Relationships Talk

Listening to people argue about politics these days is like overhearing people in a restaurant who are in a bad marriage. They’re always trying to use disagreements to establish superiority. It’s not merely, “We’re different.” It’s, “I’m better.”

So I thought it might be a good idea to consult some marriage books for lessons on how to repair national politics.

One of the things the books emphasize is that when a marriage hits a rough patch, both people in it are likely to feel unknown or misunderstood. So the first task in repairing it is to seek empathetic understanding of the other person – understanding the other person’s likes and dislikes, his or her oddities, how half-forgotten wounds in the past can trigger ridiculous overreactions in the present.

The second task is to understand the marriage itself. Each person brings into the marriage a pattern of interaction absorbed from his or her original family. Psychologists joke that early marriage is a battleground in which two families send their best warriors to determine which family’s culture will direct the couple’s lives.

Then over time the couple creates their own pattern of interaction, which may propel them to act in ways that neither person particularly likes.

Apparently one of the most common dysfunctional scripts is the demand/withdrawal cycle. One partner makes a request of the other – please do the dishes – but there’s a hint of blame in his or her words. The other partner hears it as complaining and just withdraws.

This prompts the person making the request to make the blaming more explicit, in turn causing the withdrawing partner to withdraw even more. The more the latter disappears, the more the former creates a scene to get any response.

It’s only by recognizing the old scripts that couples can establish a new one.

The third task is to recognize that repairing marital strife will require both spouses to become better people, more empathetic, more sacrificial on a daily basis. Marriage has been likened to a gem tumbler; it’s banging two rocks together in order to eventually bring out their deeper sparkle.

When you read these books in the context of today’s political tribalism, you’re reminded that we’ve had relational tears between groups in this country since the beginning. Overcoming tribalism means rising up and taking care of problems that weren’t addressed at the founding and certainly not during reconstruction.

In The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller emphasize that in any bad relationship the natural tendency is to see the other person’s selfishness as the key problem. But relationships only thrive when each partner sees his or her own selfishness as the key problem.

After all, your own selfishness is the only one you can really control, the only one you have responsibility for.

This brings us to the truism that, when arguing, “I” sentences are better than “you” sentences. As Daphne de Marneffe writes in her excellent book The Rough Patch, think of the different emotional impacts of these two sentences:

“I’d stop yelling if you were more helpful.” And: “I know I’m a piece of work, but I’m trying to control my yelling.”

The crucial step, which several books come back to, is the raw and willful decision each partner must make just to recommit. The relationship is strife-ridden. Every fiber of your body says to retreat to the safety of your foxhole. But you have to go against yourself and lunge toward intimacy.

As Mike Mason puts it in The Mystery of Marriage, “A marriage lives, paradoxically, upon those almost impossible times when it is perfectly clear to the two partners that nothing else but pure sacrificial love can hold them together.” This involves, he writes, “a deliberate choosing of closeness over distance, of companionship over detachment, of relationship over isolation.”

That involves a relentless turning toward each other.

John Gottman, who I suppose is the dean of marriage experts, describes relationship as a pattern of bids and volleys. One partner makes a conversational bid: “Look how beautiful the sunset looks!” The other partner can either respond with a toward bid: “Wow. Incredible. Thanks for pointing it out!”; or an against bid: “I was reading the paper, do you mind?”; or a turning-away bid, which would be grunting and not responding at all.

Successful marriages, Gottman finds, have five toward bids for every one of the other kinds. The relationship masters, he told Emily Esfahani Smith in The Atlantic, are the people who are actively scanning the social horizon for things they appreciate about the other person and can say thank you for.

Good manners seem superficial but are essential. Furthermore, the people who repair their marriages don’t necessarily fix their central disagreement. They just overwhelm the negative with the positive.

Red or blue, we are stuck together permanently in this country. And as the saying goes, the only way to get out of this mess is to get into it.

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times. Reach him c/o The New York Times, Editorial Department, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018. © 2018 New York Times News Service

If you’re in a relationship, you’ve undoubtedly received unsolicited advice. Some of it’s been good, and some of it’s been bad. But hands-down, these nuggets of truly bad marriage advice that was given to these real brides might just be the worst out there. (We suggest you don’t take it.)

Never go to bed angry.

“Everyone seems to love this advice, but sometimes I think going to bed instead of arguing is a much better option. Especially if it’s after a long night out, or you’re completely exhausted and it’s taking a toll on your emotions and rationality. Sometimes it’s better to revisit a potential argument well rested and with a clear head than to head into battle late at night.” —Nicole

“At my bridal shower, guests were asked to write down a piece of marriage advice for me. My bridesmaids read them aloud as I opened gifts. There were about a dozen “don’t go to bed angry/mad” advice cards. And one funny-but-true piece of advice that said: ‘Don’t listen to the don’t go to bed angry advice … sometimes you just need to sleep that $h!t off!'” —Samantha

“The worst advice are those cliche statements that are not even realistic, like never fight (my future MIL actually wrote this), never go to bed angry, etc. I got so many of those on the advice cards at my bridal shower. It really annoyed me because it sets unrealistic expectations. I do think it’s important to keep an open line of communication and discuss your concerns or disagreements as soon as you can, but that doesn’t mean it all needs to be resolved in one night. Some issues can only be resolved after each person has had their own time to process and reflect, and you can’t always put your anger aside in an instant.” —Evelyn

Do whatever you need to do to stay married.

“I’ve heard that, ‘Marriage isn’t about being happy, it’s about being stable. Do whatever you need to so that you can stay married.’ But we are so fortunate to actually live in an era where people have the opportunity to choose a partner. I believe the only way to actually bring the divorce rate down is to focus on picking a highly compatible partner at the onset. So many people prioritize other things before their own happiness and they end up living a lackluster life with very few bursts of joy.” —Ashley

Train your husband like you would a puppy.

“The wife of my then-fiancé’s colleague told me, ‘It’s important that you train him just like you would a puppy. He should learn to obey you and respect your commands, or suffer the consequences. When puppies mess up they get their noses rubbed in it and thrown outside — they do not get your praise or attention.’ I thought she was joking, and laughed. But then she said, ‘I am not joking. My husband does what I want, or he sleeps on the couch and doesn’t get sex until I’m happy again.’ This advice was horrendous because relationships should be respectful and have equal participation as much as possible. Men are not dogs — despite our tendency to call them that! — and to me, sex is not a weapon.” —Paula

Stay together for the sake of your kids.

“The worst marriage advice I’ve received is, ‘stay together for the sake of your kids.’ I’ve heard it from family, I’ve read it in magazine and newspaper articles, and I’ve been to churches that convey that message as well. Sadly, that’s not a sound way to help a marriage or protect the children you love. Children subjected to a toxic, dysfunctional, abusive or in other ways wounded marriage lose the joy of childhood. They become instant adults who try to ‘fix, heal or remedy’ the broken relationship around them. It’s a no-win reality for children, and totally selfish for parents to subject them to this in childhood.” —Rosalind

Just agree with everything he says.

“I was told that you will fight all the time the first year of marriage, so you should just agree with everything he says. A friend gave this advice to me based on the reality of the first year of her marriage. But my mother always instilled in me the importance of my voice and my opinion. Just going with the flow is not my M.O. Agreeing with everything my husband says is very subservient and just not who I am as a person.” —Ariel

See more: 23 Pieces of the Best Marriage Advice EVER (Collected Over 13 Years)

Enjoy it now.

“Everyone told us it’s marriage, house, then kids so to enjoy our marriage early on. Newsflash, we’re enjoying it now more than ever and have the house with a kid on the way. Things don’t have to be in order, and there’s no happiness deadline.” —Christiana

Any unsolicited advice.

“If I wanted advice, I would ask.” —Jennifer