Simple Marriage | emotions

Simple Family: Keep The End In Mind

It’s easy to get caught up in the midst of the moment when it comes to parenting.

Even now as I write this my 4 year old daughter is throwing a fit because I will not help her do something she’s perfectly capable of doing herself.

If I take the bait of engaging in this showdown, I risk getting lost in the moment and losing focus on the end result – launching a self-sustaining adult.

Granted this launch is many years away, but parenting is easier when you keep the end result in mind.

It is safe to say that we all have fantasies about how our children will turn out.

There’s the dream of visiting them after they’re married and successful. You get to play with the grandchildren, bask in the warmth of the family time and reminisce about the wonderful experiences growing up together.

There are other times however when these dreams turn to nightmares. You see all the potential traps out there and are afraid they will fall victim to one or more of them.

At the basic level, forgetting all the wants you have for your child’s future for a moment, successful parenting can be measured by asking yourself one question. After your kids are grown and out of school, ask yourself this: are they taxpayers? That’s it.

If you can answer this with a yes, you did a great job.

If you keep end result in mind, you can better disengage in the moment during battles in order to focus on long term goals.

This is not a “sit back and hope for the best” style of parenting. Passivity is rarely the way to go. When you keep your main values and principles in mind as you parent, you’ll parent from the best in you. Not the emotionally reactive part of you.

I continue to get a great testing of this idea as I write, since my 4 year old is continuing her tantrum. I can feel my anxieties rising as I want to engage the situation and do it for her. By the way, the issue surrounding her tantrum, taking off one set of clothes in order to put on pajamas. Something she’s accomplished on her own many times before.

When I can calm down and soothe my anxieties, I can freely and rationally choose what to do next. In this case, she’s on her own.

With the end result in mind, the moments that come along as parents can be viewed with a better perspective.

And wouldn’t you know it, she just just came out of her room with her pajamas on!

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Simple Family: Giving Kids Their Space

Written by Corey · 10 Comments

In the last Simple Family post I proposed the idea that as parents, we are responsible to our children, not for them. I’d like to add to this idea.

As parents, our main responsibility TO our children is keeping our cool. When a parent over-reacts, displays knee-jerk reactions, or simply flies off the handle, this creates an unstable environment for all involved.

If however you remain calm in the face of anxious moments, you increase the likelihood of being guided by your deepest principles, rather than emotional reactivity, which is more tied to your deepest fears.

For example, your teenage daughter is two hours past her curfew and you being the concerned parent are waiting up for her. As the minutes pass, your care and concern more likely is experienced as worry and fear. As she appears through the door, how are you most likely going to greet her?

Many parents would erupt into a monologue covering how late she is, how much trouble she has caused and when she should expect to leave the house again – which will be many months away.

Now you may think you have every right to react this way. But is your monologue in line with your deepest principles? Are you really conveying your love and concern for her well-being?

What if you reacted this way as she entered the house?

“Honey, I’m so glad your home safely. I was pretty worried when you did not arrive home by your curfew. It’s been a long night, and now that you’re safely home, I’m going to bed. We will discuss the consequences of your choosing to arrive home late in the morning. Good night honey (kiss on the forehead).”

Which expresses your love and genuine care for her safety?

By living more from your deepest principles, you increase the chances that your children will choose to follow them as well.

You also create space for them.

Space to be in charge of things in their own life. To make their own choices, and to live with the consequences.

By granting your children more space, which happens by default as you have less emotional reactivity, they learn better how to handle themselves. Their choices and its natural consequences.

Now I can hear you already bringing up the age appropriateness of this idea. And while I can understand your argument, I also believe that the giving a child his/her own space begins when they are very young.

My 2 and 4 year old have learned the best lessons when my wife or I did not shelter them from the natural consequences of a choice. Granted, if it is a safety issue, shelter away.

My son learned very quickly how to cautiously climb some furniture, and which furniture not to climb, after he fell off the couch. Now he may have learned this same lesson by us explaining to him all the things that could happen were he to fall off the couch, but not near as well as actually doing it.

Living, and parenting, according to your deepest principles involves you handling yourself and your reactions more. But when you’re able to react less in the moment, you’re going to get your principles across far better than blowing up and having to pick up the pieces later.

Photo courtesy lepiaf.geo

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How To Keep Arguments From Escalating

Written by Corey · 12 Comments

As you go through life and learn the various tasks involved in growing up, perhaps one of the most anticipated task in life is learning to drive. Do you remember how much you looked forward to the freedom driving would afford you? I do.

While learning to drive, one important lesson you must learn is how to stop the car. It’s the first thing you’re taught. There are even cars you drive while learning that have an extra brake pedal on the passenger’s side. The reason – learning to apply the brakes is vitally important to all those in the car, and around the car.

Putting on the brakes is an important skill in marriage and relationships as well.

When your conversation starts off on the wrong foot or you find you’re both in a cycle of blame and defensiveness, you can often prevent a disaster if you know how to stop. Marriage researcher John Gottman calls these brakes – repair attempts. And they’re the secret weapon of happy couples.

Marriages that are built on and sustain a good marital friendship are not devoid of arguing and disagreements. In fact, 69% of the problems in marriage are perpetual. Repair attempts, when used well is the secret weapon that prevents quarrels from getting out of hand.

There are two key factors in determining whether repair attempts are successful:

The current state of the relationship.
The ability of the attempt to get through to your partner.

Let me give you an example. Bob and Susan are in a heated discussion about an upcoming family move. They see eye to eye on where they want to live, how to set up the house (mostly), and where to put the kids in school. They are drawing the battle lines over the set up of the family room. Susan thinks they should use their current TV and stereo system while Bob wants to jump at the chance of upgrading to the system he’s had his eye on for some time now. It’s not extravagant and they have the money from the sale of their current home. The more they talk, the louder it gets.

A passer-by, if they overheard the argument, may think they have no hope of a lasting marriage. Then all of the sudden, Susan puts her hands on her hips in perfect imitation of their 4 year old daughter, and proceeds to stick out her tongue. Since Bob knows she’s about to do this, he beats her to it by sticking out his tongue first. They both start laughing. This silliness defuses the tension between them.

Repair attempts are any statement or action – silly or otherwise – that prevents negativity from spiraling out of control. When a couple has a solid foundation together and a good friendship with each other, they naturally become experts at sending each other repair attempts and at correctly receiving those sent their way. If a couple is negatively locked down with each other, even a blatant repair attempt of “Hey, I’m sorry” will have trouble getting through.

What determines the success of repair attempts is the strength of the marital friendship.

Everyone has room to grow and improve when it comes to strengthening the state of the marital friendship. This is not as easy as simply being “friendly” or “nice.” It involves your own personal growth and emotional maturity, as well as your spouse’s (although they’re responsible for themselves in this area).

You can begin by learning to recognize the repair attempts as they happen between you. Sometimes these attempts are missed because they don’t come sugarcoated. A heated “Why are you changing the subject” or “Can’t we discuss this later” is still a repair attempt and is often overlooked.

One of the best strategies to begin with is to make your attempts obvious and formal. Statements like “this is getting out of hand, can we discuss this later” or “can I take that last statement back, I’m sorry” can go a long way in smoothing the waters between you. You could even go as obvious as “Hey, what follows is a repair attempt.”

If you’re on the receiving end of a repair attempt, your job is to simply try and accept it. Confront you own anxieties and tension from the discussion and plan to come together to discuss more at a later time.

For more, check out How To Fight in Marriage and the idea of the physiological response to a perceived threat – Flooding. If you are currently in negative override, How to Say I’m Sorry will be worth the read again.

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13 Ways To Make Your Spouse Hate Sex

Written by Corey · 33 Comments

photo credit: eflon

I recently wrote a guest post for The Discomfort Zone about how to be miserable in marriage – but this advice applied to marriage as a whole. This time I feel its necessary to tackle how you can ruin sex in your marriage, more specifically, your partner’s sexual experience.

It’s really not all that difficult to ruin sex – and if this is your goal, simply follow these suggestions and you’re sure to end up in a barren, sexless marriage that’ll allow both of you to feel isolated and alone.

Sex is so easy to mess up due to the feelings often associated with it being so vulnerable and tied the core of who we are. Our sexuality is affected so easily by self-esteem, emotional insecurities, pressures, criticisms, and expectations.

So to effectively ruin sex for your spouse, follow these steps: Read more »

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How To Have Your Feelings

Written by Mary Ann · 3 Comments

photo credit: visualpanic

Editor’s Note: This post is by Simple Marriage contributor Mary Ann Crossno.

“You make me feel . . .” – we say that because we just KNOW that how well we do in life is somehow linked to the impact others have on us. That’s why it often seems as though we are on a roller coaster and someone – ANYONE – other than us – is in control of the ride.

V. Higgins – “Emotions . . . come up unexpectedly and seem overwhelming”

One of Simple Marriage’s basic premises is that

Human potential is shaped by human interaction.

We humans are a part of nature and we are ruled by the same forces that drive nature.

In nature, emotions and the emotional systems are automatic, instinctual reactions to real, patterned, or imagined threats.
Emotions are designed to preserve the species, protect the social unit, and promote procreation.
They are the driving biological force that shapes relationship patterns.

Our need for relationships creates the human paradox – we need enough togetherness to survive and enough separateness to thrive. Every baby’s life was conceived in togetherness and born into separateness – the first and most powerful example of our lifelong struggle to be connected to the most important people in our life while becoming a self-determined, goal-directed individual. Read more »

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