Part Four: How is Each Person in the Marriage Affected by Stress?

Each marriage has different stresses that may affect the marriage. Depending on the people and the situations in the marriage, each person is affected by stress differently. 

When my husband and I had our first child, we found that there was a lot of new stress that occurred in the relationship. We were learning to take care of another human, our child, and it was something different than we have ever experience. We dealt with this stress differently. Being the mother, I was extremely responsive to the needs and wants as our child grew, though it did bring stress into my life. I felt overwhelmed at tired all the time. I talked with my husband about this stress I was feeling in my life. I shared that it was tiring, exhausting, and I didn’t have time to do all the things I needed to get done (we were both in school during the time). My husband was not only dealing with the stress of a new child but also his wife was spending a lot of time with their child (which is how it is suppose to be, but it is a difficult change for many men). He closed off a bit, reacting to the stress in a different way. He did his homework, quietly, and would watch our child when I needed to do homework. We dealt with stress differently, and while it’s not a bad thing to deal with stress differently, I am sure there were ways we could have worked together to better understand one another and our stress.

Simply put, men and women deal with situation, especially stress, differently. Women want to talk things out, and through that they are relieved of stress, while men want to figure it out and find an answer immediately.

This video shows a perfect example of how men and women, when stress, may act differently. But this isn’t all. In recent studies, there has been findings that have to do with each partner in a marriage relationship and they react to the stress differently. 

Karney mentions how stress tends to affect the women in the marriages.

“Over the early years of marriage, we found that wives' marital satisfaction tends to covary negatively with the level of acute stress they are experiencing outside of the relationship. That is, wives are less happy than usual after periods of relatively high stress, and more happy than usual after periods of relatively low stress. But the strength of this relationship depends on the broader set of chronic circumstances that wives are facing. Acute stress in the context of chronic stress (i.e., lasting health problems, financial strain, unsatisfying or intermittent employment) is especially powerfully associated with changes in wives' marital satisfaction. In the context of low chronic stress, however, fluctuations in acute stress are not significantly associated with changes in marital satisfaction at all. Couples whose lives are generally good and rich in support may endure ups and downs in acute stress without their marital satisfaction being affected” (Karney, p. 3).

The final point that Karney (2014) mentioned in his article was the difference between parent and non-parents and how work related stress affects them and the overall family. 

In some situations more work is bad for the couple’s relationship.

Non-Parent homes showed the following:

“The demands of work are often described as toxic to family life. Indeed they are toxic for many working couples, those for whom each hour spent at work drains away time and energy, leaving less behind to devote toward maintaining the relationship” (Karney, p. 3-4). In other situations, it actually might be good for the couples. “We reasoned that high demands at work might benefit some couples, as long as those couples possessed sufficient resources for maintaining their relationships when work was done.... These were the couples with adequate resources to manage the demands of work and of their relationships at the same time. Fulfilled by their jobs, long hours for them represented time well spent and an investment in a promising future. In the absence of other demanding roles to fill, they returned from work capable of spending time with partners who appreciated their devotion to their careers. As might be expected, these effects were stronger for husbands' work than for wives'.” (Karney, p. 4).

When a couple does not have children, it appears that women are happy and fulfilled by their own and their husband’s job, no matter what the hours. But, that appears to change when the couple does have children.

“The parents' data told a totally different story. Whereas childless wives were more satisfied in marriages to husbands who spent long hours in jobs that fulfilled them, mothers were significantly less satisfied during periods when their husbands had a higher workload, and this was especially true when husbands were satisfied with their jobs” (Karney, p 4).

Having a child of my own (only one, I can only imagine with more!), I know that it is hard and stressful when my husband has long hours at work. It is difficult to go all day long with no break when acting on the needs and constant wants of a child. It’s exhausting as any stay at home parent would know. Having the support and love a the spouse there makes it easier and the burden is lifted. Karney (2013) mentions, too, the difference he was able to discover:

“To a wife without children, time her husband spends at work is time spent investing their shared financial future. To a wife with children, however, that same time is time that she is left alone taking care of those children, and this issue is rather more salient than the distant promise of more money in the bank years from now. The parents, juggling not only work and relationship but also the additional demands of caring for their children, had fewer resources left over to maintain their relationships effectively during periods of high workload” (Karney, p 4).

It really does make sense that, as men and women are different, they tend to react to stress in their lives differently. But, Brock and Lawrence found that there could be some things that could help a marriage and relationship to be less stressful and in hope to create resilience for marriages and families:

1. “Higher wages, more job security, and access to health care-to the extent that these policies would reduce the stress of modern life-would also promote the stability and quality of relationships, even without targeting relationships directly.

2. “Couples might be encouraged to recognize the ways that stress affects their relationships and assisted in developing communication patterns and concrete resources to help them cope with stress effectively when it arises.

3. “Husbands who experienced greater escalation in role strain over the first 3 years of marriage demonstrated steeper declines in marital satisfaction compared with husbands experiencing more stable role strain over time” (Brock and Lawrence, Discussion Section).

4. “Relative escalation of wives’ role strain did not account for changes in their own marital satisfaction” (Brock and Lawrence, Discussion Section).

5. “Increases in husband’s role strain might be beneficial for wives’ marital satisfaction” (Brock, Lawrence, Discussion section).

6. “Husbands experienced greater marital decline when they also experienced great escalations in role strain” (Brock, Lawrence, Discussion section).

For my understanding, I was able to see that in some instances stress in marriages actually can be a good thing. Of course, that depends on the situation and the people who are in the situation. This study concluded that wives tend to have more marital satisfaction when their husbands may have role strain in the relationship. Another main point was that wives tend to be just as satisfied with their marriages with or without stress. Husbands feel less marital satisfaction when there is more stress in the marriage.

Look for our final Blog Post on Stress in Marriage:

Part #5: How to Cope with Stress in Marriage.

Reference Page:

Brock, Rebecca L.; Lawrence, Ericka (2008). A Longitudinal Investigation of Stress Spillover in Marriage: Does Spousal Support Adequacy Buffer the Effects? Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2366194/

Karney, Benjamin. (2014). Stress is Bad for Couples, Right? Retrieved from:http://www.ncfr.org/ncfr-report/focus/couples/stress-bad-couples-right

Hill, R. (1949). Families under stress. New York: Harper & Row.

Read More

Part 2: How to grow closer together physicallly

 Remind Me

There are two difference aspects to intimacy, emotional and physical closeness and openness. In Part one I talked about a way to grow closer with your spouse through emotional intimacy. Part two is about physical intimacy. In the song that Brad sings with Carrie it is talking about how this couple use to enjoy a physically intimate relationship they used to have with their spouse. They want it back now but have forgotten how to go about it. They want each other to remind them of how it used to be and how they use to connect with each other physically.

At the beginning of your married life together it is easier to touch, kiss, and show affection toward your spouse because
new hormones are racing through your body. As a couple of years go by your body gets used to the hormones and things become less exciting. You lose a sense of closeness and physical intimacy with your spouse. Your kisses are shorter, you sit further away from each other on the couch, you don’t hold hands anymore in the car, and the list goes on and on. Many things change once the love hormone disappears. Life also becomes very busy as we talked about in Part one. It can be easy to go days without consciously thinking about how to work on your marriage or how to grow closer physically to your spouse.

Lori H. Gordon is an expert in intimacy and she says, “It is only in the last 20 years that we recognize that infants need to be held and touched. We know that they cannot grow--they literally fail to thrive--unless they experience physical and emotional closeness with another human being. What we often don't realize is that that need for connection never goes away. It goes on throughout life”.

Just as infants feel the need to be held and touched so do adults. We need that human connection. That is one of the benefits of being in a marriage relationship is that you get to share that special connection with that one person. And for you relationship to thrive there needs to be a physical and emotional closeness between the two of you (intimacy).

Activity 1:

Don’t let any day pass by without physically touching your souse.

1. Before you leave the house each day whether it is for work, errand, or a workout make sure to find your spouse and either give them a hug or a kiss (even if they are sleeping).

2. When you enter your house make it a habit to find your spouse wherever they may be and give them another hug or kiss.

3. Find at least one more way each day to touch your spouse either be holding hands, cuddling, massage, or a playful pat on the rear end.

At the beginning of the music video it starts off in a desert much like their relationship. They had stopped caring for it and it was dry and desolate. They understood that there was something missing from their relationship. They completed the first step in overcoming something, becoming aware of what is wrong. They start off being far away from each other and as the song progress they become closer together as well. They become closer together as they talk and remind each other of the love they once had.

“Oh if you still love me, don’t assume I know”. I love these lyrics to this song. It is so easy for us to assume that our spouse knows that we love them. But do they really?  You need to be very intentional about touching your spouse throughout the day by kissing or hugging them.

Schaefer and Olson (1981), marriage and family researchers, describe attaining intimacy as “a process that occurs over time and is never completed or fully accomplished” (p.50).

For this reason it is so important to make a conscience effort every day to grow closer to your spouse physically. This means that we need to make a habit of touching each other outside of the bedroom as well as in the bedroom. Physical intimacy includes holding hands, cuddling, kissing, and stroking the face, hair, arm, or leg. Touching one another will lead you to desire your spouse and want to be around him/her.

Here is a simple activity that will allow you and your spouse to become more intentional about increasing physical intimacy in your marriage.

Activity 2:

Sit down with your spouse and assess your level of physical intimacy in your marriage.

1. Each partner takes turn talking and listening to one another.

2. Talk about how each of you has been successful so far in your marriage in the ways you have shown affection and physical intimacy.

3. Go over different ways each one of you can improve in those areas. What are you likes and dislikes (you love holding hands in public but you don’t like kissing in public)?

4. Become intentional each day as think about what you two talked about because now you know how to make your spouse happy by being physically intimate with them.

References:

Gordon, L. H. (1969). Intimacy: The art of relationships. Retrieved from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199309/intimacy-the-art-relationships

 Schaefer, M. T., & Olson, D. H. (1981). Assessing intimacy: The PAIR inventory. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 7, 47-60.

Retrieved pictures from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201302/the-power-touch

Read More

Part Three: What Happens when Stress is Present in Marriage?

What Happens when Stress is Present in Marriage?

     

         After my husband and I moved from a loved town, we left our families and moved to a house a few hours away. Though I didn’t feel like I was stressed, I felt the results of stress! Since moving to the house about three weeks ago, I have been sick. Runny nose, extreme fatigue, and just plain short tempered. The house hadn’t been lived in for a while, and there was a lot of work to do on the outside. We had family coming to stay with us in three weeks, so we knew we had a lot of work that had to get done before they came to stay with us. We worked and worked, and all of my symptoms of the cold persisted. Having the stress of sickness (which was a result of stress) made me too tired to really spend time with my husband, who was also very tired and sick from the job he had just started (with very long hours) and the stress of not being able to help out on the house.
Those first few weeks were fun but stressful as we strived to get everything in order. The day after my family left, I was completely better. No symptoms of the flu or a cold at all! Stress can do some crazy things to the body, and because of the things that stress does to the individual there can be huge affects in marriage.

         There are often many different types of symptoms when there is stress in marriage. Some of the ones included may be physical as well as emotional. Some of these may include:

Emotional Symptoms:

-  “More arguments.

-  “Sexual and intimacy problems.

-  “More anger irritation.

-  “Low toleration level.

-  “Anxious.

-  “Depressed.

-  “Tense” (Stritof, p 1).

Physical Symptoms:

-  “Difficulty sleeping.

-  “Poor appetite or overeating.

-  “Frequent colds, flu, other illnesses” (Stritof, p. 1).

There is no doubt that when you are feeling the affects of stress in your life and marriage you will feel more stress! If you have a busy schedule, then get sick because of the things you need to do, you will no doubt be more stressed out because the sickness is present.

Here are some things that happen when stress is in your life!

  

"’Home is the place where we're supposed to feel safe and relax from the stresses of outside life... When there's stress at home, there's no time to recover or heal, and over time, that stress does physical damage,’says psychotherapist Tina Tessina, author of Money, Sex, and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage” (Paturel, p. 1).

I love that Paturel (no date) mentions that home is a great way to get away from the stress of the world, whether it be at work, at the grocery store, or at school, your own or your children’s. If that safe haven is not available for either spouse to relax an recuperate from a stressful day, there can be problems that could take a toll on the marriage. An interesting study showed that, “Stress makes its mark on the female face, according to a new study that finds men judge women with high levels of a stress hormone less attractive” (Pappas, p. 1). The study went on mention that both men and women tend to look for a mate that is more “chill” as the article put it. Simply, stress is not an attractive thing to neither men or women. Therefore, when you or your spouse is stress, there is a good chance that you may not see your spouse as attractive.

Another source mentioned five ways in which stress may actually ruin your love life!

1.  “Your Perception of Your Relationship. Stress also plays a role in how we actually view our relationship. When we’re stressed, we’re more likely to see our partner and relationship in a negative light and not acknowledge that stress is impacting us” (Toglia, p. 1). To continue on this study, “Neff and Karney found that spouses — especially wives more so than husbands — experiencing greater amounts of stress reacted more strongly to the normal daily up-and-downs of relationships” (Grohol, p. 1).

2.  “Your confidence. Stress has been linked to low self-esteem. This is a problem for many reasons, and when your looking for love, self-assurance is key” (Toglia, p. 1).

3.  “Your body image. Did you know stress is one of the leading triggers of poor body image? A bad body image can put a serious damper on your relationship [and] sex life” (Toglia, p. 1).

4.  “Your sex drive. One way to kill your ability to get in the mood? Stress. Your anxiety can unfortunately follow you right into he bedroom. When cortisol is being produced for an extended period of time, it actually hinders your sex hormones” (Toglia, p. 2).

5.  “Your ability to have a Baby. Being frazzled is not only messing with your libido, it can actually suppress fertility. Cortisol can prevent you from ovulating - making you unable to conceive” (Toglia, p. 2).

Check these out! These are definitely problems that can cause problems in your very marriage! Being aware of what is going on when there is stress in your marriage can help you to realize why it is so important that you and your spouse find ways to relieve your stress. Grohol (no date) goes onto explain that, “Relationships exposed to high stress for a long amount of time are bound to falter, no matter how well each individual’s relationship skills” (Grohol, p. 1). There is a very good chance that the above things can occur if high amounts of stress is in your marriage. I think that every couple knows that there will be stress, but it is learning how to cope with it that is key! Let’s take a look at why stress may be present in your marriage.

One reason stress may be present in your marriage may be because each partner is not balanced. “Stress indicates something's out of balance. Your No. 1 responsibility is to take care of yourself” (Rozman, p. 1). That is the key, make sure you are taken care of and well, and the stress in your marriage will begin to fade, as you will have the energy and strength to learn what you need to do to cope with that stress in your life and marriage.

        

Abraham Maslow in 1908 created a pyramid that helps us to understand the order of needs a person needs in order to perform and live a successful and happy life. If these needs are not met, then there may be problems in your personal life, as well as your marriage. The idea behind Maslow’s model helps us to understand that in order to perform to the best of your ability, you must have certain needs met first. This is true in all aspects of life, even marriage.

Activity #1:

Sit down with your spouse and join together in an activity that will strengthen your marriage.

1.  Look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs together.

2.  Go through each step, starting from the bottom, and determine if your individual needs are being met.

3.  Start, once again, at the bottom and determine if your marriage’s needs are being met.

4.  Brainstorm ways in which you can help each other’s needs be met.

5.  Discuss how stress may be decreased when each person’s needs are being met.

Activity #2:

Join together with your spouse and see if you can discover what is causing high amounts of stress in your marriage.

1.  Each partner share one thing that is stressful to them.

2.  Discuss why these things are stressful.

3.  Strive to find solutions in how to cope with the stress or lessen the stress each partner is feeling.

4.  If the stress is something that is not needed in the marriage, is causing high amounts of stress, and the marriage would be better without it (the wife working full-time, the husband taking every weekend to spend with his buddies) then try and figure out a way that you can do without it, or work together to find ways to lessen the stress.

Stress will be present in marriage, but it is the high amounts of stress that can cause detrimental results as explained above. Keep watching the blog to see the fourth blog post:

Part #4: How is Each Person in the Marriage is Affected by Stress?

Reference Page:

Grohol, John M. (no date) Stress Hurts Relationships. Retrieved from: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/08/31/stress-hurts-relationships/

Pappas, Stephanie (2013) Study: Stress Isn’t Hot. Retrieved from: http://www.livescience.com/34573-stress-decreases-attractiveness.html

Paturel, Amy (no date). Secrets to a low-stress marriage. Retrieved from: http://www.babycenter.com/0_secrets-to-a-low-stress-marriage_10352386.bc

Rozman, Deborah (2013) Managing Marriage  Stress Starts With Self.; Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heartmath-llc/stress-marriage_b_3131372.html

Stritof, Sheri; Stritof, Bob (2014) Coping with stress in your marriage; retrieved from: http://marriage.about.com/cs/stress/qt/copingstress.htm

Toglia, Michelle (no date) 5 Shocking Ways Stress Can Ruin Your Love Life. Retrieved from: http://www.yourtango.com/2013183809/5-ways-stress-can-ruin-your-love-life

Read More