When Love Just Isn't Enough

by Marcie Scranton, M.A.

It flies in the face of every fairy tale dream, but all too often we find out the hard way that the weight of our individual psyches, together with the stressors of ordinary living, are too heavy a burden to place on the narrow shoulders of romance alone.  Anne Sophie Swetchine, a 19th century Russian countess, said it well: “In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy.  The truth is precisely the opposite.  It begins all.”

It is my sense that a marriage, or any committed relationship, is a network of many sub-relationships: romantic, economic, sexual, social, familial, household, and activity-based.  In addition, couples are friends, roommates, and often co-parents as well.  And all of these relationships need to work  – if not perfectly, at least well enough.

And yet many couples find themselves endlessly fighting the same, multilayered battles.  That is to say, they may be engaged in an argument about, say, the finances; at the same time, there is a simultaneous, unspoken conflict over precisely what money means to each of them – and even what the style of the fight itself represents.

The reality is, no one really wins an argument.  The loser feels resentful, and even winning can fuel contempt.  Compromise, while sometimes constructive, can also produce a lose-lose result, since neither party gets what he or she wants. 

The good news is that when we uncover the feelings and the meanings underneath the argument, then couples can transcend the win-lose or lose-lose dynamic and return to a place of empathy and support.  Couples therapy can be an effective way to resolve seemingly intractable problems in a safe and caring environment.  Couples can develop strategies that will lead to communicating in ways they might not have thought possible.  And with that, real, lasting change can occur.

Marcie Scranton is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern with a private practice in Brentwood.  Email her at marciescranton@verizon.net