There's a enormous stress out in the real world as people attempt to raise families and live their lives. The text only mentions stress that comes from within the family, between husband and wife.
But there are forces outside the family that work to break it apart.
Unfortunately, when marriages fail, the family members often blame themselves.

Think about this table:

Stressful events can occur inside the family, due either to normal day-to-day living, or because of abnormal conditions.

They can also come from outside the family, in the course of normal world conditions, or because of abnormal ones.

Quite often the symptoms of Abnormal stress are the same as Normal stress, depending on the courage and fortitude of family members. Similarly, Outside causes of stress can cause damage to the family even though they are the fault of no one in the family.

Also, some families seem to do well when under severe abnormal stress, while others can't seem to withstand the slightest snag in their routine. While being socialized, some people experience more of life, and therefore have more experience to draw on in times of crisis.  Others are sheltered more from life's experiences, and have less to use when faced with tough times.

The moral of the story is this:

1. Never think you are so smart that you have nothing to learn from others and from life.
2. Keep your eyes open and be slow to comment on what's happening around you.
3. Listen to people who are older than you when they offer advice. You don't have to take their advice, but they might say something that you can use.

The Issue of Power in Marriage:

Power is the ability to get another person to think, feel, or do something they would not have ordinarily done spontaneously. If one possesses the means to affect another, one has power vis-a-vis that person. If one uses one's power, it is called influence. If one's influence is successful, it is called control.

Each person in a relationship has some power. It might be skewed to one person or the other.
To unfairly use one's power constitutes an injustice in a marriage.

It is one thing, as the text suggests, to get one's spouse to clean out the garage.
It is quite another to get one's spouse to engage in behavior that are against their moral or ethical code. In order to maintain the balance of power in a marriage relationship, the partners must constantly work towards equality in the marriage.

I. Areas of Conflict - conflict is a direct result of power struggles in marriage.

A. Money - the number 1 area of conflict for people in their first marriage (Remarried people fight about their children more). Fighting about money can be resolved by:
1. Keeping track of debts and payments
2. Careful checkbook management
3. Keeping spending patterns of each person under control.
4. Being in agreement about strategies for money management
5. Making spending decisions together
B. Work - the 2nd biggest trouble maker is argument over time spent at work - particularly husbands who work too much! Other areas under work disagreements:
1. Should wife work outside the home?
2. Balancing housework and chores with work outside - who cleans what?.
3. Child care and nurturing of children - equal child care responsibilities
4. Relationship maintenance and romance - Time for the couple or there'll be no couple!
C. Sex - 3rd in frequency of disagreement is the general area of sex - the frequency, the quality, and sometimes infidelity.

A. Frustration = the emotion that is experienced when an important need is being blocked or when an important satisfaction is being denied.

B. Rejection and Betrayal - resulting in

1. Rejection follows conflict involving a basic needs going unmet
2. Emotional involvement with another person usually involves dropping the defenses we normally keep in place - Therefore: rejection by an intimate we have come to trust and upon whom we rely is a very basic form of Betrayal.
3. Lowered Self-Esteem = We chip away at each other in some sort of Zero-Sum Game we play. This devastates the relationship.
4. Displacement - when our feelings are hurt and we suffer loss of self-esteem, we begin (unknowingly y perhaps) to displace our feelings from the real cause of the deprivation (who we are angry with and why) to a more convenient or safer disagreement .

C. Psychological Games - an interaction in which each person in a conflict attacks the other - attempting to score a "win" in stead of attacking the underlying conflict.
Psychological games are covert (hidden) and dishonest.

A. Authoritarian Resolution - "I win, you lose!"

B. Permissive Acceptance - always giving in

C. Passive Aggression - "You go on, I'll just sit here - ALONE!" - "Well, if you really want me to come with you..."

D. Evasion

E. Honest Resolution - the only strategy that has lasting positive results is this one.

A. Leveling - saying what you mean, and how you feel. Try to be aware of the source of conflict when it comes. Face up to conflict, addressing it without becoming defensive or hostile.

B. Active Listening - Focus your whole attention on the other while they explain their complaints. Make gestures that communicate understanding Occasionally stop the explanation and clarify.

C. Attacking the Source of the Conflict and not the person.

D. Role Taking - actually put yourself in the other person's place. Restate the problem from the other's point of view.

E. Comparing Mutual Goals

Acitelli, A., Douvan, E., & Veroff, J. (1993). Perceptions of conflict in the first year of marriage: How important are similarity and understanding? J. Social & Personal Relationships, 10, 5-19. Perceived similarity between spouses is greater than actual similarity of responses within both contexts of constructive and destructive conflict behaviors. Destructive behaviors were found to be more accurately perceived, and wives' marital well-being tended to be affected more by perceptual congruence variables.

Boss, P.G. (1980). Normative family stress: Family boundary changes across the life-span. Family Relations, 29, 445-490.

Callan, V.J. (1987). the personal and marital adjustment of mothers and of voluntarily and involuntarily childless wives. JMF, 49, 847-856. Levels of personal well-being for the three groups were similar across indices. However, infertile women had lower global levels of well-being and rated life as less interesting, emptier and less rewarding. They were less satisfied than other women with the amount of success, interest, variety and fulfillment.

Cohen, T.F. (1987). Becoming and being husbands and fathers: Work and family conflict for men. J. Family Issues, March. The weight of the evidence obtained here suggests men's lives contains greater attachments to marriage and family that is usually assumed. Their lives are remade after beginning roles as husbands and fathers - self-concepts recast in the process. The actual data suggests a reinterpretation of old notions about men's lives.

Hannan, K. & Eggebeen, d. (1995). Stressful events and changes in the home environment. Family Perspective, 29(2), 193-207.

Harper, S., Anderson, R. (1993). Stress and family health. Contemporary Family Therapy, 15(2), 169-178. Individuals in balanced and extreme families were very similar in their perception of everyday stress levels.

Kurdek, L.A. (1991). Predictors of increases in marital distress among newlywed couples: A 3 year prospective longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 27, 627-636. Poor, uneducated, and young respondents are likely to show a linear increase in marital distress over time.

Marotz-Baden, R. & Mattheis, C. (1994). Daughters-in-law and stress in two-generation farm families. Family Relations, 43, 132-137. The combination of problematic integration into both the extended family and the farm family business contributed most to stress levels in daugthers-in-law.

Lavee, Y., & Olson, D. (1991). Family types and response to stress. JMF, 53, 786-798. Some of the relationships among the variables apply across the four types of family systems. marital strength was affected by intrafamily strain and was related to perceived coping resources. Effects of stressful life events and normative changes on family functioning and well being appeared to be related to the family's system type.

Weist, M., Freedman, A., Paskewitz, D, Proescher, E., & Flaherty, L. (1995). Urban youth under stress: Empirical identification of protective factors. J. Youth and Adolescence, 24 (6). For boys, family cohesion was the only variaoble found to protect against the effects of stress. For girls, family cohesion was not significant, but problem-focused coping was. Low family cohesion, along with social stress, was associated with increased vulnerability to school problems. for both, an external locus of control was associated with increases in vulnerability to life stress, and increased the likelihood of risk taking behaviors. 

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