Guidelines for Couples

© 2002 Fran DiDomenicis, Ph.D.

By the time couples reach a stage of crisis they probably are engaged in destructive and self-sabotaging behaviors. Following are some brief recommendations in the form of "Don'ts and Do's" that can help to quickly reduce conflict and escalating behaviors and begin to allow for the possibility of peace and change.

DONT'S:

  • Don’t threaten abandonment. You pull the rug out from under your partner with statements like, “I’ve had it!”, “If you don’t like it, leave!”, “I need to find someone else who can give me what I want”. When used to shut a partner up, “win” an argument, or to dominate, hurt or scare the other person, threats of terminating the relationship are a form of mental/emotional abuse. If you scare your partner by threatening to leave, they will not trust you, and will not work on things. Threats do not motivate people to act lovingly toward you. Threats are not effective problem-solving tools.
  • Don’t ruminate on past events. Literally, the word “ruminate” means to chew on something over and over again - like cows do with partially digested food. If this doesn’t sound appetizing to you, think of how mental rumination affects you. Ruminating forces you into a dark emotional cave of pessimism, isolation, and bitterness that’s based on the failures of the past you review over and over. Furthermore, it leads you to picture a future that is more of the same.  You can only generate hope of a different future by learning to put the past in the past and looking forward to create something new.
  • Don’t criticize. Force yourself to find other ways to communicate by first quitting the usual (negative) behaviors. Only by eliminating criticism can you open yourself to other options. Only by doing so can your partner become more open to other, more positive feelings about you.

DO’S:

  • Declare Peace!  Many times, couples have made an unspoken declaration of war and are engaged in war-like behaviors with each other – e.g., blaming, looking for things to criticize, withholding positive feelings, retaliating for perceived wrongs done by the other, etc.  These are very powerful mental/ emotional actions that will emotionally  kill your partner.
  • If you ever hope to get from your partner what you say you want—affection, respect, support, and intimacy—you must keep them alive at all costs. An emotional corpse cannot satisfy your needs! Stop assaulting them! They cannot take it.
  • Although you may rationalize that your partner appears unaffected by your bad behavior, they may simply be hidden behind harder and harder defenses to survive your attack. Underneath, they may have already died to you.
  • Remember why you got together with your partner in the first place. At one time they were a separate person whom you enthusiastically selected because you thought they were charming, attentive, open, fun, sexy…
  • Under the right conditions they could be all those qualities again - possibly when YOU again become charming, attentive, open, fun, sexy…. Some things may have gone wrong, but they can get “un-wronged”. Problems can get solved. Relationships can get re-romanticized.
  • Look for opportunities to solve problems. We too often act more interested in rehashing, and thereby reliving past disagreements than we are in reaching agreements for the future.  We do this in many ways. For example,
    • Not allowing that a partner may be different from when they last acted badly. Insisting that if they behaved the way they did then, they must still be the same way now.
    • Implying that because an issue wasn’t worked out in the past, it’s somehow too late to work it out now. It's never too late.
    • Finding excuses to hold a grudge or avoid healthy discussion
  • Most importantly, learn to develop a “from-now-on” orientation. When discussing issues, look for the solutions by asking yourself, “What can my partner and I agree on right now?” (versus what we disagreed on in the past). “What can we agree to do differently from now on”?  The present is full of opportunities for change, if you’re not too busy looking behind you for past failures.
  • Lastly, remember the saying, “ If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten”.  You can change and so can your relationship.
 
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