Marriage and a Glass of Wine: Plus 180 Marital Enhancers

By William Mitcham D. Min. LMFT

Marriage and a Glass of Wine—Plus 180 Marital Enhancers provides pointers on how to nurture a healthy marriage.

William Mitcham, an ordained Lutheran pastor and longtime, family and couple’s therapist, reveals how to boost the quality of your marriage or your relationship with a significant other who may become your spouse.

The title alludes to the fact that when they sit to talk, many couples sip a glass of wine. Sometimes, however, they fail to appreciate that the words they exchange can make a big difference in the quality of their marriage.

The enhancers in this book will help you:
• talk openly about all aspects of married life;
• manage conflict effectively;
• navigate the awesome task of parenting;
• keep the marital fire of marriage burning.

The author also examines why two people may be attracted to each other in the first place, why many marriages become unglued, why living together before marriage increases the risk of divorce, the characteristics of a strong marriage, and to watch out for various ways to kill a marriage.

Nurture a healthy marriage that is pleasing to the eyes of God with the lessons and insights in this guide to enjoying a permanent union.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664274846

William Mitcham D. Min. LMFT

William Mitcham, D. Min., LMFT, earned a doctorate in marriage and family therapy from Eastern University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a Clinical Member and an Approved Supervisor with the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. He is an ordained Lutheran pastor and has been a family and couple’s therapist for more than thirty years. Previously he was an adjunct professor of counseling at Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, North Carolina, and the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina.

Book preview

Marriage

and a

Glass of Wine

Plus 180 Marital

Enhancers

William Mitcham, D. Min., LMFT

63454.png

Copyright © 2022 William Mitcham, D. Min., LMFT.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher

make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book

and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996,

2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7482-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7483-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7484-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022914483

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/23/2022

Contents

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to eight other eyes that gave their precious time to edit this book. Two heads are better than one, and eight eyes are better than two. I was amazed by what these eagle-eyed people were able to see when I thought I had caught all the typos, replaced the wrong words, corrected incorrect punctuation, and made sense out of sentences that didn’t make sense. They were awesome and generous in working on this editing project in spite of their busy personal and work schedules. The eight eyes belonged to longtime special friends Sara Massey and Andy Massey, from Charleston, SC; Catherine Fink, from Salisbury, NC; and my wife, Dr. Jane Mitcham, from Lexington, SC.

Preface

Marriage and God’s Expectations

A newly ordained pastor who was visiting her parishioners to get to know them stopped by a farm to greet a man who was known for growing the best vegetables in the county. On the way down a dirt road, she saw beautiful squash, corn, and tomatoes. In her conversation with the farmer, she said, John, you and God have a great garden growing this summer. He replied, Yes, Pastor, but you should have seen it when God had it to Himself.

The farmer was right. Everything to grow a great garden was available including rich soil and plenty of rain and sun. However, if he did not chop the weeds, his garden would become overgrown very quickly. The same can be said of a marriage. Everything to grow a great marriage can be there—two people in love with dreams of a lifelong relationship, devotion, and a shared life. However, if they do not nurture their relationship, weeds can begin to pop up and choke the love that had drawn them together.

Marriage and a Glass of Wine (Plus 180 Marital Enhancers) will give couples some pointers on how to nurture healthy marriages so that they last a lifetime. These pointers come from many sources and my thirty-plus years of doing marriage and family therapy with couples. If you want some enhancers to improve the effectiveness and quality of your marriage, this book is for you and your spouse, partner, or significant other.

About This Book’s Title

The title of this book points to the reality that many couples sip at a glass of wine when they sit to talk. Wine and conversation go together like mac and cheese and bacon and eggs. The words spouses exchange can make a big difference in the quality of their marriage and their ability to tackle and resolve misunderstandings, misguided and hurtful comments, anger outbursts, and other We need to talk issues.

Words have power. With our words, we can build each other up or tear each other down. In Genesis 1:1 (MSG), we are told that God spoke all creation into being. Since we were created in the image of God, our words too have power to make a difference and create understanding and harmony in the midst of chaos.

One idea for a title I rejected was Marriages Might Be Made in Heaven, But You Have to Do Your Own Maintenance. Many articles in this book lift up the need to nurture your marriage relationship. The second title that didn’t make the cut was Next to War, Marriage Is the Most Relentless Test of the Human Spirit. That one was too long, but one enhancer here does address that issue.

Marriage and a Glass of Wine won the day since almost every article in this book challenges couples to sit and talk. Adding a little wine with the conversation could help according to 1 Timothy 5:23 (MSG): Go ahead and drink a little wine, for instance, it is good for digestion.

My years of doing marriage and family therapy have been mostly a matter of providing a safe place for couples to sit and have conversations they should have had. Some issues I would discover had been lingering for months or even years in silence like an undiagnosed cancer. These issues would lead to constant conflicts, loneliness, anguish, and feelings of disconnectedness in the relationship.

I want this book to encourage and facilitate conversations between couples and offer some problem solving for undiscussed issues between them. I added A Glass of Wine as an enhancer along with 180 marital enhancers as discussion starters.

What You Can Expect from This Book

This book is comprised of 180 short enhancers. Many are summaries of major insights I gleaned from professional books on marriage and thirty plus years practicing as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Each enhancer can be read in minutes.

If you have children, or plan to have children, you will love the last seventeen articles, all on parenting; they cover the latest parenting tips for raising children with positive self-esteem and personal integrity.

Since all the topics will be on the content page, readers can pick topics that interest them rather than reading the entire book.

Marriage and a Glass of Wine is written from a faith-based perspective since I believe that marriage was not an invention of humans but was in God’s original plan of creation.

At the end of most of the enhancers, I give the original sources for those who will want to explore a topic or issue in greater depth.

Intended Audience

This book is for all couples—married, pre-married, engaged, cohabitating, and dating. Gay married couples can also benefit from this book since I have used the Prepare/Enrich Marriage Inventories, [a pre-marriage tool] with straight and gay married couples alike, and the results were equally effective for both.

Uses for This Book

1. This book intended for couples to read together and discuss the enhancers with each other.

2. This book can be a resource for discussion with couple’s church classes, retreats, and workshop. (A discussion guide is in the Preface)

3. Pastors and Christian Education leaders can use this book as a Pre-Marriage Counseling Class for couples who are marrying in their church.

4. This book would be a perfect gift for parents to give to their sons and daughters who are engaged and planning to marry.

5. Friends and family members may want to give Marriage and a Glass of Wine) Plus 180 Marital Enhancers as a gift to the children of their friends and family members as a wedding gift.

6. This book would make an excellent choice for Couples Book Groups in person or on Zoom.

Discussion Guide for Marriage and a Glass of Wine

Below are questions that can be used as reflection questions for couples who are reading Marriage and a Glass of Wine together or for groups using the book in a class or retreat setting.

Couples and groups can cover one article at a time or start with one article and continue to the next when the discussion seems to be over. Since the articles are short, it will help if individuals would read each article out loud before they discuss them. Hearing can sometimes give insights different from those prompted by reading something silently.

It would be helpful to have two experienced discussion leaders recruited and prepared to start and guide group discussions. Perhaps you know of a couple with skills and techniques for generating discussion and making sure everyone has a chance to share.

Questions for Reflection

1. What new thoughts or ideas jumped out at you as you read this article?

2. What can you use from this article that might help strengthen your marriage relationship?

3. Are there parts of this article with which you disagree? Explain why and how you would correct it.

4. Did you not quite understand parts of this article and would like your spouse or group members to discuss it so you can wrap your mind around it more?

5. Were there any parts of this article that supported or challenged your faith and your relationship with God?

6. Are there any quotes from this article that you would like to write down and post on your refrigerator as a reminder?

7. Is there another question you wish had been on the list? Share this question and discuss it.

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Enhancer 1

Positive Interchanges

Dr. John Gottman (1994) and other researchers at the University of Washington wrote up a significant longitudinal study in a book called Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. Their research involved developing contracts with couples who appeared to be in lifelong marriages and with couples just getting married. Over a long stretch, the couples completed inventories, questionnaires, and phone interviews about their married life. The researchers invited random couples to come to Seattle; they were put up at a resort hotel, and they agreed to spend so many hours in the lab.

Behind a one-way mirror, the social scientists observed the couples talk about problems they were having as well as their hopes for the future. Since detailed information about each couple was stored in the computer, researchers knew what their hot buttons were as well as their dreams. Couples were connected to electronic devices that monitored their heart rates, sweat glands, and anxiety levels. All sessions were videotaped and sent to students in marriage and family graduate studies as part of their research.

One grad student, who spotted patterns in some negative and positive interchanges, used the data to compare couples and discovered that those with more-negative interchanges were divorcing or separating while couples with predominantly positive interchanges were staying together. She shared this information with the researchers, and they instructed the graduate students to start counting the negative and positive interchanges of all couples in the videos. To their surprise, they discovered an actual count (5 positive to 1 negative) that determined which couples divorced and which ones remained married (p. 29).

This is a tremendous insight for couples who want to maintain healthy marriages. Couples need to monitor their interchanges and monitor their words and behavior in their marriages. If they are experiencing more negatives than positives, that means their marriage might be in serious trouble. If one is using more negative words with his or her spouse, he or she is slowly but surely eating away at the very things that had brought them together—their love, respect, and care for each other.

Negative comments, rejecting gestures, and verbal attacks can be a cancer to a couple’s marital bond as well as the self-esteem of the recipient of the attacks. Resentment is birthed in the person being verbally attacked or belittled, and the resentment can build to gigantic proportions and affect every component of their married life, including sexual intimacy.

So, if you want to divorce-proof your marriage, start practicing this five positive interchanges for every negative interchange method with the love of your life!

References

Gottman, J. and Silver, N, 1994. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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Enhancer 2

Marriage Conflict is Normal and Inevitable

In Enhancer 1, Positive Interchanges, I referenced a finding from John Gottman’s research team (Gottman, Silver, and Mordechai 1999, page 29) at the University of Washington in Seattle: Those couples who stayed together [not divorcing or separating] had a five-positive to one-negative interchange in their marriage.

Enhancer 2 addresses negative interchanges. Gottman and associates believe conflict (negative interchanges) are inevitable in marriage for various reasons. First, there are gender issues; men and women see things differently. I heard an artist say, We don’t see things the way they are. We see things from our own perspective. Dr. John Gray’s 1992 book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is based on this reality. We all know this, but Gray is getting big bucks knowing this.

Newer research is uncovering differences in female and male brain structures that affect the way men and women process data. In Barbara and Allan Pease’s 2004 book Why Men Don’t Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes is an MRI brain scan of a husband and wife talking. The wife’s brain has approximately sixteen light areas flashing (indicating activity) while the husband’s brain is registering only about four. The authors claim that this is why in general, women are better than men are at multitasking. A man’s brain, they report, is more geared to monotasking. This by itself could account for many conflicts between the sexes. (The Peases, by the way, are married to each other.)

A second area of inevitable conflict is differing families of origin (the families in which we were reared). Parents teach us values about money, sex, religion, politics, relationships, and all the how-tos of life. During our first Christmas together, my wife and I had an altercation about how to decorate a Christmas tree. She thought that everything I wanted to put on it was too tacky, and I though her choices were too formal. She wanted a Pope (her family) tree, and I wanted a Mitcham tree, but we ultimately compromised and came up with a Pope-Mitcham tree.

A third area of inevitable conflict is how to raise children. Unless they were raised in foster families, most people had only one experience of being parented. Our parents were either too strict or too lenient. They were overly involved in our lives or not so involved because of spending too many hours at work or doing their own things to the point that we felt neglected. The scale is 1 to 10, and rarely do two people who marry each other land on the same number on that scale; usually, one is overly strict and the other is not strict enough. This conflict happens in nearly every marriage when children come along.

With all these possibilities of conflict, negative interchanges are normal and should be expected. It is naive to think that marriage will be conflict-free. Conflict is not the problem in marriage, but how a couple handles conflict can be a problem. (This issue will be addressed in Enhancer 3.)

References

Pease, Allan and Barbara. 2004. Why Men Don’t Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes. London: Orion Books.

Gottman, J. and Silver, N, 1994. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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Enhancer 3

Conflict Is the Yeast That Keeps a

Marriage Ever Changing

In Enhancer 2, Marital Conflict Is Normal and Inevitable, a case was made for the inevitable occasions when conflict and misunderstandings will surface in marriage. This is normal and to be expected for the various reasons given. Let’s go one step further and say that conflict is the yeast that keeps a marriage ever changing. A marriage is a living, growing, and constantly changing organism or system of relationships. All of us like to talk about stable families, but the family is the most changing institution around. As we grow up and age, we go through internal developmental stages; our opinions, beliefs, and values evolve as we interact with the world and adapt to major crises such as 9/11, the wars in Iran and Iraq, the pandemic, racial unrest, and so forth.

We also change externally. Children change from babies to adults. Adults change body shapes as they enter midlife and later stages. These internal and external changes affect marriages because when any part of a system changes, it affects all other parts of a system. For instance, if one spouse becomes clinically depressed, that affects the other spouse and their children. A healthy family system adapts to deal with any family member who gets ill.

Let’s go back to the idea that conflict is the yeast that keeps marriages ever changing. Social scientists who study family dynamics say that any organism that stops growing starts dying. This is what happens to one out of two marriages in the US. Couples who can’t find ways to address and resolve their conflicts reach a stalemate, and their relationship comes to a halt. Gottman and Silver (1994,page 28) report in their longitudinal study, A lasting relationship results from a couple’s ability to resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in any relationship.

Conflict in marriage brings to the surface what is not working or what needs attention. Couples have three choices. As therapists, we call these the three Fs. First is fight. Couples get into heated arguments, some shout and call each other names, and others even resort to violence to try to win battles. But fighting does not resolve conflict.

The next choice is flight. Avoidance is the way many couples deal with conflict. They think if they ignore it, maybe it will get better. This is the way they deal with a commode that is stopped up; they just close the door and hope it will fix itself. Physically or emotionally leaving a marriage partner is another way to use flight to solve problems. But flight does not solve conflicts.

The third choice is fix. If something is not working, most people try to fix it. This is the case with cars, and this should be the case with marriage. Conflict usually means something is not working the way it should. Couples need to find ways to fix whatever is not working. If they can’t do it themselves, they need to find a good relational mechanic (marriage therapist) to help.

The purpose of conflict in a marriage is to keep a relationship ever growing and ever changing so that it doesn’t start dying. Resolving conflicts is about fixing, not fighting or fleeing.

Reference

Gottman, J. and Silver, N, 1994. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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Enhancer 4

Communication is the Thermostat in a Marriage

Thermostats provide information to the heating and air-conditioning system when a house is too cold or too hot, but if they malfunction, those in the house can get so hot that they burn up or so cold that they freeze. Communication is the thermostat in the relationship between spouses. When things get out of balance in the couple system (too cold—too much distance, or too hot—too many fights), the thermostat (communication) comes on and the couple adjusts the temperature as needed. If the thermostat (communication system) is not working, couples get so cold that their marriage freezes or they get so hot and angry with each other that their relationship burns out.

About 85 percent of my clients write on their intake sheet, We can’t communicate, as the presenting problem. In most cases, they have disconnected emotionally or are experiencing gridlock over heated disagreements or issues. When communication breaks down, couples fail to make the adjustments and changes they need to make to restore balance and comfort in their relationship.

Talking and listening skills alike are required to resolve problems and issues in marriage. Addressing conflicts, disagreements, and misunderstandings through communication prevents conflicts from escalating out of control. A functional communication process is like a house thermostat; it makes adjustments early on. It doesn’t wait until it’s 100 degrees before it starts cooling things down or 32 degrees before it turns on the furnace. Prevention takes so much less energy and stress than fighting or solving an out-of-control problem does.

Couples conflict containment is a process that works for some couples. It’s a four-step procedure. The first step is called mirroring. One spouse talks and the other listens (without trying to defend himself or herself) and responds by mirroring or repeating in his or her own words what the other just said. Mirroring starts with something like, Let me see if I understand what you’re saying.

Step two is validating—accepting without argument what the partner says. You don’t have to agree with what your partner says to validate it. Let him or her own his or her reality though it might not be yours. An example might be, What you say makes sense because …

Step three is empathizing. To empathize with a partner is to try to feel what that person feels. One example might be, I can imagine that that made you feel … After one partner finishes, the other tells his or side of the story while the other listens, mirrors, validates, and empathizes with that.

After both have spoken, they move to step four, activating—developing a plan or strategy for dealing with the issue, misunderstanding, or problem. Sometimes, it might necessitate an apology like, I’m sorry, or Next time, let’s agree to … or How’s this for a possible compromise?

The couples conflict containment process allows the relational thermostat to self-regulate and increase the couple’s mutual respect, caring, and cooperation. Making up can really be fun when a conflict is contained and resolved.

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Enhancer 5

The Two Sides of Romantic Attraction

In his book Getting the Love You Want (1988), Dr. Harville Hendrix offers an interesting theory about attraction. He says if a single man walks into a room filled with a hundred women, he will be attracted to one more than to the other ninety-nine. Likewise, a single woman will gravitate to one of a hundred men and ignore the others.

Hendrix postulates that there are two parts to this magnetism. First, there is the positive side. He says that men and women entering that hypothetical room will be attracted by the individuals they feel will offer them unconditional love—love based on who they are, not their wealth, cool cars, or superhuman strength. She will love him as God loves him just because he is. I believe that this need for unconditional love is innate in us all as we search for mates, that this is one of our major unconscious expectations.

If we were fortunate to have healthy parents who were at least at times able to express unconditional love and affection, we will want that in our relationships. However, if we had had no experience of this kind of love in our family of origin, we hope to at least correct this by picking a partner who will love us unconditionally.

There is also a second hidden side of attraction. To use my word rather than Hendrix’s word, there is a catalyst side of this mesmerizing process. This catalyst side theorizes that in the person you are attracted to are seeds that can bring to the surface any of your unresolved issues. These can be areas of your life where new growth or healing needs