Problems of Intimacy and Outimacy
Everywhere there are articles, book and professional therapists offering advice on
how to improve and save marriages. What is missing is a guide as to how to make a marriage miserable. Granting that some people enjoy marriage, what of the vast
numbers of marital couples who seek an unhappy marriage,
as they must or they
would not
quarrel so much and give so little pleasure to each other. Determined to
be
miserable, these people have nowhere to turn for advice. Often they divorce and
marry again and again. Each marriage is a search to find one more awful than
the last, when if they had stayed with the first spouse and had a little
instruction they could have found sufficient misery there.
Despite
all the literature on how to have a happy marriage, only recently has
anything
been written on how to have one that is unhappy. Fortunately an
anonymous
author has just completed an in-depth study on how to produce marital
misery,
whether the marriage is heterosexual, homosexual or mysterious. Now the
primary
text in the field, this scientific work is of encyclopedic size and is called,
Achieving Misery in Two Group Dyads with Special
Emphasis on Married Couples.
Unfortunately
it is as tedious to read as it is to suffer the marriage failures it
describes.
For the interested public, a summary is offered here of the ways to
achieve an
awful marriage.
We can
skip over the history of marriage in that opus and get right to the
instructions
on how to make marriage miserable. The history only emphasizes that
marriage
is of such a nature that an outside force has always been necessary to
force
married couples to stay together. First the church made harsh laws against
separation
and divorce, and later the state took over the job of making divorce
difficult.
Now, with the abdication of the church and the freedom given by the state,
anyone can divorce at will. The expanding divorce rate is the inevitable
result. If one sets out to have a miserable marriage now, there is a risk of
separation which did not exist in the past. The ease of divorce has led to a
change in the basic marital threat. The spouse who can threaten to leave the
other has the most power in the marriage because the other will capitulate in
fear of separation. However, now with separation so easily possible, the threat
to flee the marriage has become a risky one. Spouses must go after each other
with the knowledge that a divorce is easily available. If they miscalculate and
escalate quarrels, they risk the possibility that they could separate and the next
marriage might be enjoyable.
It is said
that anyone can have a happy marriage but people must make their own
marital
disharmony. That is not quite true. Many people lack the skills to make a
marriage
awful, and they don’t understand the natural development of marriage well
enough to take advantage of it. Opportunities for marital misery will be
presented here in terms of developmental stages: how to begin a marriage badly,
how to make a marriage worse in the early years, what to quarrel about when the
children are no longer available, and how to increase marital distress in old
age even when strength is failing.
One must
work at marriage, as every authority agrees. Achieving misery requires
conscientious
effort. However, the task is surprisingly easy if one can begin badly.
There are
two general ways to start a marriage so that misery becomes inevitable:
one is to
marry for the wrong reasons, and the other is to marry the wrong person.
Starting a
marriage badly is like building a proper foundation for a house:
unhappiness
is built into the structure from the beginning.
The most
popular wrong reason to get married is to flee into matrimony as a way of avoiding
something else. A mate for a lifetime is chosen impulsively to get out of a bad
situation. There are many situations to escape from: one can marry to get out
of poverty, to avoid going to school, to not have to work for a living, and so
on. The most common wrong reason to marry is to escape from one’s family. If
parents are constantly nagging about keeping a room clean so that pestilence
will not become a plague, or about coming home in time to get some sleep, or to
give up excessive use of drink or dope, then obviously an escape from that
repressive atmosphere is in order. If only one can find a young man, or a woman
to marry and share expenses, then freedom comes with one’s own apartment.
Fleeing home is estimated to be the reason for 81% of the marriages which are
awful when spouses are under 21 years of age. “Free at last, free at last,” cry
the young people as they rush off to their own domiciles. From that point on
they hope never to clean house, to stay out all night, to drink and use drugs until
they fall down, and generally enjoy liberation.
Unfortunately,
when the only purpose of marriage is to get away from one’s family,
the
marriage itself has no purpose. There is no basis for enjoying each other as a
married
couple when the selection was not made for that reason. Even someone
limited in
intelligence can achieve a miserable marriage in this way. Not having
selected a
mate for compatibility, in a matter of weeks the couple cannot stand each
other. They begin to quarrel over who should keep the house clean, who did or
did not come home at a reasonable hour, and the drink and dope bring forth
meanness instead of joy. Once this situation is structured, very little effort
is required by the young people to achieve marital misery.
If
particularly determined to enjoy distress, they can add pregnancy as a reason
to marry and leave the family. Parents will even encourage marriage when they
see a baby enlarging a daughter’s figure. The addition of a baby to the young
couple’s sanctuary is like meringue on the pie: opportunities to be miserable
increase. The baby can make a worse mess than the young couple alone, it can
keep them up later than parties, and generally the child encourages a
suppressed fury at being helplessly tied down by this creature they must care
for. Endless quarrels are manufactured over whose turn it is to do what for the
baby, who should deal with the community protective agencies when they are
accused of neglect, and whose fault it was they had the baby in the first
place. Loud arguments about how great life would be if they had not been
trapped announce to the neighbors that here is a couple skillful at making each
other miserable.
Almost
equal to the opportunities which arise by marrying for the wrong reasons is
choosing
the wrong person to marry. How does one know how to choose a mate in
order to
have an awful marriage? The answer is simple; complex psychological tests
for incompatibility are not required. It is also necessary to make a gross error in
choice,
such as choosing a person of the wrong race, or wrong religion, or wrong
class,
although such choices lay the groundwork for inevitable trouble and so have
their
merits. Basically the selection of a person to marry must be based upon two
criteria:
he or she must have attractive faults different from one’s own, and there
must be a
determination to reform that person to get rid of those faults. Examples
can be
found just by glancing in your neighborhood in any direction. The classical
pair,
which is often used as a model in pre-marital misery counseling, consists of
the
overly
responsible woman who is attracted to a man whose faults are that he is too
irresponsible
and carefree. She admires his self-confidence, his willingness to lead
the good
life, and his entertaining ways. Her faults have always been that she is too
shy and
responsible and cannot let herself go. The man chooses her on the basis of
the same
criteria: and he hopes it will correct his tendency to be off the wall, since
he wants to
settle down. Once married, the couple should proceed at once to reform
each
other. She must insist he get a better job with longer hours, think about a
less
pleasant
career, not drink so much, stop partying all the time, and save money. He
can yell
at her to stop counting every penny, enjoy an evening out occasionally, and
not be so
dreadfully dull. Although this arrangement seems simple, any couple—even
one of
limited imagination—can use it to make each other miserable for many, many
years.
Ingenuity is not required, only persistence.
The
reverse gender arrangement is also classical in opportunities. The woman who is
active and
domineering in her career and social life is attracted to a mousy, quiet
fellow
whose faults are that he is too shy and lacks self confidence. He, in turn, is
attracted
to her because she has all the spirit he lacks, and he hopes it will rub off on
him. Once married, the two people immediately try to reform each other. It is
evident
that marital misery is easily achieved with that contract. She needs only to
call him a
wimp at regular intervals, while he subtly lets her down to get even with
her. By
behaving like a wimp, he implies she is an impossibly domineering woman. It
is
estimated by the eminent Dr. Schiff that at any moment during the day there are
111,200
couples in the offices of marriage counselors with a wife saying she wants
the
counselor to make her wimp of a husband into a romantic and interesting man to
save their
marriage.
Variations
on this theme are as obvious as pigeons to birdwatchers, but one more
common
type can be specified. This type of pair is called the Engineer’s Syndrome
since it
is commonly observed among couples where the husband is in the
electronics
industry. In this arrangement, a wife chooses a husband whose faults are
opposite
hers. He is logical, precise, rational, and quite unemotional (except in
extreme
circumstances when his computer breaks down. Then he might become so
disconsolate
he must be hospitalized.) She is affectionate, emotional, capable of
immediate
crying spells, and she has a tendency to scream and yell during any
discussion
of a controversial issue, like the way she keeps house. She, of course, is
chosen by
the man because he seeks someone who can express an emotion to
stimulate
that tendency in himself. The outcome is inevitable: as the marital
disagreements
occur, the wife goes wild and yells. He withdraws, saying, “Why can’t
a woman be
rational and reasonable?” With very little effort on the part of either one
of them
she can spend her life weeping while he is out working on his sports car,
constantly
improving something that can be improved.
These ways
of beginning a marriage—marrying for the wrong reason and choosing
the wrong
person—are the most simple ways to assure marital distress. If a couple
has a
better beginning, more ingenuity is required to make a marriage a misfortune.
There are
two basic areas which can be exploited to the fullest in any marriage: how
to make
love and how to fight. The best beginning for sexual problems is in the early
years of
marriage; if well nurtured the problems can continue for many years to
come (or
years of not coming). The variations on this theme are many, and most
couples
are capable of all of them. Everyone has heard poor, uneducated people
protesting,
“Oh, if I only had the education that man has, I could make my wife as
miserable
as he makes his.” This is naïve. In the task of creating marital misery,
everyone
has a fair chance. There is no discrimination on the basis of race, class, or
intelligence,
as anyone can see simply by strolling about the city and overhearing the action
in the houses in different kinds of neighborhoods. The only difference is that
one can overhear the misery better in the poor neighborhoods because there are
more
people and the houses are more flimsy.
The sexual
arena offers such opportunity for marital distress that often the marriage
hardly begins
before the partners decide it is better not to have sexual relations at
all, at
least with the spouse. The crucial factor for bringing about sexual problems is
timing.
Sexual arousal and release is a complex physiological and psychological
process requiring
such timing that interfering with it is not difficult. Generally the
rule is to
initiate sex at the wrong time, in the wrong place, with the wrong
frequency,
in the wrong way. The novice chooses one of these wrongs. The expert
insures
success by managing to use all of them over the course of a marriage.
A husband
who is the model for us all will always want sex when his wife is not
interested
or is occupied with something else, he will want it on the living room rug
at noon
when the kids are coming home for lunch, he will want it in a position where
they can
both watch television at the same time. Protests by the wife meet angry
accusations
that she is frigid. The wife who is an equal match for such a husband will
offer equally powerful techniques. She can be totally indifferent, and she can
also arouse him and immediately lose interest. At another time she can yell at
him and demand more sex at once, protesting angrily if he has difficulty with
immediate
compliance.
If accused of inconsistency, she can say it is before, after or during her
period.
A basic
rule for sexual problems used by many couples over the years is to not tell
the spouse
what one likes or does not like in sex, and then to blame the spouse for
not being
pleasing. A wife who can only achieve orgasm in a certain way should
avoid
telling her husband that, and throughout the marriage she can be frustrated
and
pretend orgasms. The husband who prefers to see his wife nude should politely
turn out
all the lights so as not to embarrass her. Variations on this simple theme of
avoidance
are obvious and range from avoiding discussions to avoiding each other. If
one mate
watches TV late and the other goes to bed early, which is the habitual
pattern of
most couples, each evening announces sexual avoidance.
Spouses
are so vulnerable in relation to sex that bad feelings and quarrels can easily
be
generated. A combination of sexual frustration and righteous indignation is a
winning
duo. The righteous indignation is best produced by the couple protecting
each
other. If the husband is uncertain about his potency, the wife can insist she
is
unable to
enjoy sex and so take the blame for sexual avoidance. Instead of
appreciating
her sacrifice, the husband will be angry at her for sexual indifference
and feel
righteously indignant because he is a deprived husband. The reverse is
equally
powerful; the husband can protect the wife by approaching her sexually in
ways she
can rightfully protest. He can also wimpishly emphasize his own
inadequacies
so the fact that she is cool enough to refrigerate food does not have to
be faced.
One might think that protecting each other would risk the possibility of
kindness
and appreciation in return, but that is not the case, as every spouse knows.
Like a
cancer flourishing in a peach, the protection has a patronizing edge that
ripens into successful mutual dissatisfaction.
Every
survey shows that most couples achieve the most displeasure in the sexual
area, and
so techniques for achieving sexual dissatisfactions need not be dwelt on
here.
Every couple has its own favorite variations and innovations.
Besides
problems of intimacy, the opposite problem of difficulties with outimacy is
essential
if a couple is to have an awful marriage. Fortunately couples have been
helped to
be experts at quarrels and fights because they were able to observe their
parents
over the years. However, each new generation likes to make its own
contributions,
and so much marital time is devoted to developing new innovations in
that
enterprise. A few standard procedures can be described to help the novice.
Quarrels
are nature’s way of keeping a marriage alive. Marital misery requires
quarreling
in such a way that nothing is changed and the quarreling must be
repeated
again and again. Should an issue be solved, a new issue must be found to
quarrel
about next time, and most couples do not have the energy or imagination to
continually
develop new issues. It is better to have a few unresolved problems and
belabor those
throughout the tedium of the marriage. The two ways to end quarrels
so they
will occur again and again are at opposite extremes: to withdraw and sulk, or
to
escalate to violence so the quarrel ends with shock and embarrassment but
nothing is
resolved.
Outimacy
includes quarrels which range from violence through verbal abuse to sulks
and
silences and withdrawals. The withdrawal is the best way to end an argument so
that
nothing is changed. If the couple backs off into silence with each quarrel,
awful
issues can
be nurtured and maintained for many years. Ending the withdrawal so
that the
couple can quarrel again is sometimes a problem. With extreme couples the
sulking
only ends when they are required to speak because a child breaks a leg, or
an
earthquake occurs. Many issues can remain unresolved for as long as 42% of the
marriage.
The record is held by the wife who objected to the way her husband said,
“I do,” at
the wedding ceremony and did not speak to him again throughout the
marriage.
Violence
is the only extreme way that a couple can keep quarrels going without
resolving
anything. Sometimes it is thought that only some people can be violent,
but that
does not seem to be the fact. Even couples who are political pacifists and
are kind
to animals will hit each other. Of course hitting where it shows can attract
attention
from the community, so one should use restraint and calculation with
violence.
It is best to start small, as with a punch in the arm, and steadily increase
the blows
so that in a matter of months noses are being broken. As with any
brutality,
proceeding a step at a time is important: each level is explored until the
couple is
used to it. Then the next level of assault does not seem so large. The
couple who
has escalated in this way can be surprised when neighbors are shocked
by blood
and broken bones.
A case may
help. Once upon a time there was a Ph.D. Biologist and his M.A. in
Mathematics
wife who got drunk and fought every Saturday night. Those who think
education might
make people less violent should realize that it does not and in fact
offers new
ways that the proletariat does not have available. For example, such
people are
experienced as teachers, and this husband would teach boxing to his wife.
“Here is a
left hook.” He would say, and hit her. “Here is a right cross.” They could
also use
their knowledge of anatomy to hit each other where it would hurt the most
and show
the least. The wife once hit him in the kidneys with a toaster. Of course in
the
situation each blames the other for what happens. The wife said her husband
was a wimp
who turned into a monster with drink. He said she provoked him and
was the
“out of the blue” type because she claimed he always hit her “out of the
blue.”
Once the husband reported that he decided to give up the addiction to hitting
his wife.
He vowed he would not be provoked to violence. That Saturday she said
something
insulting, and he told her that he wanted to avoid a quarrel. He went into
the other
room. She followed him and continued to yell at him. According to his
report, he
withdrew into the hallway. She pursued him. He went into the bedroom
and locked
the door. She pounced on the door and yelled. Finally she broke the door
down and
cursed him. He hit her “out of the blue.”
This
couple was in therapy, and the therapist insisted that the man should not
physically
abuse his wife no matter what the provocation. Therefore, if it happened
again the
wife was to call the police. She did this and it ended the violence, but for
an unexpected
reason. The wife called the police to complain that her husband was
beating
her, and a young policeman came to the house. He said casually, “Well,
would you
like to file a complaint, lady?” The couple had expected the policeman to
be shocked
by the violence occurring in their expensive neighborhood of educated
people.
The policeman was so casual, obviously having made a number of visits of
this kind
in their neighborhood, that the couple was embarrassed because their
fighting was
not unusual. The snobbish husband was shocked enough to stop hitting
his wife,
not wanting to be common.
Addiction
to drugs, alcohol and other substances make marriage misery easy, if not
inevitable.
However, these potions should be used only if the spouses are limited in
their
range of skills. To get drunk habitually will make a marriage unhappy, but
rather
than lean on that crutch, greater skill should be expected of the average man
or woman.
Every spouse is capable of sober psychological abuse if he, or she really
tries.
An example
of how a couple almost solved a drinking problem that made their
marriage
miserable illustrates the risk of going to therapists. A young psychologist
was
visited by a middle aged couple, and the wife devoted the interview to saying
that her
husband’s drinking problem had ruined their marriage. She spoke of herself
as a
living martyr to his alcoholism. At one point in the interview the husband said
that it
was difficult to stop drinking, and his wife should know because she could not
stop
smoking. She replied that it was not the same thing at all, and his illness was
the
ruination of their marriage. He said, “I’ll stop drinking if you stop smoking.”
“Don’t be
silly,” she replied. The alert young therapist pointed out that this was her
opportunity.
Drink had ruined their lives, and now she had only to stop smoking and
he would
have to stop drinking. The wife provided a 30 minute lecture on how her
husband
could not stop drinking, and besides she had given up everything in life for
him and
now she shouldn’t be expected to give up her own pleasure, smoking. The
skillful
therapist, after prolonged negotiations, persuaded the wife to agree that she
would stop
smoking if her husband would stop drinking. They left the office, and
when they
came back the following week he was sober and she was not smoking.
There was
considerable tension between them. They faced the possibility of a more
harmonious
marriage. The following week the couple came in and the husband
collapsed drunkenly
into the chair. The wife lit a cigarette. “What happened?” asked
the
shocked young psychologist. “I’ll tell you,” said the husband, slurring his
words.
“Last week
I was driving down the street with my wife and she said, go buy me a
pack of
cigarettes, and she pointed to a liquor store.” They had saved their unhappy
marriage
by good team work, and the therapist gave them up in despair.
Problems
of sex, quarrels, violence, and addictions are devices to be used
throughout
marital life from the teen age marriage to the abuse from wheel chairs in
old age.
However, different stages of marriage offer different opportunities to
magnify
bad feelings.
As
authorities have often said, a married couple must work on their marriage. When
a marriage
does not begin badly, both partners must put in more effort. Generally
the early
stage of marriage is the time to quarrel about relatives. Children are not
yet
available and romantic affairs are yet to come. Letting the in-laws intrude
into
the marriage
and then quarreling about them is the primary way to encourage
trouble at
this time. Whether to go for holidays to the home of her family or his
family can
be an effective quarrel. Of course if the parents buy them a house or
contribute
money, the young couple are obligated to stay nearby and maintain the
tensions
of extended family relationships inside the marriage. A productive quarrel
involves
in-law employment. The wife, for example, should insist that her husband
should
take that job in father’s business. After that, many of the quarrels between
them can
be about the ways her father intrudes into their marriage. Any complaint of
the
husband about his job she can take as a criticism of her family and argue that
they could
not survive financially if it wasn’t for her father saving her incompetent
husband.
The
triangle with the mother-in-law can be used in its classic variations and the
wise
husband
will encourage his mother to guide his wife in how to take care of him,
because
she knows best. An award was recently given at the Awful Marriage Banquet
to an
elderly couple who were able to quarrel about a mother-in-law for 42 years.
Over 60
years old with their children grown and gone from home, this couple could
not live
together because the wife’s 92 year old mother had thrown the husband out
of the
house in an argument 12 years previously. Some couples who fear that the
mother-in-law
problem might not last and they will have to develop something else
to quarrel
about should welcome this new longevity of parents and be reassured by
this
example that a lifetime can be devoted to this quarrel.
It is
possible to see the progress of a marriage as a series of tests to see if
sufficient misery can be gained from this spouse, or is another choice better
and so a divorce in order. With the arrival of a child, new opportunities arise
for couples who are about to separate because there is not sufficient
discontent. One can think of it this way; when a couple meet, they feel they
can always stop seeing each other. When engaged, they can think that if it
doesn’t work out they don’t need to get married.
On the
wedding day, they can think, “Divorce is easy, and if this doesn’t go the way I
like it I’ll split, even if all those people came to the wedding.” However,
with a child arriving, the couple has new responsibilities which force them to
stay together and suffer, and it offers wonderful new ways of quarreling. There
is a risk, of course, that a child might improve a marriage. However, the odds
are that the birth of a child provides a symphony of new opportunities for the
couple to make difficulty with each other. Even the question of whether to
conceive a child, or to keep it when conceived, is an opportunity for intense
quarreling.
There are
two standard ways to achieve marital distress at birthing time:
a.) The
wife can ignore her husband and become totally preoccupied with the
offspring
within her. When the husband comes home from work, saying, “The most important
thing in my life happened today,” the wife can say, “That’s nice dear. Wouldn’t
you like to feel my baby kick?” Conversely, the husband can behave as if there
isn’t a child on the way. When the wife comes home from work exhausted in her 9th month of pregnancy, the husband can complain
that she is simply not keeping up the house like she used to and is neglecting
her duties.
b.) While
the wife is encouraging the husband to resent the baby, the husband can
increase marital misery in a way so common it has been
given an anthropological
name. At
this time the wife is vulnerable because she feels ungainly and awkward and
unattractive. The husband should choose that moment to take off and pursue
life’s pleasures. He can disappear with other women, drink to excess, run out of
the house at times when she most needs him, and generally share the birth
experience by not being there. As she delivers in Philadelphia, he can be on a
boat in Schenectady. This way of sharing labor establishes the groundwork for
marital bitterness for many years to come. It shows how a baby can be used to
promote marital distress before it can itself speak or cause trouble.
The
appearance of a baby’s head as it comes out to enjoy the parent’s company is a
sign of
opportunity to come. Obviously the infant who cries constantly and has the
croup
makes its contribution to marital distress, but is it possible to achieve
marital
misery
even with a healthy baby? Thousands of couples can attest to that
achievement.
Not only does the happy baby give the parents a chance to enjoy it
and ignore
each other, as well as quarrel over possession, but the in-laws descend
like
wolves on the flock and offer a resurgence of opportunity for conflict. The
child
has
miraculously given birth to 4 grandparents, and the early in-law struggles
reactivate.
Grandparents can be specially helpful if they raise questions not only
about the
ways to raise a child but also about its paternity.
There are
so many ways of quarreling over children that a special type of therapy,
child
therapy, has been created for it and it would take a 200 page index here just
to
list the
types of fights. Generally they can be grouped into two kinds of quarrels:
those
where marital fights are expressed in terms of the children, and those where
the
children are blamed for marital fights.
Using the
children to express marital conflicts is learned easily by most couples. If a
wife is in
a conflict with her husband over the ways he patronizes her as a woman,
she can
quarrel with him about the rights of their daughter to be equal to boys.
Should the
husband despair over the ways the wife messes up the house, he can yell
how the
daughter never cleans her room. The wife who wishes to call her husband
dumb can
emphasize that the son, who is just like him, should be tested because he
might be
retarded.
Obviously
the possibility of separation will decrease with more children available to
blame for
marital difficulties. The childless couple must exercise far more restraint.
No matter how
awful a marriage, a couple can say it is only because they have this
difficult
child who makes them nervous. Or they can offer the most common excuse
for
suffering in marriage: “we must survive these quarrels and stay together
miserably
for these awful creatures.”
As the
children grow and become preoccupied with school or involved in their own
search for
difficult mates, a couple must find other resources. At this stage an affair
becomes
one of the best possibilities for encouraging marital distress. Just as a
pyramid is
solid because it is constructed as a triangle, so can unhappiness be
produced
in marriage by triangulating with someone in a romantic affair. First of all,
let us set
aside the affairs which do not disturb a marriage, because many couples
stabilize
their marriage by outside involvements. The spouse does not object but is
merely
relieved to have his, or her, partner diverted elsewhere. The existence of the
routine
mistress or the quiet affair makes quarreling inappropriate.
The goal
of succeeding in arousing bitterness in marriage must involve an affair that
really
upsets the spouse. The affairs are on a continuum from those that cause the
least bad
feeling to those that cause the most. Generally, affairs can be classified as