Thoughts for the Indecisive Among Us

Decision making is tough enough when you only have your own interests to keep in mind. Add in the complexity of another person (or a whole family), and you can reach a place of mental gridlock that makes the Eisenhower at rush hour seem tame.

Cliff and I were in gridlock last week: Maggie was scheduled to have tubes put in her ears, but we were having second thoughts. Did she really need it? And how much was it going to cost?

The problem with decision making is you can never have all the answers: no amount of consultations with surgeons or pediatricians could tell me if Maggie might outgrow the ear infection problem on her own. Or if tubes would help with her language development.

We had to make the decision somewhat in the dark. We debated over a few days, and then finally decided to do it.

This got me thinking about how we, as a couple, make decisions. Sure, we do the whole pros-and-cons list stuff; Cliff plays devil's advocate with relish. We debate when we disagree. But there are a few other tools we also employ - tools you may not find in a standard communication textbook. So here are three unorthodox ideas for decision making:


1. Don't talk, at least at first.
If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, you know there's good reason to go with your gut instinct. Often we invest a great deal of time in thinking through a decision making process, only to arrive at the conclusion we already held at the beginning.

Of course, if you're making a decision as a team, you've got two gut instincts to consider.

On more than one occasion Cliff and I have short-circuited the the decision-making process by each writing down our instincts on a post it note BEFORE we begin to talk about the decision.

We did this when we were thinking about joining the Peace Corps. Our recruiter called us and presented a choice: we could go to the region we wanted (Africa) and teach kindergarten (yikes!), or we could go to the South Pacific (an area we'd never considered) and work in our preferred professional fields.

After we hung up the phone we pulled out our post it notes ... and when we shared what we'd written with each other, we both found the words "South Pacific" on the paper.

Obviously, this made the decision easier. But what if your paper says something different than his? That means you have a starting point for a conversation: you can work to convince each other, or work toward a compromise. Either way, it's nice to know where your partner is starting at.



2. Defer to the person who has invested more in the process.
A few years ago I had dinner with a friend who had spent the day looking at houses with her husband. They each had a favorite, and it wasn't the same home. Both houses were within their means and met their needs, so how did they decide?

My friend is a stay at home mom. Since she was the one who would spend more time in the home - and be more impacted by the home's distance from the kids schools, the grocery store, or gym - it only seemed fair that her preference bear a little greater weight in the decision making process.

Cliff and I often defer to each other when one of us has more invested in the process. I give him more say in what Dish Network plan we have, for example, because he's spent more time on the phone with their customer service department. When it comes to vacations, I'm often the one who does the planning: as a result, Cliff tends to defer decisions regarding what hotel we stay at or what sites we visit.

3. Don't make a permanent decision.
Have you ever noticed there are some decisions you have to make over and over and over? Like whether or not to go to church on Sunday morning, which family to spend the holidays with, or how much money you can afford to spend on vacation.

Some decisions just reoccur. That's to be expected. But if the process of making these reoccurring decisions is always painful, then you may be facing a problem that can't be solved. Marriage researcher John Gottman says every couple has them and they aren't necessarily a bad thing.

Cliff and I often encounter this in our attitudes toward where to spend Christmas. I feel it's necessary to be with our families, and am willing to rotate years so we spend equal amount of time with his and mine. Cliff longs for our kids to have Christmas morning memories of waking up in their own home, just as he did as a kid.

We'll probably never change each others mind, so we have to find a workable solution each year. Following Gottman's advice, we aren't looking for a permanent decision. Instead we just need to find the compromise that works for this Christmas.

Unsolvable problems can be major or minor, but they don't have to cause rifts. (Gottman offers some techniques for managing them in "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.") The key is to sidestep a permanent solution, and work each time toward a temporary compromise instead.

So there you have it - three unorthodox decision making ideas. Do you have your own? Please share!

Sorry, Arnold: You Picked the Wrong Decade to be Unfaithful

Hollywood - both in the personal lives of its stars and in its movie scripts - would have us believe that monogamy is a bygone belief. Virtually any movie involving a wedding features at least one scene where the groom (or bride) laments drunkenly that he's not sure (or she's not sure) she can only have sex with one person for the rest of his (or her) life.

And honestly, nature is often on the side of Hollywood. There aren't a heck of a lot of animals that mate for life.

But here is where humans are distinctive: we have opposable thumbs and we see the virtue of fidelity. And apparently more of you agree with me now than in decades past: new research from the University of Virginia's National Marriage Project (a fabulous research initiative) says 78 percent of men and 84 percent of women say infidelity is "always wrong." In the 1970s, the numbers were 63 and 73 percent, respectively.

In other words, we're becoming less tolerant of infidelity. Sorry, Arnold.

Perhaps this isn't surprising: the 70s was the decade when average people thought key parties were a good idea. Hmph.

Cinnamon Rolls & Marriage

Knowing her own children might not buy a religious defense of marital faithfulness, my friend Cate Wallace set out to craft an intellectual argument for faithfulness in her wise book, For Fidelity. (Read excerpts and more about Cate here.)

Cate concludes that fidelity is an essential characteristic of marriage: without it, it's not really a marriage at all. To illustrate, she tells the story of her love of cinnamon rolls.

We all know a cinnamon roll when we see it: yeasty and sweet, varying in size but not in shape, preferably covered in a sticky icing that leaves you wanting to lick the leftovers directly from your plate.

Cinnamon scones - even delicious cinnamon scones with icing drizzled on top - just isn't a cinnamon roll.

Likewise, most of us feel marriage without fidelity just isn't marriage.

Sorry, Maria.

So What If ...

So what if your relationship is one of the 10 to 16 percent that experience infidelity? A recent article on CNN's website offered three tips that seem a reasonable place to start (not that any one would be feeling reasonable after discovering a spouse's unfaithfulness):

1) Don't rush to make any big decisions, especially irreversible ones.

2) Don't tell your children. Especially if they are small.

3) Take care of yourself. This will ensure the patience and calm you will need.

What happens from there is up to you. But the good news is that you don't have to look far to find examples of relationships that have done the impossible: turning cinnamon scones back into cinnamon rolls.

100 Years of Patience & Fortitude

Earlier this week I heard an NPR news story that began, "Today we celebrate 100 years of patience and fortitude."

That caught my attention ... how, exactly, does one measure this?

The story went on to explain that Patience and Fortitude are the stone lions that stand guard outside the New York Public Library, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. (Patience is pictured on the left.)

Here's what stands out to me: what dull, uninspiring words those are. Sure, patience and fortitude are noble qualities. But if I were given the opportunity to name a piece of architectural decor, I'd look for names with a little more pizazz.

Does this relate to marriage? It occurred to me that these lions were named not too long after the Victorian era, when a mother's typical wedding night advice for her daughter (at least according to legend) was to "lie still and think of England."

In other words, we're in a different era. Patience and Fortitude might have been the most noble characteristics then, but I'd vote for Creativity and Understanding now. Or perhaps Imagination and Tolerance. Love and Knowledge. Grace and Innovation.

Perhaps the words that inspire our era can also inspire our marriages. What would you name your lions?

Doubt the Numbers: Headlines Tell the Wrong Story about Divorce Rates

The latest US Census data came out recently and so newspapers are quick to remind us that the divorce rate still hovers around 50%. This is true, but only technically. If you really want to know your own risk of divorce, you have to dig a little deeper into the numbers.

Here are two things to know:

• The 50% divorce rate is calculated by comparing total number of new marriages to total number of divorces. Since the overall rate of marriage is declining (and people wait longer to marry), there are fewer marriages to compare to divorces, thus giving the perspective that divorce rates are higher than they actually are.
  

• Demographics greatly influence your likelihood of staying married. If you are college educated and married after age 25, for example, your likelihood of divorce is significantly lower than the national average.

Additionally, marriage isn't a static concept: expectations evolve over time. Gray divorce (divorce after decades of marriage) is on the rise as people who married in the 1950s and 60s determine to no longer put up with conditions that previously would have been endured, such as infidelity, emotional detachment, or addictions.

By comparison, people who married more recently may have lower rates of divorce because their marriages were established with greater expectations of equality. And the overall divorce rate is showing signs of decline since it hit its peak in the 1980s.

"Many Americans have ... heard this idea that one in two marriages will fail and that marriage is on the ropes," said Bradford Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. "Marriage is actually becoming more stable in America and divorce is becoming less common." (Quoted in an article from ABC News.)

Keeping Your Name or Taking His: how the name you pick may seal your professional fate

Here's a hypothetical: you're a hiring manager at a small firm, looking for a smart and aggressive new employee for your sales force. Your candidates are Amy Smith and Andrea Brown-Jarrett.

Who do you hire?

Now let's say you meet two new moms at a playgroup: Sharon Taylor-Ross and Meg Carter.

Which mom do you think is more sensitive and caring?

I hope your answer is, "I don't have enough information to answer those questions." Good for you. But was your first, unguarded, response to answer Andrea for the first question, and Meg for the second?

To Hyphenate, or Not To Hyphenate: That is the Research Question

A Dutch study published last year in the Journal of Basic and Applied Social Psychology attempted to assess the value of keeping your maiden name, or taking his. Apparently, maiden name keepers might earn about $524,000 more over their lifetimes than "I'll take his" wives.

To be fair, the study involved a hypothetical situation (similar to the scenarios I asked above) and has a few other flaws as well. But essentially, when asked to consider applicants for a job, hypothetical hiring managers were more likely to hire women who kept their maiden names, and were also more likely to offer them a higher salary.

The same researchers studied existing data of 2,400 Dutch women, and found those who kept their maiden name had more education and fewer children, worked more, and had higher salaries than women who changed their names.

In another study, participants were asked to compare women they had met at a party. Women who had taken their husband's names were deemed more caring, dependent, and emotional.

(The Wall Street Journal covered this research study in this article.)

Does a Rose by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

Picking a last name is often the first compromise of marriage. Newlyweds in this generation can find a seemingly limitless range of options: keep what you were born with, take his, take hers, she hyphenates, both hyphenate, use both in different contexts, or create a new name all together.

Men are no longer off the hook when it comes to this decision. While tolerance of her keeping her maiden name may have been the most required of men in my father's generation, the husbands of my friends don't have it that easy. They've got to be open to change too.

(In that they have a role model: I recently woke up singing the children's song "John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt," and laughed as I realized JJ was ahead of his time.)

Some couples navigate this decision with ease: the choice seems easy. Cliff and I fell into this category: I didn't want to hyphenate because writing Anderson-Johnson a dozen times a day seemed tedious. If one of us had to change, it seemed easier to go with tradition than buck the system.

Understandably, other couples might not find the choice as easy. The decision forces deeper questions of what it means to create your own family; what your connections to your birth families will be; how your professional and personal lives integrate; how traditional or contemporary you feel.

If the decision is still in front of you, just remember that you don't have to rush it. Legally you (or both of you) can change your names any time you feel like filing the paperwork.

Now ... pardon me while I add a hyphen to my name on my resume.

As Is

"AS IS" – Ani Difranco

Just give up
And admit you're an a**hole
You would be
In some good company
I think you'd find
That your friends would forgive you
Or maybe I
Am just speaking for me

And I've got
No illusions about you
And guess what?
I never did
And when I said
When I said I'll take it
I meant,
I meant as is

Those song lyrics may not exactly seem inspirational, but I think most people take solace in knowing that their partners do not expect perfection. That’s part of the deal, right? Not only do we take vows regarding sickness and health, but there's also an unspoken understanding that each partner will be loved despite occasionally behaving like an "a**hole." Speaking personally, I bank on that kind of love/forgiveness from Amber every single day.

But that begs a question: How far does such acceptance extend? While spouses take each other “as is,” they also expect a certain amount of responsibility and commitment over the long-term. Just last weekend, headlines broke regarding another high profile marriage that was ending. When Maria Shriver wedded Arnold Schwarzenegger, she committed to him “as is.” But the revelation that Arnold fathered a child out of wedlock obviously changed things more than a little. While divorce is far from a foregone conclusion (see post from 2/14/11), it’s a common reality nonetheless: There’s a certain point where our wedding vows seem small in comparison to everything that’s transpired within a relationship. Few of us reach that point over dirty socks repeatedly left on the bedroom floor, but a child out of wedlock obviously has a larger impact. You could say there’s a range of hurts we inflict on each other, and there’s most certainly a range of spouses’ commitment level amidst those hurts.

So how far does your “as is” commitment extend? What about your spouse? It’s a conversation worth having, regularly and repeatedly. Hillary Clinton and Maria Shriver faced the unenviable task of answering those questions unexpectedly and in the public eye, and they reached very different end results. While most of us will avoid paparazzi and tabloids during our lifetimes, committing to loving someone without illusion or pretense remains a pretty tough thing. I think Ms. Difranco’s lyrics capture both that toughness and the wonderfulness of wedding vows. “As is” seems pretty remarkable indeed.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

Is the Seven-Year Itch Real?

More than just a movie title, "The Seven-Year Itch" is a phrase we've grown up with, and perhaps without giving it much thought, you assumed it was a real phenomenon.

The screenwriter who coined the phrase, George Axelrod, borrowed it from a comedian. (For the full origin of the phrase, visit this link. Warning, it's a bit disgusting.) Originally it had no grounding in statistical research or even popular psychology. But Axelrod was on to something, because the latest round of marriage statistics from the Census Bureau reveals that the median length of marriage at time of separation is ... wait for it ... seven years.

Why is seven some sort of magic number? Every marriage has their own reasons, of course, but that doesn't keep me from hazarding a general guess: seven years is the point you realize this really doesn't stop. It's the longest you've ever done anything. And aren't we all addicted, at least a little, to change?

Think about it: high school was four years, college was four or five, you spent a few years at your first job, you moved apartments every year or two. Even your groups of friends shifted every few years. Hobbies, hair color, all these things change. Marriage ... not so much.

On your seventh wedding anniversary, you may very well be celebrating not just your union, but also the anniversary of the longest you've ever done anything.

Phases of Marriage

In the early stages of your relationship - and this can last for a few years - you're in a period psychologists call "limerence." This is the experience of being head over heels. You think about your mate incessantly, annoy your friends and colleagues by referencing them in conversation unnecessarily, and feel a level of emotion that is possibly unequaled to any other experience. (I've written about this stage before in the post "Nothing Gold Can Stay.")

This stage is fun while it lasts, but it's meant to go away. It gives way to a reality or accommodation phase where you have to tackle things together: daily stuff like who takes out the trash, or who does the taxes.

This accommodation phase often gives way to a challenge phase - and it seems to me this coincides with the seven-year itch. (For an interesting article on the phases of marriage, check out this link.)

So How Do You Avoid the Itch?

Maybe the itch isn't all bad, as long as you don't scratch. If it causes you to redouble your efforts to create a stable marriage, then it's a helpful stimulus.

Psychology Today bloggers Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz offer seven thoughts on avoiding the itch here. They remind readers that getting married doesn't make you any less human: feelings of temptation are natural. Acting on those feelings is what should be avoided.

If I recall correctly, the actor playing opposite of Marilyn Monroe in the movie walks right to the edge of temptation - and then returns to his wife.

Trading Dusting for Doing It, or, "Honey, You Look Sexy in those Rubber Gloves"

Broad generalizations are dangerous, but here's a statement I can confidently say is true most of the time: women are turned on by men who clean. My husband is positively dashing while doing dishes. Clean the gross upstairs shower and the day will, ahem ..., have a happy ending.

Why is this so? Because true or not, most women perceive that they bear the burden of housework, even when they work full time outside the home. In her book For Better, Tara Parker-Pope says research shows that 10 percent of men feel the division of labor in their home is unfair. By comparison, a whopping 60 percent of women complain of carrying an unfair housework burden.

Add kids into the mix, and the disparity becomes even wider. Parker-Pope says a mother's domestic labor increases on average by 12 hours a week once a baby arrives; men, on the other hand, add just two hours of extra work to their week. Yikes.

Even if this isn't true in your home, it could be the operational perception. Several marital therapists and psychologists (including my favorite, John Gottman) encourage couples to use lists of household chores to identify who is really doing what, and then map out an ideal chore-sharing plan.

Gottman's book "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" includes just such a list, which I skimmed on the train home from work this afternoon. If you'd asked me before I looked at the list about our division of labor, I would have said I carry a bigger burden (understandably, since I work outside the home only part time). But as I looked at the list I was surprised to find that Cliff deserves more credit than I was giving him. I also found a few areas where the division of labor has happened by default, rather than by discussion. Perhaps it's time for a chat.

If you don't have Gottman's book, you can do the same exercise using the list found at this link.

50/50
A true 50/50 division of labor isn't always practical. But some couples do aspire to share every responsibility, especially parenting, evenly. If that's your goal, then you may want to follow the "Equally Shared Parenting" (ESP) blog by Marc and Amy Vachon.

The Vachons were recently featured in a Boston Globe piece on ESP. Jenna Russell, author of the article, writes: "The most common misunderstanding about their approach is what they now call the 50-50 myth – the idea that their family life runs with mathematical precision. 'It’s not about putting a hatchet down every task,' Amy Vachon says. The goal is not to fixate on who does what, but for both to be fully invested, not only in the doing but also in the thinking and planning, so both know what needs to be done, without being asked.

Isn't that what we all want? To know our spouse is invested in the thinking, planning and doing of our shared daily lives. Without being asked.

More Housework = More Sex
Men, here's a dirty little secret: give a little more in the kitchen, and you'll likely get a little more in the bedroom.

A study of 300 American households, cited in For Better, found a consistent parallel between housework and sex. When both spouses were satisfied with the division of labor, the couple had sex one time more a month than among couples dissatisfied with the division of labor.

How do you leave your wife feeling satisfied? Take out the trash.

Esquire: Today's Top Source for Marriage Advice

A.J. Jacobs (Author of "The Year of Living Biblically" and Esquire editor) offers some unusual marriage advice in an Esquire article, "The Counterintuitive Man's Guide to Marriage." His three tips are:

1. Go to bed angry.

2. Bottle up your feelings.

3. Sleep separately.

Read his explanations at the link above.

Agree or not, I take A.J. Jacobs' advice seriously. Why? He was one of the first long-married individuals (9 years, at the time) to undergo a brain MRI to measure his feelings of romance, sex and attachment for his wife. The MRI showed he's as attracted to his wife as he is to Angelina Jolie ... and that, I think, makes him worth listening to.

Read his coverage of the brain research here. (Seriously - read it. It's funny and fascinating, much like everything else I've ever read by A.J. Jacobs.)

Personally, this is one of the most encouraging reports of research I've read in a long time: because, ladies, don't we all want to believe our husbands when they swear they really do find us attractive? There are days when I find it highly improbable, but A.J. Jacobs has given me hope.

5NC3PENXH3XC

Feeling Flooded

A few weeks after we bought our first home, I went to the basement during a rainstorm to start a load of laundry. It had been raining all week and I already knew there were little damp spots around the edges of the basement's brick walls. But I was totally unprepared for my feet to land in water before I landed on the bottom step.

And so, six months pregnant and home alone (Cliff was away on business), I hauled myself to Home Depot for a giant squeegee. The next day I began the slow process of pushing a pond's worth of water down the drain.

This, as you might imagine, is not a fond memory. Our basement is now flood-proof and slowly being remodeled, but I can easily recall the emotions I felt that night as my socks got soaked in the dirty water: frustration, anger, helplessness, fear, loneliness, indignation, indigestion (I was pregnant, after all).

These are pretty much the same surge of emotions I feel in the middle of a fight. That's why I wasn't surprised to discover this rush of emotions, in psychological parlance, is actually called flooding.

Rising Waters
Marriage researcher John Gottman (I'm quoting him a lot these days since I'm reading his book, "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work) says flooding happens when you're faced with a rush of negativity that is so overwhelming, and so sudden, that you feel shell-shocked. He says it's a primitive alarm system that signals emotional danger in physical ways. And of course he looks for examples of this happening in marriages because when one member of a relationship often feels flooded, it's not a good sign for the relationship's future.

When I get flooded, I feel my vision change: all I see is the argument in front of me. Sometimes I know I'm not being rational or sensitive. To paraphrase a country music song, I'm smart enough to know better, but still too mad to care.

Personally I tend to experience this emotion in parenting more than in my marriage. Each week has at least one or two moments where the kids (inadvertently) push me to the edge. I know raising my voice won't help, and neither will responding with sarcasm. And yet I'm still too mad to care.

Recovering from the Flood
Since reading Gottman's description of flooding, I've been identifying those moments where I'm teetering on the edge, and trying to figure out how to stop myself before the emotions fully rush in. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1) The first step is to admit it. Like in AA, you can't get anywhere if you don't know what you're dealing with. Telling myself I'm feeling flooded is somehow comforting: it gives me permission to step back and process my own emotions healthily.

2) Remember that feeling flooded is a strange way of showing you care. This is a bit convoluted, but bear with me: I don't get flooded about things that are less important. So the very fact that I'm feeling this rush of emotions is a reminder of how much I love my kids, for example. And when I remember this affection in the moment of being flooded, their annoying behaviors diminish in importance. Just a bit, perhaps, but perhaps also enough to get myself under control.

3) Breathing is a good place to start. Remember when I said that at the moment of being flooded, my vision changes? If my emotional response to something can affect my vision, then perhaps changing something physically can affect my emotional response. I'll start with deep breaths. And counting to 10. Or 100. No need to rush these things.

I'll let you know how it goes: I'm on my way to pick the kids up from daycare now.

Life's Little Curveballs

Life is filled with altered plans: rain checks, flight delays, traffic jams, late meetings. The list goes on. Some people cope better with last minute adjustments than others.

Yesterday brought just such an unexpected change of plans for our household. Chicago endured a weather shift that qualified as remarkable even in our fair city: a dramatic transition from 90 degree Thursday afternoon to 43 degree Sunday afternoon, not to mention the 25 mile per hour winds and continual rainfall. And (wait for it) we had Cubs tickets for Sunday afternoon. Our four-year-old son had spent weeks getting geared up for a seventh inning stretch, Crackerjacks and a ball park hot dog. As Amber and I debated an afternoon of watching baseball in the freezing wind and rain, he pleaded with us to attend anyway. As I said earlier, some of us cope better with last minute adjustments than others.

What does this have to do with marriage? In a sense, every long-term relationship is made up of unplanned detours and forced adaptations. The question is simply how two people cope together. Yesterday’s baseball game debate brought on a conversation between Amber and I about other unexpected changes of plans in our relationship:

- A date night that morphed into attending a used book fair with our children

- A weekend get-away that suffered through blizzard like conditions and an AWFUL hotel

- A day trip in Mozambique that culminated with a locked gear shift and a very long taxi ride

Every relationship has stories like these, and those moments demonstrate a great deal about both individuals and their relationships. I tend to become very fixated on imagined outcomes (for example, a beautiful sunny day with my kids at a ball game), but that often leads to palpable frustration when things change. Everyone detects my sour mood, but Amber notices it most of all. Regardless of how my wife’s dealing with these sudden shifts, my growing frustration inevitably tests her patience and mettle. In other words, relationships easily double the difficulty of dealing with changed plans. Here’s what we’ve learned over the years:

1) We cannot control each other’s emotions. Amber’s attempts to stop me from becoming frustrated typically end with her frustrated also; I’m the only one that can relinquish my previously imagined outcomes.

2) Our kids will learn coping skills by watching us. It was hard enough changing plans before children. As parents, we no longer have the luxury of sulking or throwing fits, so we’ve been learning to smile (or at least feign enjoyment) during life’s little unplanned adventures.

3) Our stories from when plans quickly disintegrated turned out to be our favorite memories. In fact, yesterday’s baseball game situation precipitated a great conversation about past mishaps.

Speaking of yesterday’s baseball game, Major League Baseball saved the day: our game was postponed to late June. You would think our son was crushed, right? Not so much. He frowned a bit, asked if we could go another time and went back to playing with firetrucks. In short, he dealt with this particular curveball far better than his parents. But someday he’ll have to deal with these little “adventures” alongside his spouse; that’s when things get complicated.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

The $107,000 Bonus: Or, How Your Marriage Places You Among the World's Wealthiest People

It's been said that the answer to "How much money would make you happy?" is always, "Just 10% more."

I have one friend who was honest enough to admit that 10% just wouldn't cut it. About 50%, she said. That might do the job.

But the truth is (and you don't need me to tell you this), money doesn't make you happy. Sure, it can make you look better. It can alleviate some of the things that cause regular arguments (who is going to do the laundry this time?). It can make other people want to be your "friend." But it can't make you happy, because "happy" isn't a product that's for sale.

What can make you happy? Apparently long-term marriage can.

The Guardian reports: "Evidence suggests that people in long-term marriages are significantly more content than those who are not; one piece of research even suggested that it had the psychic benefit of an annual salary of £65,000."

For those of you not up to date on your Euro conversions, that's about $107,000.

The quote comes from an interview with David Brooks (okay, I know some of you just threw up a little ... sorry), conservative political commentator and (new) student of brain research. In the article, Brooks explains:

"The relationship between money and happiness is very tenuous; the relationship between personal bonds and happiness is incredibly strong," he continues. "So joining a club that meets once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. It's all about the number of people you associate with and how intimately you associate with them."

So essentially, if you're in a content, long term relationship ... you have the happiness equivalent of being one of the world's richest individuals. (Plug £65,000 into http://www.globalrichlist.com/ ... if you earned this annual salary you'd be among the top .53% richest people in the world.)

Thanks, David Brooks, for reminding me of that.

Three Questions: entry #2

Here's a fact about marriage: Sometimes you just run out of things to say.

As I've mentioned before, when Cliff and I swear off talking about the kids, and then find we don't have any other pressing conversational topics, we take turns asking each other questions. I almost always learn something new: sometimes about Cliff, sometimes about myself.

Here are three new questions to try out:

1. What nightmares did you have as a kid? Have you had any recurring nightmares recently?

2. Without thinking to much, what are your three favorite movies (or books)? Can you find a common theme?

(This question comes from a blog by Mary DeMuth. As an example, she lists her three favorite movies as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The common thread? Outcasts who overcome their past to change the world.)

3. Name three areas of personal growth you've seen in your spouse recently.


Find "Three Questions: entry #1" here.

Can You Hear Me Now?

For several years, Amber and I wrestled with relational inequity: her employer provided her with a smart phone while I was scraping by with a cheap phone that had no contract, a monochrome screen and a game called snake that made Atari’s early 80s video game systems look fancy. During our family’s morning routine, Amber would sometimes stand by the kitchen counter, sifting through messages on her BlackBerry. Meanwhile, I would stand nearby making sanctimonious comments about being present and truly listening. You see, righteous indignation is much more easily justified than outright jealousy.

Cliff on his cell phone, circa 2009

But then – about 9 months ago – everything changed: we both got iPhones. Now I was the one checking scores at the dinner table or replying to friends while driving (insert your own sanctimonious comment here)…and she was still checking her e-mail at the kitchen counter every morning. You could say we’d developed some bad habits. Last fall, NPR ran a series of stories on marriage in a digital age, and this story on the marital impact of digital devices struck a chord:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130698574

The primary couple profiled by NPR talked about how having children changed things: the husband would be checking e-mails while missing moments with their new daughter. By the time his messages were sent, his daughter was tired and the moment was gone. They quickly learned that family life could not be paused like a DVR, and that necessitated some ground rules: (1) no texting till after their daughter’s bedtime, (2) each spouse is allowed 3 firm interruptions of iPhone use per evening.

Amber and I have developed some basic ground rules too, like not allowing cell phone use at the dinner table. We both love our iPhones, but the thing is that we love each other more. What terms have you negotiated with your spouse around digital technology? Post a comment, and share your wisdom.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

Revisionist History

Close your eyes and think back to how you and your partner met. How did it happen? What attracted you to him/her? What made you decide this was the person you wanted to marry?

If you can do this with ease, your marriage is probably in good shape. People who are in troubled marriages often struggle to recall the magic of how they met, the characteristics that attracted them, or how they knew "she's the one."

When a marriage starts to go downhill, the individuals often participate in the revision of history. What had once seemed like a charming "meet cute" (to use the Hollywood term) now becomes characterized as an unlucky coincidence, full of foreshadowing of a disappointing fate. Those personality quirks that were once so adorable are now seen as harbingers of annoying habits and arguments to come.

To some extent this is a natural part of the change process: if you're thinking of ending a relationship, it helps to disassociate yourself from any lingering warm feelings. Cliff and I first noticed this in the stories of a friend who was going through a divorce. Though clearly once happily married, she recast the early days of her relationship as "just a friendship," not a true marriage.

Perhaps you can see revisionist history in other, less monumental departures in your own life: You start seeing the inadequacies of a house you've loved just as it becomes necessary to sell it. A favorite boss announces she is leaving your company, and in this new light her faults become more obvious. You can't recall what you once had in common with a friend who has recently said something that hurt you.

Turning Good Memories to Bad
Marriage expert John Gottman says bad memories, through the rewriting of history, are one of the primary indicators of a future divorce:

"...When a marriage is not going well, history gets rewritten - for the worse. Now she recalls that he was thirty minutes late getting to the ceremony. Or he focuses on all the time she spent talking to his best man at the rehearsal dinner - or "flirting" with his friend, as it seems to him now. Another sad sign is when you find the past difficult to remember - it has become so unimportant or painful that you've let it fade away." (From The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver)

How do we keep the past from fading away? This will come easy to some marriages. For those that struggle with holding the good memories, Gottman's book offers some easy exercises as a place to start. He recommends countering negative thoughts with an intentional effort to appreciate your spouse's strengths.

But exercises and appreciation may not be enough for a problem so serious that Gottman calls it one of the six signs of an impending divorce. If you notice your relationship's history is looking more grim than it used to, rewrite the present: seek help.