Psychology of family relationships between husband and wife

Family relationships are not an easy task that not all psychologists can often cope with. Here it is necessary to analyze not only the circumstances that arose at any moment of the problems that arose between the husband and wife, but also the entire history of their relationship. And you need to start, most likely, from the time of mutual love. The roots most often grow from there. They began to incorrectly build their relationships at the early stage of the emergence of a family – and now they are enjoying their benefits.

Table of Contents

What are family relationships based on?

The basis of any healthy human relationship is trust, honesty, mutual respect. These qualities or their absence are especially alive in the family – without them it will not last long. Of course, young people are united by love. If their love is selfless and unconditional, then this will be the main factor that will hold the family together and help them go through any trials.

Their types and characteristics

The psychology of family relationships identifies the following main types of family relationships:

association – they can still be called cooperation when relations are built on an equal footing. The best and most stable type of relationship.
Competition – a completely healthy way of life when spouses compete in achieving common goals, provided that they remain benevolent. Otherwise, it can turn into rivalry.
Competition – manifested in the desire of spouses to dominate each other. In this type of relationship, it is difficult for partners to come to a common opinion on common interests, rather, everyone takes care of their own. This greatly undermines family unity.
Antagonism – acute confrontation of partners, going beyond competitive relations. Such a family is preserved only for external demanding reasons, and internally, nothing unites it, the relationship is on the verge of breaking.

In addition to the classic types of interpersonal relationships, there are also family relationships based on the game of jealousy, silence, adaptation. Silence is when all discontent is diligently silenced just to maintain relationships. There are situations when families exist on the basis of a contract.

Device-based relationships can be different. One of the spouses can seek protection or play the role of savior, victim or executioner. And also, quite often in such relationships, the husband treats his wife as a servant or housekeeper.

In the contractual relationship, material or moral calculation emerges above all. Such marriages are based on an oral or written contract.

Causes of crises

Family crises most often occur for the following reasons.

Unjustified expectations on one or both sides (often material, sometimes spiritual). In such a family, one of the spouses has a one-sided view of the obligation to provide for the family. He or she imagined that their other half would make them richer financially: they would provide things, housing, the ability to travel, and so on.
Contradiction of opinion regarding the household. For example, a man expects that, just like in his parental family, his wife will serve him in the kitchen, and she, considering him independent, takes care of him herself.
Opposing views on parenting. For example, in a family of a girl, the parents have decided to go with the child, and the husband believes that this is a mother’s concern. This can cause confusion in the couple.

Routine, lack of family traditions. It happens that in the family of one of the spouses it is customary to celebrate certain holidays, to hold them in a special way, and for the second half these traditions may be unacceptable. For example: a husband is used to celebrating holidays in a restaurant with friends in a noisy company, and his wife likes to celebrate in a quiet family circle. Undoubted factors, due to which relations deteriorate, are monotony and domestic problems.
The cause of the crisis can also be explained by the fact that the feelings of the spouses have cooled. This can happen when relationships are built on external factors: beautiful appearance, material security. If spiritual support is initially weak in relationships (there are no common interests, hobbies, worldviews), then when the first bright feelings cool down, an emptiness appears in the relationship.

The psychological climate in the family depends on the emotional characteristics of the spouses, their differences in temperament. If one spouse is measured and balanced, and the other reacts violently to any bait, then the first can quickly get tired of the emotional attachments of the second.
Sometimes discord in relationships occurs after the birth of a child in the family. The cold relationship between the spouses arises from the fact that the young mother is fully engaged in caring for the child and pays less attention to her husband. Or the husband completely shifts responsibility for the child to his wife, so she simply has no time for herself or her husband.

Diagnosing crises in family relationships aims to identify destructive attitudes associated with the way of communication in a particular family and caring for each other’s feelings, methods of housekeeping and raising children, how to spend free time, as well as responsibility for the financial support of the family. A more important moment in diagnosing the family is the ability of partners to accept each other.

How to solve it?

The following actions will help restore the disturbed atmosphere among family members.

First of all, you need to reconsider your attitude towards marriage: if it is mercantile or your marriage is by contract, then you should not expect deep feelings and commitment from your partner. Try with him to amend your contract for the common good.
Clarify: who masters the main part of the household chores, who is responsible for material support. In order for spouses to understand each other better, it is necessary to distribute roles, to decide who is responsible for the sphere of domestic, social and financial responsibilities.
Let your soul do what it loves, passion. Do not deprive it of the opportunity to be alone sometimes – this is a normal desire. And also allow yourself to sometimes withdraw.

Learn to listen to your partner, letting them talk about something important or say something hot. Honest communication will help you melt the ice of misunderstandings between you.
Sometimes put yourself in the shoes of a husband or wife – this will help you understand them better and accept their feelings.
Keep your needs in mind. Don’t suppress healthy interests in favor of your spouse. Dissatisfaction can lead to depression or irritation.
Plan a joint vacation, start a family tradition. This will help maintain a harmonious relationship not only between husband and wife, but also between parents and children.

How should a husband treat his wife?

A husband must always remember that there is a woman in front of him. And despite the fact that she works the same or even performs certain male tasks, she remains fragile and vulnerable in her soul, and the male task is to protect her fragility. She may be “very deep” and she herself may no longer feel femininity, but for the sake of marital happiness it is worth making an effort.

Speak affectionate words to her often, just let them be sincere, real. Just do not hold back your delicious feelings while they are. Do not be afraid to splash out. Love has the property of joy – it gave a glow of warmth, and in return a flame of love. That is, women are very subtly feel the manifestation of these feelings and always respond vividly to them.
For the same reason that your wife is first and foremost a woman, we offer to share in your duties. You can walk with the child while she takes care of household chores, buy groceries on the way to work, make breakfast, clean up the table, or something else, depending on the family’s lifestyle.
Listen to your soulmate’s mood: maybe they want to be alone or, on the contrary, you don’t have much time together.
Put yourself in the husband’s position more often. Looking at the situation from the outside, she may well be considered and seen as not seeing from her position.

How to change a woman?

In the modern world, it is not uncommon for a woman to take on male roles: leading the organization, running her home, supervising her husband. Many men try to keep or resume their duties, and conflicts often arise on this basis.

Therefore, in order to preserve harmony in family relationships, the first thing a woman does is to change her roles from male to female.

Let your husband provide for you, not the other way around.
Reconsider your attitude towards housekeeping – cleanliness and comfort in the house are a woman’s prerogative, and repair and rearrangement require masculine strength.
Take care of yourself, even during maternity leave. Men are inspired by beauty.

In general, women should learn to trust their husband more. Let him take part in raising children. Don’t doubt him, if he is a healthy person – he will cope, because you have entrusted yourself to him.

Let him deal with the issues of family life and leisure. Even if it seems to you that he will do everything wrong. After all, the family for a man, just like for you, is a place where you want to manifest, create something new, bring something useful from yourself.

Learn to understand your companion’s mood and don’t interfere with his desire to switch off sometimes and go fishing. Don’t deny yourself healthy interests and hobbies.

The family is then made up of two halves, so that each partner feels useful and fulfilled in it.

BUGS

A common family mistake is shifting responsibility to a spouse or circumstances. The partner does not want to admit his mistake, but through manipulation, he emphasizes the mistakes of his satellite.

Consider other errors.

Lack of flexibility between spouses. If you insist only on your own, this will not help solve the problem, but will only increase the distance between you.
Self-sacrifice for spouse, job, children. When someone sacrifices themselves, it brings them a temporary satisfaction of the need for recognition. And when recognition disappears, dissatisfaction comes.

Be guided only by material criteria. This mistake can manifest itself both in a constant desire to earn more and in constant thoughts about work, which leads to a dulling of feelings and a “mechanical” attitude towards family members.
Imposing your will on your partner. Such a mistake is the scourge of modern relationships not only in the family. Such an attitude is an attempt to erase the uniqueness of your partner, to equalize him with his standards.
Incorrect role substitution: men manifest passivity, declare themselves responsible for the material and spiritual components of family life, and women, on the contrary, assume this responsibility.

Unilateral adoption of important decisions is also an erroneous position of those who consider their opinion to be the only correct one and do not take into account the opinion of a partner. It is likely that the position of such a person in the dialogue will come first (he is smarter than everyone).

Tips for psychologists

Above were given tips on how to improve family relationships and what a man and a woman should do for this. But, on this work to strengthen the family does not end. Healthy relationships – the result of the daily work of each family member. For those who are willing to make efforts to preserve happiness in the family, there is a description of a good and favorable atmosphere in the house and tips for preserving it.

Permission to be. This global characteristic refers to the most diverse aspects of the relationship between husband and wife. Let your loved one feel and think as he wants, do what he can, do what he knows. And then, in response, you will also receive permission to be – this will create harmony in your family.
Mutual respect This element is a continuation of the previous one. Respecting the thoughts, feelings, actions of a partner – this is the situation on which family relationships are based and one of the conditions for its stability.

Support each other. A little physics: a table with a broken leg becomes unstable and falls to the side. The nature of the relationship is the same: in the absence of support from any supporting element – wife or husband – the structure (family) becomes unstable. By supporting your spouse, you contribute to the reliability of the union.
Honesty and openness. “My home is my castle.” The meaning of this saying is not only to protect and support each other’s family members, but also to be open, true, as you are. Of course, this is not a one-sided need for acceptance, but also the ability to accept the sincerity of your partner.
Mutual desire to develop relationships. The development of relationships begins with self-development. Therefore, spouses seeking harmony in the family do not wait for their partner to change, but start with themselves. Subsequently, the other half will try to keep up with him on the path of forming the best qualities in him.

See the following video for a proper relationship between husband and wife.