Country Sunset Stables

          Couples in the 21st century have a unique dynamic from successful couples in the previous generation. Couples have always had their issues; it is the way in which we have begun to deal with these issues that has changed. Issues discussed in this paper are: communication and creativity. There are many reasons why couples break up, many of them ‘good’ reasons such as abuse (physical, verbal, emotional, sexual and psychological) among other reasons. But, those couples that seem to be otherwise in a stable and healthy relationship and over the years begin to fall out of love, seem to have at least some characteristics in common.

          Falling out of love seems to be a common occurrence in North American culture. Couples go through courtship, get married, go through the honeymoon phase, conform to society’s expectations to have children, work full time, kids move out, empty nest syndrome. During the empty nest syndrome there are two extremes, one is where you are alone full time with your partner, you feel as if you don’t know them any more so you decide to call it quits, or you realise just why you fell in love with them and as a couple you are happier and more stable. Realise, this is a continuum where the middle ground represents no change since the emergence of children.

          Now, falling out of love can happen for several reasons: from the feminist perspective women emerging in the workplace added another stressor onto their already existing social roles. Women’s role in the family was to care for children and the home; now they are still expected to fulfill these roles plus work full time to contribute to the family income. The fact that men as breadwinner role is changing slowly leads to the burnout of women and therefore burnout of the relationship. From a psychological perspective there is the idea that those individuals that we spend more time with are likely to be rated as having desirable qualities. We are also more likely to want to spend more time with individuals that have these desirable qualities which leads to more time actually being spent with them. As you can see this is a never ending cycle. The point being that if partners are spending more time away from one another than together, how likely is it that we are going to rate their partner as desirable?

          Lazarus states that there are “Four Horses of Apocalypse”. These behaviours are toxic to a relationship and using these strategies will likely result in a relationship that ends in separation or divorce. 1) Criticism: the more critical a couple is to one another the less satisfying the marriage, 2) defensiveness, 3)Stonewalling: these second two indicate a resistance to dealing with problems, and 4) contempt for partner.

          Clearly there are ways in which individuals can overcome the dismal divorce rate (Canada’s is around 46%). The first is using effective communication. Communication is the most important skill in a relationship. If there is no communication there is no lifeline. This skill allows the partners to talk about everything from simple daily occurrences to finances and major issues. There is a difference between poor communication and effective communication. As I stated in the “Four Horsemen” model, communication needs to be free of negativity and unnecessary criticism. Therefore, the use of an “I” message is important. Here is an example:

Poor Communication: “You are so stupid; I can’t stand you and the way you leave your socks on the floor!”

Effective Communication with “I” Message: “When you leave your socks on the ground I feel as if I am your servant and it makes me feel like you don’t appreciate me.”

          An important component of the “I” message is therefore stating a behaviour of the individual and expressing how it makes YOU feel without criticism. It is equally important to make sure that the message is not stated with a condescending tone of voice, this defeats the purpose. These messages allow for the senders messages to be heard and taken into account but also for the receiver to understand how their actions affect the other person in the relationship.

         Back to falling out of love, this is where creative coupling needs to be implemented. Creativity in a partnership will keep things new and novel. This may seem difficult at first but one great idea usually leads to another and another and another. Work together as a couple to decide what your interests are. If one person wants to do a new activity and other is nervous or unsure, see if there is a compromise to be made. For example, if one partner wants to run a marathon together and the other partner does not even own a pair of running shoes, why not start with “let’s try running 5 kilometres together and see what happens.”

          This is where effective communication leads back into this topic. Communication of wants, desires and wishes need to be relayed to the partner, otherwise how will they know?

          This is where the story ends for now. The moral of this paper was to get you as an individual but also as a part of a couple to understand how to make your partnership work and how to possibly improve on communication and novelty.

Melissa Little

BA Candidate, ES, Adminstrative Assistant