Dealing with Irritation in Your Marriage

Marriage is a strange state. Almost all people enter marriage expecting companionship, happiness and fulfillment. Yet almost half divorce. Among the rest, many relationships are packed with conflict. Some are bored and distant. Some partners live parallel lives. The odds of having the dreamed-of relationship aren’t very good.

Apparently, most of us aren’t prepared for the growth and stretching marriage entails. Lack of compassion for our spouses is a big part of the problem.

Bids for Connection

John Gottman, the world’s leading marriage scholar, discovered that partners in marriage are constantly making bids for connection. In thousands of ways, small and large, we are asking our partners to notice us, care about our lives and interests, and participate in our doings. We are asking for compassion.

When our spouse makes a bid for connection, most of the time, we don’t even notice. We just go about our business. Gottman calls this turning away.

Sometimes our response to their bid for connection is a negative one. Perhaps they ask to do something with us or invite conversation and we reject their invitation. This is called turning against.

Fortunately, there is something better. It is called turning toward.

Let me give you an example. Recently, my wife Nancy and I went out for dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant, she noticed a new store that advertised vintage signs, sodas, and candy. She pointed it out to me. I acknowledged her interest pleasantly enough. But I was full of tacos and ice cream. I wasn’t very interested.

Turning away from Nancy’s statement might look like acknowledging her comment while continuing to walk toward the car.

Turning against Nancy might include saying, “Why would we want to go in there? We’re not hungry and we don’t need any of that junk.”

I should note that I am much more of a shopper than Nancy. She is much more likely to follow along as I covet stuff we don’t need than I am to follow her. She is almost all business normally. She makes her list and buys what’s on her list. It was unusual for Nancy to take an interest in the new store.

So, I turned toward her and her comment: “Would you like to explore that store?” She led the way into the store, and we enjoyed wandering through it together.

Can you think of a time in the last hour or so that your spouse or a friend has made a bid for your connection? Maybe they asked you how your day went or mentioned something that happened to them today.

Did you turn away, turn against, or turn toward?

In the next minutes or hours, your spouse (or a friend) is likely to make a bid for connection. Rather than turn away or against that bid, try turning squarely toward the bid. Try to enter your spouse’s world. Express understanding. Stick with the person’s pain or request. Notice how good it feels to show compassion.

Turning toward is filled with compassion. While compassion is commonly defined as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others,” I like a broader definition. I think of compassion as the willingness to enter into another person’s experiences and feelings. To take joy in their joy, to offer concern in their anxiety, as well as to offer tenderness in the face of suffering. Compassion is the willingness to open our minds, hearts, and lives to the feelings and experiences of another person.

Have you been shown this kind of compassion? How did it feel?

God’s Purpose for Marriage

I wonder if maybe we’ve misunderstood God’s purpose for marriage. Maybe God designed marriage to give us thousands of opportunities to turn down the volume on our own stream of needs and demands and turn up the volume on the needs of another human being with whom we share almost everything. Maybe God designed marriage to teach us compassion.

If God designed marriage to enlarge our souls, then we might expect that a good marriage is not meant solely to fulfill our own needs but is rather a commitment to stretch in compassion.

It is important to note that having compassion does not mean surrendering good sense and our own dignity. If your partner is bored, you can show compassion, you can offer understanding without feeling that you must also fix the boredom. You might say, “You are really missing those fun times,” without feeling that you must provide entertainment. You may or may not be able to solve boredom, but you can have compassion.

Showing compassion does not necessarily remove problems, but it softens the sting of them. It is the way we make charity practical.

One of the biggest challenges to compassion is the powerful temptation to correct our partner. It is rarely productive.

When Terry Olson was a faculty member at BYU, he told a story about exemplary compassion in marriage.

Jenny had gotten home from work late and looked at the clock. Her husband would be there any minute. He was a long-distance truck driver who was gone 3-4 days at a time. He was due back from his latest trip at 6:00 p.m. or so, and her tradition was to celebrate the beginning of several days together with a special dinner. She loved doing it. She would even light candles and use their only linen tablecloth.

But now she had only 15 minutes to start a meal and get everything else ready. At 6:15 pm she actually was relieved he still had not arrived. It gave her the chance to get the food going. Nevertheless, all too soon she heard the air brakes bleat as he brought the 18-wheeler to a stop in front of the house. She began biting her lip. She could imagine him taking off his boots in the utility room, hanging up his coat and calling out to her. She knew his face would fall when he saw the half-set table and no food.

The door opened, the boots were unlaced, and the coat was hung up. He called out: “Hey, Jenny.” She automatically yelled back, “Hi, Hon.” She inhaled in anticipation of his disappointed look as he glanced around the corner into the kitchen. He looked at the table. He gazed up at her, broke into a big smile and bellowed, “Well, it looks like I got home just in time to help!” All her fears dissolved.

That good husband took his wife’s perspective. He saw that she needed his help, and he offered it gladly. He gave her the sweet gift of compassion.

The beauty of marriage is that it provides each of us with abundant opportunities to use compassion. The most difficult situations for showing compassion are the chronic ones. He is consistently messy. She is overly sensitive. He is a spender, and she is a saver. She enjoys peace and quiet and he loves people and exuberance. Every relationship has its chronic issues. Irritation grows. Resentment builds. Distance develops. Unless . . .

We show compassion. The only way to reverse the trend of irritation, resentment, and distance is to have compassion for each other. To cultivate compassion, we must activate the foundational gospel virtues of understanding, not judging, giving the benefit of the doubt, being humble, forgiving, and offering charity.

An Intriguing Intervention

Marriage programs often involve many hours of class work and generally have very little impact. However, Eli Finkel and his colleagues found an intervention that took only a few minutes and had a significant impact.

Finkel invited participants to write a summary of a significant disagreement with their spouse with a focus on behavior rather than feelings—to consider what your spouse is doing that is causing the disagreement without getting into how you feel about that behavior or any negative judgments about their behavior. Then, participants were asked to think about that disagreement from the perspective of a neutral observer who wanted the best for both spouses. They might ask themselves, “Why might this issue be important or painful for each person? What is each person needing to feel safe and loved?” The researchers invited the participants to try this every time they had a disagreement. The researchers acknowledged that it might be difficult to be impartial, but it could help them bring compassion to their conflicts with their spouses.

To everyone’s surprise, this brief intervention had a significant impact on marital satisfaction. The success of the intervention is based on the activation of compassion. Instead of arguing for our own point of view, we are invited to see two good people each trying to find a good way to work together.

When we find ourselves stuck in marital conflict, rather than amassing more evidence in support of our argument, we would be wise to take a deep breath, step out of our position, and consider a fresh, balanced point of view.

Even now, try thinking back to a recent marital conflict. Try being a compassionate observer. Step out of your role as husband or wife. Try seeing the needs of both people. What did you discover that could help you bring understanding and healing to the conflict?

The next time you feel irritated by your spouse, think about how you can respond compassionately. As the Prophet Joseph said, “The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our backs. . .. If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 241).

Because Jesus has immense compassion for each of us, we can learn, grow, and return to Heavenly Father in spite of our failings. Having received that divine compassion, Jesus then invites us to show compassion for our covenant partners. While our natural response to differences may be irritation, Jesus invites us to get outside of our own world view and fixed preferences and grow in our understanding of our partners and join them in their world. He asks us to show compassion.

Invitation: Would you like to learn how to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ and good research to enrich and strengthen your marriage? Join me for a marriage retreat on February 15 in Alpine, Utah. Only $199 per couple. To get more information and register for the retreat, go to: drwally.com

This article adapted from my audiobook/eBook The Compassionate Heart: Uplifting Your Life and Relationships.

References:

Goddard, H. W., Olson, J. R., Galovan, A. M., Schramm, D. G., & Marshall, J. P. (2016). Qualities of character that predict marital well-being. Family Relations (65), 424-438.

Finkel, E. J., Slotter, E. B., Luchies, L. B., Walton, G. M., & Gross, J. J. (2013). A Brief Intervention to Promote Conflict Reappraisal Preserves Marital Quality Over Time. Psychological Science, 24(8), 1595–1601.

Thanks to Barbara Keil for her insightful editing of this article.

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