Learning To Listen Spurs Togetherness

“Alan treats my well-trained, beautiful German shepherd abominably, and I can’t bear it,” cries Paulette, 42, an illustrator and mother of a 13-year-old daughter.

“He’s just jealous of the attention I give the dog. Now he’s demanding that I sell Ivan or give him away, and that’s not fair. Alan knows that dogs are an important part of my life; why can’t he just accept that? But if Alan’s unwilling to make room for Ivan in our house and in his heart, I’ll take my pet and my daughter and move out.”

“I love Paulette, and it’s certainly a jolt to my ego to have my wife threaten to move out on account of a dog,” says Alan, a 45-year-old New York City-based book editor. “But it’s not that I dislike Ivan; it’s just that he’s intruding on our lives. He weighs 75 pounds, he’s expensive to feed and he’s taken over our bedroom. Ivan sheds, too; everybody’s clothes look like mohair, and it’s revolting. But Paulette doesn’t care how the house looks.

Hey, I have to live there too.”

Ironically, it was their pets that brought Alan and Paulette together in the first place. “We were both at a flea market,” Alan remembers. “I had a border collie, Paulette had a golden retriever. Our pets sniffed each other out and we got to talking.”

The two exchanged numbers and began meeting for dog walks. But it wasn’t until two years laterthat their platonic relationship took a romantic turn. During a Caribbean vacation, Paulette and Alan eloped; a year later, they welcomed their daughter Dani.”

Alan and Paulette were too busy with their baby daughter to think about getting another pet. But recently, Paulette, who works out of their home, began longing for another pet, and she bought Ivan from a breeder. “One day I came home from work and there was this dog running around the house,” Alan says. “Paulette didn’t even discuss it with me.”

Now Alan says he doesn’t want a dog in the house anymore. “Ivan has ruined our furniture, jumping up and gnawing on anything he wants, and Paulette says nothing,” he complains. “Ivan has put a big dent in our sex life, too. He sleeps in the bed with us and intrudes whenever he wants. The whole thing is making me nuts. I just can’t believe my wife considers our relationship so unimportant that she’ll trade in a husband for a dog.”

Paulette, raised in France until she was 10, says animals were always a large part of her life as an only child. “My mother died of cancer when I was young, so my father, an Air Force pilot, showered me with pets to keep me company,” she says. “With my animals, I felt maternal and loved.” She’s angry and confused over Alan’s unwillingness to compromise about Ivan.“I told Alan I’d take care of the house, but with a dog, it’s hard. Alan doesn’t seem to understand that. His bad moods have become near intolerable”

“Paulette and Alan seem to have forgotten the word `both’ in their relationship; instead, they’re choosing to think like `single’ people in this marriage,” says Susan Heitler, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist. “Instead of acknowledging what the other wants, they’ve stopped listening to each other.”

Heitler says Alan and Paulette were locked in a depressed, angry cycle. Instead of listening to Alan’s concerns about Ivan, Paulette shut him out and labeled him as selfish. This, in turn, made Alan feel powerless in his marriage, and this depression led to his foul moods - which only made Paulette more irritated with him.

The first order of business for this couple was to break down the wall between them and help them air their grievances in a positive way.The therapist asked the couple to make a concentrated effort to listen carefully while the other spoke. Both were able to see how their self-centeredness and childish behaviors prevented them from hearing the other’s viewpoint.

The couple compromised by restricting Ivan to certain areas of the house. They declared the bedroom off-limits, and trained Ivan to sleep on a blanket in the den.

If an underlying issue or circumstance has harmed your relationship, you need to learn how to unleash pent-up anger in a healthy way. Consider these suggestions for keeping in sync with your mate’s feelings:

Listen to what your spouse is really saying. “Don’t listen like a detective, always trying to find what you think is the `hidden truth’ behind frank comments,” says Heitler.

Share in decision-making. Questions such as how money should be spent, who will do which chores and how to discipline the kids should be addressed as a couple.

Get active with your spouse. Try a new hobby, such as sailing or a ballroom dancing, to reconnect as a couple.