A Recipe for Failure

By John Brendler, Founder of Building Bridges

From my experiences as a husband for 48 years, a father of three (ages 36, 40, and 45), and a family and couples therapist, I’ve tracked how marriages collapse. Here is a foolproof recipe that guarantees ongoing resentment, unhappiness, and eventual divorce:

1. Judge your partner.

Analyze, diagnose, interpret, and criticize the way he or she thinks, behaves, and communicates.

2. Neglect showing appreciation to your partner.

Ignore small gestures of kindness and consideration, like planning a fun day with your partner out of the house.

3. Make unilateral decisions.

“We’re leaving the party now. I’m ready to go.” Avoid collaborating.

4. Focus on changing your partner.

“All you do is think about yourself. You’re the one who needs to change.” Hide your own fears and vulnerability. Blame and disqualify the other whenever possible.

5. Keep secrets and tell lies.

6. Talk everything to death. Believe that words can solve all conflicts.

Avoid cultivating shared activities that bring joy, spontaneity, and connection.

7. Make generalizations and dredge up old complaints and insults.

“You never help with the cooking.” Avoid addressing the actual issue at hand and staying in the present.

8. Look for allies in your children.

Collude with your children and work out conflicts with your partner through them.

9. Overlook the power of playfulness.

10. Roll your eyes, curse at each other, or walk away.

Find non-verbal ways of dismissing and disqualifying your partner.

11. Play it safe.

Hold yourself back, don’t take risks, and don’t express what you really mean and feel, ensuring you will cultivate invisibility, boredom, and emotional detachment in your relationship.

12. Dismiss affection, sex, and intimacy as trivial and unimportant to each other’s emotional, mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

John Brendler, MSW, ACSW, is a family and couples therapist, teacher of family therapy in the U.S. and abroad, and the founder of Building Bridges. He is the co author of Madness, Chaos, and Violence: Families at the Brink (Basic Books, 1991). Requests for information on this topic can be sent to John Brendler at johnbrendler@gmail.com