Making Marriage User Friendly: The Helping Solution

By Russ Holloman Ph. D.

Why are some marriages more successful, more satisfying, and more enduring than others?

The answer to this question is perhaps the most widely studied and best-known part of our marriage and family-therapy literature, although arguably, it is the least understood and certainly the least followed in terms of avoiding the pitfalls that lead to unsuccessful marriages. What this book proposes as an answer to this question is the nearest thing we have to a manifesto for marriage and family living. It provides us with a clear description of what married life should be like. No words or ideas sum up the intention of this manifesto better or indicate more clearly its challenge to contemporary marriages than the words "making marriage user-friendly."

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449747442

Russ Holloman Ph. D.

Russ Holloman received his PhD in psychology and management from the University of Washington in 1965, while serving in the United States Air Force. He retired from the air force in 1970, after teaching psychology at the Air Force Academy. He subsequently served as Maxwell Professor of Organization and Management at Augusta State University. Other teaching was with the University of Maryland (Germany), University of Southern California (Okinawa), and Virginia Tech. He has authored over sixty professional journal articles in his field of research and served as a behavioral consultant to government, business, and religious organizations. He is the author of And Now, a Word from Our Creator (Westbow Press, 2011). He also maintained a private practice in psychotherapy for twenty-four years.  A native of Mississippi, he married Lenora Strebeck in 1949, and they had two children, Suzanne and Mark. Dr. Holloman is a certified lay speaker in the United Methodist Church and has taught the same Sunday school class since 1973. He has served his church in numerous administrative capacities at the local, district, and conference levels.

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Copyright © 2012 by Russ Holloman, Ph. D.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-4745-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4746-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4744-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906483

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/11/2012 

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

References

After the verb to love,

to help is most beautiful.

-Anonymous

In memory of my late wife,

Lenora Strebeck Holloman

23 January 1929 - 1 September 2008

Lenora made everything beautiful with her smile

And sunny disposition. Love, doing the right thing,

And serving others were guide posts on her journey

Through life as she walked humbly with God.

Preface

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On Mother’s Day 1949, at the height of our romantic love for each other, Lenora and I married. Our wedding was in her family Baptist Church, and was officiated by the priest of my family Methodist Church. Our honeymoon period, which we pledged to make last forever, was a continuation of the passion and excitement of our two-year courtship.

In the process of adjusting to the intimacies of married life and raising two children, we had a few challenging times. But we had a lot of really good times, and it was the good times we valued and remembered. As individuals we changed, each in our own way. Most importantly, our love changed from the glamorous, romantic kind to a more mature, conjugal love and continued to be the basis of our marriage.

Fast forward. After fifty-nine years of idyllic love, Lenora died on Labor Day 2008. I was at her bedside. After days in a coma, she opened her eyes. She was asking me to hold her. She was asking me to tell her again that I loved her. She was telling me that she did not want to go and leave me and the children alone. Still, she was asking, Is it OK for me to go now?

Through my tears and embrace, I nodded, Yes. I waited for her next breath, the one that did not come.

I wept.

In time, I began the arduous, haunting process of terminating my psychotherapy practice and writing this book. Necessarily, some of it is written in the past tense.

Introduction

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In 1973, I was licensed as a marriage and family therapist and my involvement in and concern for marriage relationships took on a new dimension. With a shingle on my door and my name in the yellow pages, couples experiencing difficulties in their marriage began coming to me for help. They invariably complained about some particular problem or dissatisfaction in their marriage. The similarities between what they were saying to me and what they most likely would say to their physician did not go unnoticed. Our marriage is hurting, and we don't want to hurt, they seemed to say. Remove the pain so we can be well again.

Typically, it was only after their perceived problems became intolerable that help was sought. However, as soon as the most distressing symptoms of their problems were dissipated, most of these couples felt they no longer needed help. As might be expected, many of them soon were back in therapy, often voicing their original complaints. The basic problems in their marriage relationship had not been solved, only the most painful and accessible symptoms had been relieved.

Practicing marriage and family therapy in terms of this remedial model was neither personally nor professionally satisfying to me. While I did take comfort in knowing that I was helping couples remove acute pain from their marriage, I was bothered by the fact that most of them left therapy without a vision of what their marriage could become. Their goal was to be normal again--normal in the sense that there was an absence of stress and psychological pain. Therapy was keeping them only from being unhappy; I was not succeeding in showing them the way to a higher-than-normal plane of marital happiness. For me that was not enough.

It was this realization that started me rethinking my philosophy and practice of marriage and family therapy. It also caused me to rethink my own marriage. I shared my concerns with colleagues and other professionals, and, surprisingly, I found a great deal of understanding and agreement. As I continued to wrestle with these concerns, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. The answer, when I found it, seemed so simple, so logical, so available. It is a therapy based more on a growth or becoming model than upon a sickness or medical model. Finding that answer, first of all, made it possible for my own marriage to grow and become more actualized. And as I became more convinced of the goodness of my new approach, I began to incorporate it into my therapy practice.

It was this realization, too, that caused me to start planning the writing of this book. I wanted to share with people who already were married, and with those contemplating marriage, a vision of what a marriage could be. I wanted to engage them in some possibility thinking. This vision is of marriage as a helping relationship. Helping is viewed as an important aspect of a marriage relationship; it is a means of showing concern, interest, affection, and other positive feelings. It shows personal commitment to one's marriage--a commitment to making their marriage matter. Helping in a marital relationship has a meaning that is larger and more personal than simply assisting with household chores or other menial tasks. It also is different from the helping role of the professional therapist. It is based upon the idea that everything we do in our marriage relationship both affects and is affected by the behavior of our partner. Helping is feeling and behaving toward our partner in ways that produce desired, positive outcomes. Since what goes around in marriage tends to come around, the sought-for outcomes of the helping relationship are mutually beneficial.

This is not a how-to-do-it book in a few easy steps. Marriage relationships seldom permit such simplicity. It might more appropriately be called a be-it-yourself book in that it emphasizes attitudes and behaviors, more than rules and skills. It won't make you an overnight expert in helping, but your helping skills will increase as you become more sensitive to the need for and the benefits of loving in helping ways. These attitudes and behaviors will be described in simple behavioral terms. I have kept technical terms and clinical interpretations to a minimum in my quest for clarity and simplicity. For the same reason, I have kept documented references (which I could have provided in abundance) to a minimum.

As we explore together the idea of loving our partner in helping ways, I will from time to time share experiences from both my personal life and the lives of others with whom I have counseled. You deserve more than mere intellectual arguments for the differences that loving and helping can make in your marriage; you deserve the personal witness of people who have discovered that difference. You also need to know about the possible negative effects that non-helping attitudes and behavior can have on your marriage. When use is made of examples and dialogues excerpted from actual case histories, the details will be altered only for purposes of confidentiality. Otherwise, the examples are faithfully reproduced.

I am indebted to those of my clients who gave me the opportunity to know what was meaningful and helpful to them. I am similarly indebted to many of my professional colleagues who have helped me to look at things more clearly. Finally, I am grateful to my late wife, Lenora--lover, helper, and friend. She taught me much about loving (she was good at it), much about marriage (she had special insights), and much about helping (her attitude made the difference). When I consulted her about my work, she always was ready to listen, insightful in her questions, and helpful in her responses.

It must be clear by now that I have taken ideas and answers from many places. I cannot identify with precision when or from whom I obtained what I present here as my own. There's no doubt that there is much in these pages that almost everyone has thought or felt before. This book attempts to put it in some order and thereby make it more understandable and useful. This, I realize, is a very large order, one that cannot completely be filled. In any event, I alone take full responsibility for what is in this book.

Russ Holloman, Ph.D.

Evans, Georgia

2012

Chapter One

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Courtship: Shall We Marry?

Many of our basic human needs can be satisfied only through relationships with other people. One of the most distinctive aspects of being fully alive and psychologically healthy is our potential for joy, caring, and personal fulfillment in relationships with others. Making new friends, deepening ongoing relationships, falling in love and getting married all depend upon our having the opportunity and ability to develop and maintain effective interpersonal relationships. The words we use to describe our attraction to other people and the quality of relationships with them--words such as like, love, affection, and sweetheart--are some of the most intimate words in our language.

Because we are social creatures, we seek the company of others, even while satisfying our more basic, physical needs. Eating is more enjoyable in the company of others; having a cup of coffee takes on added meaning with others. Inviting someone to join us for a movie is much preferred to going alone. Our need for sexual fulfillment, by definition, can be satisfied only in a relationship with another person. There is no way we can overemphasize the importance of interpersonal relationships in our lives. It is in relationships that we discover our being, realizing we can't be human alone. No wonder solitary confinement is often viewed as an inhumane punishment.

Why do we socialize with other people? It's because 'people need people,' we say. Why do we socialize with some people and avoid other people? The answer to this question also seems obvious. It is because we need or desire what certain people have to give, and avoid others because what they have to give is neither needed nor desired. This chapter discusses how we perceive and relate to other people. The question of what kind relationships we would like to have with other people and some of our typical behaviors in developing those relationships are also discussed. When the goal or outcome of this development process is marriage we have a special kind of relationship. It is this special relationship that is the subject of this book.

Development of a Relationship

Effective relationships don't just happen; no amount of wishful thinking can make them magically occur. Relationships are built, in a sense, and in addition to desire, relationship building also requires skill, hard work, and trust. Both people in a relationship add substance and shape to their relationship and their contributions determine its future direction and quality of the relationship. Whether the relationship will grow systematically and become a source of interpersonal reward or whether it will proceed randomly to become a source of tension and despair is determined by the couple’s expectations of and commitment to the relationship.

Many people resist the idea of relationships being built; it runs counter to their belief that relationships just happen. Working to make a relationship happen, they argue, makes it less spontaneous, less exciting, and less romantic. In their view, work and relationships are unrelated. They admit that work--what they do from nine to five--requires effort, but believe that relationships just happen, propelled by some mystical force that wraps them and carries them forward. While we might relish the unplanned, exciting things that happen to us, can we realistically think of relationships--especially marriage--as being something not of our own doing? No. Every relationship is a unique creation of the persons in it.

There are four easily identifiable stages in this creating or building process (Thibet and Kelly, 1959). These stages begin with sampling and proceed through bargaining and commitment to the final stage of formalization. While it is easy to discuss each of these stages separately on these pages, in real-life, ongoing relationships, it usually is difficult to distinguish one stage from another. One reason is that these stages often overlap. Another difficulty is that each person in a relationship will not pass through the stages in the same order; nor will they spend the same amount of time in a particular stage.

Sampling (often labeled dating) involves a variety of behaviors. In this stage we identify and seek opportunities to associate with other people who meet our minimum criteria of acceptance in terms of physical attractiveness, personality, education, family background, competencies, etc. Through the dating process this pool is gradually reduced. In fact, most relationships do not get past this stage.

After we have used the sampling process to identify someone with whom we would like to have a closer relationship, we move into a bargaining relationship with that person. In this stage we get to know each other better and determine whether we would like to have a more permanent relationship. It might be agreed, for example, that we will go steady (or whatever terminology is used these days for a closed relationship). Of the relationships that survive the sampling stage even fewer survive this second stage, since it depends upon the willingness of both people to make a commitment to one another. If this commitment, what we might call engagement, is genuine and there are no unforeseen barriers, the relationship may be formalized through marriage or other appropriate ceremony.

Let's now look at each of these stages in greater detail to better understand how our own marital relationship developed.

Sampling

One of the most basic things about this stage in the development of interpersonal relationships also is the most obvious: before any sampling can occur, we must meet other people. We seek certain situations, from church bazaars to coffee houses and singles bars, to increase our opportunities for meeting people. When we seek other people in these settings, we are implying by our behavior that these people are acceptable to us. It is from this pool of acceptables that we select the most promising. This selection process is called sampling and includes ritualistic behaviors, including dating, telephone calls, cards, e-mails, texting, and sharing leisure-time activities. The first (and safest) things two people in this initial stage of relationship development talk about is where they grew up, where they went to school, what they do for a living, etc. They are searching for common interests and background.

Can you remember when you first met your partner? For some people, recall is easy; it was love at first sight. Or maybe the circumstances under which you met made it special and easy to recall. For others, perhaps, the first meeting might not have been particularly important and can't be remembered. Whether or not you remember the specifics, it's safe to say that your relationship began with one of you making an inviting gesture to the other. Whatever it was, it was made to communicate an interest in knowing the other person better.

The first step we take in responding to someone who has made a gesture toward us is to form an impression of them by observing their actions: what they say and do in response to us and to other persons, objects, and events in our common environment. We notice their physical features, voice, dress, and other expressive movements. We also make assumptions about their values, attitudes, and what their intentions toward us might be. We then use this information to make judgments about how we should respond to their gesture.

We might respond with reserve or indifference, if we perceive that person's intentions as being incompatible with our needs and expectations. By the same token, we might respond with expressions of interest and liking for a person we perceive as liking us or sharing our feelings and values. In turn, the other person goes through the same process in making judgments about us. If our judgments and the judgments of the other person are acceptable to each other's expectations, the basis for further interaction is established. But if our judgments or the judgments of the other person are incompatible with our expectations, the relationship usually ends.

Bargaining

In this stage we turn from playing the field to exploring the possibility for a relationship with one person. The relationship that emerges is provisional since it depends upon receiving favorable answers to our questions and concerns. The most critical question to be answered in this stage is, What would be the outcome of a relationship with this person in terms of satisfying my needs? Or, to phrase it differently, What's in it for me? There are always costs involved in developing and maintaining a relationship. Costs can be measured in terms of effort, time, or dollars, and generally refer to what we have to do to attract and keep the other person interested in us. In short, whatever we do to satisfy the needs of the other person is a cost to us.

The other side of the cost coin is the rewards that come to us from the relationship. Rewards involve whatever the other person does or brings to the relationship those results in satisfaction for us. Using the two ideas of costs and rewards, we can determine the desirability of continuing a relationship. It involves a simple idea from mathematics: rewards we receive minus the costs we incur equal our benefit from the relationship. The greater the perceived rewards and the lesser the estimated costs, the greater will be the benefits from the relationship. In a provisional relationship, both people trade payoffs to determine whether it would be advantageous to enter into a deeper, more committed relationship. Each wants to determine whether the rewards outweigh the costs involved. During this period of giving and receiving rewards, the decision as to whether to continue the relationship usually is made.

When a tradeoff is determined for a particular relationship there remains the question of comparing the payoff with the payoff of another relationship. For example, one of the costs involved in becoming committed to person A is the loss of an opportunity for a relationship with person B. However, this comparison level can be made only for people with whom a relationship is possible. The process of determining and comparing payoffs continues until some best level of payoff is reached. Does this person satisfy my needs to the greatest possible extent or must I look for another? is the question that must be answered. If the answer is yes, the relationship usually progresses to a deeper level which we call commitment. If the answer to the question is no, the relationship is terminated and the search continues.

Commitment

Commitment occurs when we find the person that provides us the most favorable rewards-costs ratio. Commitment means we are willing to forego relationships with others to have a relationship with one person. The degree of commitment we are willing to make at this point tends to be equal to the commitment we perceive the other person to be making. A bargaining approach is used which one person implies to the other, I will love you if you will love me. We are reluctant to express our love unless we are confident that the other person will reciprocate. At this point, the relationship does not have the trust and the genuineness that will be needed later. As the relationship continues, these attitudes hopefully will develop.

Commitment begins as a guarded relationship having a conditional nature. I'll wait and see, is the attitude. Not all relationships that enter the commitment stage survive. Two people with common backgrounds--values, attitudes, and expectations--usually will find the cost of relating to be low. Since it is easier for them to behave in ways that are expected and accepted by the other, it is easier to reward each other. Since the rewards are high in proportion to the costs of rewarding the other person, the payoff of the relationship is high. As they see more of the other person and like what they see, the commitment becomes more binding.

Formalization

In our society, the most common and accepted method of formalizing a relationship is marriage. In marriage, two people go through a ceremony which has the effect of publicly acknowledging their relationship with each other. It also indicates their willingness to be bound by certain legal and religious constraints. Today, there is a lot of experimentation in which unmarried couples who are living together seek to formalize their relationship on the basis of commitment alone. A marriage license is just a piece of paper, they argue. I am not suggesting that these relationships are less committed than married relationships. There might well be some other kind of symbolic ratification of the relationship and a mutual acknowledgment of the commitment these people have for one another. What is lost to them, however, is the recognition and legitimacy that society bestows when a commitment is formalized through marriage.

Our Needs and Our Relationships

The questions of why people marry and why they marry the people they do are difficult to answer. The debate over whether likes or opposites attract remains unresolved. One conclusion we can safely make, however, even in the face of these unresolved questions, is that we don't marry the person we choose by accident. Our choice of a marriage partner is determined, consciously or unconsciously, by our needs. Just as we eat to satisfy hunger, we marry a particular person because that person best satisfies some need we have. Both consciously and unconsciously we behave in ways that promise satisfaction of our needs.

Interpersonal relationships, what I often refer to as the path to marriage, cannot be understood in a vacuum. They have to be considered against a background of the needs of the people in the relationship. In this section I will discuss some of our basic human needs and how they influence our relationships with other people. It is helpful to take this brief inner journey so we can better direct our outward journey toward understanding and self-expression in our marriage. Our understanding of our marriage and how we embrace it can be deepened as we seek answers to fundamental questions about our values, needs, and expectations, and how they influenced our decision to marry the person we did.

One of the most useful ways to understand our needs and how they influence our behavior was developed by Dr. Abraham Maslow (1954). He sees our needs arranged in a hierarchy. The most basic needs--those lowest in the hierarchy--must be gratified before higher-level needs begin to emerge. This does not mean, however, that a lower-level need must be completely satisfied before a higher-level need can express itself. To the extent that a lower-level need is satisfied there is an opportunity for the next higher need to emerge. When we feel hunger we want to eat, but we would like to eat with another person, if possible. In this instance we are responding to two different needs on two different levels. In another situation, we observe two people having lunch together. One of them might not be hungry, lunching may be simply a way of satisfying a social need to be with the other person. In Maslow's view, these needs operate throughout our life span with the potency or strength of the needs changing as we and our circumstances change.

Physiological Needs

Our most basic needs are those related to the maintenance of our bodily functions. They include our need for oxygen, food, water, sleep, and elimination. Also included is our need for exercise, stimulation, shelter, clothing, and sex. These needs must be satisfied in order to maintain our bodies and perform necessary mental and physical activities. All these needs are prepotent in the sense that they must be satisfied before other higher-level needs are expressed. Persons who are starving usually do not concern themselves with the need for self-esteem until their hunger is satisfied.

How important are these needs in determining relationships? When they are being reasonably satisfied through our own efforts, they often seem unimportant. Although there are exceptions, our rising standards of living, levels of unemployment, and, in some cases, assistance programs provide most people a peace of mind about these needs and they are not motivated by them in pursuit of a relationship. Still, there are many relationships determined by the belief and expectation that the other person . . . is able to support and take care of me.

Safety Needs

When the physiological needs are satisfied, the safety needs emerge. This group of needs takes many forms and, both consciously and unconsciously, influences our behavior in interpersonal relationships. They include the need for safety of our bodies, those we love, and our possessions. Important here is the need to know that the means of satisfying the physiological needs will not be lost or arbitrarily taken from us. Also included is the need for stability and continuity. Persons who live in unstable, threatening conditions predictably are greatly concerned about maintaining a sense of order and well-being. They want peace of mind about the future. They will relate to--even marry--another who can satisfy these needs for them.

Belonging and Love Needs

When our basic needs for things like food, drink, and safety have been satisfied, we then start responding to our needs for belonging, love, and affection. This is a need that can be satisfied only through relationships with other people. These relationships include participation in groups or contact with neighbors, friends, and colleagues. Another aspect of this need is for meaningful one-on-one relationships, including marriage.

Some writers have argued that belonging and love are more accurately described as wants rather than needs. In response to this argument we can notice that children who are deprived of satisfying, nurturing relationships fail to develop normally. Numerous psychological studies suggest that thwarting the need to both give and receive love is the most basic reason for personality maladjustments in our society. To love or to perish seems to be the choice we face, at least psychologically. Not being able to satisfy these needs might not be as critical as an unsatisfied need for food, but they drive and influence our behavior in ways similar to more basic needs. The physiological and the safety needs can, under certain conditions, be satisfied without assistance from other persons, but this is not possible with our social needs. It is only through relationships with others that we develop and maintain our humanness. To the extent that our relationships reflect friendship, love, and helping, we become more human. To the extent that these qualities are missing in our relationships with others, we become less human. I am not suggesting that we are less human when we are separated from others. I am suggesting quite the contrary. Our most valued relationships can be made more meaningful by short periods of separation. Moments of solitude--when we are alone, contemplating, discovering, and pondering our thoughts and feelings about others--can greatly enhance our relationships with them.

Esteem Needs

These needs are concerned with how we feel about ourselves and how others feel about us. First, we need to have a good opinion of ourselves, to have confidence that our mental, physical, and social skills are adequate to solve the problems and challenges which confront us. Secondly, we need to have the recognition, appreciation, and respect of others for our competencies. When we have these needs under control we can face problems with greater confidence. When we lack self-esteem and the respect of others we are crippled in our efforts to develop and maintain effective interpersonal relationships. Often we don't try.

Self-Actualization Needs

These high-level needs motivate us to know and become all that we are capable of becoming. Since it is near the top of the needs hierarchy, the need for self-actualization becomes important when we are reasonably content with the satisfaction of other lower-level needs. Contrary to popular opinion, however, this need is not peculiar to persons who have attained significant economic, psychological, and professional achievements. It will, however, vary widely from person to person and from time to time. My neighbor, Pete, sold his boat and started taking violin lesson. "Something I've always