Marriage and Relationships

Dr. Larry Cohen Therapist and Life Coach (856) 352-5428 Contact NJ Therapy & Life Coaching

Reflecting on the problems in your relationship, it is essensial to reflect on what you learned about relationships in childhood. What was the ‘rule book’ your parents played by? The first place we learn about how to have a relationship is watching our parents do their thing. For example, were your parents kind and attentive, or were they angry and passive-aggressive? Did they support each other in most things, or were there screaming matches of disagreement between them? Who was in charge in your family?

Did one parent dominate the other, pushing their agenda until they got their way? Was it okay to show emotion or was this forbidden? Most importantly, how does what you learned about relationships as a child play out in your partnership or marriage? As there is no ‘rule book’ for how to have a successful relationship, and even if there was, if you or your partner didn’t follow along, you may still be in the difficult place you find yourself today. 

The Rules of Marriage and Relationships

Recognizing the relationship rules you bring to your relationship is essential to fixing your relational struggles. You come to your relationship with a unique view of how relationships ‘should be’, as does your partner. Our unique view of how a relationship needs to be usually include:

  • what your family values are

  • what your beliefs are regarding how partner should behave

  • what role each partner is expected to fulfill

  • what your expectations of your partner are

Integration Failure

All of these are based on what you learned about relationships when you were growing up. Problems begin when what I call ‘integration failure’ occurs. What is integration failure? It is when you and your partner overlay your views of how a relationship should be (learned in childhood) onto your relationship, and you and your partner fail to integrate your individual views of how a relationship should be. 

This is where problems are often found, and when a couple gets stuck. Integration failure can bring disagreements of varying intensity between the two of you. Integration failure is what I most often see when a couple comes to me for marital therapy or couples counseling. 

Discussing what you learned about relationships from your parents in childhood must be discussed in your marital therapy or couples counseling sessions. The task at hand is learning how to successfully integrate each of your beliefs about how a relationship should be. This is when a couple can begin negotiating around these beliefs and write their own, more successful book on relationships.