Nourish Relationship You Started With

“Harris and I have been married for 15 years, but I can’t remember the last time he paid me a compliment,” says Bess, 40, stay-at-home mother of a son, 14, and a daughter, 12. “There are times when I ache for him to find something about me to admire, but, most of all, I wish he’d just stop needling me in front of other people.”

Harris seems oblivious to the way he treats her. “He tells me I’m oversensitive,” Bess says. “But recently, in front of my sister and her husband, he criticized my cooking, my hair and my comments about a new play we’d seen. And he still expected me to fall lovingly into his arms that night.”

Harris’ behavior is hard enough for Bess to bear at home; the fact that they often have to socialize for his real-estate business makes it especially tough.

“His treatment of me at business parties is atrocious,” Bess says. “Frequently, he ditches me at the door for the evening, even though he knows I know no one and I’m terrible at making small talk.”

“During our courtship, we were alone most the time,” Bess explains. “He was wonderful and affectionate, taking me to art galleries, the theater, museums.”

But once they were married, he changed.

“Bess seems oblivious to the fact that I have fought my way up in a fiercely competitive business, that I knock my brains out every day,” he says. “Why does she think I do that? Because I love her, that’s why. Do I have to sound like a Hallmark card to prove it?”

Harris, 45, concedes he’s been preoccupied with his career. “I know sometimes I don’t pay enough attention to Bess,” he admits, “and I know I’m socially awkward, absent-minded and opinionated. But my wife doesn’t make any effort to understand me. Bess thinks a husband should stick to his wife’s side every moment. I don’t. She also thinks I should be gushy and shower her with praise and compliments. I just can’t do that. It’s not my style.”

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her, he declares: “There must be some way for us to start over again.”

Helpful steps to starting over - even now

“Over the years, these two have become strangers,” says Evelyn Moschetta, a marriage and family therapist. “They’ve never taken the time to really get to know each other - their fears as well as their aspirations - and now they’re both so sensitive to any slight that they feel the gulf between them widening every day.”

“Harris has put all his energies into moving up the career ladder, ignoring his wife’s needs. Bess has spent hers brooding about what her husband isn’t giving her. They both need to start thinking about what marriage really should be.

“Many couples have forgotten what it means to nourish the spiritual side of their marriage - a side that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the inner core that makes a relationship stronger than its two human components. What’s more, it’s never too late.”

The following basic principles helped these two reconnect:

Renew reverence. You need to recapture that falling-in-love experience. Set up a regular period of “haven time” in which neither party is allowed to carp or criticize. Instead, talk about what you value in each other.

Find your spiritual selves. In a notebook, keep track of when your ego shows up. Take note of all negative, pessimistic, blaming or judgmental thoughts.

Shed your old images. Record how you see yourself. Now write down your images of your partner as well as those you believe he has of you.

Drain off accumulated anger. Unresolved anger builds walls of hostility. Knock them down with the “as if” technique: Act the way you would toward someone you respect deeply. That means no shouting, name calling, sarcasm, cursing. Simply spend two hours each weekend doing something you both enjoy.

Now that they’re more conscious of these key elements, Harris realizes, though he loves Bess, he isn’t showing it. He’s working hard to tone down his sarcasm, to listen without commenting and to pay more attention to her needs.

Bess realizes she has spent too much time brooding about her own insecurities instead of standing on her own two feet. For example, when she spoke candidly but calmly to Harris about her shyness, they worked out a system at parties so that she’ll feel more comfortable and he will still have an opportunity to make the business connections he needs.