MARRIAGE: HOW TO COPE WITH ROWS

Many a woman says that her husband will not row with her and that as a result she cannot clear the air. This often happens because women tend to have superior verbal skills and, along with their female logic, defeat men, who then choose not to argue. There must have been a failure of communication somewhere along the line for things to have got this bad, and many a woman complains that her husband simply does not talk (or listen) to her enough. So great is her desire to clear things up that she provokes arguments. As a result she scares her husband off. Women are far better at assessing the underlying feelings in a relationship than are most men. Often a man does not see a problem as important and may not even see it at all. This does not mean that it does not exist. If one partner in a marriage has a problem, they both have it.

Women also tend to link problems to the whole relationship. For example, a woman may say that if her husband loved her he would not do or say a certain thing. It may be a simple misunderstanding of the ways in which he believes he should demonstrate his love, and once again this is usually conditioned by what he learned in childhood.

In such rows the woman, because she feels hurt or neglected may, because of her greater verbal skills, say more wounding things than she really feels simply to provoke a serious response from her husband. Such over-dramatising of the argument would not be necessary if men were more sensitive to their wives’ needs.

Many a man reverts to childhood when his wife becomes aggressive or seems to be provoking a row and responds as if she were a hostile mother. He sulks, mooches around the house, or goes out to escape. This does nothing to help because the woman still has not had her say and still feels scorned, overlooked, unloved, treated as worthless or whatever sparked off the row in the first place. She needs loving care and understanding but her husband, by behaving like a young boy, cannot hope to provide it. The underlying problem is thus not resolved. The next time a problem area is aired the couple, already on a plateau of tension, spark each other off more readily.

Often such hostility arises over ‘no-go’ areas within the marriage. Subjects as diverse as children’s schooling, the woman’s weight, his drinking friends, religion, oral sex and so on are out of bounds, skirted round and never actually discussed. One partner (or both) harbours strongly-held views, yet cannot get the other to discuss them or come to an agreement at all. Slowly these ‘no-go’ areas within the marriage grow in size and number until the couple are relating only in the most superficial way, skimming over the surface of life. As soon as any discussion gets valuable it hits a ‘no-go’ area and hostility or silence breaks out. Eventually such a couple end up saying little to each other.

Clearly no two people will agree on everything, but a loving friendship can withstand a fair amount of disagreement. There are usually no absolute answers to the problems being discussed and one person’s views are worth about as much as another’s. Many ‘no-go’ areas are not really serious anyway.

Once ‘no-go’ areas begin to intrude on a couple’s life, sex often is the first casualty. Professionals working with marital problems never accept sexual problems at face value because they are so rarely the cause of marital disharmony. Sex is usually the injured bystander as the marriage crashes but in a society so over-concerned with sex it is understandable that people who go for professional help often complain of a sexual problem first.

Rows and an extension of ‘no-go’ areas within the marriage reduce the tenderness each feels for the other, and usually a woman is the first to go off sex. As a consequence the man progressively withdraws from the relationship, ‘deloves’ his wife and escapes into gardening, ‘the boys’, a time-consuming hobby away from home, or a considerable increase in work. The woman’s fears that she is no longer loved, appreciated and wanted are confirmed for her too and the marriage spirals downwards.

By understanding how things can go wrong one can more easily find answers to prevent and cure the problems. At the first sign of emotional disease within a marriage the ‘unaffected’ partner should say, ‘Let’s sit down and you tell me about it. You’re obviously upset, I’ll try to help.’ The listener then allows the ‘complainer’ to get the problem off his or her chest without interruption and then negotiations start with real care and warmth. Such behaviour tackles troublesome situations early and major ‘no-go’ areas never get a chance to take root. Each person sees the other behaving in a way that is compatible with the way they think someone who ‘really loves me’ ought to behave, and such tolerance breeds tolerance in return. Quite quickly in a marriage run along the lines just described a fund of goodwill builds up and the couple can make concessions to each other on certain matters (that could easily have become ‘no-go’ areas), can overlook peccadilloes and can even delight in each other’s shortcomings. In general, women are better able (or perhaps more prepared) to adapt to men in this way than vice versa but obviously there are exceptions.

If this course of action is not followed another category of rows may then emerge which is not primarily brought about by the apparent cause, which in turn becomes concealed and unresolved. It is at this stage that many couples seek professional help or see a solicitor about divorce. It takes a really skilled professional to find where the problems lie in such cases and all too often couples have the wrong (more superficial) problem treated only to return home to continue their unhappy lives. Often such professionals attach blame to one of the partners involved, but this can be very unfair because the answers are rarely clear-cut and the obvious ‘offender’ in the marriage is often the weaker and needs help more than (even implicit) condemnation.

Men and women have very different ideas as to which faults are killers of marriages. One survey found that women thought that selfishness and inconsiderate behaviour were the most important faults in their husbands and that men rated nagging and moaning top of the list. The old fears of sexual incompatibility, too many or no children, drunkenness and lack of trust, so commonly found to be problems in the past, have now virtually disappeared in favour of selfishness, money problems, conflicting personalities and jealousy among wives of husbands paying attention to things other than them.

But rather than simply rowing about these areas couples can use the technique known as ‘shaping-up’. The idea behind this concept is that rather than falling out over minor areas of disagreement one makes a conscious effort deliberately to ignore them or to treat them neutrally. When the ‘offending’ partner behaves in a way which the other wants to encourage he or she is rewarded by signs of pleasure, affection, flattering comments and even sexual favours. This

technique can also be used to modify sexual behaviour which a partner does not like.

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