someone’s house and their picture isn’t hanging straight but you can’t touch it – only 1000x worse! You can see what needs to be done. You can feel it in your gut. But you can’t change it!

But be encouraged – there is hope for you and your marriage!

Hope for Unhappy Spouses

The study mentioned above actually looked at the difference between unhappy spouses who decided to stay married and unhappy spouses who decided to get a divorce. They made a couple of important discoveries.

First, “unhappy spouses who divorced or separated actually showed a somewhat higher number of depressive symptoms, compared to unhappily married spouses who stayed married.” Perhaps their most important finding was this: “Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce or separation ended up happily married five years later.”[ii]

This gives so much hope! If you’re an unhappy spouse who decides to stay committed, over time you will most likely come to a happier place in your relationship!

What are the reasons for this? Obviously, if you’re reading this, you want to be in that two out of three people, so let’s look at some of the common situations that lead to unhappy spouses and how unhappy spouses found happiness in each type of situation.

Three Common Causes of Unhappy Spouses

Outside Stressors: Things such as illness, unemployment, depression, financial problems, problems with kids, etc… This was the most common story given by spouses who were interviewed. Their marriage became unhappy because of outside situations that could not be controlled. These are major issues that can insert themselves into our lives at any time.

Husband Behaving Badly: These issues included infidelity, alcoholism,