Arnold Schwarzenegger was saved from marital disaster by movie writers and special effects. But what should he have done to have avoided the problem in the first place? How should M.C. and S.W. overcome their Christmas crisis? More to the point, how should you avoid a possible disaster that is less than one month away?
The Policy of Joint Agreement is the ultimate answer to the problem. When M.C and S.W. are able to create a new holiday experience that takes their feelings and the feelings of their spouses into account simultaneously, the burden of Christmas will be off their shoulders.
Their first new Christmas experience may require a great deal of negotiating, because so many of the decisions that went into the current nightmare must be completely scrapped. An entirely new way to celebrate Christmas may be required to satisfy both spouses simultaneously. And there will be scores of separate decisions that make up this new Christmas experience. They should not go ahead with any Christmas activity until an enthusiastic agreement has been reached regarding that activity. That may mean that the first new Christmas experience won't involve many activities.
Under the Policy of Joint Agreement, M.C. won't have to put up with her husband's family, but she may not have what she wanted either. S.W.'s house decorating days may be over, but his idea of a cozy day at home with his wife and daughter may not materialize. In the final analysis, both of these families may need to create a way to celebrate Christmas that they had never considered before.
S.W. explains that his biggest fights are about Christmas, but that hasn't helped his cause because fighting is not negotiating. In fact, fighting makes it impossible to negotiate. All of his fights have not led to change -- only successful negotiation can lead to change.
To help S.W. and M.C. recreate Christmas so that their entire family will enjoy the celebration, they must learn to negotiate every Christmas decision with their spouses. Since there will be so many new decisions that will have to be made, it may take quite a while to put it all together. In fact, it may take several Christmases before they get it right.
But once they have made these decisions, they will have succeeded in digging themselves out of a painful experience that is repeated year after year. And in its place they will have what Christmas is meant to be, a season of joy for the entire family. And that new mutually fulfilling experience that is sure to deposit love units will be repeated, year after year.
Incompatibility in marriage is simply an accumulation of habits and activities that are good for one spouse and bad for the other. Love units that are deposited into one Love Bank are withdrawn from the other. Net gain -- zero, or worse.
To become compatible, all a couple needs to do is abandon those habits and activities that are not mutually satisfying, and substitute those that are. These new mutually enjoyable activities deposit love units into both Love Banks at the same time, helping to sustain the feeling of love the spouses have for each other.
Here are four steps that you should follow with each decision you make about the way you will be celebrating Christmas.
1. Set ground rules to make negotiations pleasant and safe.
Before you start to talk to your spouse about a conflict you have about Christmas, make sure that you follow these rules: (a) be pleasant and cheerful throughout your discussion of the issue, (b) put safety first--do not threaten to cause pain or suffering when you negotiate, even if your spouse makes threatening remarks or if the negotiations fail, and (c) if you reach an impasse, stop for a while and come back to the issue later.
Under no conditions should you be disrespectful or judgmental of your spouse's opinions or desires. Your negotiations should accept and respect your differences. Otherwise, you will fail to make them pleasant and safe.
2. Identify the issue in question from the perspectives of both you and your spouse.
Be able to state each other's position regarding a particular decision about a Christmas activity before you try to find a resolution to your conflict. Be sure you don't argue with each other -- just get to know how you both feel regarding the issue. What do you both want and why do you want it? Find the answers to those questions.
3. Brainstorm with abandon.
Spend some time thinking of all sorts of ways to resolve the conflict, and don't correct each other when you hear of a plan that you don't like -- you'll have a chance to eliminate undesirable possibilities during the fourth step. Write down every suggestion. If you give your intelligence a chance to flex its muscle, you will have a long list of alternatives.
4. Choose the solution that is appealing to both of you.
From your list of solutions, some will satisfy only one of you but not both. However, scattered within the list will be solutions that both of you would find attractive. Among those solutions that are mutually satisfactory, select the one that you both like the most. If none of them meet with your enthusiastic agreement, go back to step 3 and continue to brainstorm.
When you use the Policy of Joint Agreement to help you decide how you will spend Christmas together, neither of you will be controlled by the other, because you are not being forced to do anything. You are simply being prevented from gaining at each other's expense. That's not control, it's thoughtfulness.
If these four steps don't give you enough guidance, it might help if you were to read Fall in Love, Stay in Love where I describe these four steps in more detail. Even if your spouse is not the marriage manual type, reading it by yourself will help you learn how to reach your spouse in a way that takes his or her feelings into account.
How to Keep Your Family Together
after a Disastrous Christmas
If you follow my advice, and start negotiating today, you will avoid disaster. Some won't follow my advice, and instead, will charge head-on into another Christmas filled with habits and activities that withdraw love units from an already bankrupt Love Bank. What if, in the end, you simply blow it? What if your spouse is bitterly disappointed for yet another Christmas, and is having second thoughts about being with you for another Christmas?
That's the prospect many will have on New Years Day. After a disastrous Christmas, when they've been told by their spouses that their marriages are almost over, what should they do next?
Negotiations are usually out of the question at that point in time. Love Banks will be empty, and spouses are in the state of emotional withdrawal. The cold winter of January is reflected in body language and conversation.
The secret to grasping hope out of the jaws of despair is to know what went wrong, and to offer compelling assurance that it will never happen again. Your Taker will be screaming advice to be angry, disrespectful and demanding. When the Love Bank is overdrawn, your Taker always tries to solve problems with Love Busters. But if you let your intelligence override that advice long enough to create a real solution, one that will make both you and your spouse happy, your Taker will settle down and your marriage will have a chance to succeed.
First, you must agree that what you did at Christmas was thoughtless. Even though your intentions may have been as pure as Arnold Schwarzeneger's, you must admit that you made a crucial mistake by failing to understand how your spouse would feel about your decisions. Even worse, you may have gone ahead and done what you wanted, knowing full well your spouse would not have agreed. In the final analysis, you must take responsibility for having failed to reach an enthusiastic agreement with your spouse before you made your plans for Christmas.
Rising From the Ashes
The experiences of this Christmas can provide the evidence you need that your marriage needs new guidelines. The ones you have been using are killing your love for each other, and if don't change them soon, your marriage will not survive.
The Policy of Joint Agreement is the guideline you need. It will change the course of your marriage and your life if you follow it. True, it will prevent you from engaging in some of your most cherished activities, but they are activities that drive your spouse nuts. Your spouse may need to revise his or her activities, too. From the moment you implement it, everything you do, say and plan will be subject to your spouse's enthusiastic agreement. That way you will avoid doing things that have been ruining your spouse's love for you.
But you will not become a slave to your spouse's whims, because you must also enthusiastically agree before you do anything. The Policy does not enable your spouse to make you do anything, it only prevents you from doing something that would not be in his or her best interest.
When you follow the Policy of Joint Agreement, you are putting each other on notice that anything you do is likely to affect each other, and you do not want to gain at each other's expense. So you ask, "how would you feel if I did ..." It's that simple. It's not asking for permission, it's offering consideration. It's putting your feelings and your spouse's feelings at the same level of importance, an agreement that insures compatibility.
With Love Banks bankrupt, it's often difficult to imagine feeling good toward someone that makes you feel so bad. But if you can override the emotional instincts of your Taker, you'll find that the Policy of Joint Agreement re-deposits love units, and you will love each other again. By avoiding anything that turns out to be thoughtless, the holes in the Love Bank are plugged up, and your efforts to meet each other's emotional needs will refill your Love Banks.
Negotiations that reach mutually agreeable Christmas decisions require considerable skill. You and your spouse may have very conflicting interests when it comes to choosing gifts, decorating your house, deciding who to visit and how much time to take from other responsibilities. But after Christmas you will have an entire year to develop those skills, practicing on issues that are not nearly as difficult to resolve. By the time next Christmas rolls around, you'll both be experts.
However, if you follow the Policy of Joint Agreement now, instead of after this year's Christmas disaster, this Christmas will be what it should be, a season where we reflect the love of God in us toward others. And you'll find that Christmas will draw you and your spouse even closer to each other.
Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D. is best known as author of the internationally best selling book, His Needs, Her Needs: Building An Affair-proof Marriage. Over three million copies have been purchased, and it is available in twenty-two foreign translations.
The above is an excerpt. The full article can be found at Marriagebuilders.com
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