At our Couples Retreats one of our favorite topics of discussion revolves around the fact that, at least in this lifetime, none of us will ever live with a perfect partner who does and is everything we think they should do and be.

This leads to the inescapable conclusion that if we are to remain sane and happy in our marriages there are certain things that we will get to learn to live with and to forgive in one another. We have great fun with this subject at our Marriage Retreats and in every case our couples discover that, indeed, they can happily cut one another some slack regarding certain irritations and foibles, especially when they know that their partner is doing their best to build a better self and relationship. But the patience represented by such relationship generosity is not the topic of this and other upcoming posts.

Our intent here is to identify several areas that we refer to as Baselines of Marriage.  A baseline is defined as “an imaginary line or standard by which things are measured or compared.” In this case we will point to three components of a relationship that must be maintained above a certain line or standard, and cannot forever be simply shrugged off or patiently endured if behavior sags.

Should one or both partners be engaged in behavior that consistently violates one or more of these baselines, they must work through appropriate means to improve the situation or will face the weakening and eventual collapse of their relationship foundation.

Today we will consider the first of these baseline relationship requirements:

Civility- To go out into the world and exercise common courtesies and graciousness then return home and treat our loved ones with indifference or meanness is unconscionable. While we all have a bad day occasionally and might, in a moment of frustration, say or do something hurtful or insulting to another, it must be the rare exception. No one should have to long live with emotional or verbal abuse. “Please” and “Thank You” should never go out of style. We all have the ability to modulate our tone of voice away from shouting, accusing, or belittling.

We need not label one another in derogatory ways; biting sarcasm has no place in a loving family. Constant reminders of perceived weaknesses and failures are a form of aggression that damages everyone involved.

There never has been and never will be an excuse for treating others with anything but respect and dignity, even when we think our loved ones might not have “earned” it. We will find that as we treat others with that respect and dignity, their behavior will almost always improve and they will reflect the same back to us.

A lack of civility is a learned behavior. Sometimes those who are stunted in their kindness and civility have grown up in an environment where graciousness and politeness were unknown and bring that void into their relationships. In other cases feelings of frustration and hurt in the relationship can be translated into hard words and unkind behavior.

Do not despair if you see that your relationship has strayed out of bounds in this area. Becoming aware of the problem is often half the battle, and we have seen many couples turn the tide just through a little effort and practice.

The practice of civility in a home and relationship can, for a time, be led through the effort by just one of the partners, and even those unilateral efforts can make a big difference in thawing some of the ice from the relationship and bringing back some of the warmth of civility.

Yes, the underlying issues of trust, communication, accountability and others must be dealt with, but those issues will become much more manageable in an atmosphere of patience and civility.

At a recent Marriage Retreat in San Diego we worked with a couple which had allowed competition in the relationship to tear at the foundation of the peace and well-being of the marriage. This was not simply a case of getting mad at one another over a game of Scrabble, but something that had infected all areas of their relationship as they compared who was contributing the most money to the marriage, who did the most around the house, who got the most laughs at the dinner party, or which one of them their kids liked the most. There is nothing healthy about this sort of competition in a marriage because it rarely leads to better performance in the relationship, instead driving wedges between the most important members of the family team.Once on a dock in Mexico we watched the crab fisherman unload their morning catch. Soon the dock was covered with large wooden crates, each filled with dozens of live crabs. I noticed that the crates had no lids and the fishermen were not paying much attention to the crabs, instead busying themselves with cleaning and securing their boats. As I watched some crabs climbing over their brother crabs towards the top of the crate I expected to soon see escaped crabs all over the dock.But the fishermen knew they had little to worry about. Each time a crab made it nearly to the top of the prison, another crab would reach out a claw, grab the escapee and pull it back into the writhing mass of creatures. It was as if the crabs stuck in the crate were saying to those making a bid for freedom, “No way, Buster! If I’m stuck in here, you’re staying in here with me!” I felt like saying to them, “Silly animals, why don’t you help one another? If you would only work together you could all make it back into the sea.”But instead they continued to climb over one another, knocking each other from their lofty perches back into the morass.Such is the case with many relationships as partners jockey for position, competing with one another, often taking some perverse pleasure in seeing the other stumble, because it somehow puts them “ahead in the game.” Sometimes the spouses will chip away at one another with comparisons, pointing out how far short the other falls when compared to some other person. And so they remain, trapped in their cage, unaware that a short climb above them lies beautiful sunlight and freedom if they would only give one another a loving boost and encouragement.In our next posting we will look at the opposite of this unhealthy competition and comparing and see how a marriage evolving into a mature and sharing relationship grows in peace and a sense of mutual well-being. To see this shift in couples is one of our greatest rewards as we work with them at our Marriage Retreats and Trainings.

In a previous posting we discussed how many couples seem unable to make the necessary breakthroughs in their marriage through traditional marriage counseling. We also mentioned that for many of those couples a well managed marriage retreat, particularly a LIFE Marriage Retreat and Training, leads to the renewal of the relationship. So what is the difference?There are many facets to this particular diamond, but we will focus briefly on just a few of the differences offered in a retreat format (please note that every marriage retreat program is different and I am speaking here from my own experience):1. Time, Location and Focus- There is something extraordinary about being in a place of peace and beauty, focusing on one another and your relationship for an extended period of time, especially when that time is backed up by the couple’s commitment to move to higher ground.2. Rebuilding Trust- Perhaps the greatest gift of this time and focus is the Retreat’s ability to help the couple to rebuild the trust that in virtually every case has been eroded in their relationship. The couple not only learns about trust on an intellectual level but does the things that help to reestablish it in the relationship.3. Training and Coaching- Departing from the general Retreat format to get more specific for a moment, there is great power and effectiveness in the curriculum and processes of a LIFE Training Retreat. A variety of teaching and training methods are used, including innovative experiential training, and great activities that map back to the principles and skills being taught. Combined with the one-on-one coaching each couple receives, the relationship objectives of the couple can consistently be met.One thing to remember is that in many cases a couple can achieve brief moments of peace and euphoria by just spending a get-away weekend together. The key to the effectiveness of the best marriage retreats is their ability to not only provide the atmosphere, but to then deliver the training and coaching that leads to long-term results rather than simply short-term euphoria.

I have friends and colleagues whom I admire that are engaged in the field of traditional marriage counseling. I respect their work and recognize that they experience many successes in working with troubled relationships.But as we work with couples in our Training Retreat program we note a great many that have worked with a marriage counselor for months or even years, but have never been able to rebuild the trust that leads to healing the relationship, or establish meaningful communication that leads to effective conflict resolution. One of their common complaints is that they spend 45 minutes in a counseling session that is often acrimonious, then leave with a few things to work on; but the moment they step back into their life environment and stresses they quickly revert to old patterns of behavior and thought. When they go to their counseling session the next week they report that it feels like they are simply starting over again.This is not meant as an indictment of traditional marriage counseling. Not all counselors are created equal (just as all marriage retreats are not created equal). And some couples expect big results from counseling even though the couples themselves are not committed to doing the work that would lead to lasting change.But as we assist couples coming out of a disappointing counseling experience we virtually always see them successfully reestablish trust and heal their relationship through the Training Retreat and post-training coaching experience. While it is possible that their counseling experience has contributed to their ultimate success, the Training Retreat format and objectives simply offer some opportunities and potential benefits not provided by most traditional counseling. We will look at some of those in the next posting.

A couple we have recently worked with provides us an example of one way that trust can be damaged in a relationship in an indirect but very powerful way. In this case the husband was generally considerate of his wife and her feelings and did some of the overt things that one would expect from a caring husband, but it was clear that his wife’s trust in him had declined to dangerously low levels over the years.It turned out that this man had settled into a pattern of negative judgment in regards to most people with whom he came in contact, whether colleagues, neighbors, store clerks, or the guy that annoyed him in traffic. He would spout out his frustrations and comment on the “bad, dumb, thoughtless, mean, etc.” people.His wife realized that as she observed this behavior her trust in her husband was suffering. She not only found this type of behavior toward other people to be personally offensive and upsetting, but she also realized that she was beginning to wonder what he REALLY thought about her. How harshly was she being judged in his heart?In the early stages of a relationship we tend to be careful about managing our words and actions, but with time and a growing comfort level whatever rats might inhabit our “cellars” (and we all have some) become visible to our loved ones and, both consciously and unconsciously, the relationship is affected. The good news is that our best qualities also become more apparent and help to strengthen the relationship.We simply cannot fake our way through an intimate relationship. One of the keys to building a strong and trusting marriage is to be continually engaged in building a better us. As our loved ones see our efforts towards them and others, even though we are far from perfect, their trust and even admiration for us will grow, and the relationship will flourish.

As we prepare for another Marriage Retreat (and Training) in San Diego next week, I note that the constant that links every couple we have ever worked with stays true: There has been an erosion of trust in the relationship. Of the pillars that hold up any relationship, particularly a marriage, Trust is the central one, and we can trace most marital maladies to that pillar losing its integrity.We note that with the vast majority of our clients the loss of trust has little or nothing to do with physical infidelity; most have stayed true to that part of their vows. The erosion tends to be more subtle than that, a slow growing cancer made up of small broken promises, the distractions of the world, and a fear that perhaps our partner really can’t help us meet our legitimate Mental emotional physical and spiritual needs.We have a chicken and egg question here. For example, using the 800 pound gorilla of marital communication as an example, do couples quit communicating at a meaningful level because of a breakdown in trust, or did poor communication lead to the erosion of trust? The bottom line is that they are intertwined but our experience working with troubled marriages indicates that it is the subtle decline in trust that first precedes a commensurate decline in communication that flows from the heart and that resolves hindering issues.I feel secure in this analysis because during our Marriage Retreats as we help the couple to rebuild trust in one another (and in themselves) the rebirth of deep and meaningful communication is one of the natural results.So the first question for virtually any couple experiencing difficulty and decline in their relationship is not “How can we communicate better,” or “How can we spend more time together,” but “How can we gradually rebuild trust in the relationship?” The answer to that crucial question will be the difference between long-term success and failure in the relationship.More on developing trust and its beautiful natural byproducts in future postings.