the right track

Making Space for Difference in Marriage

Negotiating personal space and appreciating difference can be challenging for any two people trying to carve out a life together. For many couples, space and difference become an ongoing source of contention. The most common sticking points are how to spend time together and how to express love in a way your partner can appreciate. Regardless of the details of the dispute, the same question lives at the heart of most of these conflicts: Where does the "us" end and the "I" begin? Couples have to find a balance between togetherness and individuality.

Spend Time Apart
Time apart can inspire and invigorate time together in a relationship. Differentiation in marriage is crucial for long-term companionship. Each partner should ideally seek to find his/her own sense of wholeness, autonomy, and personal balance within the relationship. Space between partners and a healthy respect for the solitude of the other person is essential for creating intimacy and connection. We all have a need for physical and emotional space away from others. When two people assume that all their needs are going to be fulfilled by each other, the relationship is set up to fail and become disappointing. Maintaining friendships with other people offers a valuable complement to the limitations of your partnership. Participating in a variety of activities helps to make you well-rounded and gives you more to talk about with your partner at home. Negotiating time together and apart can be a tricky business, resulting in all kinds of uncomfortable feelings, such as: rejection, insecurity, jealousy, mistrust, and resentment. Solutions come when couples recognize each other's needs, communicate honestly about their differences, and create viable compromises together.

Recognize Your Differences
In your efforts to strengthen and sustain your marriage, recognize each of your individual needs. Many couples wrongly believe that they should have the same needs and desires because they're a couple. It may be more constructive to recognize that each of you has different needs and that neither person’s needs are better or more important. For harmony in a relationship, it’s important that each person tries to respectfully honor the needs and values of the other person. Even if your partner’s priorities don’t make sense to you or seem foolish or less worthy than your own, take a step back and humbly acknowledge that at least s/he is letting you know what’s required to make this relationship work. In a cultural era in which divorce is much too prominent, it helps to know that your partner is with you in wanting to make this relationship work!

Talk to Each Other
Talk about your differences in a constructive manner by addressing difficult topics when you feel calm and collected. Talk about what you need, rather than what your partner is doing wrong. Be specific about your needs and goals. Practice being free from judgment: it’s not that one of you is right and the other wrong, one more mature and the other more selfish. Find a way to say what you mean that makes space for your differences. Give your partner the chance to voice his/her needs and goals as well. Think about what you can realistically offer in terms of change. Ask for the changes you need from the other person in order to be willing to hang in there. Remember that you’ll both feel better when your relationship is a source of shared strength instead of conflict!

Tanner EAP is a safe place to sort out feelings and develop diplomatic language.