Hero at Work, and Villian at Home:

Did I Marry The Wrong Person?

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I'll meet you there." --Rumi

Dear Don,

Yesterday I received a “Best Boss” award from my employees. They praised me for taking their concerns seriously and for acting on them immediately. Last night my wife told me that she feels alone, hurt and although I support our family financially, I don’t consider her in any other way. I try so hard. I can’t believe that this is what I get in return. I’m a hero at work and a villain at home. What gives? --James

Dear James,

You married the wrong person. Well, not really, but that is probably what lurks in the back of your mind. Let’s take a closer look back there and get this fear out into the light of day.

Sooner or later, every married couple begins to have chronic, frustrating difficulty in their marriage, often between years three and seven. A recent study on marriage in California found that divorce from a first marriage occurs between 7.8 to 8.2 years. You see, it takes about that long for each marriage partner to get frustrated with the other for not taking seriously the personal feedback that she or he has been giving over and over again. Then, the fear that they chose the wrong partner rears its ugly head. This fear comes from the mistaken belief that a happy marriage is without conflict, and because you have lots of disagreements and misunderstandings, you must have chosen the wrong person.

The real reason that you and your wife are in conflict is simply because you got married! If you weren’t married and just worked at your job, you would not have to hear your wife's feedback and get upset about hearing it. You don’t get this kind of feedback from your employees at work. So, if you are so appreciated at work, and you didn’t choose the wrong person to marry, why do you get the opposite attitude at home?

The answer is that Work and Home require two entirely different ways of thinking/feeling and acting.

Work is goal oriented. You and your employees focus on goals and tasks required to create successful products or services. Your “Best Boss” award demonstrates that you have a productive, goal- oriented approach along with a caring and respectful attitude towards your staff. They respect you in return. However, at work, goals and tasks are still the number one priority, while treating people well is important but secondary to the business goals. Work requires a tight focus on the goals of the company with respectful attitudes toward each other, but personal matters are to be left outside the office. Otherwise, the people might feel cared about but the company would fail. Therefore, at work personal feelings and needs are set aside in service of the business goals, or are dealt with somewhere else.

Home is that somewhere else. The goals here are exactly opposite from work. Home is the place for the needs and feelings of the human being, not the company. Here, caring and nurturing are the primary focus, and goals and achievements are secondary. Of course, there are endless tasks to be done at home, and many conflicts between couples revolve around who did this and who didn’t do that. But, the real, underlying marriage breakers are the feelings of isolation, loneliness, hurt, and anger from not defining and focusing on what is most precious in your life and your marriage. The goals of life, family and marriage need to rise up out of the unique wants and needs of the people involved.

Unlike your company’s explicit mission statement, the mission statement for a marriage is often nonexistent, or unrealistic and misleading. What you don’t realize is that the mission of marriage is simple and surprising to most: to make us into better people. Marriage relentlessly forces the participants to define and choose what is most precious to them in the marriage.

So how do you get this information about what is most precious? Instead of asking, "What do we need to get done?" the first question to ask is: “What do we all really need as human beings, right here and now, including me?” This fundamental new question brings you to the heart of the conflict and points directly to a new solution: consideration of the heart-felt needs of each person in the relationship and family in the midst of intense activity. The goals, activities, and tasks need to emerge out of these deeper wants and needs of each family member.

In the middle of the worst argument ever, no matter what your wife is telling you about how you never do anything around the house, or how you never listen to her, take a deep breath and ask, “What do we both need, as vulnerable human beings, right here and right now?”

This question miraculously changes what you are seeing before you. Instead of problems and unfairness, you see a struggling human being trying to get a human need met. Ask that question and bring your attention down to your chest instead of your head. This simple awareness will increase your awareness of how you feel and reduce your mind's need to analyze and blame. Here in the chest-- your feeling heart--is where what is most precious to you resides.

Is it more important to you to win an argument or to discover what you and your wife are both longing for? This precious information will guide you in becoming more honest, loving, considerate, strong, and vulnerable. Without vulnerability, there is no closeness and no feeling of belonging. You can't be vulnerable from your head, only from your feeling heart.

So did you marry the wrong person? Whoever you marry, eventually, will know something others don't: the worst about you--the one thing you do that messes up your happiness in close relationships. You are able to hide it from most other people. And, you are the one who knows things about her that she can't see clearly and is causing her suffering. Why? Because you are married!

Marriage is making this happen, not the person you married. Marriage is forcing you, making you look at the worst about you, in the mirror of your partner's feedback. This is so you can address these unconscious acts and attitudes that cause hurt and frustrations to those you are most committed. She has been telling you the truth about these specific things for years. You have not been taking her seriously, because most likely it is hard to believe that you could really and so painfully affect someone like this. You just figured that you were not the right husband for her. If you want to be happier and a better person in close relationships, then she is perfect for you.

She is showing you the few simple things you need to face, deal with, and transform into new conscious ways of thinking and behaving. These few simple things just happen to be some of the hardest behaviors you will have ever tried to change about yourself. The good news is that this is the fundamental problem of any of your close relationships--including your children--and to focus and grow here changes everything in all aspects of your life in the most loving of ways. Her feedback is the fundamental key to solving this lifelong mystery about why relationships don't work well after a while.

Most couples are confused about what is really going on in their marriages. Sometimes, this confusion leads to divorce, and the assessment that they just weren’t compatible. Often, they don’t really know why they left. Now you know the truth: You are married to help each other grow in the most honest and loving way possible

Take your partner's feedback most seriously. Ask a new question, “What do we need right here and now, including me?” Ask it aloud. Listen for new answers from your feeling heart. Ask and listen every moment, in the evening, in the bedroom, when you wake up at night, during the weekends, and on vacation. Listen with your heart when your wife tells you what she needs, and let your heart speak your needs to her. Give her respectful, honest feedback in a calm way in small bites so she too can start facing what she needs to be happier with herself and in this relationship. Don't teach, just speak up.

The poet Rumi says, "Out beyond wrong doing and right doing, there is a place. I will meet you there." You might be nominated for the “Best Husband” award.

----Don Elium, MA MFT, Walnut Creek, CA, San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Don is author, with his wife Jeanne,of four best selling books, including Raising a Family. Don is completing a new book on marriage due out late 2009.

Copyright 2008, Don Elium