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1. Discuss money only when you are both rested and focused enough to stay out of the usual quagmires of attacking and blaming. Don’t begin a discussion after you both are exhausted from the stress of the day.

2. Agree to take a break when things get tense. Five minute reciprocal backrubs or times to check your emails can give you both times to regroup and let go of anxiety or hurt that might be building.

3.  Approach things from a problem solving perspective. Looking for who is bad and who is good will only result in a stalemate.  Understand that this is no longer relevant.  What counts is whether you can unite around a vision of how you will approach the challenge before you.

4.  As you encounter differences, take time to listen and give feedback to your partner about what you are hearing. Don’t give interpretations about what this means about their personality.  Even if you do feel your partner is stingy, this is not a time to bring it up.

5.  Rather seek to convey your appreciation of your partner’s position. Care that your partner is frightened, or is feeling sad about the options that have disappeared in thin air. You don’t have to make it all alright but pausing to understand the reality of those feelings allows your partner to move back into the problem solving channel.

6. Make room for your differences in temperament or expectations from childhood. Honor them, kid each other about them, but don’t experience these differences as proof that your partner doesn’t love you or that your spouse wants to control things.  Most especially do not see this as proof that you both should never have gotten married in the first place.  You both are scared.  Slipping into any of these blind alleys can keep you from led from finding a solution to your problems.

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Dr. James W. Walkup, D. Min., is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in New York City. To learn more about him see his website at www.dr-jim.com .  

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Lisa Brookes Kift is a couples therapist, writer and creator of Therapy-At-Home Workbooks®, the first counseling alternative workbook series for individuals and couples of it’s kind. 

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