Equal Couples

Kirstee Williams, M.S., is a doctoral student in Marriage and Family Therapy at Loma Linda University in Southern California. She is part of a clinical research group that focuses on how to work with gender, power, and cultural issues in couple therapy.  Kirstee is particularly skilled in working with the emotional process between intimate partners and is currently conducting an analysis of infidelity treatment models to determine to what extent they may reproduce gender stereotypes (early conclusions suggest that they do, but that is a topic for another day).  Here Kirstee describes what she is learning about working with vulnerability in distressed relationships.  

 As a family therapist interested in inequality in couple relationships, I have been surprised by how subtle equality processes are. Our clinical research group uses a model of equality that focuses on mutual accommodation, power, vulnerability, and attunement.  As my eyes have been opened to these aspects of equality, many forms of unequal relating are easy to spot. For example, it now obvious to me how important mutual vulnerability is.  I have come to see facilitating male vulnerability within the couple interaction as a particularly important achievement in most successful couple therapy.

 Yet, the subtly of the equality process that follows male vulnerability becomes complicated. Most therapists would move toward helping the female respond in equally vulnerable ways in that moment. Although female vulnerability is just as significant as male vulnerability for equal relating over the long term, it is important to note that societal process have created different “starting places” for gender. A man’s willingness to be vulnerable (and take in other emotional experiences) may spark what has traditionally been considered to be “less vulnerable” emotions such as anger from females. Gender stereotypes tend to suggest that women should not be angry, or should have to keep the peace by privileging male experience over their own, often losing their “honest” voice in the process. Thus when a couple is transiting to more equal relating through a male’s willingness to be vulnerable, honest emotionality (including anger) from the female in response to his vulnerability may be the first sign of equality in the couple interaction and the first step toward more honest, sincere connection. I am learning how important it is to make space for this expression and help male partners accept and take in her experience.

 For example, I was working with a couple who had been coming for reunification after the husband had left the relationship for several months. He desperately wanted the relationship to work and was very interested in learning all he could about what it meant to be “relational.” His wife also wanted the relationship to work and was terrified to challenge him for fear that he would leave again. As a result, she tended to be extremely supportive and accommodating of his efforts. Throughout the weeks and months that followed we worked on many aspects of relationalty, but one particular aspect seemed to hold the energy to move the relationship forward—his vulnerability. As I coached him in becoming more vulnerable I could feel his wife responding differently to him. In session I explored this dynamic, and asked the husband to invite his wife to share what her increasing anger was about. She responded, “For the first time he is safe enough to be honest with.” Then she turned to him and said, “your leaving was devastating, I am very angry that you could disregard me and our relationship like you did.” The husband responded by nodding his head and acknowledging her right to be angry, actively staying in the vulnerable position in that moment. He then moved toward her to apologize again for his actions. For the first time since his leaving this couple had a sincere connection regarding the “incident.” 

 If I had expected this wife to meet her husband with the same amount of vulnerability he was displaying in that moment she would never have shared honestly what her experience of anger was. Several weeks later the husband commented in session, “I fall more in love with her every day, she has an energy there to get excited about.”

 Posted by Kirstee Williams

As I was reading about the intentional way Marc and Amy Vachon  create their own relationship (see my previous post), I was struck by their conscious resistance to falling into predetermined gender patterns.  I’m not sure we’re used to thinking of equality as resistance, but it really is.  Resistance is necessary in the face of established power dynamics that do not necessarily serve the needs and interests of individual couples.

Just today a student was describing a couple that he interviewed for a research study.  The husband said that he put family before his work.  But by default he ends up focusing more on his work than on what is important to his wife.  This happens because he does not intentionally focus on her and the old patterns take over.  To live by his ideals, he needs to intentionally resist old gender norms that invite her to focus on him, but not him to focus on her.   It takes small acts of resistance every day–at least until new patterns become ingrained.

Let’s hear it for resistance!!  How do you resist? What are your acts of resistance?

So much has changed in the last 40 years.  Most couples today expect equal relationships.  In our research couples tell us that they do not intend to follow old gender rules.   But in so many ways they do.  Women end up carrying the bulk of the responsibility for organizing family tasks, even when they hold full time jobs.  Men want to be involved fathers, but often end up stepping back as mothers take care of the children and develop emotional bonds bonds with them.  Women of all ages are disappointed that their male partners don’t listen more and tune into them emotionally, and men want relationship but don’t know how to create one.   In a time when more women graduate from college than men,  and girls—as well as boys—are encouraged to develop their talents and follow their dreams,  many people are caught off guard when they recognize that they have fallen into  old gender patterns without ever intending to.   

Couples who create equal relationships do so intentionally.  In “Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents” Marc and Amy Vachon describe their own experience and that of other couples who have found ways to put their egalitarian ideals into practice.   What stands out to me in their account is that equal relationships do not all look alike.  They are personal and intentionally created.  

The Vachons encourage readers to embrace two philosophies: equality and balance; then advocate intentionally planning how to put these into practice to create equal partnerships and individually balanced lives.   With mutual commitment and conscious planning a full range of relationship possibilities are available.

In the old gender rules both partners sacrificed aspects of themselves.  Men sacrificed being actively engaged relationally in order to be successful in the workplace; women sacrificed career to attend to their families.  The Vachons emphasize that in an equal relationship with shared parenting, both partners must be willing to cut back in some areas in order to have more of what they want in others.  The key is both partners making changes, both partners reorganizing where and how their time is spent, and conscious planning.

The equal relationships described by the Vacchons sound very different than the couples described in “Opting Out: Why Women Really Quit Their Jobs and Head Home”by Pamela Stone.   The well-educated (formerly) professional women in Stone’s study all had great jobs that they liked.  But their husbands also had great jobs, and all of the changes and pressure for parenting was put on the women.  In the end, the women decided that maintaining their jobs was too hard and sacrificed them.  These couples seemed to assume that the men’s career had priority.   Not so in the couples described by the Vachons.  In Equally Shared Parenting both partner’s intentionally set (or reset) priorities, schedules, and duties that privilege each partner’s commitments and responsibilities in family, work, and personal domains.   The Vachons argue that to create equality couples must be willing challenge taken-for granted assumptions on each front.  This means questioning ideas about what women and men “naturally” do, how much money one has to have, and even our own ideas about how certain tasks should be done.   In their account, the effort pays off in many more ways than in just sharing the work.  Each couple creates their own unique life, and in so doing, build a relationship in which each partner has ownership.

Thanks Amy and Marc for making your own process so open and in reaching out to identify others who share your success.   We need many models for how to break free from old gender traps.  You can find Amy and Marc’s blog at http://equallysharedparenting.com. 

Please share your successes with us!

posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

“We each have a finite amount of energy, time, and resources,” caution Renee Trudeau and Bella Guzman, authors of the 2008 book  The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal.  “Most of us give away and waste our energy every day without even realizing it.”

They suggest that doing more may not be the best way to cope with feeling depleted, despite the old axiom “the more you do, the more you can do” that has left me feeling guilty since somewhere in high school. Maybe when we feel depleted we are, and we need to find some way to recharge.

We also may need to think about how we are using our energy. The beginning of the year is a good time to do an energy audit. How much energy do we let leak away on lengthy phone calls, unnecessary emails, unrewarding social gatherings, or grubbing around in disorganized spaces at home?  How can we better align our time and energy to our values? Happy New Year.

Anne

If you’re interested in how some couples actually pull off shared parenting, start the new year by reading the new book by Marc and Amy Vachon, “Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents.”  Drawing on their own experience and interviews with other couples who successfully share parenting, Amy and Marc  provide a highly readable guide that makes a strong case for ESP: “Each partner has to do only half the work, owns only half the responsibility for running the family, and gets half the power in the relationship” (p. 24).  Then they show readers how to do it.

Their most important argument is not really about the benefit of dividing the work; it is about the connectedness they feel to each aspect of their life, to each other, and to their children.  While this is very important to mothers, it is also a real advantage to fathers.  They get to develop intimate relationships with their children and take a full role, rather than an apprentice role in the home.  And work–even if you love it–doesn’t wipe out everything else in life.

According to the Vachons, equally shared parenting begins with commitment, with consciousness about what you want.  It involves an assessment of your values.  What do you really want to do with your life and your time?  It means that partners share relationship responsibility, child care, and housework, but also have time for themselves and engage meaningfully outside the home as well.  The actual solutions in terms of choices and schedule are as varied as the couples themselves. 

The book gives example after example of how creative couples avoid falling back into old gender patterns.  It is also clear that equally shared parenting won’t just happen.  It takes  intentionality, planning, and letting go of old gender messages that can catch us off-guard.  But the stories and practical suggestions they present give reason for optimism. In the end, it is about two willing partners who respect the sharing.  Some planned before children were born; others did a makeover years into the parenting process.  Most couples run into hurdles from time to time.  But the benefits and joy that the efforts bring are compelling.

Without models to draw on, today’s couples have trouble putting their egalitarian ideals in practice.  Thank you Amy and Marc, for helping to show the way. 

We’d love to hear from you.  What has helped you share parenting? What hurdles have you overcome–or need to overcome?  

posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

The next generation (18-32 year olds) almost unanimously seek a life that balances work and relational connection within an egalitarian partnership.  This finding from a new study by Kathleen Gerson confirms many previous studies.  Her just  released book, The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America,”  provides an in-depth look at how women and men raised after the women’s movement respond to this ideal. She found considerable skepticism that they will be able to achieve what they want. High demands in the work place, increased pressures on parents, and limited support and flexibility in the workplace convince most of the 120 participants in her study that they may need a fall back plan. 

Not surprisingly women and men in the study describe very different–clashing–fall back plans.  Women fear that they will not be able to find a partner that will share the load with them. They speak of planning to be self-reliant, to be able to support themselves, have a satisfying work life, and raise children within a network of female support.  Men fear that they will not be able to take on all these shared responsibilities and worry about encroachment on their autonomy.  They speak of a “neotraditional” fall back plan in which they are the primary breadwinners with female partners who will help with the finances, take primary responsibility for children.

Interestingly, there is no difference between women and men in their preferred lifestyle; everyone wants relational connection and a satisfying work life.  This was true across ethnic and socio-economic groups.  Neotraditional fall back plans–when expressed by women–were more common among upper-middle class white women than women of color or those from working class and poor backgrounds. This finding surprised me at first, but makes sense given that the fall back plans are based on expectations that their preferred egalitarian relationships may not pan out.  Only middle-class white women have faith that the men in their lives will be able to financially sustain a family.

Gerson’s study points to the need for solutions!  Today’s younger women and men need models for what works. Marc and Amy Vachon host a website called Equally Shared Parenting that provides this kind of help.  Look also for their soon-to-released book (same title) that shares the collected experience and wisdom of couples like themselves who are actually making shared parenting work.  Our book,  “Couples, Gender, and Power: Creating Change in Intimate Relationships“   illustrates how some couples are able to accomplish equality while so many others fall short of their ideals.

It is also important to note that the concerns Gerson’s study participants raise are real.  Without changes in workplace structures and policies and better and affordable child care options, the road for couples is challenging.  Gerson concludes that couples with more flexible gender models have more options and are better able to negotiate and maintain satisfying lifestyles.  She also calls for social policies that emphsize a collective responsibility for children, not just leaving it to families. We couldn’t agree more!

 

posted by Carmen

Last night we were working with a couple seeking to improve their relationship. The issue at hand was that when issues get tense the husband just leaves. Usually he goes off to his room and focuses on his computer. He explains that this is “his nature;” that he just doesn’t naturally tune into what’s going on with others.  His wife  ”understands” his character and holds back from expecting him to be someone he is not.  But the relationship is in trouble. She is tired to being left to carry the relationship burden.

Stonewalling, leaving, or tuning out of relationship is a common male relationship style. If you buy into the idea that this is just how men are, that they come from Mars and need to go to their caves, there is little hope of creating an equal, mutually supportive relationship—one in which both partners focus on each other and on maintaining the relationship.  Instead, women are left living in an emotional, relational world, while men live in a completely different world of independence and autonomy. The best we can do is understand and accept these differences.

A simple, but essential, step in creating a mutual relationship is to believe that change is possible; that men and women are not trapped by their  ”natures.”  So we asked them how the relationship would be different if “Johnny” changed his “habit” of not noticing what it’s like for her to be left holding the relationship ball.  Habits may take some work to change, but they do not define us.

The shift in the conversation was amazing! “Johnny” started to imagine that “Judy” would be less stressed; that he’d be less likely to withdraw from her, and that they would enjoy each other’s company more. He started picturing himself intentionally focusing on her—and liked the idea. He began to challenge his imagine of himself as someone not naturally good with “people skills.”

 The first step to change is challenging beliefs that gender differences are “hard-wired;” thinking, instead, of them as habits. The second step is experiementing with intentional change.

posted by Carmen

I just returned from giving a presentation in Puerto Rico.  Family researchers there described a very high rate of  sex with “secondary partners” among young couples. Their focus groups reported that women also claimed the “right” to extra-sex—non-emotional sex outside their primary relationships.  This seemed to be a way to gain equality. I’m all for women enjoying sex.  But I worry  about a model of equality that focuses only on individual freedoms without also including shared responsibility for the relationship.

Some of the questions  the Puerto Rican researchers had not yet explored were whether women were adopting a masculine model of relationship and if their relationship ideals and preferences were being compromised—in other words, were they playing by relationship rules defined by men?  These are important questions for women and men everywhere. In the old model of relating sex was often viewed as something men wanted and women didn’t. Women could use the “giving” of sex as a bargaining card. Women claiming their right to sexual pleasure for themselves as well as their partners is important to equality. But women simply becoming more like men seems to me a very limited answer. Sexuality between equal parterns imvolves so much more.

This topic is pretty new territory—one that Anne and I want to explore in more depth.  We need your help.  What does an equal sexual relationship look like? What issues are involved? How is equal sex part of a mutually supportive couple relationship? 

posted by Carmen

Tom Blume alerted us to a News York Times story on equality in the Obama’s marriage.  It seems to me that they may be an illustration of the struggles couples face in trying to live out egalitarian ideals.  Here is part of the story when they were asked about equality:

”Michelle Obama gave what sounded like a small, sharp “mmphf” of recognition, and the fluid teamwork of their answers momentarily came to a halt. “Well, first of all. . . .” the president started. His wife peered at him, looking curious as to how he might answer the question.

“She’s got. . . .” he began, but then stopped again.

 “Well, let me be careful about this,” he said, pausing once more. “My staff worries a lot more about what the first lady thinks than they worry about what I think,” he finally said, to laughter around the room.

The question still unanswered, his wife stepped back in: “Clearly Barack’s career decisions are leading us. They’re not mine; that’s obvious. I’m married to the president of the United States. I don’t have another job, and it would be problematic in this role. So that —you can’t even measure that.” She did add that they are more equal in their private lives — how they run their household, how they raise their children, the overall choices they make.’

Just this morning one of my students was discussing with me her plans for a study on how couples magange egalitarian ideals over time–how they make decisions and keep the relationship going through the struggles without models to guide them.  She wonders where couples get their models.  So I wonder….what relationship models do the Obamas represent? Is it even possible to talk about equality when you’re dealing with the President of the U.S.? On various occassions they have described the struggles they have gone through over the years to balance careers, family, love, and ambition. Most of our lives are less public, but the issues are very real. How do people manage equality over the long term?  Looking forward to your thoughts.

posted by Carmen

Thank you Lise Eliot!  Everywhere I go, otherwise knowledgeable persons routinely express the belief that the differences they observe between women and men are innate; that they are hard-wired into the brain and can not be changed. The trouble with this argument—besides being wrong—is that these so-called “natural” differences are used to justify gender inequalities.  Eliot’s new book, Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and What We Can Do About It, dispells this myth in the very first chapter.

According to Eliot, the myth arises from a misunderstanding of neuroscience. First, claims such as that men are wired for aggression and women for communication or that women are naturally more verbal than men are ”cherry-picked” from studies of adults but applied to children, or are extrapolated from studies of animals.  Secondly, the differences that may exist are small and best explained by the interaction of the brain with the enviroment.  In other words, our brains are created by what we do.  They evolve in response to experience. This “plasticity”  is the basis for all learning.

There are some truly innate genetic and hormonal differences, but Eliot points out that the male-female differences that really matter are heavily shaped by learning.  Our cultural propensity to exaggerating gender stereotypes is harmful to both women and men and makes  relationships difficult for all the reasons we’ve noted in other posts.

 Eliot’s book is really important. I will be requiring it in my gender classes from now on. The book confronts  the myth of innate gender differences with solid science and challenges us to do better. This is needed now more than ever, because as Elliot points out, in the last twenty years fascination with exaggerated claims regarding sex differences has grown. And what we believe about the basis for such differences has important personal and political consequences.

Posted by Carmen