The Balancing Act

I am so grateful to have had such wonderful guest writers for the past two weeks as I focused on family and the passing of my father. Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement. I will return on Friday with a post just for you.

Our guest writer today is Laurie Watson, a marriage counselor with over two decades of experience and a sex therapist. She blogs on Psychology Today’s online site: Married and Still Doing It and can be reached on her Facebook community page. She serves us food for thought in today’s blog post.

—————

Balancing our human needs for connection and autonomy as a couple is the secret to marital happiness. We need closeness, connection, love and sex. It’s why we got married in the first place! And we also need space, respect, agency and autonomy. While both partners have both needs, in marriage, we often corner the market on one end of the spectrum.

For instance, Suzie loves to chat when she and her husband Frank rendezvous in the evening. She enjoyed their dating days when they spent long hours hanging out and relaxing together. Her favorite way to end the day would be a long walk holding hands, a cozy dinner and snuggling on the couch watching their favorite shows.

Frank, however, likes to do solitary activities to calm down after his day. He’ll spend hours on the computer checking emails and playing a game or two. His work absorbs much of his energy and he’s passionately involved in his career. He goes along with Suzie’s ideas but doesn’t initiate plans for the family. Sex is how he feels most relaxed and connected to Suzie. She likes sex after she feels emotionally close.

Suzie is an emotional pursuer and Frank is a sexual pursuer but an emotional distancer. Without a strategy, this pattern brings disillusionment and difficulties. The pursuer chases only to have the distancer run away creating a frustrating dance. While the pursuer seemed seductive early in the relationship, now he/she closes the gap with criticism and anger.

Pursuers say, “You starve me,” and feel most afraid of abandonment. Distancers might have seemed stable and solid, but later seem passive and absent. Distancers say, “Whatever I give you is never enough” and feel most afraid of being controlled. We often flip-flop our basic positions when it comes to sex.

Becoming flexible with our partner and understanding their needs is marriage insurance. The challenge for emotional pursuers is to stop criticizing and reduce anger. Make a direct request instead. The distancer must feed their partner with love the way their partner experiences love. To change the cycle, each must commit to an unconditional effort, giving without begrudging and without measuring the other’s reciprocal effort.

Question: They say “opposites attract.” If you married a man quite different from you, how were you able to create a relationship that continues to flourish?

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

Comments: With more than 68,000 Happy Wives Club members already actively engaged on our Facebook Community page, what better place to share your thoughts? Join me there and let’s continue the conversation.

Bio
Latest Posts

Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club

Fawn Weaver is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 1 million women in over 110 countries around the world. She’s an investor in real estate, tech sector and lifestyle brands. When she’s not writing or working, she's happily doting over her husband of twelve years, Keith (and sometimes manages to do all three simultaneously).