Perpetual and Solvable problems



     In his book "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work", Dr. John Gottman talks about two kinds of marital conflict and how couples may overcome these conflicts. The first he speaks of is the "perpetual problems". As he describes these troubles couples face, ranging from things like how one spouse acts in public, to orderliness versus messiness, to how each partner views faith and religion differently. As Dr. Gottman explains, couples who have these significant (most of the time unchanging) differences but still remain happy in marriage, have found ways to accept the character flaws in the other instead of trying to change each other.

     I have a friend whose parents are like this: When they go out to celebrate holidays and special occasions, there is often drinking involved. Though neither of the couple drinks often, it seems that sometimes the wife has a bit much, and inhibitions are lowered. When this happens, she becomes very outgoing and vocal, being friendly to everyone: except her husband. He feels when she is drunk, she becomes sarcastic, irritable and just plain mean to him; this rubs him the wrong way to say the least.

     Now this couple has been married only once: to each other. And they have been together for over 40 years. What amazes me is how they have found ways to get along together even with such a significant problem that shows its head every few months or so. I think there are a couple reasons they're able to accomplish this:


  • It is an infrequent occurrence. Neither drinks much, so when this situation does happen, it's not regular. The husband knows that his wife still loves him, and that this behavior is both short lived and regretted later.

  • As Dr. Gottman points out, couples like these "know intuitively that some difficulties are inevitable, much the way that chronic ailments are unavoidable as you get older" (Gottman "Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" 2015. p. 139 para.2). If either of them had a drinking problem, were abusive or carried behavior over into sober state, I think things would be different. To my knowledge they have a very happy marriage.

     The other type of difficulty, or "solvable problems", are troubles that aren't related to either of the couples character, but instead to an argument about a particular issue or issues at hand at that time- An example given by Dr. Gottman is a man that drives too fast for his wife's comfort. Being a passenger in the car with him makes her nervous, though he trusts his lead foot and sees no trouble with it. The argument comes to pass when the wife tries explaining she's scared, and the husband either blows it off with an excuse, becomes offended feeling like she doesn't trust him, or listens to her concern and drives slower. It's pretty obvious that the successful couple will be the one with the husband who listens and compromises his behavior while his wife is with him. As Dr. Gottman explains, solvable problems are not a serious of an issue most of the time, as long as they are not ignored or brushed under the carpet. If so, they grow from mole hills to mountains, followed by anger, resentment, condemnation, infidelity,  pulling back, and "falling out of Love".

     Don't let these issues destroy your relationship. It's easier to repair and maintain a solid but damaged foundation instead of trying to pick up the pieces and completely rebuild one that has been destroyed.

  

(stock images. No profit gained from using these photos)

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