Morrie Shechtman is a psychotherapist, a teacher, and a counsellor who now runs a successful management consulting company.

Arleah Shechtman is a psychotherapist with a clinical specialisation and works with adolescents, small groups, and people experiencing grief and loss.

Love in the Present Tense

How to Have a High-Intimacy, Low-Maintenance Marriage

By Morrie Shechtman, Arleah Shechtman

Bull Publishing Company

Copyright © 2004 Shechtman Group, LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-923521-81-3
CHAPTER 1

myth

Opposites attract. A couple, in their differences, complements each other.

reality

Great relationships require identical core values.

You’ll actually hear two schools of thought on this. One maintains that shared interests and similarity of temperament comprise the recipe for lasting compatibility. After all, the reasoning goes, when the initial sexual thrill wears off, you’ll be glad you have in common that passion for backgammon and Star Trek reruns. Conversely, if you’re the pinstripe type, then your beloved’s penchant for body piercing is going to seem a lot less cute once the honeymoon is over.

The other school of thought maintains that if you can get bored with sex, then you can certainly get bored with backgammon and Star Trek as well. A person who is just like you has nothing new to contribute to your life, whereas your opposite will continually challenge you and shake you out of your rut. No individual possesses the full inventory of desirable qualities in a human being, so the best plan is to marry the qualities you lack. The body-piercer saves the pinstriper from a life of dull conformity while the pinstriper saves the body-piercer from tetanus and People‘s Worst Dressed List.

The debate has raged for as long as anyone can remember. It is never resolved because examples of successful marriages can be cited in support of both hypotheses. We’re here to settle it once and for all by asserting that both sides have it wrong. Tastes, interests, temperaments, and personality types are simply irrelevant to the success or failure of marriages. In those areas, you may choose your opposite, your clone, or anything in between. Suit yourself. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that you and your partner share identical core values. That’s right: We said identical. The more closely your values match your partner’s, the better your chances are of building a lasting, happy marriage. Any difference in your values is going to become a source of destructive conflict. Count on it. Even if you never argue about the value itself, believing you’ve simply agreed to disagree, the difference will surface in every quarrel you will have for the rest of your lives.

Values are the principles that guide our conduct in relation to other people. They express how we think we ought to behave toward others and how we think others ought to behave toward us. When we act out a value, we are doing our bit to make the world what we believe it should be, not necessarily what we believe it is. For example, many people cheat on their partners and get away with it. But if in your vision of an ideal world, spouses are truthful with one another, then you do not deceive your partner. That’s a value, a principle that guides your actions regardless of whether you are happy about the potential consequences. In a constantly changing world, values serve as an anchor, a touchstone that we can always turn to when in doubt about what to do. They create the only clarity available to us in an ambiguous universe.

Values are black and white, all or nothing, and situation-neutral. If you really value honesty, then you tell the truth in all situations, not just when it’s convenient. You can’t imagine any realistic scenario in which you’d feel good about lying. If truthfulness is a value for you, then any lie you tell will cost you. Your self-esteem will be diminished by it, and so will your clarity about who you are. Compromising your values leads to a loss of faith in yourself and in the world. It leads to cynicism, depression, and, even sometimes, illness.

This is why married couples must agree on their core values about relationships, even if they disagree about everything else. People who live together usually make some compromises for the sake of domestic harmony. But values are the one aspect of a person that cannot be compromised — even slightly — without grievous injury to the integrity of the self. Compromise your values for your partner, and you lose yourself. Ultimately you are likely to lose the marriage as well. Marriage partners must therefore agree on their fundamental values because they will never be able to resolve a values conflict by splitting the difference. It is a given that if both partners are true to themselves, then the conflict will persist for as long as they are married.

Since values express our ideal of how relationships should be, a couple who shares values likewise shares a vision. Ask them to describe an ideal marriage, and they will paint nearly identical pictures. When two people are looking at the same “big picture,” joint decision-making becomes easier. They agree on what outcome they want and have only to debate which alternative is mostly likely to lead to it. Having the same ideal in mind, they are more likely to achieve it. Shared values lead to shared goals.

Goals are specific things that you want to do, such as buying a house, taking an extended vacation, or starting a family. Unlike values, goals shift over time. You can change your mind about them or adjust them to accommodate your partner. Values are the ideals that influence your choice of goals. When you drop or change a goal, you do not change the underlying value.

Sometimes couples mistake shared goals for shared values. For instance, a couple might agree on the goal of attaining a certain income level. One partner values the pursuit of excellence in a meaningful career. She would want to work hard regardless of financial need and sees the income target merely as a measure of achievement. For the other it is seen as a means to an end — an early, secure retirement from a job that he finds meaningless. Although the goal is identical, the underlying values about work are actually the opposite. The clash of values will become painfully evident once the goal is attained. It is also likely to be expressed in conflicts about how to attain the goal. The partner who is pursuing security may pressure the one who values achievement to remain in a dead-end but lucrative job, compromising the very value that led her to set the income goal in the first place.

Values are the most permanent aspect of our character. Our tastes, interests, appearances, and even certain aspects of our personality all change over time. Core values don’t. This might not seem obvious at first because many people change their religion, their political party, or their opinions about various issues. But all of these changes are themselves motivated by core values that go deeper than our opinions or affiliations. If you ask yourself why you changed your mind about an issue or dropped out of an organization to which you’d once felt loyal, you will begin to identify the core values underlying these decisions.

At the age when most people marry, they are not yet able to articulate their core values. They confuse values with opinions and, most especially, with parental “shoulds” and “oughts” internalized during childhood. As we mature, we throw off many of these internal shibboleths as our true values emerge. Nevertheless, our core values have been present all along even if, when we are young, we can’t say what they are. Because they are permanent, values form the most reliable basis for a lasting marriage. The interests that you think you share with your partner at the time you get engaged will very likely change over time. Your shared values will not change.

Some Values Are Better Than Others

All values are not created equal. While shared values in general are essential if a marriage is to survive, we believe that certain values work better than others if you want your marriage to thrive.

Which values do we think work best? Our own, naturally.

Though few marriage counselors will admit this, all relationship advice is values-based. Anyone who tells you how to have a better relationship is operating out of some vision of what a better relationship looks like — in other words, a set of values. These value judgments are often masked by euphemisms such as “dysfunctional” or “inappropriate.” Make no mistake: If a therapist tells you your relationship is dysfunctional, they mean that it is lousy. We once heard a therapist refer to a husband’s habit of hitting on babysitters as “age-inappropriate behavior.” You won’t hear that kind of mealy-mouthing from us. We’re judgmental, and we think you should be judgmental too.

Does this mean we’re trying to impose our values on you? We couldn’t if we tried. You’re an adult, and your value system was already in place before you ever picked up this book. But we intend to state our values forthrightly at the outset so that you can get a clear picture of what we mean by “a great marriage.” If you or your partner reject the values on which it is based, then our advice isn’t going to work for you.

Our own marriage and our work with other couples are based on the following eight core values:

1. Personal Growth

A good marriage fosters personal growth, and personal growth fosters a good marriage. By growth we mean a continual process of learning about yourself, expanding your point of view, and extending yourself into the world.

People who are committed to personal growth are constantly asking themselves why they do what they do and feel what they feel. When confronted with setbacks, they are eager to explore what has gone wrong and how to do better next time. When they find themselves in conflict with others, they are interested in learning what the conflict has to teach them about themselves. They take risks and try out new behaviors. They don’t consider themselves a finished product. They expect to keep changing right up to the moment they breathe their last breath.

We believe that the leading cause of failed marriages is failure on the part of one or both partners to grow. If your partner doesn’t grow, then he becomes boring to you. If you don’t grow, then you become boring to yourself.

Many people fear that if they grow, then they will grow apart from their partner. What people usually mean when they say “we grew apart” is that one partner changed and the other didn’t. This rarely happens when growth itself is a shared value. If you value growth, you are interested in finding out why a change in your partner threatens or displeases you. The change in your partner becomes an impetus to your own growth. An individual’s growth threatens a marriage only when her spouse clings to the status quo and refuses to examine his own reactions.

2. Willingness to Challenge Each Other

You care most for your partner when you demand that he become the best that he can be. In relationships where mutual challenge is a value, it is not acceptable for either partner to fall into a protracted slump. Each partner holds the other accountable for living up to his best vision of himself and for continuing to grow. Challenge is a vote of confidence, a sign of respect.

Conversely, accepting people exactly as they are is a form of abandonment. The message you send when you unconditionally accept a partner’s self-destructive or self-defeating behavior is that you believe that she can’t do better. Ultimately this defeats the marriage itself. In a mood of lazy tolerance, both partners grow increasingly hopeless and resigned, believing they are neither capable of attaining nor deserving of anything better. When you don’t challenge your partner, you are essentially giving up on her.

3. Preeminence of the Adult Relationship

We believe that marriage works best when it is given a higher priority than any other relationship in either partner’s life. All other relationships — including those with friends, family of origin, and your own children — come second. In our child-centered society this will sound to some like heresy. But putting each other first is actually one of the greatest gifts that you can give to your children.

Relationships with children are necessarily lacking in reciprocity. The adult gives more than the child can reasonably be expected to return. No child is capable of meeting an adult’s needs for intimacy. The unmet needs of adults who neglect their marriages in an excessive focus on parenting become a terrible burden on their children. The children feel responsible for making their parents happy and end up blaming themselves for the deterioration of the adult relationship.

4. Dedication to Your Life’s Purpose

Marriage is not your mission in life. Neither is raising children. You will never be satisfied with your relationship if you are expecting it to supply the fulfillment that comes from pursuing a vision. In a great marriage, each partner is deeply committed to and actively involved in some endeavor outside the marriage. Most often this is a person’s career, but what you are dedicated to matters less than being dedicated to something that gives your life meaning and purpose, something that demands an all-out effort and the fullest expression of your talents and values.

When one partner is dedicated to an outside purpose while the other is dedicated only to supporting his spouse, then the supporting spouse ends up living through his partner in the same way unfulfilled parents live through their children. The one who is fully engaged with the outside world soon grows bored with her devoted supporter. Working only to “bring home the bacon” is likewise stultifying to a marriage. No matter how fat the paycheck is, you are not a full person or a full partner if your paycheck is all that you have to show at the end of the day.

5. Inner Renewal

Another word for this is “spirituality,” but we’d like to avoid the religious connotations of that term. A shared religion is not essential to marriage. What is essential is that each partner regularly tap into some source of inner renewal. For some people this is accomplished through religious services or practices such as meditation, but it can also come from the enjoyment of nature or art, exercise or hobbies, journaling, or simply spending quiet time alone with oneself.

Whatever your source of inner renewal, its value to a marriage is the strength it brings to each partner as an individual. When you care for yourself in this way, you stay in touch with your own inner life, replenish your energy, put everyday hassles into perspective, and gain the strength to pull through crises. Without the regular practice of inner renewal, it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to actualize any of the other values that make for great marriages.

6. Personal Responsibility

As a shared value, personal responsibility is an agreement in principle about what marriage partners are — and are not — responsible for. In a great marriage, both partners assume full responsibility for their own inner lives. This means that you don’t view your partner as the cause of what you are feeling. Nor do you view yourself as the cause of what he is feeling. You don’t blame your partner for your own unhappiness, nor do you blame yourself for his. It is mutually understood that while you can’t control what your partner does, you are completely free to choose your own response to what he does.

7. Accountability

Accountability is the flip side of personal responsibility. While we are not responsible for our spouse’s feelings, we are accountable for our actions and the impact of those actions on our relationship. Accountability in marriage means keeping one’s word, following through on commitments, telling the truth, and accepting the full consequences of what we do and neglect to do. In a great marriage, spouses hold both themselves and their partners accountable. Just as it is a failure of accountability to lie to your partner, it is likewise a failure of accountability not to confront the lies that are told to you.

8. Quality Communication

In a relationship where individual growth and dedication to purposes outside the marriage are held as values, it is essential to stay current with each other. Often spouses imagine that their marriage lacks intimacy because they don’t spend enough time together. Believing this, they may become resentful of their partners’ outside interests. Real intimacy is based on the quality of communication. This means regularly sharing with your partner what’s happening in your inner life and listening with full attention when your partner shares with you.

Sounds Good on Paper, But….

As you read over our list of core values, you may find yourself readily agreeing with them in the abstract. Few people would say that they are against personal growth, accountability, or communication. But these principles cannot properly be considered your values unless they influence your everyday actions. If an idea is truly a value for you, then it forms the basis for your decisions. You choose it even when it is in conflict with your immediate desires and even when you experience outside pressure to abandon it. For a true value, you are willing to pay a price.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Love in the Present Tense by Morrie Shechtman, Arleah Shechtman. Copyright © 2004 Shechtman Group, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Bull Publishing Company.
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