Here are some excerpts from an article looking at several books on marital crisis in The High Hat
The Ties That Bind
American marriage in crisis
By Greg Hough
 Dr. Stephen Mitchell's Can Love Last?: The Fate of Romance over Time was released
posthumously in 2002 ... Expanding
upon Freud’s observation that the concepts of love
and desire seem to have a fundamental psychological incompatibility,
Mitchell notes a "centrality of idealization" in the
first flushes of romantic desire, which creates a bonding magic
that brings people together, but is also one important cause of
a relationship's fragility....
Mitchell invites couples that are unhappy in
long-term relationships to question whether they are as unhappy
as they think
they are.
He, like the other two authors reviewed here, is wary of any "grass
is greener" thinking among those in marital crisis. Better
first, he argues, to consider the possibilities of what one already
has, seeking to discover (or rediscover) something essential and
transformative. To give up without fully exploring those possibilities
leaves one vulnerable to repeating similar self-defeating mind
traps with future mates.
Exploring the transformational possibilities
of a stuck marriage, Mitchell writes, takes at the least an understanding
of the creative aspect of a relationship. He says that marriage ideally is a "sandcastle
built for two," with the notion of "objective reality" accepted
as a construction that can be molded and remolded:
We tend to assume that ordinary reality
is factual and objective, which makes the transcendence that transforms
the ordinary other
into an object of desire a fantasy-driven illusion. But if ordinary
reality no longer wears the mantle of objectivity, if ordinary
reality is understood as a construction, useful for some purposes,
useless for others, its transcendence in the creation of the desirable
is not a contamination or masking of what is really there, but
an alternative construction, a window into what is really there.
... As a respected Manhattan therapist, it's
understandable that Mitchell would have an optimistic view of therapy
as a way
to help individuals free themselves from mental bondage. Trouble
is, not all therapists — maybe not even the majority of them —
have the combination of warmth, patience, wit and breadth of real-world
intelligence that Mitchell seemed to possess. Going into therapy
with one who was heretofore a stranger, having trusted only in
the power of personal reference and/or advertising, can be a crapshoot,
one that might leave those who try it ultimately worse off than
they were before. ...
 [In his 2003 book
Imperfect Harmony: How to Stay Married for the Sake of Your Children and Still Be Happy, Dr. Joshua Coleman] draws from case histories
of counseling patients who sought to stay together so their children
might avoid financial hardship
or a life with only one parent around at a time. He sees healthy
possibilities in couples that make the choice to stay together,
even if both partners in marriage realize that their romantic relationship
is likely beyond repair. This is possible, he cautions, only by "changing
whatever you have to change in yourself to be an effective and
positive force in your kids' lives."
Coleman uses his
counseling stories to spur the reader to self-inquiry, to make
him answer for himself: How and when do you stay in a marriage
because of the children? And how much of your own psychology is
contributing to the difficulties in your marriage? He asks the
reader to recognize that the fear one may have of changing "is
almost always based on an irrational worry from childhood." ...
While time doesn't heal all, it
creates the possibility for your marriage to change for the better.
Divorce buries that possibility
once and for all. … Sometimes, it really is a matter of hanging
in there long enough of working on it until things change sufficiently
so it’s manageable; your kids get older, your partner mellows
out, you get a new perspective.
... While in verbal
conflict with a partner, the goal should be "not getting
defensive while your partner voices a complaint or criticism";
one should "avoid getting into who's right or wrong" during
the discussion:
The goal isn't to win, it's
to live your life in a way that isn't controlled or dominated
by your partner's
behavior. The issue is who you want to be in your marriage.
 ... A
reader favoring modest rhetorical eloquence may find something
off-putting about Dr. Phil's best-selling 2000 book on marriage,
Relationship Rescue. Like McGraw's other best sellers,
it features a mass-marketed "in your face" machismo
aimed at middle-of-the-roadsters unlikely to question the props
he gives
to the likes of God and Whitney Houston. Yet his communicative
strategy is often successful....
Beyond the bravado, there are
actually many points where Drs. McGraw, Coleman and Mitchell agree
on the subject of an individual’s
role in a marriage. Like Coleman, Dr. Phil tries to point the reader
in the direction of a new perspective on fear, to rid one's
mind of irrational "monsters in the dark" that may
keep one from taking necessary positive steps; he also, like Coleman,
makes the point that one's position in a marriage, no matter
how seemingly painful and stuck, may well involve some personal "payoff" that
makes change difficult. Along with Mitchell, McGraw places high
priority on marriages "built on a solid underlying friendship." And
like his colleagues, he makes the point that the best way for readers
to help heal their marriages is by first being willing to deal
with their own personal dysfunctions:
Only when you stop seeing yourself as
a victim will you start to see yourself as a fully competent force
in your relationship. Your
less than perfect relationship will no longer be a source of despair.
It will be your opportunity to use your power. Problems truly are
nothing more than opportunities to distinguish yourself. It is
time to do just that. ...
You can no longer settle for living a
second-class life with your partner. Ambivalence is no longer in
your vocabulary. Passivity
is no longer part of your behavioral repertoire, and hatefulness
is no longer on your list of emotional choices. You must set the
bar of excellence for yourself an unprecedented high level, and
then with tenacious determination strive to leap over it. ...
Until you can look yourself in the eye
in the mirror, until you can look your children in the eye and
say I did everything I could
to save this relationship and it could not be done, then you have
not earned the right to quit.
Read more of Hough's article at The High Hat.
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