Change

"And what a fun book to read! Fun, and transformational. It will reveal one of the great secrets of why couples get so stuck, and how to get unstuck. I’m talking about the idea that “the solution is the problem.” What this means is that couples aren’t stuck because they have a problem. They’re stuck because they found a solution to a problem, and this solution doesn’t work, but because it’s “the solution” they just keep on using it on the assumption that if a little of the solution doesn’t work, then more will be better. People don’t abandon unproductive solutions; they keep using them more and more intensely until things are horrible and they’re forced to seek help. At which point it may be too late. I come home from work and, yup, there I go, dumping my stuff in the entrance-way. If you’ve told me once, you’ve told me a thousand times… And so right now you feel incredibly helpless, frustrated, and disrespected. So you – I don’t know – yell maybe, or cry, or threaten, or give me the silent treatment, or burn my chops, or spend the evening giving me little digs. These are the ‘solutions’ you’ve used in the past to try to get me to change. If they haven’t worked, it’s because I’m just a big jerk, but they’re great solutions, and one day they will work. Or so you tell yourself. But I, of course, am far from happy at being treated this way. I didn’t mean to step on your toe, and now you’re deliberately stepping on my toe! Now I feel frustrated, et cetera. Now I have a problem that I have to solve. Maybe I yell louder than you, or out-threaten you, or deal with your crying by going out to the pub. “And so, like millions of couples every single evening, we’re off and running” And so, like millions of couples every single evening, we’re off and running. If we’re volatile people, we’ll escalate up to the point where we scare the bejesus out of one another. If we’re super polite people, we’ll have an out-and-out brawl, but one so subtle and low key that no one in the world would suspect what’s going on. But we know. We know. We’re stuck in an endless cycle, stuck with solutions that don’t help but that we’re helpless to get rid of. There’s another example of a ‘solution’ that’s a problem. Adultery. Sometime a person will enter an affair, either as a way to create a bearable modus vivendi or as a way to shake things up or to dig an escape tunnel out of the marriage. It depends on the question. If the question is, ‘What’s a good therapeutic move I can make in my marriage?’, well, adultery is good couples therapy the way a sledge hammer is good headache therapy. “Adultery is good couples therapy the way a sledgehammer is good headache therapy” But if the question is, Is there some incredibly expensive and risky move I could make that might, just might, provide some possibly illusory benefit?, then the answer is yes. By getting something you haven’t been able to get in your marriage, you both get that benefit and take pressure off your marriage. Good deal! At least until the whole thing explodes, which it almost always does. Let’s just say that if adultery were a pill, most health officials would find it neither an effective nor a safe treatment. In much of literature, like Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary , there’s a tragic mismatch of people’s needs which leads to an escalating use of bad solutions which ultimately leads to a tragic clash. Emma Bovary was doomed because her try-and-stop-me kinds of acting out could only escalate, and she and Charles had no other way of dealing with their differences. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter The same thing happens in real-life relationships, and it can be just as tragic. It can certainly cause a lot of aggravation. But there’s good and hopeful news here. If we can understand all the ways we get ourselves in trouble by using ineffective solutions—fruitlessly or at a very high cost—to get our needs met, and if we can get our hands on the right tools, none of this pain and futility is necessary. If Emma and Charles Bovary came to me for therapy—and how cool would that be!—I would first be thrown into despair as they tried to convince me of how awful the other was and how terribly mismatched they were. Good: my despair is a sign that I’ve understood their despair. But I’d recognize the likelihood (systems!) that small initial differences had led to this hostile chasm. I’d ask them what they wanted. If divorce, I’d ask if they wanted to regret-proof their decision to break up by working on their relationship. If they wanted to stay together I’d ask them to tell me about the good things in their relationship that made them feel that way. And I’d ask them about the problems that led them to seek help. Like all couples, they’d be feeling they’d ‘tried everything.’ “I’d tell Emma and Charles Bovary: ‘I’ve helped people overcome bigger problems than that.’ And it’s true” In spite of Emma and Charles thinking they’d tried everything, I’d be pretty certain that it was precisely their solutions that had kept them stuck. Then off we’d go, halfway through the first session, me offering game-changing solutions aimed at breaking them out of the cycle they’ve been stuck in. Then our work has begun. They’d try the new solutions—behaviors that actually do work—even if the main problem is, as Emma would phrase it, that Charles is a boring loser. “I’ve helped people overcome bigger problems than that,” I’d say. And that’s true. All kinds of problems seem insurmountable if you’re stuck using the wrong solution. Because as any experienced couples therapist will tell you, it’s not the size of the problem but the ability of the therapist to craft user-friendly tools for her patients that determines the outcome. Huge problems can quickly seem quite small in the face of the right solution. All the books I’ve mentioned are challenging, but they’re tremendously exciting and deeply hopeful in the promise they hold forth for change and growth in even the most troubled relationships."