Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack

How to Deal with Deal Breaker Differences in Your Marriage

• Jack Ito PhD, Psychologist, Author, and Relationship Coach • Season 3 • Episode 50

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On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

On today's episode, Coach Jack teaches how to use boundaries for ending deal breaker differences in marriage.

After listening to today's episode, you may want to:

How to Deal with Deal Breaker Differences in Your Marriage

(Podcast Transcript)

(0:00)

[Introduction to the podcast]

Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

(0:29)

Coach Jack: Sometimes there are things we can’t accept, can’t work around, and aren’t going to change by being nice. What then? In a word, boundaries.

Differences don’t inevitably result in conflict, but they are the only things that can. Being similar to others and choosing similar mates will reduce and prevent a lot of conflict. 

Some differences are more important than others. Even when we choose a very similar mate, some differences remain (there is no perfect match). We accept those differences when we choose to marry anyhow.

(1:02)

By accepting each other’s differences, we can: 

  • Focus on enjoying those aspects of our spouse we do like,
  • learn to be more appropriately independent for needs and desires our spouse can’t fill,
  • allow our spouse free time and some spending money for pursuits that, although they differ from our interests, are not harmful to the marriage,
  • use practical solutions to accommodate our differences,
  • are willing to occasionally do things that interest our spouse only, and with a good attitude,
  • compromise, when win-win solutions can’t be found.

Compromise is not a win-win solution because it results in each person losing something. It should be done sparingly to prevent increasing resentment that happens the more we have to give up what we like. 

(1:52)

Taking turns choosing dates can allow both spouses to do what each of them enjoys, at least half the time. Compromising means that neither spouse gets to do what they really enjoy, and have to settle for something else, like always dining out, which can take a lot of the fun out of a marriage. (I have an article on how to do no-compromise dating if you would like to get started with that).

Even compromise is not going to be able to work for some differences, because…

Some differences can’t be accommodated without damaging the marriage

There is a difference between your spouse doing something that you don’t like and your spouse doing something that will damage your marriage. Timing is also a factor in dealing with differences.

It’s important to consider when this major difference occurred

If you want to stop your spouse from doing or being some way that he or she was before you married, and which you knew about, you are breaking your marriage vows.

(2:55)

When we marry, we are promising to love that person, as they are for better or worse. Getting married with the intention of changing someone or not providing the love and acceptance they reasonably expect is fraud. Or a scam. This happens to a lot of people. In these situations, the sooner the defrauded person divorces, the better. 

Breaking of the marriage vows later on, in brand new behavior, is a breach of contract. It is cheating you out of what was promised and previously provided. If you want to hold your spouse accountable for that, make sure you have been holding up your end of the deal. We have no moral ground to stand on if we are not doing our part, but then get after our spouse for not doing his or her part.

And, if we were the first to stop treating our spouse as a priority, it doesn’t make their behavior right, but it makes it more understandable. You may have some rebuilding of your own to do before working on your spouse’s behavior.

(3:59)

An exercise for determining relevant, deal breaker, differences 

Let’s take a look at the differences that are bothering you and see whether they are truly unacceptable or not. Many people who say something is unacceptable, in fact continue to accept them.

I have an exercise to help you decide whether to use a strong, potentially marriage ending boundary, or not. Once people get into using a strong boundary they often decide that they would rather put up with the behavior than to use the boundary. That means the behavior actually was acceptable all along, the boundary fails, respect is lost, and the problem becomes worse.

Something is only unacceptable when we won’t accept it. Arguing, but not using boundaries, is to accept the behavior and damage your marriage. 

(4:51)

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it is unacceptable. Anything which you are accepting is acceptable to you, even if you are fighting about it. If you really don’t accept something, then your spouse is no longer going to get the chance to do it with you.

For example, many people say their spouse’s shouting is not acceptable, but continue to put up with it year after year. Although they don’t like the shouting, they are in fact accepting it.

5 Steps for determining unacceptable, deal breaker behaviors, when a strong boundary must be used:

  1. Make a list of all the ways you wish that your spouse was different. Or another way to put it is make a list of all the things you don’t like about your spouse. Do not show the list to your spouse!
  2. Next, start at the top of your list and ask yourself this question, “If my spouse were the way I wanted in everything except this, would I be able to live with it?” If your answer to that question is “yes,” then cross it off. It is not a relevant, deal breaker difference or something to have a strong boundary about.

(6:08)

  1. Then, go to the second item on your list and do the same thing. Ask yourself, “If my spouse were the way I wanted in every other way except this one, would I be able to live with it?” Again, if your answer is “yes” cross it off. It is not a make or break difference.
  2. Do that for every item on your list.
  3. Any items which are left are relevant, deal breaker differences, whether your spouse agrees or not. This is because you don’t feel that you can continue to have a good relationship with your spouse because of this difference, regardless of how good your spouse is otherwise.

(6:56)

To be sure, we can use boundaries for non deal breaker differences. But they are not going to put our marriage on the line. For example, we will walk away when talked to badly, or will refuse to have sex if our spouse won’t date us. Such boundaries are important for stopping bad behaviors, particularly of the disrespect variety.

And you also need to…

Decide whether your spouse’s behavior is a cause or a result

You know that arguing with your spouse or distancing from your spouse is not going to change any big differences. If anything, it is just going to make those differences more pronounced.

You need to consider whether those differences might be occurring because your spouse no longer enjoys your company due to something you are doing or not doing. 

You are not to blame for your spouse’s behavior, no matter what your spouse does or why. But, that doesn’t mean you aren’t part of the problem.

When your spouse’s behaviors are a likely reaction to your own behaviors, you need to decide whether to work on your own behaviors before using a boundary. If you are being abused in any way, I recommend using a boundary first.

(8:06)

It is possible to use boundaries even if your spouse does not enjoy your company, but they are much less likely to be effective. Except for issues of abuse, I recommend you focus on helping your spouse to value you more before using boundaries. The more your spouse cares about your relationship, the more effective your strong boundaries will be.

If you were ever enjoyable to your spouse, you have the potential to be that way again.

Working on being a more enjoyable and more desirable spouse may also reduce differences to the level to which they are acceptable to you. An unacceptable tone of voice, unwillingness to help, and lack of affection are prime examples of behaviors that often improve when people are treated better.

What kinds of things should you work on if you choose to work on yourself first? Here are some …

Questions to help you identify what to work on to become more desirable/enjoyable:

(9:06)

  • Does your spouse feel like you are always happy to see him or her?
  • Does your spouse feel like a priority?
  • Does your spouse feel that you are very similar?
  • Does your spouse feel like you empathize with his or her desires?
  • If something happened to your relationship, would your spouse want to find another person just like you? If not, then what differences would your spouse like to find in the other person?

If these questions have helped you to detect some issues, that is great because you know what you need to work on. I use these same questions to help decide where clients need the most help. You can get to work on strengthening skills in any weak areas. You may recognize this as part of the 7 steps for rebuilding your marriage.

(9:57)

On the other hand, if you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, then give yourself a pat on the back – you’ve done a great job as a spouse. You are in great shape for using boundaries and making your marriage better than ever.

In that case, you can go directly to …

Using boundaries for relevant, deal breaker differences

Although boundaries are very effective, they should not be used when relationship building can take care of the problem. This is because relationship building is positive and does no damage. Boundaries do some damage, so they should only be used when even more damage would result if they were not used.

Let’s take an example. Suppose your spouse wants to go out with friends so much that he or she does not go out with you at all. And, let’s further suppose that you are otherwise being an enjoyable spouse and that is not the reason for your spouse to avoid doing things with you. 

(10:57)

In that case, you need to make sure that you are not socially isolating yourself and increase your own social activity–becoming less available for your spouse in the process. Sometimes that is enough to help create the kind of change needed to stimulate your spouse to want to spend more time with you. You can then require dating, which your spouse will be more motivated to do. This is a minor boundary as it will help your spouse to get what he or she already wants.

If being more independent and reducing the overall time that you spend with your spouse does not increase your spouse’s desire to do things with you, then I recommend the following approach. 

Positive requests, with a boundary backup plan:

(11:51)

  1. Make a positive request , in this example, for your spouse to be more involved with you. Positive requests do not involve any complaining or criticism. Do not make a negative request or criticize in order to try to get more time or attention from your spouse.
  2. If your spouse responds well to your positive request, then make sure you make your spouse’s changes pay off for him or her, by responding in loving, attentive, and appreciative ways.
  3. If positive requests don’t work, and your spouse’s behavior is otherwise unacceptable, then it will be time to move to a boundary. Even then, your boundaries should be lovingly communicated. Anger and lack of empathy don’t make boundaries more effective–they just make the relationship worse.

This positive request approach is a good thing to try before boundaries, in an otherwise good relationship.

(12:50)

If the positive requests didn’t work for this example, you might tell your spouse that you love him or her, and have done all that you can to try to have more quality one-on-one time together. Tell him or her that you have no desire to separate or injure the marriage, but will need to be taking steps in that direction unless your spouse has some idea about how to spend more quality time together. Make it clear that you will not be staying married if your spouse will not have quality time together. Be willing to try any reasonable ideas that your spouse has.

Boundaries need to be communicated very clearly, with no debate or discussion. Be serious, but don’t be hostile.

Many times positive requests don’t work because our spouse is not motivated, or doesn’t take our needs seriously. Letting them know that we may need to separate often will help them take it more seriously. However, do not say such a thing if you would not actually do it. 

(14:01)

If the difference is truly unacceptable, then you should not have a problem taking whatever steps are necessary to try to fix the problem, or alternatively, to end the marriage. This is because you would rather divorce than to live with the behavior–it is unacceptable to you.

When it comes to things like affairs and drug addictions, it is easier for most people to have strong boundaries. When it comes to failure to spend quality time together, most people are not as willing to have strong boundaries, although this is the number one cause of unhappy and broken marriages.

If you decide that you don’t like a big difference, but that you would never separate in order to try to change it, then you are actually saying that the difference is acceptable to you. In that case, try to make the best of your relationship despite the differences, just like all of the other acceptable differences.

(15:00)

Contrary to what many people think, separations don’t end marriage. What ends marriages, is when people allow conflict and lack of connection to go on so long that they no longer love or desire each other. Done while people still care, separations can improve marriage when other actions cannot. If you are considering that, I recommend you listen to my podcast on trial separations vs. unstructured separations, because sometimes we only get one chance to get it right.

Do not go back to arguing/distancing whatever you do

If you are unwilling to take the steps necessary for a good boundary, and you have done all you can to be a valuable spouse, then your only good choice is to accept your spouse’s behavior and make the best of it. Can you think of a better alternative?

(15:52)

Many people do make a worse choice. A worse choice. They are unwilling to have good boundaries, and also unwilling to accept their spouse’s behavior. As a result, they behave in undesirable ways, are unenjoyable, and emotionally distant. Rather than decrease the detested difference, this actually causes more differences to appear – compounding the problem and bringing the marriage to an eventual end.

Prolonged bad treatment does not motivate spouses to change in good ways.

People may feel justified to treat their spouses badly, but it will never result in improving their marriages. God hates divorce, but He doesn’t like a hateful spouse any more than divorce. Jesus clearly prioritized love over keeping the letter of the law. People do nothing righteous by continuing to stay married when they treat their spouse poorly.

The only good alternative to divorce is a loving marriage.

(16:57)

Dealing with differences is just part of our marriage responsibility

Differences are inevitable in every relationship. We need to accept them when they come with the marriage, ignore them when they are minor, work around them when they are irksome, and use boundaries when they threaten our marriage.

In cases of abuse we will use boundaries right away, while with other behaviors we may need to do our part in relationship building first. Once we’ve done that, out of love for our spouse as much as ourselves, we use boundaries with love and compassion, but with firmness and resolve, to restore our relationship.

Love requires no less than that. If you’d like, you can see my difficult partner coaching package to get expert help with your spouse’s damaging behavior.

(17:50)

 [Podcast wrap-up]

Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.