Before the Crisis Develops

It has been said than “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  Unfortunately, however, most marriage and family counselors only become involved after a crisis has developed which demands some type of resolution. The longer and more chronic the intervention required, the lower the prognosis for therapeutic improvement. The purpose of this article is to summarize a development model that has been useful in a systems approach to both prevention and early remediation of marriage and family issues.

  Sharing information and Negotiating Expectations:

First dates are notorious for both the awkwardness and the potential curiosity coupled with hopes and excitements as the relationship develops. Mutual likes and dislikes, interests, and needs are usually talked about— in the getting to know you stage.

Questions such as, “What kind of music, movies, books do you like? Who has most influenced you? What are your needs, wishes and hopes? What are your philosophical and spiritual beliefs?” are typical initial developmental issues.

 Commitment:

Assuming there are no major non-negotiable issues, the relationship then moves on to the next phase. This is characterized by some type of commitment based on shared expectations relative to each other’s roles and behaviors. Such an agreement should result in a feeling of trust and security, conditions highly correlated to a productive interrelationship.

When commitment to a set of shred expectations takes place, each person’s role is defined and each knows for the most part what is expected of him or her and what to expect from the other person. The strength of commitment is a measure of the level of the importance of the relationship in the individual’s life. “We are exclusive, ”  “We don’t date other people” or “We only are sexually intimate with each other” are examples of different types of commitment.

      Stability and Productivity:

When there is a commitment a feeling of stability develops within the relationship. Productivity is not just work-related outcome, rather it signifies the joy and happiness possible due to the synergy which comes from the combining of individual’s separate personal selves. While stability does not in and of itself guarantee productivity, it is necessary for productive work to occur.

Disruption:

Eventually some type of disruption is characteristic of most long-term relationships. Such a disruption occurs because a partner never shares information completely during the formative periods of the relationship, and because, as open systems, people change as a result of interactions and changes within their environments.

Such disturbances can be external in origin, such as the birth of a child in the marriage. Partners also change as a result of new experiences, training, and education. There is also an internal origin component of change — the women’s movement has created a desire for “new job descriptions” for many females. The current “male bonding”-— back to nature drumming ceremony is a parallel example. But when the changed person returns to their unchanged fixed role, expectations may be violated which can lead to a disruption of the relationship.

Change can now enter the relationship, for now, expectations are no longer fixed. New information can now enter a couples partnership and another cycle of sharing expectations, commitment, stability, and productivity is possible and can be reached.

The paradox is that at the very moment when the relationship  is most open to change there are also equally strong inhibiting forces working to return “to the way it used to be.” Dealing with the anxiety created by the uncertainty of the “rules” and expectations leads to what is called cognitive dissonance*.

 (*Mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. The concept was introduced by the psychologist Leon Festinger (1919 – 89) in the late 1950s. He and later researchers showed that, when confronted with challenging new information, most people seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists. Cognitive dissonance is nonetheless considered an explanation for attitude change.)