Normalize therapy.

This is Part 2 of the series on Body Image and Sexual Functioning. If you have not read the first part, do so here.

In the first half of this topic, we talked about the impact of social media, culture, and pornography on self-image and sexual self-consciousness. Today we talk about how you can help yourself and your spouse overcome issues with body image and thereby improve your sexual satisfaction.

Improving Body Image and Sexual Satisfaction

First, recognize the buffering effect of marriage.

The very fact that you are married needs to be recognized. In 2004, researchers studied what they call the “cultural standard of an impossible-to-attain ideal body image”.[i]

They compared married couples and single individuals and found that marriage lessens the importance of the ideal body image for both men and women. In this study, married people, when compared to single people, rated it less important for their spouses to possess the ideal body image.

The importance of long-lasting, satisfying relationships decreases the importance of body dissatisfaction and mitigates the impact of unrealistic ideal body image.

This should be not underestimated as popular media and the marketing world would pitch the ideal sexual partner as young, single, attractive, fit, a model or movie star. The actual human brain, on the other hand, which you have and your spouse has is actually wired to appreciate a healthy intimate relationship over ideal body image. Your brain is real – Hollywood is not, and porn is not.

Trust this God-given reality that when we get married God makes two people one flesh. There is a sacred union and he designed that union and us as people so that as we age together and make babies and bodies’ grow old and mature, the intimacy actually can improve while the physical appearance is going the other direction.

Secondly, sexual function is related to body image, not body weight.

Again, this is a very important point. In 2013, a study that looked at the effect of body image and body mass index on the sexual functioning of women found that:[ii]

The positive body image of women had a positive effect on their sexual function.

Women who were overweight and obese based on BMI had poorer body image, but the weight had no effect on a woman’s sexual function.

How you see yourself is more important than what you look like.

Speaking on behalf of men, Caleb points out two things at play here. One is that husbands appreciate their wife’s self-care, but the second is that they don’t need their wife to have the perfect body. It is valuable to bring the best version of ourselves (both husband and wife) to the marriage, but what is most important is the connection and love that we have.

In the context of sexual intimacy, what a husband wants is for his wife not to be able to get enough of him. To quote Caleb, “You, coming at me hungrily, is more important by FAR than you coming at me with a perfect body. It’s not even on the same scale, in fact. I just want to be wanted.”

Other Christian bloggers and podcasters are saying the same thing – you don’t need to buy into the unrealistic standards that are out there.

Thirdly, husbands – you play a critical role in your wife’s ability to move forward.

Caleb and I know a guy who would point out a woman on the street and say to his wife, “Why can’t you look like that?” Let me add, his wife was taking pretty good care of herself at the time too.

Ladies – if this is your husband, this is HIS problem, not yours. I know it’s yours in that you feel the pain, but this is about his own issues. It is NOT about you.

Another study of 144 couples found that wives’ sexual outcomes were more strongly shaped by husbands’ satisfaction with her body.[iii] So men, communicate satisfaction to your spouse!

When your wife brings up her body concerns (and she’s going to do that a lot because of the culture that we live in), you can alleviate those concerns by routinely reflecting positive body image back to her. As you consistently promote positive body image for her, you can help her to become less sexually self-conscious.[iv]

There are two parts here. One is to not buy into the lie that a more ideal body is going to provide a better sexual experience. It may provide more arousal, but if you believe that sex is about intimacy and not just about the release, then your best sexual experience is going to happen with the person you’re most intimate with – the one who loves you to death and can’t get enough of you.

Second is sometimes you’re going to have to explicitly promote your wife’s positive body image. In other words, affirm her beauty. You might have to tell her, “I don’t want to be married to [whoever she’s comparing herself to], I want to be married to you! And I want to make love with you, not with her!” Read the Song of Solomon for some ideas – there’s a whole lot of body parts on your wife and there should be plenty to compliment and affirm.

In summary: Ease off the social media comparisons. No pornography. Get help if you need it. Believe in the power of your marriage as a vehicle for lifelong sexual satisfaction. Focus more on fixing your body image concept than your body weight. Husbands: affirm your wives. Make sure you get the worksheet for this episode.

[i] Gail Tom et al., “Body Image, Relationships, and Time,” The Journal of Psychology 139, no. 5 (September 2005): 458–68.

[ii] Nülüfer Erbil, “The Relationships Between Sexual Function, Body Image, and Body Mass Index Among Women,” Sexuality and Disability 31, no. 1 (March 2013): 63–70, doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11195-012-9258-4.

[iii] Ruixue Zhaoyang and M. Lynne Cooper, “Body Satisfaction and Couple’s Daily Sexual Experience: A Dyadic Perspective,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 42, no. 6 (August 2013): 985–98, doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-013-0082-4.

[iv] Diana T. Sanchez and Amy K. Kiefer, “Body Concerns In and Out of the Bedroom: Implications for Sexual Pleasure and Problems,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 36, no. 6 (December 2007): 808–20, doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9205-0.

Body image is a very sensitive subject. So we’re going to be really gentle, but we’re going be challenging you to do some serious thinking about your self-image and the expectations you’re bringing to your sexual intimacy. After all, how you think about your body is having a huge impact on your intimacy and sexual confidence.

So, we all know the old saying, “You can’t change your spouse, you can only change yourself”. Well, apparently that saying isn’t 100% true. You can actually leverage your self-care to feel better about yourself and consequently, improve the well being of your marriage.

Self-care is integral to the health of our marriages. There are not a lot of studies to 100% prove the link between self-care and marriage where, for example, they study exercise and measure marital outcomes, but we want to look at the overall idea of taking good care of ourselves by eating well, exercising, sleeping and making leisure time because this does become a marital issue.

You see, when we fail to take care of ourselves, our mood, stress levels, and emotional responses all suffer. This, in turn, has a detrimental effect on the people around us.

Think about how this works. Husband is stressed so doesn’t sleep well. This causes the wife not to sleep well. As husband gets tired, he becomes more quiet and withdrawn; as wife gets tired, she gets grumpy. Soon there is an attacker-withdrawer cycle going on. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)

The research, as well as real-life, shows us that emotions, hormones, moods and stress levels of a couple are intimately tied together. This comes into play through a phenomenon in marriage that is known as coregulation.

Coregulation in Marriage

Coregulation is the dynamic, reciprocal interchange between partners across multiple biological systems.[i] That just means that we influence each other’s emotions and well-being.

This is an important dynamic at play in our marriages and it is happening automatically all the time. You don’t even think about it! It goes in both directions so that spouses can pull each other up or pull each other down.

The good part of this is that it helps us stay in sync and hopefully reach out to each other and lift each other up.

Coregulation Ties Spouse’s Emotions Together

A study in 2008, looked at how couples affected each other after spending time apart pursuing their own activities. They found that if a couple scored high on interpersonal insecurity (ie. They felt insecure about their relationship) then if one spouse reunited with negatives emotions the other spouse got on board with those negative emotions right away. On the other hand, if the husband was the type of guy who was willing to see his wife’s perspective and they came back together with softer negative emotions (like sadness or gloominess) then they would also match emotions.

There are other variables at play, but the point is that any couple’s emotions are interconnected pretty quickly when they reunite after pursuing individual activities.[ii]

For example, if the husband gets home and the wife is angry, he’s likely to get on board with that. If she is sad, he’ll join her in her sadness.

We don’t want to oversimplify because there are other variables at play, but the point is that generally, we do have this emotional pull on each other. We are – to some degree- tied at the hip when it comes to emotions.

Coregulation Ties Spouse’s Hormones and Moods Together

It’s funny what studies researchers think up sometimes… Saxbe and Repetti took saliva samples to measure cortisol levels in 30 married couples, multiple times a day over three days. “How’s your marriage? Just spit in this little cup right here.”

They found that a couple’s cortisol levels (cortisol is the 'stress' hormone) moved together. They also found that couples’ mood moved together.[iii]

The same thing was found when another study looked specifically at stress levels and compared the genders. It was found that wives had a greater impact on husbands than husbands did on wives. It actually was noted that high-stress levels on the wife’s part had a pretty significant impact on the well-being of the husband.[iv]

Interestingly though, these researchers did not see the link as being unbreakable. In other words, they felt that it was not like the coregulation response happened regardless – a spouse can do something about it! Their recommendation was that if you become aware of your spouse being overly stressed, then you can choose to take preventative or helpful steps to avoid a decline in your own well-being.

Again, this points out there is a coregulation happening because part of the implication is that you can choose to take care of yourself, and as you do so, you may find this also helps your spouse out.

There is a very real push and pull that we can have on each other. If you grasp this in your marriage, it also means that it makes sense to engage in self-care even for the well-being of your spouse!

Caleb and I are not die-hard fitness people, but if one of us is exercising, the other gets onboard pretty quickly. That is where my self-care actually begins to affect my husband’s well-being.

Self-Care That Affects Your Marriage

Our moods, stress levels, and negative emotions can impact our spouse. It makes sense then that taking care of myself is not only important for my personal health but also the health of my spouse and our marriage.

As I mentioned earlier, we have not been able to find studies to establish a direct link between self-care and marital happiness. What we have established from the research though is that there is a strong link between my well-being and my spouse’s. Below we will look at research that speaks specifically to individual well-being, but, as the research already implies, personal care also blesses my spouse and so, in turn, my marriage.

Exercise

Exercise can have a positive effect on mood, health, and well-being. A study from 2003 found that people who participated in 20 minutes of an aerobic activity saw a positive effect on their mood and anxiety states.

Remember, if you can lift your mood, you will likely take your spouse with you because as we saw in an earlier study, positive moods in one spouse covaries with positive moods in the other spouse.

Rest

Do you get enough sleep? There can be a lot of things that come into life that make it hard to get enough sleep, but it is really important.

A study from 2013 noted that poor sleep was associated with altered stress regulation. When we don’t get enough sleep, we struggle to regulate stress in healthy ways. Results of their sleep quality study found that inadequate sleep led to poor “cognitive, affective, and physiological responses to stress.”[v]

If sleeplessness is impacting you, it’s going to carry over to your spouse. In this particular case, it’s going to reduce your ability to manage your stress well. Remember how we saw that wives’ stress levels were linked to a detrimental impact on the husband’s well being? It is something to watch out for.

We talked about this quite extensively when Caleb interviewed Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter, about the impact of sleep in marriage.

Some research from that show (Psychology and Psychiatry Journal 2011) revealed:

There is a bi-directional relationship between relationship quality and sleep quality

Sleep quality affects the functioning of the relationship the next day

Conflict during the day leads to worse quality of sleep that night.

This just turns into a vicious cycle! Poor sleep -> Grumpy relationship the next day -> Bad sleep -> More grumpy…. And the cycle continues. No wonder the Bible tells us, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”

The Society of Behavioral Medicine (2013) also spoke to this, finding that:

Sleep is an aspect of stress regulation

Lack of sleep affects the ability to regulate stress, which leads to increasingly disturbed sleep, which leads to increasingly negative outcomes.

There is a lot of evidence to show that working towards higher-quality sleep is a form of self-care that can be a real blessing to your marriage.

Healthy Eating

It is obvious enough to say that what we eat has an impact on our physical healthy, but a study from 2009 also linked healthy eating with general life satisfaction. They particularly noted that eating more fruit and less fat was positively associated with life satisfaction. [vi]

Again, that study just focused on life satisfaction but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that life satisfaction and marriage satisfaction are fairly closely tied together. This brings in mood, emotions, stress levels: all that stuff. Eating well, is a key area for good self-care.

Leisure

This means taking time for leisure activities – hobbies, traveling, relaxing… those kinds of things. They have been found to lead to more positive emotions. You already know this.

A study in 2014 noted that it was helpful – if experiencing high daily stress – to allocate more time to leisure than usual.[vii] As in, if you have extra stress, try to compensate for that with leisure activities that will increase your positive mood. That, in turn, reduces the damage of high daily stress.

What we liked about this study is that acknowledges that we can’t all just turn off the stress like a switch in our lives. So, if we can’t take it away, the question is, what can we do in terms of leisure, exercise, eating well, and sleeping better, in order to compensate for that.

We can’t just quit our job, or walk away from caring for someone who is disabled – but these things are stressful. The question is, what else can we change to help us compensate and manage better?

The answer is self-care.

The part that’s really neat here, is that as we engage in better, more intentional self-care, not only is it a blessing to ourselves but to our marriages as well.

So think seriously about your self-care. We’ve just mentioned four areas, but there are more. What would you like to change today that’s going to make your marriage a calmer, more pleasant, healthier, happier place?

Start with these three things:

Listen to the podcast

Download the worksheet

...

Respect. We all want it, and we don’t want any exceptions - but we all know how easy we can turn it off and get our ugly on when things aren’t going our way!

Respect is on the decline, generally, in our culture, but one of the most important places we can show respect is in our marriages – both as husbands and wives. It’s not something that is talked about very often; so today we will look at the specific dangers of contempt (lack of respect) and how you can move your marriage towards greater respect.

A book that was helpful to us early on in our marriage was Love & Respect by the Eggerichs'. This book taught us how to safely say, “I’m feeling disrespected right now.” It gave us a healthy way to express our feelings and helped us realize when we were being inconsiderate of our spouse.

Sadly, respect isn’t a consistent presence in every marriage, and contempt abounds. There are actually a lot of words that we thought of that could mean the opposite of respect, but they basically all fall under the umbrella of contempt, so that’s the word we’ll be using today.

The Problem of Contempt

Contempt is a problem because it is destructive in marital conflict and is also an early predictor of divorce. It is more than criticism. It adds this mean element where the intent is to insult and psychologically abuse your spouse. Contempt can look like insults, name-calling, hostile humour, mockery, and sneering.[i]

You may ask the question, as Gottman did if all negative emotions are equally corrosive in marriage? We all have moments as a spouse that we’re not proud of, and we don’t like ourselves when we act that way but are these moments of anger (excluding all abusive behaviour) as bad as contempt?

Gottman and his fellow researchers found that contempt, belligerence, and defensiveness were prime suspects in causing marital instability. Anger wasn’t nearly as damaging to the marriage as these three things. In other words, as it relates to our topic today, contempt in the middle of marital conflict is a very strong pointer leading towards divorce.[ii]

There is a positive side to this research though; there are ways to show the respect that can neutralize those moments when our spouse does something unattractive. In the study, the couples that handled conflict well behaved in a way that was gentle and soothing and worked towards de-escalating (calming down negativity). The real challenge here is being strong enough to decide that you’re not going along with your spouse’s negativity and not getting on board with their contempt.

What Does Respect Look Like?

It can be challenging to define respect. It is not an emotion. It’s not just a behaviour. It’s hard to define, but we certainly know when we are getting it or when we are not. Really, respect is an attitude accompanied by emotions, thoughts and behaviour.[iii] It has a sense of equality (people who see themselves as equals show respect to each other), and as part of that, there is also mutuality (give and take: both are into it). Caring and supportiveness are also involved.

This alludes to one of the reasons why respect is so important in a marriage – and in all of our important relationships; it has to be going both ways in order to feel right. If you’re more powerful than someone else and they show you respect, that’s really just servitude. They feel like a servant. Marriage is more than that though – we don’t just want respect; we want to be able to respect our spouse. It has to be mutual.

The best way to do a quick check on the level of respect in your marriage is by the following six questions that are used in a tool called MIDSS (Measurement Instrument Database for Social Sciences, developed by Hendreick and Hendrick)[iv] and also used in the bonus worksheet we’ve put together for you.

How many of these six statements can you agree with?

I respect my partner

I am interested in my partner as a person

I am a source of healing for my partner

I honour my partner

I approve of the person my partner is

I communicate well with my partner

These are incredibly important statements to be able to agree with. They really touch on core issues in the strength and satisfaction of the marriage bond.

How to Build Respect Into Your Marriage

If you’ve realized at this point, that you can definitely work on this whole respect thing, let’s look at how you can build this into your marriage. As Caleb said, “bake it in” so it’s mixed right in there, can’t be removed, and is central to how your marriage is doing.

Power Struggles

Power struggles are really interesting.[v] At the middle of marriage conflict when we really want our own way we often just see two options: 1) Dominate, or 2) Be dominated. When we’re thinking in this “either-or” way, it leads to conflict that is destructive to the relationship. The problem with this type of thinking is that it is impossible to achieve an outcome that is characterized by mutual respect – someone has to lose, and that isn’t going to feel like being respected.

This research from 2011 looking at marriage conflict, points to the need for differentiation. This is a good article entitled “If I Need You, Does That Make Me Needy” that deals further with differentiation in marriage.

Basically, differentiation is about knowing yourself as an individual and being able to separate who you are from your identity as a couple. This lets you as a spouse, see your spouse as human and relate to him or her with respect and generosity despite the differences you’re experiencing. We can let our spouse be his/her self without feeling threatened by it which is beautiful, because we married our spouse because of who they are, not so they can be like us!

Differentiation also means that I don’t have to take responsibility for my spouse’s misbehaviour because I am not him (and vice-versa). I can choose to continue to show respect in the face of what I’m not liking.

Differentiation gives us the option of avoiding power struggles. Instead of dominating or being dominated, differentiation gives us the option of working together as a team. This is a mental shift that says instead of us being opponents on this issue, we are actually partners on a team fighting the problem. The issue is the problem. The disagreement is the problem. Not you, or your spouse. This allows you to show respect towards your spouse while working out your differences and not getting lost in the power struggles.

Third Options

Here is another way to think about conflict and respect.

When disrespect is present, we often see that our relationship is in a spat and we’re just at each other. It hearkens back to the dominate or be-dominated theme and we’re trying to establish who is worse. It is not helpful.

This type of arguing comes down to two options:

You are a doormat, or

You have to win and therefore become domineering.

Both of these have a lot of disrespect involved, so we want you to look at a third option:

You speak respectfully and are heard, while also hearing your spouse at the same time.

Wow, that sure looks different from the first two options! It really comes back to attitude and healthy communication mixed with the idea that I am in control of my own behaviour. I can choose how to respond. (Sound like differentiation?) I want to respond in a manner that communicates respect for my spouse – even if I’m not happy with what I’m seeing from him or her right now.

Rather than be reactive, self regulate (manage your own emotions, thoughts, speech, and attitudes) and work really hard to be open to your spouse’s perspective and claim to truth.

That is how, in the middle of marital conflict, we can show respect.

There are many more ways to show respect, but it is hardest to stay respectful when we’re in the middle of conflict so we wanted to touch on that aspect today.

[i] Eric C. Walker et al., “Contempt and Defensiveness in Couple Relationships Related to Childhood Sexual Abuse Histories for Self and Partner,” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 37, no. 1 (January 2011): 37–50.

[ii] John M. Gottman et al., “Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60, no. 1 (February 1998): 5–22.

[iii] Hendreick, S. S., & Hendrick, C. (2006). Measuring respect in close relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23, 881-899

[iv] https://www.midss.org/content/respect-toward-partner-scale

[v] Mona DeKoven Fishbane, “Facilitating Relational Empowerment in Couple Therapy,” Family Process 50, no. 3 (September 2011): 337–52.

It’s easy to feel entitled to certain rights and benefits from our marriages. That entitlement always seems to be there but is never helpful in creating a great marriage. Take hope though,  there is a better way - it's called sacrifice.

Gary Thomas’ book “Sacred Marriage” speaks to this when he asks the question, 'What if marriage was more about making you holy than making you happy'? He confronts the idea that we think marriage should make us all goo-goo ga-ga happy but instead we run smack into our own humanity, and our own sin.

The beauty of marriage is that is in an opportunity to have these ugly things brought to light and then work on putting them out of our lives and thereby experiencing transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit in our marriage.

So let’s take a look at entitlement and how this can damage our marriage, then, how to, instead, move towards giving sacrificially to one another. Our premise is, that at the end of the day, giving sacrificially benefits both myself and my spouse and also my marriage as a whole.

The Problem of Entitlement in Marriage

Very simply, entitlement is about what I think I deserve from others. It’s about my expectations.

In a marriage, entitlement really stinks because marriage is supposed to be about an entity called “us” and yet entitlement is about the entity called “me”. Yet, the irony of it is, in marriage the intensity of entitlement feelings is unique and amplified compared to other relationships.

Tolmacz looked at this and noted that couple relationships have two very specific dynamics that make them prone to unique issues around entitlement:

Couple relationships have a high level of intimacy

Couple relationships generate wants, needs, and expectations.

He found evidence from clinical settings and practice shows that entitlement influences the quality of our marriages, and the level of satisfaction we each experience in our marriages.[i]

Caleb has found the same thing – when helping distressed marriages heal and recover, there is always some unhealthy entitlement in the mix that has caused the distress.

What is particularly interesting about this study from Tolmacz is that he found that gender is a huge factor in the issue of relational entitlement and that women are especially affected. This relates to the identity roles we bring to our marriages as men and women where women are socialized to be concerned about meeting the needs of others. This is a great trait but leads to the depreciation of their own wishes, needs, and self-worth and consequently, they are more prone to being on the receiving end of the entitlement problem.

This gets more serious though as this same researcher found that entitlement contributes to desire for a divorce, and does more so among men and women in making the divorce decision. Generally speaking, is entitlement was a weapon, men are holding it, and women are on the receiving end of its brutality.

It gets even more severe too. There are numerous studies linking entitlement with violence in intimate partner relationships. Abusive men use a sense of entitlement to give an excuse for their violence towards women. Not only that but men who feel entitled to their wife’s body act more violently than other men.

So, realize, that while we experience and express entitlement at some pretty basic and relatively innocent levels, it also has this really dark, dark side to it. For that reason, even if you are not anywhere near that severe end of the spectrum, we’re asking you to take it very seriously. Husbands, this is a challenge primarily for you - Make sure you get the worksheet.

For the part of our audience that shares our Christian faith – let’s look at Ephesians 5 for a moment. This is a chapter which abusive men who like to use the Bible like a stick – which is not how it was ever intended to be used – will emphasize to their wives that they must submit and get them in a big tizzy over what it means to submit. Something they decline to mention though is the qualifying phrase on the request for wives to submit is “in the Lord”. Meaning, that if you’re doing something Jesus would not do, she is not required to submit.

If you’re a wife in an abusive relationship, before you run with that be careful about the consequences – not to oppress you, but just for your safety. Your plans to change your marriage has to focus on your safety, not on sorting out belief systems with him.

The other part of Ephesians 5 that abusive husbands fail to mention is that the call on husbands is to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. As in, he sacrificed his life for the church: now you go do the same for your wife.

That is the ultimate antidote to the problem of male entitlement in our culture – God intends for men to learn how to die for their wives, and how to love them sacrificially to the point of the complete giving of themselves.

Which leads us to the subject of sacrifice as one of the core parts of the heart of marriage.

The Importance of Sacrifice in Marriage

When we’re talking about sacrifice in this context, it’s the idea of foregoing my own immediate self-interest in order to promote the well-being of my wife or of our relationship.

How Important is Sacrifice?

There was a very interesting study in 2006 where the researchers looked at the links between attitudes about sacrifice and marital outcomes (how the marriages did). They defined sacrifice as putting aside my own interests for the sake of my relationship with my spouse or giving up something for my spouse. For the marital outcomes, they were looking at happiness, the amount of disagreement, how much sharing there was and if there was regret about marriage, and commitment. He’s what they found:

Couples who found sacrifice more rewarding showed more positive marital outcomes in the early years of marriage.

These same couples were less distressed and their marriages sustained these qualities over the next year and the year after when they checked back in with them again.

Sacrifice mediated the link between commitment and marital outcomes for husbands but not for wives.

This ‘mediating’ lingo can be confusing. Let’s say there were two husbands. Both scored 8 out of 10 for commitment. So they’re equally committed to their respective marriages. But one husband scores a 2 out of ten on sacrifice and the other a 10 out of 10. He’s very sacrificial. The 10 out of 10 husband is going to have stronger marital outcomes than the 2 out of 10 husband. So it’s not just enough to be committed. You also need to be sacrificial.

This link was not observed for wives and they think (and we tend to agree with them) that this is because women are already doing it because they’re socialized for it.[ii]

Motivations to Sacrifice

Motivations are very important with respect to sacrifice.

In 2010, researchers found that the more important an activity was to someone, the less willing that person was to sacrifice that activity. So if something’s really important to you, you’re going to be less willing to sacrifice.[iii] Makes sense!

The value we place on an activity is a stronger influence on sacrifice than commitment to the marriage is on sacrifice. So, if you really want to build a sacrificial marriage – you may have to feel some real pain! The conclusion here is just that this sacrifice is going to have to have some real cost to it.

This begs the question, what have you REALLY sacrificed in your marriage. A lot of us say “you can have all of me… except this and this…”. You’re probably thinking, “Do I have to give EVERYTHING up?” Well, you might. Jesus Christ did. Why would you expect less of yourself? That’s just entitlement…

How Do I Build a Sacrificial Marriage?

Are you wanting to take your marriage to the next level and build a sacrificial marriage? Here are five things for you to work on:

Be willing to give unselfishly: commitment is more than just sticking around the house and helping out with the family, gentlemen. Sacrifice is key here and this means giving in genuine ways for each other even at personal cost. Yes, you may have to get off the couch…or skip your favorite show… or take hunting season off for this year… but be willing to give unselfishly with no expectations of return.

Be aware of, and thankful for, existing sacrifices. Don’t take the positive things for granted that your spouse is already doing for you. In fact, one of the things we do on the worksheet is list these out. It’s a good exercise in gratitude.

Don’t sacrifice out of neediness. If sacrifice in your marriage is one-sided, or crazy large or too frequent, it can lead to damage to the person who is always sacrificing. This should be balanced in the relationship but I am calling on men to lead in this area. And I’d also comment — probably more for wives than husbands — if your sacrificing is motivated by fear, that is a problem. That’s not right and I’d urge you to do some serious thinking about what’s taking you down that road.

Be aware of your motives when you sacrifice. It’s a good thing if sacrifice comes out of a desire for positive outcomes (like making your spouse happy). It’s not a good thing if you’re sacrificing to avoid negative outcomes (like to avoid conflict). Or if you’re doing it on a bartering basis, so your sacrificing right now because you’re worried if you don’t he/she won’t reciprocate later). These researchers found that individuals who sacrificed out of a desire to obtain positive outcomes experienced greater personal well-being compared to those who sacrificed to avoid negative outcomes.[iv]

Prayer is linked to sacrifice! Three studies were completed looking at the effect of prayer on satisfaction with sacrifice in close relationships. They found:

Prayer for a spouse predicted later satisfaction with sacrifice. So pray for your spouse,...

This is a big question.

Are you lonely in your marriage?

That is not a fun place to be, but there is good news – growing your intimacy can expel loneliness from your marriage and stop it from creeping back in.

There is a bit of a chain reaction when it comes to loneliness in marriage. It’s clear from the research that we’ll look at in a bit that loneliness can arise from a lack of intimacy. Loneliness and intimacy are affected in turn by the quality of communication and emotion skills in the marriage. If we can build up these two skill sets, then your marriage will see more intimacy. If there is more intimacy, obviously we’re going to help stave off those feelings of loneliness.

The Problem of Loneliness in Marriage

Loneliness is not as uncommon as you might think. Ironically, if you’re out there feeling lonely, you have company! Caleb and I have even had times of this in our own relationship despite having a marriage that we enjoy very much.

Research reveals that individuals in intimate relationships often feel lonely because the level of intimacy in the relationship is not meeting their desires or expectations.[i] That is why we’ll look at intimacy as well as loneliness in this post.

So, how many people are experiencing loneliness in their marriage?

A study from 2009 found that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 experienced moderate to strong emotional or social loneliness.[ii] That’s sad. That is a high number. Given that loneliness appears to affect the quality of our intimate relationships,[iii] we have a vicious cycle going on. Loneliness affects relationship quality which makes us lonely which affects our relationship quality which makes us lonely...

What Causes Loneliness in Marriage?

Many factors can contribute to loneliness in marriage, but two major ones we look at today are communication and emotional skillfulness. A lack of these two things will significantly contribute to loneliness.

Researchers, in 2009, looked at married couples and compared the extent of their loneliness to the functioning and quality of their marriages. They found that stronger emotional and social loneliness was found in those who did not receive emotional support from a spouse and who did not have frequent conversations with their spouse.[iv]

A second article found that married folk who were lonely displayed fewer positive behaviours than non-lonely individuals. Lonely marriages displayed:

Fewer positive attempts to make interactions pleasant

Less openness, including fewer direct conversations, less advice, and less listening to one another.

Fewer assurances

Fewer social networks and relied less on friends and family

Fewer shared tasks such as performing routine chores together.

All this research just shows why it is particularly helpful to focus in on these two areas of communication and emotion skills. And more good news – learning skills is something that anyone can do. It’s something you can add to your marriage and something new that you can bring to your relationship to strengthen it and help move yourselves away from loneliness and toward intimacy.

Let’s talk about building intimacy first by learning emotion skills and second by learning communication skills.

Building Intimacy Through Emotion Skills

A group of three researchers wanted to specifically test the theory that emotional skillfulness affects the intimacy process in relationships. In other words, they wanted to see how being good at handling emotions impacted marital satisfaction. They found that:

There was a link between the ability to identify/communicate emotions and marital adjustment. (Marital adjustment in this context means how well the spouses are connecting)

Intimate safety was a mediating factor on the impact of these skills on the marriage. You can have all the skills in the world, but if your marriage atmosphere is caustic or cynical, then being able and willing to be emotionally vulnerable is going to be choked by the lack of safety. It’s good to note that if you want your spouse (or yourself) to be more emotionally present then you also need to work towards making sure your marriage is a safe place.

Men had more trouble communicating emotions than women, BUT men were equally able to identify emotions. Often women say of men, or the men of themselves, that “he’s not a very emotional person. Well, we completely disagree, as does the research. Men are just as emotional as women. They may not be as skilled at communicating those emotions or not as comfortable giving expression to them, but they definitely have them!

So, all that to say that gaining skills in identifying and communicating emotions will build intimacy. How does it work?

Well, one theory is that being able to identify your own emotions and the emotions of your spouse can lead to greater empathy and also make you better at reading the social cues of your spouse. That means you’re going to be more sensitive to where your spouse is at emotionally in any given moment and position you to respond more accurately.

In marriage therapy, we call this attunement. It just means you’re dialed into your spouse and in the moments when he or she is vulnerable you’re better able to respond in an intimate, positive way. That’s the detection or listening side of things.

On the communication side, learning to give voice to your emotions and to put words to your fears or tears is one of the primary ways that spouses can behave vulnerably towards each other. This pushes you both towards intimacy and becomes a skill we can learn to communicate positive emotions such as joy and love, as well as non-hostile negative emotions such as sadness.

Building Intimacy Through Effective Communication

We’ve just looked at communicating positive emotions and non-hostile negative emotions to build intimacy, which is great in theory, but unfortunately, we all get our “ugly” on once in a while and have hostile negative emotions and communication like contempt, criticism, blame, and withdrawal.

The irony of this ugly communication is that when we use it we are often asking intimacy. For example, yelling “You spend more time with your stupid buddies from the hunting club than you do with me!” is clearly a wife asking for intimacy. Clearly, she is not going to get it…

It is not unusual for one person in a marriage to want more intimacy than the other. There is nothing wrong with that. How we ask for more intimacy though, is very, very important.

Researchers found that when intimacy was asked for through criticizing, blaming or withdrawing, the receiving spouse was actually less likely to fill the need. Think about these things for a minute:

Criticizing is attacking character. “You’re a workaholic – just admit it!” - can you hear the intimacy request in there?

Blaming: “You never take me to the mall”

Withdrawing: Silently trying to say “I want you to pursue me”

The intimacy needs represented in these actions is legitimate. However, the way in which they’re being asked is defeating the intent. It makes sense, doesn’t it? You say it because you’re hurting and lonely; but these tactics result in less intimacy satisfaction and less relationship satisfaction. They do not produce the desired outcome.

On the other hand, when the research participants asked for intimacy through more positive means of communication, they were more likely to have those needs met.

Having a positive conversation asking for greater intimacy seemed to create more intimacy in and of itself. This is because one spouse was opening up and expressing vulnerability about a sensitive issue, so greater intimacy resulted from the act of asking for intimacy.

The other thing is that having this conversation seemed to have some lasting benefit. The spouse asking for intimacy also had a greater likelihood of those intimacy needs being met in the future as well.[v]

In summary, loneliness is painful, but there are two key strategies you can learn to eliminate loneliness from your marriage. One is to work on emotion skills, and the other is to work on communication skills. Just working on these skills is a huge help in and of itself. And be encouraged – these are skills that can be learned.

[i] Young-ok Yum, “The Relationships Among Loneliness, Self/Partner Constructive Maintenance Behavior, and Relational Satisfaction in Two Cultures,” Communication Studies 54, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 451–67.

[ii] Jenny de Jong Gierveld et al., “Quality of Marriages in Later Life and Emotional and Social Loneliness,” The Journals of Gerontology 64B, no. 4 (July 2009): 497–506.

[iii] Yum, “The Relationships Among Loneliness, Self/Partner Constructive Maintenance Behavior, and Relational Satisfaction in Two Cultures.”

[iv] Gierveld et al., “Quality of Marriages in Later Life and Emotional and Social Loneliness.”

[v] Jennifer S. Kirby, Donald H. Baucom, and Michael A. Peterman, “An Investigation of Unmet Intimacy Needs in Marital Relationships,” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 31, no. 4 (October 2005): 313–25.

It’s not rocket science to know that rejecting your spouse is a really, really painful thing to do. But, think about the opposite for a moment: if I asked you to sit down and list the things you do regularly to communicate your unconditional acceptance of your spouse: how long would that list be?

First though, let’s start with the opposite of acceptance-rejection. I think it is clear to everyone that it hurts to be rejected, but it is worth knowing how severe that impact is in marriage.

A study from 2013 looked at the psychological adjustment of individuals who had grown up experiencing rejection from their parent and they were rejected by their spouse.

As a side note here; this is something we should be aware of. We tend to choose a spouse who will continue to treat us the same way our parents did: either for good or bad or more typically, for a mixture of those. We’re comfortable with the familiar and so unless we experience some personal growth between receiving caregiving from our parents and entering into marriage, we tend to perpetuate generational problems.

These researchers found that:[i]

72% of men and 68% of women who received acceptance from both their parents and their intimate partner were psychologically healthy and adjusted.

On the other hand, 71% of men and 60% of women who experienced rejection from both their parents and their intimate partner showed serious psychological maladjustment. (Psychological maladjustment meaning that they showed high levels of hostility and aggression, overdependence, negative self-esteem, and self-adequacy, were emotionally unresponsive, emotionally unstable, and had a negative worldview).

We don’t tell you this to make you feel messed up – just to point out that rejection is a very severe experience with very real, very detrimental impact.

The scary thing is, we do this to each other all the time in marriage. Every time your spouse makes a bid to connect with you and you decline – that’s rejection. It might be tiny, it might be big. Everything from declining a bid or proposition for sex that night to ending a hug a little early to an invitation to converse that just elicits a grunt.

We think of rejection as a spouse with a suitcase leaving a note behind on the bed – that’s the most severe, dramatic type, but what about those times when your spouse is trying to talk to you and you’re like “…Huh? Hang on, I’m on my phone.” A thousand minute rejection like this compound to the severity of the one major walk-out kind of abandonment.

It is really important to stop and consider the way we think about rejection because most of us intend to be (or want to be) loving, kind, engaged spouses. But… we also drop the ball a lot and may not fully grasp the cumulative severity of this.

Let’s look at the positive side now and talk about acceptance.

The Important of Acceptance

The first thing to look at is unconditional regard which is one form of acceptance. Unconditional regard is the basic acceptance and support of a person regardless of what they say or do.

In Christian language, this is brotherly love coupled with the effort of separating the sinner from the sin. (Carl Rogers originally birthed the idea of unconditional positive regard – not sure if he’d agree with Caleb’s Christianized definition, but it works for us!)

A study looked at college students in romantic relationships – I’m presuming most were unmarried but I think the principles apple to marriage. Here’s what he found[ii]:

Negative conflict acts as a mediator between unconditional regard and relationship satisfaction by the effect is has on unconditional regard

Negative conflict may lower the extent to which an individual feels accepted or understood by hi or her partner which then has an influence on relationship satisfaction.

In plain English… Fighting in marriage makes you feel less accepted and less understood, which decreases your satisfaction with the marriage.

Another study unpacks this dynamic even more. These researchers looked at how you responded to your spouse’s behavior, or, more specifically, how you accepted your spouse’s behavior.[iii] They found:

Acceptance of your spouse’s behavior (be it positive or negative) was a significant mediator between the behavior and your personal relationship satisfaction. In other words, how you viewed your spouse’s behavior was almost as significant as the actual behavior itself.

How you accepted the behavior (as positive or negative) determined your own response. This is how if you see something as negative you’re prone to respond negatively. This creates an escalating reaction is marriage. One spouse does something innocently that is perceived negatively, so the other responds negatively and it escalates from there. But, good news, the same can also happen positively.

So, what can we do with all this information?

Watch your perception.

I know, depending on my own particular mood or feeling that day, that I can interpret the same behavior either positively or negatively. For example, if my husband is excited and I’m not, I can either be irritated or I can allow myself to be infected by his excitement.

The point is to work towards choosing the best possible interpretation of our spouse’s behavior. This builds relationship satisfaction. Where we’re not sure that we like what we see, we need to find a constructive way to ask or challenge our spouse about that. Or, if you sense your spouse may have misinterpreted you, be willing to clarify without getting defensive.

Not only do we need to watch our perception, but we also need to infuse a lot of positivity into our marriages – humor, hugs, affirmation, affection etc, because just as negativity escalates, so does positivity.

Four Ways To Build Acceptance In Your Marriage

1. Consider how you can show your acceptance of your spouse’s positive behaviours.

This is simply the idea of reinforcing what you like so that you get more of it. This is not selfish. Just reinforce the positive. If your spouse is reaching out to you, don’t reject it; accept it, affirm it, be thankful for it. The more you do this the more likely he or she is to continue to perform those same behaviours.[iv]

2. Make positive assumptions about the reasons behind your spouse’s negative behaviour.

This is a fun one! The interpretations you give to your spouse’s behavior will affect how you respond to it. If you think he’s being spiteful and mean, you’ll likely respond in a negative way. But if you give him the benefit of the doubt, and attribute the behavior to him just having a bad day, then you will be more likely to respond in a positive way.[v]

This is common sense but it’s hard to do! It is how you break yourselves out of a negative cycle. You give your spouse permission to have negative feelings but you choose not to engage in them. Responding with empathy or comfort can create a bonding moment rather than an emotional escalation into a fight.

There is evidence that individuals in satisfying relationships tend to exhibit “pro relationship responses” in response to negative partner behaviours.[vi] This includes excusing transgressions, making positive attributions about their spouse’s negative behaviours, and communicating constructively with one’s spouse. You can see how this is where the power of acceptance really shines.

Acceptance is a willingness to go around your spouse’s humanity at times and just hold them. That is powerful.

We’re not saying you should overlook major issues that should be confronted or tolerate abuse however much your spouse might minimize it. We’re just saying we all have our human moments where our sin or our carnality shines through; when we’re not at our best and we get our ‘ugly’ on. If you can respond to that with compassion and empathy you can create a different outcome than just coming back at it with the same negative response. Remember the Proverb, “A soft answer turns away anger.”

3. Don’t respond to negative behaviour with more negative behaviour.

This is how downward spirals are created. Your spouse exhibits some negative behavior – you respond with equal or greater negativity.  This is a failure to show acceptance. If you guys are stuck in that rut, try doing something differently that is, at the very least, much less negative or hopefully even positive.

4. Verbally affirm your acceptance of your spouse.

Use intrinsic affirmations for this.[vii] Intrinsic affirmations are the verbal affirmation of your unconditional acceptance of your spouse based not on what they do, but on who he or she is as a person.

Be intentional and serious about complementing your spouse on the stable and enduring aspects of who they are. This is such a powerful thing.

We live in a culture that makes fun of father in popular media and is constantly asserting that wives are not thin enough, young enough, good enough moms, etc. Introduce intrinsic affirmations and all of a sudden you have this tremendously affirming, accepting, positive force within your marriage.

Some examples of intrinsic affirmations are:

You are such a loving, caring wife.

One of the things I really appreciate about you is how intentional you are about connecting with the kids through play or conversation.

You’re such a great provider for our family.

Remember, you’re affirming qualities of character.

The complement to these, are extrinsic affirmations. For some reason, these are easier and we tend to do these more readily. These are the verbal affirmation of temporary events, deeds or accomplishments that come out of a conditional acceptance that is based on meeting my expectations as a spouse.

They might include sayings like:

Wow, thanks for cleaning the house up today!

Good job on supper tonight.

You've got the car nice and clean.

Great work on the lawn.

We need the little thank-you’s and affirmations,...

There are some things you can do without in marriage – and still have a pretty good marriage. Commitment is NOT one of those things. It is foundational. If you don’t have it, your marriage is toast. But, the good news is, even if you don’t have it right now, you can choose to be committed today and start building this essential piece into your marriage.

There is a lot of content out there about marriage. A lot of people are talking about a diversity of things in the world of marriage. Some of it is helpful. But I want you to think of commitment like one of the crown jewels. You need to protect it, preserve it, and give it special attention. Commitment is one of the core areas at the heart of a healthy, lasting, thriving marriage.

What is Marital Commitment?

Think of words like loyalty, faithfulness, dedication, maybe even focus or integrity.

In the research, there are a variety of definitions that range from vague (“having a long term orientation toward the relationships”[i]) to specific (personal: wanting to stay married, moral: feeling morally obligated to stay married, and structural: feeling constrained to stay married[ii]).

Perhaps you are a little cynical about commitment due to your circumstances or history or even the experience of your parent’s marriage and think it is overrated. You prefer your freedom to being tied to another person.

Ironically, a study in 2002 showed that couples with higher levels of commitment felt less trapped and were more satisfied with their relationships. Higher commitment creates more freedom and more satisfaction.

We have jokes and comments in our society about the “ball and chain” of marriage and how a man is trapped once he’s been to the altar, but this is not the reality. The experience of highly-committed couples is one of greater satisfaction and even a greater sense of freedom because they have that secure base in their marriage.

So the question to ask your self is how committed are you, right now, to your spouse?

The Consequences of Abandonment

The opposite of commitment could be abandonment. This often happens through divorce or infidelity.

How Divorce Affects Spouses and Children

Divorce, in particular, is especially devastating. We have a textbook in our office written for marriage therapists that states emphatically that we just need to get over divorce being a big deal and we need to just accept it as a normal transition in our culture. That is total garbage! The reality is that divorce is devastating.

Here’s what the research says about divorce:

Divorced individuals are unhappier, have more psychological distress and have poorer self-concepts.

Divorced individuals have more problems with their health and greater mortality risk.

Divorce can lead to greater levels of depression and alcohol use.

Children of divorced families struggle in school, have more conduct issues, struggle in social situations, and have lower self-concepts.[iii]

There is also a generational impact from abandonment and low marital commitment. Another study by the same researcher found that marital instability is transmitted across generations because children see the weak commitment of their parents, which becomes the norm to them. So, when they consider their own marriages this is their native paradigm.

In their study, they found that children who had divorced parents had double the likelihood of their own marriage ending in divorce. In looking at this, the reason given for this elevated risk of divorce was because they “hold a comparatively weak commitment to the norm of life long marriage.”[iv]

Serious stuff.

How Infidelity Affects Commitment

The obvious point from the research on this one is that infidelity is a leading cause for divorce, and only a small portion of couples who go through infidelity are able to improve their relationship afterwards. [v]

The consequences of infidelity are a loss of trust, decreased personal and sexual confidence, a fear of abandonment and a surge of justification to leave the offending spouse.

Caleb loves to help couples who want to rebuild after infidelity, and if it’s possible we think it’s the best thing you can do IF you’re both willing to do the hard work and you’re both committed to recreating commitment.

But, the reality is, if you are unfaithful to your spouse then you have committed adultery. Marriage is intended to be sexually sacred. Two people, one flesh. Infidelity sparks that fear of abandonment because once you cross that line, you’ve broken the marriage bond.

If you’re interested in deepening the level of commitment in your marriage than it is vital that you hold the marriage bond to be sacred: both in terms of not accepting no-fault divorce as a solution to marital distress, and in terms of being committed to faithfulness in marriage.

How to Increase Commitment in Your Marriage

Ok, we’ve seen how vital commitment is to your marriage, and how damaging abandonment can be, so the question now stands, “How do I increase commitment in my marriage?”

You see, commitment is abstract. It’s not something you can buy; it is something you have to create. So, here are a few things to think about right now, and some past resources we’ve created so that if this is a real need for you, you have lots to work with.

And don’t forget – you don’t have to do this alone as a couple. If you’ve had a breach or a breakdown, our practic specializes in betrayal recovery.

Here are five items to consider when thinking about commitment in your marriage:[vi]

Stop All Alternative Monitoring

Alternative monitoring means thinking about a relationship with someone other than your spouse. Study results showed that individuals in committed relationships spend less time thinking about possible alternative partners.

Alternative monitoring leads to increased resentment in the relationship, corroding a sense of commitment. It’s like you’re opening doors in your head that could lead you to a room that you don’t want to be in. What-if’s are not going to help your what-is, so rather than monitoring alternatives, work on building up what you do have.

Don’t Consider the Attractiveness of Alternative Relationships

Not only should you not think about romance with someone other than your spouse, but couples should also battle unrealistic idealizations of alternative scenarios. It’s like the previous item but it’s taking it up a notch because you’re fantasizing or idealizing.

Even if you believe that you are committed to your relationship, it is dangerous to get lost in thoughts of how a different situation or a different spouse would be better. In your head, you get into two relationships. One where you’re married and you’re seeing the things that you’re not happy with and the other where you’re dating and you’re only seeing what you want to see. There’s no way you can sustain that dichotomy without decreasing your commitment to your marriage.

Don’t Assume that Women are More Committed Than Men

The underlying belief that women are more committed than men is not grounded in research, and the research shows that men and women are equally committed to marriage. However, men and women often show commitment in different ways.

For example, men often show their commitment by making sacrifices in marriage. Women who are concerned about their husband’s commitment can look for sacrifices that might be evidence of their commitment.

This is also a warning to men in particular not to take your wife granted. Your wife needs you: she needs your affection, your interest, your commitment. If you’re all work-work-work and your wife ends up having an affair, you’ll get all mad because it’s her fault. Yes, she did make a wrong choice, but you contributed to the environment that made that wrong choice attractive.

Words to Women: Consider the Negative Interactions

Ladies, pay attention to the negative interactions you bring to the marriage and think about how you can decrease them. Study’s show that men’s divorce potential was strongly linked to negative interactions in the marriage. In simple terms – don’t nag him!

Check out Episode 74: The Three Best Ways to Ruin Your Husband’s Day and #27: If You Really Loved Me You Would… where we caution wives about negative interactions.

Words to Men: Consider the Lack of Positive Interactions

Men, pay attention to how little you interact with your wife positively and think about how you can increase those positive interactions. For men, it’s not so much about negative interactions as much as the lack of positive. It turns out that women’s divorce potential was strongly linked to a lack of positive interactions in the marriage.

Check out Episode 31: Three Ways to Make Your Marriage Happier and Episode 4: 5 Reasons Why You Need To Tell Your Wife You Appreciate Her.

In summary, commitment is a choice made in the heart. You have to start there. You may be in a crazy situation and having trouble figuring out how to make it all work, but if you start with commitment, the rest will fall into place. (Again, reach out if you’re in this place).

Remember, commitment is a fundamental piece of the foundation of a happy marriage. You cannot not have commitment.

If you realize you don’t have it, and you want your marriage to thrive the good news is that you can make that choice today.

Be the spouse that says, “I am all in for this marriage. I am not going to entertain alternatives any longer. Now I am going to start shifting my behaviours to align with this decision that I am committed.”

Decide to be committed and then act on it. Every day. No matter what.

[i] Ximena B. Arriaga and Christopher R. Agnew, “Being Committed: Affective, Cognitive, and Conative Components of Relationship Commitment,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27, no. 9 (September 1, 2001): 1190–1203, doi:10.1177/0146167201279011.

[ii] Stephanie Ellen Byrd,...

This is the second part of a topic that’s pretty common and can be pretty difficult for a lot of couples. It’s really just the idea that the wife is running the marriage and family and the husband is the breadwinner but not really engaged or involved as much as they would like him to be. We’re assuming you want to change that.

Last week we looked at the wife’s role in this scenario. Today we are challenging the men. Before you get defensive, husband, know that we realize what a horrible place it is to feel disempowered or marginalized or even kind of useless. If you want to lead, to be involved and engaged, then this is for you, even though it may be tough to hear.

Does Your Involvement As A Husband Matter?

Yes.

That’s the short answer. Yes.

Even if your wife wants to do everything and run the family and the marriage, the research says this is not beneficial to her or to the family. Your involvement will help both your wife and your family to function better.

Housework

Let’s look at housework for a moment: when husbands are involved in housework, their wives have less psychological stress, feel more satisfied with their marriages and are overall happier.[i]

These results were found in a study that compared the well-being of wives whose husbands were highly involved in housework with wives whose husbands were minimally involved in housework. It found that “wives whose husbands were minimally involved were 1.60 times more likely to be distressed, 2.96 times more likely to be uncomfortable with their husbands, and 2.69 times more likely to be unhappy.[ii]

Parenting

An article compiling the research from hundreds of articles looked for the benefits of father involvement. Here are a few things they found:[iii]

Academic Benefits: School-aged children of involved fathers are better academic achievers. They are more likely to get A’s, have higher grade point averages, get better achievement test scores, receive superior grades, perform a year above their expected age level of academic tests, obtain higher scores on reading achievement, or learn more and perform better in school.

Emotional Benefits and General Wellbeing: When fathers are involved, their children are less depressed, have fewer conduct problems, less emotional distress and negative emotions such as fear and guilt.

Social wellbeing: Children with involved father have more positive friendships with less aggression and conflict and more generosity.

Parenting Relationship: There is a positive correlation between marital quality and levels of father involvement in childcare, the quality of the father-child relationship, the father’s satisfaction with his role as a parent, and the father’s competence as a parent.

I’m sure we could keep going on this idea that involved fathers and husbands makes for a better family and marriage. So we would encourage you, even if your wife has explicitly communicated she doesn’t want you involved, to challenge her on it. Maybe you’ve only assumed her desire from some non-verbal communication or misinterpreted some Womanspeak.

It’s going to be a difficult conversation but you can find some help with it in Episode 55: How to Disagree Without Sinking Your Love Boat.

The next question then, is how can a husband get more involved if his wife is taking control and pushing him out?

How To Get Your Pants Back

Before we actually get to the “how-to’s”, let’s look at some psychology.

There is an area of research called Identity Theory. Identity Theory says that individuals seek to verify their identity – the person they see themselves to be – by controlling the situations around them so that these situations match their desired identity.

For example, you may see this at work: a manager who sees himself as a problem solver actually kind of tweaks the experience of his direct reports so that they’re dependent on him and keep having to come to him to solve problems. It reinforces his identity and makes him feel better about himself.

But back to our marriages… If a wife sees herself (or wants to see herself) as a supermom and super wife – if she is given the power to do so – she may actually arrange the family dynamics around her own desire to verify that identity.

A researcher looked at Identity Theory in the context of food preparation and housekeeping behaviours in married couples. Each spouse considered what they wanted their identity to be in terms of how much they wanted to be involved in food prep and housekeeping. The researchers found a few interesting things:[iv]

Husbands expect their wives to be more heavily involved in these activities than wives expect husbands to be involved. (Nothing surprising there.)

More powerful individuals were more able to behave in ways that were consistent with the identity that they desired (so if you want to be The Cook and you have the power in the coupe dynamic to achieve that, then you could be The Cook)

These people also imposed identities on their spouse to further control the situation.

Although no one is being a freak here, it’s a little freaky. You have one spouse controlling the situation so that they can affirm their own need for a specific identity, and the other spouse is going along with this.

The first step for you as a husband to get your pants back is to really stop and think about the identity that you’ve accepted. Your acceptance of this, and your relinquishment of power have both contributed to where you’re at today. So you can’t sit there and say “My wife did this to me!”. What did she actually do to you? You accepted, you bought into this.

It could be that you even wanted the identity of the disengaged dad so that you could play computer games, go hunting and fishing all you want, work super-long hours to fulfill your own identity needs as the hero or the manly outdoorsman or the successful business guy. It could be possible that you gave her the identity of the family leader so that you could go pursue your own identity needs.

This is the point at which we say, “Don’t blame this all on your wife!” Yes, we challenged wives last week, but you are just as much a part of what is right now in your marriage.

So, what is your attitude towards housework and childcare?

Housework and Childcare

Another article we read looked at the different attitudes that men and women held towards housework and childcare and how that impacted who does what.

They found that one of the reasons women do more childcare and housework is because they have a more favourable attitude towards it, probably because they are socialized for it.

The next part, which also makes sense, is they found that one’s own attitude is more important than one’s spouse’s attitude. When it comes to who does childcare and housework, both husbands and wives tend to act upon their own attitudes. So a wife might have a favorable attitude towards her husband helping with housework, but the husband is not likely to act on this unless he also has a favorable attitude towards housework. The husband’s attitude towards his own role in parenting and housework in parenting and housework is more influential than the wife’s attitude towards what his role should be.

This is where it gets painful (for Caleb anyways, as he realized he was guilty of this for the early part of our marriage): When it comes to housework and childcare, men’s attitudes are more influential than women’s attitudes in how the labor is divided. Men are most likely to leverage their unfavorable attitude towards tasks that are the least favored. As in, they’re not going to do what they don’t want to do. They tend to leverage their ‘male dominance’ against tasks that are more unpleasant. Because men have more power than women do (in our culture), men may be able to resist doing household labor when they do not want to do it, whereas women have to give in.[v]

So, dear husband, is it possible that in your marriage you are actually the one wearing the pants in the family? The problem is that those pants never get off the couch.

You grumble about your wife making all the decisions or you even joke about letting the woman decide, but whether you pass it off as a complain or as humor the real issue is simply a failure to lead. You impose that because of your male power.

It’s like having a Disengaged Dictator. It may not be unpleasant but there’s this force of power that keeps your wife busy and running the show and looking like she’s making the decisions, but really it’s because you’ve established an identity that blends male dominance with male disengagement.

I can hear it already, the typical, “But I work all day, why can’t she do the dishes?” argument. My question to you is, who decided that was fair?

Before we go any further, we want to throw a slight caveat in. We saw this crazy show on BBC a few years back about this wife who played Second Life all day (a computer game of role-playing) and sat on her butt all day long and didn’t take care of the kids or the home or got to work, and he had to do everything. If you are that guy, you are not who we are talking to today – you have our empathy!

But for the rest of you good husbands out there, who just want to do a little better, here’s Caleb’s real-life example.

“I used to think that I worked all day so I deserved to get the evenings off. But I’ve come to realize, that even though she’s home, Verlynda works all day too. So when I come home, it’s not actually that I’ve worked all day, and she is only just getting started, therefore she should do the dishes and get the kids to bed. No! It’s actually like she’s worked all day too, so, guess what? We’re even, which means that housework and childcare for the evening should get split 50/50.

For us, even though that’s my attitude now, it actually works out differently. I will wash dishes, but I’ll also tend to do more stereotypically manly household duties like yard work

Are you frustrated that your husband doesn't help with the kids? This episode explores the surprising reasons why he might be disengaged, including the common "demand-withdraw" pattern and the concept of "maternal gatekeeping," where a mother's actions may unintentionally discourage her partner's involvement. We discuss how to break this cycle by changing the conversation from blame to collaboration. Learn practical strategies for discussing the division of labor, sharing domestic demands, and working together to create a more balanced and supportive partnership.