Althouse: "Nowadays, if my wife Belinda and I start to square off... we take a break for 20 to 30 minutes, and we’ll come back."

June 7, 2022

"Nowadays, if my wife Belinda and I start to square off... we take a break for 20 to 30 minutes, and we’ll come back."

"And one or the other of us will say something like: 'Hey, do you want to fight? I don’t really want to fight. Can we get out of it? What do you need from me?' And Belinda will say, 'Well, you can say you’re sorry about blah, blah, blah.' I say, 'OK, you’re right. I apologize.' Then, I might ask her to be accountable for three things, and she’ll take ownership of one and I let the other two go. And we’re done. What would take five or six days now takes 20 minutes.... There’s no such thing as an individual. We co-regulate each other’s nervous systems all day long. We need to shift from the control model to a collaborative one, an ecologically humble model. You’re not above the system, you’re in it. You breathe it."

From "A Couples Counselor Takes On ‘Normal Marital Hatred’/In his new book, ‘Us’, Terrence Real explores how ‘enlightened self interest’ could save your relationship" (NYT).

25 comments:

gilbar said...: This is; THE OLDEST STORY, IN THE WORLD
We compromise..
And Belinda will say, 'Well, you can say you’re sorry about blah, blah, blah.'
I say, 'OK, you’re right. I apologize.'
Then, I might ask her to be accountable for three things,
and she’ll take ownership of one and I let the other two go.

We compromise..
she wants to go to the opera, i want to go to the game; so, we compromise: and go to the opera
she wants to work on the garden, i want to go to take a nap; so, we compromise: and work on the garden
she wants to watch a romcom, i want to work on the car; so, we compromise: and watch a romcom; 6/7/22, 11:43 AM
Temujin said...: 'Enlightened self-interest' sounds almost Ayn Randian (she of the rational self-interest wing of the family). But I figured this is another of the pop-psychology/self-help books that have filled bookstores, residential bookshelves, and landfills for the last 25 or so years.

So I pulled up the book on Amazon and saw this:

“This book is a road map for all of us who seek true intimacy.”—GWYNETH PALTROW

I should probably not judge a book by a comment from one of it's celebrity readers, but in this case, I cannot help myself.; 6/7/22, 11:45 AM
tim maguire said...: Five or six days? Ouch.

20 minutes is pretty good, nothing special, but not bad. They think five or six days is the standard? If your fights last 5 or 6 days, then they better happen no more than once a decade. Otherwise they need a divorce attorney more than they need a counsellor.; 6/7/22, 12:00 PM
n.n said...: Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. We are not children anymore, reconcile.; 6/7/22, 12:04 PM
Enigma said...: Perhaps both people are neurotic and they deserve each other.

Perhaps one person is desperately trying to rationalize, justify, and maintain a deeply unhappy relationship between a broken soul and a soul being destroyed a little more every day.

I'd bet on the second option myself.; 6/7/22, 12:05 PM
Jake said...: That’s a man completely dominated by his wife.; 6/7/22, 12:06 PM
Jake said...: There’s no co-regulation. Just his capitulation.; 6/7/22, 12:06 PM
Ice Nine said...: Real seems to be calling for a lot of "being wrong" when you are in fact right, and for a lot of apologizing when you in fact have nothing to apologize for. That in itself is soul-killing over time, and that makes if difficult for me to understand how this is a solution to anything.; 6/7/22, 12:07 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: How are you going to have a life of "lived experiences" going from hack to hack.

(hack, as in shortcut)

'When all pain avoidance does is make the specter of pain all the more terrifying.' to paraphrase Nei Oliver (covid heretic); 6/7/22, 12:16 PM
PM said...: Free advice:
1. Never go to bed angry.
2. Marry the most patient person in the world. Unfortunately, I beat you to it.; 6/7/22, 12:17 PM
Sebastian said...: "We need to shift from the control model to a collaborative one"

You need to, if you misunderstood marriage. If you started with love and common sense, no need to shift.; 6/7/22, 12:43 PM
R C Belaire said...: That approach sounds like no fun at all.; 6/7/22, 12:45 PM
Omaha1 said...: "That approach sounds like no fun at all." If you like fighting, it's no fun LOL. Personally I do not like fighting. So I'll just say, "I don't want to fight". Usually when a fight starts one or both of us has been drinking so it will just be a lot of un constructive complaining which escalates, leading to no resolution. Better to just walk away.; 6/7/22, 1:00 PM
Masscon said...: When My wife and I are fighting we engage in hallway sex...when she passes me in the hallway she says fuck you! and I respond with fuck you too!; 6/7/22, 1:01 PM
Ampersand said...: Sounds as though the ultimate relationship algorithm is just around the corner. A little Sun Tzu, a little Talleyrand, some Ayn Rand, and a heaping helping of Niccolo Machiavelli. Easy peasy.; 6/7/22, 1:09 PM
Spiros Pappas said...: 5 or 6 days?!; 6/7/22, 1:46 PM
stunned said...: This is a wonderful advice.; 6/7/22, 2:29 PM
Rollo said...: How far into the 20 or 30 minutes do they start hitting each other over the head with foam rubber (or real) bats?; 6/7/22, 2:54 PM
Ted said...: Most of the happily married couples I know -- who don't fight that much, generally seem to enjoy each other's company, and work as a team to run their lives and raise their families -- both grew up with happily married parents. (It actually seems like an unfair advantage, like generational wealth or a genetic predisposition toward health and beauty.) The ones whose marriages didn't last, or seem full of conflict, grew up with divorced or unhappily married parents. (I do know some exceptions -- couples who manage to make long-term relationships work, even though it doesn't come easily to them -- but they really do seem to struggle. It helps if they have high levels of community or religious support.); 6/7/22, 3:05 PM
Iman said...: “This book is a road map for all of us who seek true intimacy.” — GWYNETH PALTROW

IIRC, she claimed her vagina candles would “light the way”…; 6/7/22, 3:43 PM
Tom T. said...: This sounds exhausting. If you have to put this much energy not just into fighting, but in figuring out the *best way* to fight with each other, just accept that as a sign that you're not meant to be together.; 6/7/22, 5:44 PM
Pianoman said...: "Square Off"? Good Lord.

The lovely Mrs. Pianoman and I never fight about anything. We "quibble" occasionally, and do disagree on many things. But the last time we fought was in 1986.

https://www.winifredling.com/2021/10/07/10-rules-for-a-happy-marriage/

Rule #2: Never Yell At Each Other Unless The House Is On Fire; 6/7/22, 6:27 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: Better to just have a childless girlfriend and dump her when she gets cranky.; 6/7/22, 10:33 PM
Bob said...: Tift Merritt, All the Reasons We Don't Have To Fight. Tift, a North Carolina singer/songwriter, was on the road to a successful career and was living in NYC with her band's drummer, with whom she had a baby daughter. The relationship broke up and Tift returned to NC to raise her daughter with her family, putting her career mostly on hold.; 6/8/22, 1:47 AM
gilbar said...: i Wondered what happened to Tiff! i liked her.. then she went away; 6/8/22, 7:56 AM