7 Types Of Dysfunctional Marriages
Well, is your marriage dysfunctional? Then how would you know? The 7 reasons below will help you out.
1. The punctuators
These are marriages where one or both spouses is always “adding up the dots” of the other spouse’s behavior and then using that information to manipulate or control aspects of the marriage. Forgiveness is never really sought or truly given. Markers are always alert because they see marriage as a contest to be won – against your spouse instead of something to be won in partnership.
2. The fantasies
These couples have almost given up on pursuing a passionate intimacy with each other, so they often escape into fantasy through romance or pornography. The deeper you seek for fantasy, the more insensitive you become for real love and the more dissatisfied with your spouse, your sex life, and your marriage.
3. “Outsourcers”
These dysfunctional couples “outsource” the most sacred aspects of marriage, which are emotional support, friendship, acceptance, companionship, and sometimes even sex, to other people or activities. They can also hurt their careers or give up their hobbies if they find fulfillment in these areas. They give their best to other people or activities at the expense of their marriage.
4. The accusers
These are marriages in which one or both spouses always blame the other for all the problems of the relationship. These couples tend to have regular (often warm) discussions, with no real solutions. Even when they are not arguing, their communication still contains a great deal of sarcasm and is annoying. They live in perpetual frustration with one another.
5. Individualists
These are couples who never seem to fully understand the partnership required for a healthy marriage. They live as two separate people with separate hopes, separate dreams, separate money – often separate bank accounts, separate hobbies, separated friends and eventually separate lives altogether.
6. The deceivers
These couples have no confidence in each other, and their lack of trust is perpetuated by keeping secrets and hiding details or hiding money, conversations, etc. from one another. Without trust and transparency in marriage, couples live in a state of artificial harmony and never experience true intimacy, because secrecy is an enemy of intimacy.
7. Dropouts
These couples play with the word “divorce” in almost every disagreement until they finally go ahead and give up on the marriage. They see the difficulties in marriage as an excuse to leave instead of an opportunity to work together and strengthen. They often remarry with another person and then repeat the same cycles of dysfunction in the new relationship.
Are you going through one or more of the above mentioned points, then you may need to work on it.
