A.C.T. | An Acronym for Marriage

When couples arrive at my office, they are often in a relationship crisis. Usually two-way communication has stopped or regressed to contain only senders and no receivers. The atmosphere is generally unhappy, and each person is relating largely out of negative assumptions about the other. Both people have long since stopped learning new things about the other and, therefore, neither one is feeling understood or important. It is a relationship crisis, and the couple may even be thinking about not being married anymore. It is a sad and scary time.

Marital therapy is designed to help couples move away from the negativity and reconnect their communication with and understanding of one another. Even when successful, this is an arduous process, and each couple seems to achieve it in a different way depending on the issues they are trying to sort out in their relationship. The time it takes to work through a crisis can vary from a period of a few months to over a year.

I think of a relationship as being a living, breathing, changing organism that constantly needs to be fed and exercised. Consequently, after the relationship crisis has passed, it is important for the couple work on relationship “fitness.” Three parts of the “relationship body” need to be exercised:

1. Appreciation: After the crisis it is important to not lose sight of what was almost lost. It is essential to not fall into the trap of taking each other for granted and forgetting to actively appreciate each other and what both contribute to the relationship.

2. Communication: There is one key to maintaining communication that will always work when communication threatens to break down. Plainly, that key is listening. Do it.

3. Time: There are many distractions that keep us from spending quality time together. I think quality times are any occasions when we are clearly aware that we want to be with the other person and we feel the other person wants to be with us. Sometimes these occasions are spontaneous, but frequently they involve some planning.

   
   

A marital relationship is a very fragile being that can become weak and sick when it is not fed and exercised. Relationship fitness must be maintained for the entire life of the “organism” or it will die. I think we would all agree that there is so much now that can make the life of a marriage old and ill. None of us, therapists and all, are immune to the many distractions that are both good and bad, and all serve to render us oblivious to beautiful and wonderful people closest to us that we fail to appreciate, communicate and spend time with like we can.