Magical thinking in Marriage

Magical thinking in Marriage

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking

we used when we created them. Any intelligent fool

can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.

It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move

in the opposite direction.

– Calaprice, A 2005, The new Quotable Einstein.

Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press

People are always filled with hope. Hope is a wonderful thing however hope without effective behaviors behind results in nothing changing. Hoping is often followed by some form of magical thinking as to how those hopes will become a reality. All too often people will see that things in their relationships or marriage are not working and will engage in “hoping” that it will somehow magically get better even though both parties continue doing the same effective things.

For marriage hopes to become a reality, it often requires people to learn new and more effective relationship skills. If you want your partner to understand you in your marriage, listen to you or be more affectionate, and the things you have been trying are not working, doing more of them will not make them magically work. If you want less conflict, both people need to learn more effective skills to get their needs met.

It is hard to know how to do better if you’ve never learned better. Nowhere do people learn effective relationship or marriage skills. The things that make us effective employees, bosses, parents, daughters or sons do not work in a committed relationship or marriage. We need different skills to negotiate a win-win in a marriage. Couples need more effective skills to handle differences of wants, perspectives and values in relationship.

Effective relationship counselling teaches people how to communicate more effectively so that everyone’s needs can be met in a relationship. What is so harmful is that when people choose to ignore the symptoms in their relationship and just hope that somehow things will turn around without doing anything different.

Give yourself and your spouse something more than hope – effective relationship/marriage skills to reduce the ugliness of conflict. Marriage skills will increase effective communication allowing more intimacy, harmony and happiness.

Our relationship therapist his a certified choice theory reality therapist. She is also a level 2 Gottman trained therapist and has over 10,000 hours of counselling and experience. She provides practical help to couples who just want to enhance their relationship to those trying desperately to save it. Call us to learn more