Books Inspire Blog-posts, I suppose

I've recently been reading "Case Studies in Couple and Family Therapy", edited by Frank M. Dattilio.

I've noticed a pattern: Often, a major source of tension is that different spouses approach the relationship with different expecations, which remain uncommunicated. Thus, spouse A dissapoints spouse B without realizing it, and then can't understand why Spouse B is so upset, since spouse B never made it clear to Spouse A what was expected of him/her in the relationship.

This is one positive aspect of shidduch dating: Ideally, it forces couples to discuss relationship expectations before they commit to marrying each other. Realizing the extent to which expectations remain unverbalized in couples who are already married helped me appreciate why the Catholic Church encourages couples to go to pre-marriage counseling. I wonderf if the OJ model of chatan/kallah classes could be expanded to involve some sort of general class on communication within a marriage/relationship skills, or even have pre-couples counseling with a therapist thought of as an extension of such classes - since after all, a happy marriage is considered important in the Jewish religion, which has many sayings on the importance of "shalom bayit", a healthy family life.

There is this relationship questionnare that some of the couples in therapy filled out: http://psych.fullerton.edu/jstokes/relationships/isrs.htm

I think it would be a great idea when things start getting serious for each person to fill this out, and then compare answers, so you know each other's expectations. I also think the "how satisfied are you this need is being met" part is the least important, since that answer can easily be improved, and part of the reason for a negative answer might be that your partner doesn't realize that you have that need - which will change once you express that need by comparing survey answers. I suppose the thing about this survey, like all serious conversations in a relationship, is when to bring them up - you don't want to go too long without discussing certain things, lest you find yourself in a serious relationship without having discussed them, but at the same time, you don't want to bring things up too early, because a) it can freak the person out b) you are labeling the relationship as something that could be serious - and sometimes labels can choke romance. On the other hand, sometimes they help it grow.

Anyhow, another thing I found interesting is that touching that a man beleives to be affectionate or both affectionate and sexual, is sometimes interpreted by the woman as being purely sexual, which makes her feel used. This makes sense given the different ways that men and women are socialized to think about sex and the opposite gender, but it is still distressing to read.

Just food for thought.