Love Management
Having a perfect marriage is not rocket science, but one of the most important things in achieving this, is by behaving in a positive manner towards the partner. This is the opinion of most of the people, but a psychologist has a different opinion. He stated that for some couples the opposite behavior might do the trick of saving the marriage. He believes that there are cases where a negative behavior and thoughts might be better than the positive ones.
James McNulty, a psychologist at the University of Tennessee, said that in the case of the couples who fight very often and who have grave problems in the relationship, the best solution for saving their marriage would be for them to place blame one on the other, and to constantly pressure themselves to change. He also suggested that the people who are in this situation should be less forgiving with the partner. All of these ideas seem ridiculous for most of the people, but the psychologists mentioned that what works for the couples who have a happy marriage might not work for the couples who have a bad marriage. McNulty said that the behavior of the people, who have a happy marriage, does not reflect their situation. According to him, the marriage is not doing great because the people react in a positive behavior, or that the people behave in that manner because the relationship is good; they behave like that simply because they are happy, and the happiness might come from external sources as well.
He stated that in most of the cases when the couples who have an unhappy relationship behave in a positive manner, the relationship is not improving; on the contrary, it is getting worst. He said that the best way of helping these people is to encourage them to be much more critical with each other, because that solution might the most beneficial one. McNulty has based his theory on four studies which he has conducted in the past ten years. In the first study he asked 82 couples to report 8 times over the course of four years about their satisfaction regarding the relationship. Prior to the beginning of the study, the doctor asked them if they believed that their relationship will grow stronger with time, or if it will deteriorate. The results showed that in the case of the happy couples, a positive prediction seemed to help them, but in the case of the unhappy couples, a positive prediction did the opposite. In their case, a negative prediction seemed to be better.
He stated that “skill” is very important when it comes to the marriage and to the expectation of the couples. He made an analogy: if a student who expects to get only straight A’s, but does not have the skills required to get them will be disappointed when that does not happen. He would be much happier if he would expect to get B+’s or C’s because he can get those marks. The same can be applied in the case of the couples. If they expect to get “B’s” instead of “A’s”, they will be much happier than if they had higher expectations which they could not achieve. McNulty and his colleagues also looked at the blame factor from a relationship. They wanted to see if a partner accuses the other one for various reasons. In most of the cases one partner considered the other one to be responsible, for example for ignoring what the other partner has said. In most of the cases one of the people did not considered that outside factors might be responsible for the actions of the other partner.
In the case of the happy couples, the partners attributed the negative behaviors to the external factors and not to each other. They were more understanding when it came to the work pressure, and other reasons why the wife or the husband acts in a certain manner. In the case of the couples with marriage problems, they blamed their partner for most of the negative behaviors. McNulty said that the best way of dealing with the situation is not to blame the other partner, and especially if he/she rarely make mistakes. Even if he/she should be held accountable for the mistake, the person should not be blamed, because that might be bad for the relationship. On the other hand, if the partner is constantly making mistakes both in the relationship and outside of it, then he should know that he/she is responsible. The problem solving aspect in a relationship can be very beneficial for its health. He wanted to see whether in a situation which required the solving of a certain problem, the partners accepted the opinions of the other partner, or if they wanted things to be done in a certain manner, without considering that the other opinion might be better and more suitable for finding the solution.
In the case of the couples with problem, the best solution for them would be to criticize the partner for doing a mistake, because then the person will be motivated and he will try not to make the same mistake again. The situation works good in the case of those couples, but however the criticized one does not feel very good afterwards. According to McNulty, this is a sacrifice the couples have to make in order to make their relationship stronger. One of his studies’s revealed the fact that the partners were more forgiving but only when one of the partners did not behave in a bad manner towards the other one. If insults, and any other similar behaviors happened often, then the best thing for the relationship would be that the partner who has been insulted, not to forgive the other one. He mentioned that is not stating that the partners should never forgive each other, only that they should not do it very quickly because in that case the insults will not stop.
