Can you have a happy marriage despite having major differences in your values, goals or priorities?
Many unhappy couples that I see in my practice are grappling with incompatibility issues in their relationship. For example, partners may have divergent views about money, religion, parenthood or parenting approaches. In some cases couples were already aware of clashes in their worldviews prior to committing to their relationships. In other couples, however, major incompatibilities may surface or develop only at a later stage in the marriage.
However, at what stage an incompatibility arose is usually not a major issue when couples come for relationship counseling. The fundamental question usually concerns whether or not the couple are able to find a way of resolving the impasse – often the future of the relationship depends on finding a mutually acceptable approach to dealing with problem so that it does not continue to generate high levels of conflict and unhappiness.
When intimate partners enter counselling and therapy they each invariably express the view that they are in the right and that their partner is wrong in terms of his/her beliefs, goals, priorities or behaviour. The opinion is often expressed that, should the partner agree to change in this regard, that harmony in the relationship would be re-established.
Thus one of my first first priorities in couple counselling is to encourage a non-judgemental stance on the part of the couple and to shift the conversation tone from one of criticism and blame to a more co-operative, problem-solving frame of mind.
In a following post I will explore this issue further with reference to case examples in order to illustrate how couples go about finding solutions to the issue of incompatibility.