Equal Couples

This post is in response to the question raised by John: “Short of therapy, what can partnered people do to increase their attunement?”  

Siegel says that attunement is the result of conscious intention.  Attunement is thus more an attutude than a skill.  Persons who want to increase their attunement need to focus on it.  Do we really want to know our partner’s experience? Or are we more interested in being right? Or defending ourselves? Or thinking about how we will respond? All the skill training in the world will do no good if the intention to attune is not there.

On the other hand, “good intentions” often get way laid by gender socialization and power differences–as well as other things like being busy. In our research, we find that men in equal relationships often describe “learning to pay attention.”  In therapy we don’t really teach attunement as a skill. Instead we encourage partners to stay present and focused on the other. When they do–and this can be very difficult– the attunement follows. It is more like meditation. You need to clear the mind and stay focused. I think most couples can consciously become more intentional without the aid of a therapist.  With practice, it becomes a habit.

In our research we became especially aware of the importance of attunement through Jonathan’s study of equality in same sex couples. Their relationships are insightful because relationship patterns are not organized around automatic assumption of gender differences or fitting into prescribed social roles. What we learned was that equality was less an end in itself than an outcome of their efforts to tune into each other in order to sustain their relationship. These couples devised conscious relationship strategies to faciliate attunement, such as setting aside regular times to process how each of them is feeling about relationship decisions, etc. This conscious attention to relationship is something that can benefit all couples.

So, if you’re wanting to increase attunement, a good way to start is to be conscious and intentional in taking the time to focus on your partner. And let go of the need to be right.

posted by Carmen

I suppose partners could be equally selfish or equally disinterested in the other.  Who would want that? Most couples aspire to mutually supportive relationships.  Next week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy Doug Hunergardt and I will be presenting our model for helping couples achieve this ideal.  A key goal is fostering mutual attunement. We’ve taken this concept from Daniel Seigel’s work. According to Seigel, if we are really tuned into another we literally take on the other’s experience and are changed by it. This is a physiological process as well as an interpersonal one. As we tune into another our neurons begin to mirror our partner’s.

When we are genuinely tuned into another, we are more likely to be motivated to accommodate his or her needs and interests. However, changing ourselves for the sake of others is typically considered a feminine trait, and not a good one. Old psychotherapy models suggested that to be healthy we should not be so easily influenced by others. Siegel’s work suggests a new way of thinking about health. He shows how being tuned into others is good for us and for our relationships.

But if one partner is more tuned in than the other, a power difference results. This is not good for either partner. In our model of couple therapy, Doug and I help couples overcome stereotypic gender patterns that interfere with mutual attunement. The concluding chapter of Couples, Gender, and Power: Creating Change in Intimate Relationships also provides an in-depth illustration of how we do this work. 

We’d love to hear your responses to the idea of being changed by the other.  How do you address this issue? How do  you transform the gender and power issues involved?

posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

That’s a good question. Sometimes when couples are trying to break away from the old rules, no one is taking responsibility for the relationship or the family. Equality in a relationship is sometimes seen as a sort of anarchy in which each person goes full force for his or her own interests and ideas, without taking anyone else into consideration.

Obviously this doesn’t bode well for families or long-term relationships, especially when there are young children. This is why Carmen and I believe that a useful model of equality has to focus on all three parts of a relationship: You,  I, and We. An equal relationship should support and encourage both partner’s goals and well-being, but also needs to be “we” centered with both individuals concerned about what the relationship itself needs to be strong.

Posted by Anne

Equality isn’t about making men and women alike. It’s about letting go of old stereotypes that limit options for both sexes. Most scholars who study gender differences conclude that stereotypes exaggerate the differences between women and men. Stereotypes make individuals less able to express their unique and interesting differences. Equality, on  the other hand, encourages each partner to be the person he or she uniquely is. The give and take and emotional sharing between two whole, different individuals give spice and fun to their relationship. Yet often, especially after we have children, we slip into the old pre-designed gender molds and invisible inequalities without even realizing it.

Marcia and Clay, for example, were initially attracted to each other because neither fit stereotypic gender behavior. She was outgoing, independent, energetic. He was emotionally expressive and caring. They started with ideals of equality, but after they had been married a few years they fell back into more stereotypically male and female roles. What had originally attracted them to each other closed down. They became less multi-dimensional people, less interesting to each other. Marcia, feeling, though not seeing, the expanding invisible inequality in their relationship, felt angry and depressed without knowing why. The bond between them diminished.

They had to take fast action to get back on the right track. Each partner needed to develop relationship habits that support equality. As they consciously worked toward expressing their whole selves, rather than the sex stereotypic roles they had fallen into, they began to enjoy each other more and sexual energy revived.

Posted by Anne

Our guest post today is by family counselor/professor Tom Blume. He is a Vietnam veteran, father of 2 adult sons and former stay-at-home dad.

In a recent conversation with family therapist colleagues one of them
suggested that men might feel discomfort in roles where nurturing
qualities are expected. That struck a chord for me as a former nursery
school teacher–there probably is a sense of dissonance for many men
when they look at any situation (including parenting) in which they
are encouraged to become softer, more sensitive, more tentative, and
more open to others’ feelings. A recent series of Bud Light
commercials (Real American Heroes, mocking those who don’t conform)
demonstrates the message about masculinity–it encourages
conformity by creating a sense of shame in men who abandon their “true
nature” and become “girly.”

I have watched this process with many male counseling students over
the years, most notably with one who came into my classroom within
weeks after returning from combat in Iraq. He jumped into every conversation with insulting comments toward
women. I had to call him on it more than once. A year later his
struggle was over, and even though he was outnumbered by the women
students he was a team player and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to
become one of the gang.

I think that there are women as well who experience this kind of
dissonance. One of our doctoral students has been working on gender
issues among women in law enforcement, where he believes they often
accommodate to the anti-woman bias of their co-workers.”

Post by Tom Blume

–

Most people think relationship equality is a women’s issue—or that equality comes at a cost for men. Not true!! We have known for a long time that men benefit from equality.  John Gottman got folks at the 1989 American Association of Marital and Family Therapy conference really stirred up when he reported that men who did more housework were physically healthier–and least likely to get divorced!

Equal relationships are good for both women and men.  Janice Steil found exactly that in Marital Equality: It’s Relationship to the Well-Being of Husbands and Wives. Partners who were equally able to influence each other experienced more intimacy, fewer feelings of depression, better well-being, and greater marital satisfaction for both men and women.

In my work with couples, once men recognize  the benefits of connection with their partners most are interested in relating more equally to get it.  Let’s stop thinking of equality as something that is only good for women. Men also have a lot to gain.

Posted by Carmen

Judith Warner, in her recent book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, describes a “culture of total motherhood” that requires the suppression of the professional ambitions of many mothers and a total focus on their children. She portrays mothering demands so intense that women who can afford to do so often leave work to give full attention to child raising.

Warner observes that couple equality for many of these affluent couples has become a “pipe  dream.” After a generation in which sexual differences were downplayed, the “fact” that men and women are “just different” has again become a rationalization for women’s difficulty in managing both work and family. Now, however, this appeal to natural differences seems to be coming from women themselves.  Mothers run the home show. Men provide. Middle class intensive mothering, with its focus on perfection, control, competition, and the need to constantly work with children to prepare them for a successful future, leaves women little time and energy, not only for work, but for their husbands and shared family activities. Even sex seems to slip away.

Perfect Madness is the third book I have read recently about how the expectations of intensive mothering have narrowed middle class women’s lives down to a small part of their former selves. The equal marriages both they and their husbands expected and no longer have is just one of the many losses from this shrinking process.

Warner concludes that we should articulate – and find politicians to promote – a Politics of Quality of Life. Perhaps our current economic upheaval and political change will give us an opening to take stock of what really matters. How much is enough? What makes us happy? Do we all have to strive for the top? Couple equality is about more than making sure family tasks are divided up evenly. It is about an atmosphere of mutual connection and caring, the conscious working out of a family life that gives a sense of well being to every member of the family.

Posted by Anne

Why do we fall back into old gendered ways of thinking and acting when we really don’t want to? What keeps old attitudes and actions in place in spite of our desires to the contrary? In my last post I described two of the four social processes described by Schwalbe that help keep inequality in place. In this post I want to lay out the other two. If you haven’t read the previous post you may want to check that out first. The descriptions of these four processes gave me a better understanding of how “invisible” forces keep inequality in place. The forces aren’t really invisible, just so much a part of everyday life, so ordinary, that we don’t easily recognize the messages they carry.

3. Boundary maintenance refers to the ways in which powerful groups and individuals protect their positions by ensuring that their resources and power are transmitted to members of their own group. The “old boys’ network” and the “glass ceiling” still serve as barriers to many women, especially mothers, who want to work in fields traditionally dominated by men (Mason and Ekman). Boundary maintenance shows up in homes too. Husbands “help” their wives with housework and childcare. As long as they just “help” they can keep intact the boundary between men’s and women’s work. Men who do cross the boundary and engage as equal partners in family work may face pressure from other men or even loss of advancement opportunities.

4. Emotional management by superiors helps keep subordinates’ feelings of shame, anger, resentment, and hopelessness under control so they won’t erupt and cause problems. Subordinates are given tokens of appreciation or the appearance of status to distract them from awareness of their real lack of power. This is often done through language. For example, wives are told that their work is noble and that they are queens of their households. Mother’s Day is a big deal. Yet even in the home, a woman’s power may exist only where permitted by her husband. Today motherhood is publicly exalted at the same time that American policymakers and corporations balk at creating programs that support mothers and their children.

As I mentioned in my previous post, these four processes are theoretical. Do they ring true to you? Can you think of examples of how they work?  Are they helpful in thinking about gendered power?

Posted by Anne

How does gender inequality get built into us and our partners? Sociologist Schwalbe and his colleagues describe four processes (Social Forces) through which inequality is kept in place. Although their article is theoretical and does not specifically mention gender, it gave me some useful insights as I tried to think about examples.  I describe two processes here and two in my next post. Please let me know what you think of these ideas. Do they make sense to you?  Are they overdrawn? Do you have examples of your own?

1. Othering describes how individuals and groups in power use their resources to show how they are superior, and by implication, how others are inferior. For example, for many years personality scales developed by psychologists (then mostly men) attributed different “innate” personality traits to men and women. This might have been okay except that they ranked “female” traits such as nurturing and concern for connection as “less mature” and less desirable than “male” traits such as desire for autonomy. Result: women were “scientifically” shown to be less competent than men in important ways, ways that surely would be seen as relevant for many management and professional jobs.  “Women’s work” is still generally viewed as inferior to “men’s work.” It is paid less and resisted by many men, even when their partners are employed full time outside the home.

2. Subordinate adaptation, refers to the efforts, often  promoted by superiors, that lower status persons use to cope with their inferior position. For example, women’s characteristic empathy and awareness of others’ needs may be this kind of adaptation, as well as a survival mechanism. The belief of many women that only they can properly care for their children and home may be another. Is this a factor behind the current emphasis on perfect mothering among many contemporary women that is described by Peskowitz, Stone, Warner, and others?

Posted by Anne