Marriage: Wake Up from the Trance

Have you ever felt that you were just going through the motions in your relationship? The days pass, you get up, you do the same things, you have the same conversations, you have the same arguments. Maybe you have begun to feel that you are two ships passing in the night. There is so much to get done and so much going on that you have lost track of the “us.” You may be in kind of a “marriage trance” where you are going through the motions of being married, but you have lost the concern and closeness that you once felt for each other.

A Princeton Theological Seminary did a study on compassion. A group of Divinity Students, were given an assignment to prepare a sermon. Half of the students were assigned to prepare a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan, the man who stopped to help another man in need at the side of the road, and half were assigned other sermon topics. Then the students were told they had to go to another building to present their sermon. Some of the students were told that they had to rush to be on time to present their sermon and others were told that they had plenty of time. As they went to the building to present their sermon they each passed a man who was bent over and moaning.

Interestingly they found that whether the student stopped to help the man had little to do with their sermon topic. Their decision to stop and help was more related to how much of a hurry they were in—how much they were focused on what they were doing rather than on what was going on around them.

Each of us is hard wired to be able to empathize with other people. We are able to feel their pain. So why is it that partners fail to empathize with each other? Perhaps it is because they are so absorbed in their own thoughts, their own feelings and their own busyness that they do not actually “see” their partner.

They may make assumptions about what their partner is or should be feeling. When their partner tries to talk to them, they are so busy defending their position that they do not really hear what their partner is saying. They are so focused on their own hurt or their own “rightness” that they are unable to “get” what their partner is saying.

It is important to wake up and allow yourselves space and time to notice each other and to notice what life is like from the other’s perspective. Take time to really focus on your partner and be open to hearing and accepting their thoughts and feelings.

We have found in our counseling practice that once partners can really listen to and understand each other, they begin to empathize and problems become much more solvable. There is an “aha” moment when you suddenly see your own behavior as if through the eyes of your partner. In other words you can begin to understand how what you are doing feels to them. Waking from your marriage trance can transform your relationship.

Susan Derry, B.Ed., M.S.Psy., R.P.C.
Professional Counselor & Life Coach

Co-author of Marriage Prep: Beginnings a downloadable marriage preparation course

Co-author of Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking, a sex manual for couples

Offers a free Nurturing Marriage Ezine