Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Really!

He leaves his things on the floor and then gripes about the house being a mess.  He doesn’t seem to get it that I want him to listen to my feelings. He is so distant and in his head all the time. Why doesn’t he act like he cares about me?

That woman! She always acts like she knows the best way to do everything, and she is never listens to what I have to say and get irritated with me over the most stupid things. Why doesn’t she pay more attention to the important things? I hate it when she makes such a mess with her stuff in the bathroom and leaves those bottles everywhere.

Nagging At and About Our Mates is Almost a Way of Life

We build up a case against the person that we love the most and then wonder why they are unhappy with us.  When couples come in for therapy they inevitably have a long list of complaints about their spouse. They have been unhappy with their spouse for years for one reason or another. They don’t like this. They don’t like that.  By the time the come into see me they are convinced that their partner has been doing everything wrong and what they really want (though they won’t always admit this) is for me to tell their partner what is wrong with them and to help them fix their partners problems. 

It is a rare event to have someone come in for therapy who understands that they, as a couple, have a problem and that it’s not one or the other’s fault. 

The first few sessions are generally spent with both partners laying out their case against their partner and looking to me for validation. Then I begin explaining to them that they are each responsible for what has become a laundry list.  Rather than spending all of their resources and energy pointing out each other’s flaws, they need to focus instead on what the other is doing right.  I don’t know what it is about our culture that makes us focus on the problems rather than the blessings in our lives, but we do. 

Is Your Partner Really That Terrible 

Letting ourselves focus on the blessings our mates bring to us helps us to encourage the very traits we most want to build upon.  We want our partners to listen to us, to support us, to care about what we care about. We want them to show us they love us through the things they say and do.  How do we get that when our partners seem so far from being able to provide it?  We start with “catching them being good”.  We notice aloud the things they do that we appreciate and value. We refrain from nagging about the things we don’t like and we praise and celebrate the things that we appreciate about our partners.  The more we share our positive feelings with them about what we like, the more likely it is those behaviors will be repeated.  They will feel loved and appreciated and we get what we want.

Why is that so hard for us?

For one…

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