If your significant other is flirting with others, says Madanes, look beyond your own hurt feelings and ask yourself what your partner is looking for. And then ask yourself, "What am I doing to provoke this? What does my partner need?" For some, it may be having chores done unbidden, such as taking out the trash; for others it may be quality time; for still others it's being prioritized. All may be paths to passion.
Annoyance arises from difference. For every person complaining that a partner is a certain way, the partner may be complaining about the opposite. You may feel your spouse is too social, but he may see you as a hermit. Much irritation can be avoided just by understanding the differences between you and your partner—and accepting that it's OK, even inevitable, to be different.
Almost invariably, says Gordon, we make the mistake of assuming that our partner has the same needs we do. Or we regard needs different from ours as less valid, less worthy of being fulfilled. Even the most well-intentioned among us has a tendency to give our partners what we want, not what they want.
You're an introvert; you restore your energy in private. Your partner is an extrovert. After one hour at a party, you want to leave; she's just getting going. "This sort of difference is the seed of countless arguments," says Gordon.
To help couples understand how irritations arise from personality differences, Gordon gives them personality tests. For many, seeing hard evidence that a partner has a fundamentally different personality helps them stop resisting the differences and become more willing to accommodate them.
When you want to leave early, it's not because you don't care about your partner, explains Gordon. When your partner wants to stay, it's not for lack of caring about you. You could resolve the difference by agreeing beforehand to go home separately—you early, her later. Both of you have to accept the difference and not hold grudges about it.
9: Lack of Fairness
One of the toughest aspects of a relationship is negotiating the competing interests that inevitably arise. Who does the household chores? How do you split holiday time with two sets of parents? Who decides where you go on vacation?
Such issues often manifest themselves in complaints about lack of fairness. One partner feels the other isn't holding up the other end of the bargain. But as with all irritants, it's a matter of perspective.
One irony is that couples that try to slice all responsibilities down the middle wind up the least happy. Research indicates that's because in trying to be scrupulously fair, they spend all their time measuring, comparing, and arguing over where the dividing line falls.
It's more important for each partner to feel like they're giving and getting roughly equally, albeit in different domains. Dividing responsibility by preference and ability eliminates competition and opportunities for measuring your partner's performance against your own. Madanes suggests that both partners agree on which realms each will be in charge of, allocating responsibility for the car, taxes, social relationships, and so on.
Far better, says Jacobs, is to adopt a quid pro quo system. Rather than seek a middle position that offends neither but pleases neither, agree to do it your way sometimes and their way other times. This time, your partner chooses the movie, but you pick next time. You both have to surrender to the plan: When you're at your partner's movie, you try to enjoy it—and not complain or ruin it for your partner.
10: Criticism
All relationship irritants can lead partners to criticize each other. But criticism is a dangerous irritant in itself. "If you want to kill a relationship outright, have an affair," says Buri. "But if you want to bludgeon it to death slowly, use criticism." Criticism makes people feel attacked and unloved, and can be so damaging to a partner's sense of self that it borders on abuse. Yet most people respond to even petty annoyances with criticism.
In reacting to annoyances, says John Gottman, men are more likely to shut down and refuse to engage. But women voice their complaints in criticism. They are apt to tell a partner exactly what is wrong with him and how he needs to change. But such an approach seldom brings about the desired goal; men feel attacked, defensive, unable to listen with an open mind. Conversations that begin with criticism are likely to end in anger.
Criticism can sometimes be indirect, manifesting as sarcasm. Madanes prescribes a pattern-interrupt: Wherever the couple is, as soon as she makes a sarcastic comment, he's to lie flat on his back and say, "Kick me! Kick me! It would hurt less." "It's very effective," Madanes reports.
Relentless nagging—about money, about irritating habits, about anything—is another form of criticism that especially bothers men. Madanes similarly prescribes a pattern-interrupt. The goal isn't to shut down communication about real issues but to use playfulness to nudge destructive communication toward a more constructive mode.
Couples assume that since good communication is the linchpin of a relationship, all communication is good and more is better. That's a fallacy, insists Madanes. "With most couples, the problem isn't insufficient communication but too much communication." Many couples get caught in vicious cycles of complaining and criticizing each other, hammering the same issues over and over.
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