Change Your Life Not Your Spouse!

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Some people place so much emphasis on being successful in their careers and forget that they must work on balance in their relationships including marriage. High achievers AKA Power failures often place their careers above their personal relationships. It can happen to anyone who demonstrates traits which undermine relationships including marriages. Licensed psychologist, Dr. Tony Ferretti, PHD with Peter J. Weiss, MD wrote the book, Change Your Life Not Your Wife: Marriage Saving Advice for Success Driven People.

I see people with Power Failure Syndrome in my practice daily. They are intellectually over developed and emotionally under developed. So they neglect their relationships with people but focus solely on success because they believe it is all they need. They are often lone ranger, self reliant, and self sufficient types and sharing with people, being emotion and intuitive ins't what they think about. They thrive on their independence, but people should be interdependent not independent or dependent, which are also extremes. However, they are often drawn to dependent types and end up in codependent relationships.

Marriage essentials for a strong marriage:


1. Taking personal responsibility for the marriage. Identify what you're doing wrong and decide to make a change. Don't blame others or be defensive or blame others. If you do, you will remain stuck where you are. It's takes two to make a relationship. Blaming others isn't effective. Look at yourself and resolve your own problems and your roles in the relationship conflicts. Neglect is a big issue in marriages and 25% of my practice caters to high achieving physicians who are failing in their marriages because they are driven, have to keep up with new medical techniques and technologies and work too long hours, and when they are in the work environment, it's about their sense of self importance as they are admired by the medical community and the nursing staff, but when they get home, their title and sense of self is lost. Their entire identity is tied to the title and they don't know how to relate outside of that and subliminally they think their family will respond to them the same way their medical community does.

Therefore, the wives feel neglected because they believe they are not getting enough attention and husbands becomes irritated and the relationship unravels. Frustration develops, leads to anger over time and turns to resentment. Then they detach, disengage and exhibit self destructive behaviors like having affairs with people who treat them like they feel they deserve to be treated because they have the "grass is greener on the other side," mentality but they are not greening and watering their own grass. A fulfilling marriage takes work from both partners and if a partner is not part of the solution, he or she is part of problem.

The five essentials of good marriages:


1. A partnership of equals.
2. Effective communication and conflict resolution.
3. The marriage must be a priority.
4. Forgiveness
5. Intimacy


Personality is important because certain of aspects of it such as being intense, driven, competitive, and perfectionistic are good in one environment like the work environments, but not at home which should be a loving and nurturing environment.

Marriage killing traits include:


1. Emotional unawareness: Is prevalent in men because they are raised to be non-emotional analytical problem solvers, but emotions are what connect people, you can't be sensitive to others and you'll miss things you should be aware of till its too late They suppress negative emotions like fear and sadness but they focus on anger. But this suppresses the positive emotions as well.
2. Perfectionism 
3. Criticizing
4. Controlling
5. Submissive/ allow being controlled

Caller: Due to economics and psychological realities is it good to be driven to be part of the American dream? Many of us grew up in families where we were taught we must get ahead with parents saying, "You must have more that what they have." Even our education is pushed towards us being successful. Is it wrong and how do you balance it?

Guest/Host: For a parent to say, "You should be driven is wrong," but to say you should be hardworking, educated and focussed is good. Being successful or competitive has it's place and there's nothing wrong with it, as long as you don't carry it into your relationships. These same traits are good and applicable in school when trying to get an A or when you are trying to get or stay in a job. However, with your friends and family it doesn't work but people have problems transitioning from work to home. Many people put too much time and effort into their work and not into the home. They become strangers in their homes. If you find someone like you who's so driven, you will have double the problems. You have to have balance. It would be great if growing up you see the importance of relationships. It's learned behavior. It's about awareness when your relationships aren't working out. Driven people think money brings happiness, but it's the opposite that happens. America is a driven society and in particular areas it's worse. I come from a little town and when I came to DC I was amazed at how people work and I still struggle to maintain the little town girl I am. Work towards learning how to balance your life. It's possible to do that.


Wanna get ahead with balance in your career and relationships? If your answer is yes, keep reading...

More on relationship killing traits:


Perfectionism is good and necessary for a surgeon or air an traffic controller because they have to be precise if not it will result in loss of lives. However, if you have the same expectations for your partner and children to be perfect, have everything in order and in place, this creates conflict in the relationship because it makes them anxious, unstable, fearful, and neurotic because they are trying to get their partner's or parent's approval by not making a mistake which isn't healthy. For example, my 18 year old straight A student daughter when she was 13 or 14 got her first B and when she showed it to me, I said, "I'm so happy you got your first B!" She thought I was being sarcastic or funny. But I told her, "I'm happy because you can put it behind you and you know we still love you anyway."

Critical People: These people have nothing to positive to say about anyone and anything. Anything you do is never good enough. No matter what you do they focus on the negative. If you are close to them, you are walking on eggshells waiting for them to find fault with you and you might just think that you should go and find someone who thinks you're wonderful instead.

Attempting to control partners: It's the number one relationship killer. It's instinctual for some people and they control through anger or manipulation or passive aggression, and the people who you want to control will resist change and it's least likely that you will get what you want and you will have unhappy people around you. There's a paradox of control, relinquish control and you'll have more of it. Fear and insecurity makes people controlling. These are traits everyone one has but it's how you manage it that's important. Some manage them by trying to control everyone around them and that's close to them. If you have to control to an extreme, you render yourself out of control. How do you feel when you are controlled? You don't like it. So don't do it others.

Control is an illusion; influence is what matters. Whether it’s with your kids, your employees, your peers, or even your boss, the more you seek to exert control (or expand the level of your control), the less you’ll actually have. Why? Because free agency is an inalienable right. The more you seek to contain it, the less successful you’ll be. Those who don’t understand this attempt to accomplish their dreams and vision through control. They inevitably find themselves unsuccessful. But those who understand that control is not really theirs to have, seek rather to shape the course of events through influence, find themselves far more successful at accomplishing their objectives, and far less negatively affected when they don’t. It’s ironic really. The more you seek control, the less of it you have. The more you give up control, and seek only to influence, the more of it you experience. The next paradox is that of the desired outcome. You want others to be a certain way because they are a reflection on you."
--Culled from Life Engineering.com

Caller: I was raised to be driven and perfectionistic including making a certain amount of money by my mother and because of this I've been through many relationships that didn't last. My mother has recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia and her siblings are unstable too. Now I'm in a relationship with a man who has shown me how to love and I have a son. She has been admitted a psychiatric center because she had an episode. I have to go next week for the family session. They want me to quit my job, move into a home and have her live with us because she would go to them when she was released and they didn't want that, so they are trying to put me in a guilt trip. Things happened like I'd get home and she's be yelling I didn't know she had a mental disorder and I do have resentment towards her and her family. They are overbearing because it's how they were raised by my grand parents in an abusive home and I always used to defer to my family but now I'm in my 30s, how do I explain to them. I am passive and I become angry. How do I maintain and support my mother from afar. It's taking a toll on my family.

Guest/Host: You learned to internalize and avoid confrontation as a child but as an adult that coping mechanism is dysfunctional. It's a complicated situation and it's gone on for a long time. There's dysfunction and they're toxic people. Boundaries are important to establish. You can say that you will not be the caretaker for my mother at this time because you have to maintain your own family and career, but indicate what you are willing to do. You've been mothering her when you were younger. You can't make them hear it, but you can say it and you don't change the fact that you have boundaries. Write a letter to your mom. Don't mail it because it's for you to talk about the emotions of childhood to get in touch with the fear, shame hurt, resentment and guilt you endured. At the end of the letter come to the place where you can forgive her, release the negative emotions and set boundaries so you are be able to say no with the residual emotions not affecting you.

Are you a success driven person? If you are, you are probably having a lot of problems in your relationships. So, keep reading...

Chapter 6 talks about how we got this way. How you got your personality issues. Some of the most successful people have the most dysfunctional upbringing and performance, productivity, and academics that they have control over is what they focused on instead of people in their families they don't have control over. Also, loss, conditional love (performance and productive based), and abuse (physically, emotionally, sexually) all play a role in how your personality develops.

Caller: What if you have a partner that's more driven than you but you are changing but they are not because they don't believe there's anything wrong with them?

Guest/Host: Embrace the reality that the only person you can change is you. When you start to change, your partner will change either for the better or worse and that will force a decision from you such leaving or getting counseling together etc.

Caller: My father left when I was 12. I became the man of the house. I started businesses at an early age. I got married and I ran my wife off. I realized I had to change me. Controlling an adult will run them off. I changed and she changed too. She left but she came back. Consequences are what people suffer for their own actions. Men need to humble themselves and look at how they are controlling others. My marriage is not successful and the businesses I have now will be successful. Accept the fact that you can't control anyone.

Guest/Host: He was put in that position at such an early age. It's daunting and you learn to micromanage everyone's life because you believe that's the only way the family can function, but when you grow up and you are in a different situation the methods you used then are no longer necessary and if you continue using them you become dysfunctional. It's ironic but that's how it goes.

Caller: We give people with titles a leeway without them earning it. We are so thrilled by being with them. So we must let them know that you still have to earn being in a relationship. They have to show stuff like that. You've gotta show me you want to be in a relationship with me.

Source: The Audrey Chapman Show
Host: Audrey Chapman
Guest: Dr. Tony Ferretti, PHD