Any Marriage Can Fall In Destructive Patterns

‘I love Jon, and I’m trying hard to help him, but all he does is criticize me,” says a tearful Meryl, 26, who has been married to Jon for two years.

“I know he’s upset about a lot of things - primarily the fact that he hasn’t been able to find a decent job since he came to this country.”

Meryl and Jon first met when she was studying for a summer at the University of Madrid following her college graduation. Jon, who grew up in Argentina, had moved to Madrid three years before. Though he could barely speak English at the time, they managed to communicate.

Jon moved to New York, they married, and, since then, Meryl claims, nothing has gone right.

She says Jon finds fault with everything. “I spend hours clipping ads from the classifieds for him, and I never hear a word of thanks. But if every wrinkle isn’t ironed out of his shirts, if the house isn’t spotless, boy, do I hear it. Does he lift a finger to help me? No.”

Meryl knows how tough it is for Jon to move to a new country, learn the language and look for a job. But she can’t help resenting his attitude.

In fact, Meryl is so depressed she’s convinced herself that her marriage won’t work.

Jon, also, 26, feels stifled and misunderstood. “Meryl thinks she’s there for me, but she’s not. She’s there with me, if you see the difference,” he says. “She goes everywhere with me, like a shadow. She’s always telling me what to do, who to call, how to act. She treats me like a baby - and I resent it.”

Jon doesn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but he feels lonely and lost.

“The adjustment to living in the United States has been much harder than I thought. I’m working part time as a translator, but they don’t use me very much. Most of the good jobs go to college graduates, and, since I hated school, I never finished in my country,” he explains.

While Jon knows Meryl is worried about him and about their financial future, he can’t stand the way she walks in the door and starts harping on him. “She thinks that because I’m lying on the couch listening to music I haven’t done a thing all day. Maybe if she’d back off a little bit, I’d do a lot more.”

Learn to let go

Any marriage can fall into the same patterns as Jon and Meryl did,” says Arden Greenspan-Goldberg, a marriage therapist in Pomona, N.Y., and New York City. In a healthy marriage, each partner assumes responsibility for his or her own life - mistakes included. Inadvertently, we may slip into a destructive pattern when we begin to think that we need to rescue our spouse from a crisis. Meryl has crossed this line, and the result is a predictable clash of egos and needs. As long as she continues to act this way, Jon will never have any reason to take charge of his own life.

Could this be a problem in your marriage, too? When she asked herself the following questions, Meryl realized that she was being as pushy and domineering with Jon as her mother had been with her. Consider these points and whether they apply to your life as well:

Do you always think that you know better when it comes to solving your spouse’s problems?

Do you continue to push your points, no matter how many times you’ve been asked to lighten up?

Do you always rush to his aid despite the fact that his actions may put you at risk? That is, if he drinks, do you make excuses for his behavior?

Do you feel noble in your constant giving when you get little in return? When we do that we are saying to our partners, “I’m better than you are.” No wonder they resent it.

Do you understand the difference between rescuing someone (which is unhealthy) and supporting them (which is healthy)? When you rescue, you do the work for a mate. When you support, you listen, empathize and encourage him because you believe he can accomplish his goal himself.

Meryl learned to break this pattern and, once she did, Jon felt freer to make his own decisions.