The Exceptional Seven Percent. Gregory K. Popcak
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The Conventional Storybook husband is the breadwinner of the family, but he tries to be careful not to lord his position over the family like a Shipwrecked Materialistic husband would. One major issue the Storybook husband deals with is that since he gets so much of his identity from being a (insert family name/cultural identity here) he may have a difficult time standing up to mummy and daddy, even when his marriage depends on it.
Spousal roles could best be defined as “semipermeable.” The Storybook husband usually solicits his wife’s opinions on the finances, but most of the time ends up explaining why his way is the best way to go. Likewise, the Storybook wife asks her husband’s opinions on the managing of the domestic front, but then explains why her way is the best. In general, the spousal roles in Storybook marriages are more distinct and well defined than those of more satisfied couples further up the pathway. However, they are not nearly as rigid and legalistic as the roles in Shipwrecked marriages.
As I mentioned above, the primary danger to all Conventional marriages is “growing apart.” For the Conventional Storybook marriage, this usually means that the husband throws himself into work, while the wife throws herself into maintaining the home and caring for the children. One day, the couple wakes up to find that they are living parallel lives. The only way to prevent this is for the husband and wife to at least maintain some interest in each other’s worlds. This is difficult for some Conventional couples who can get a bit lazy about pushing themselves to share in activities with their mate that are not of great interest to themselves. Often what propels a couple through these selfish tendencies are the examples of other, more attentive married couples in the groups to which they belong. Conventional couples may be willing to ignore their own mate at times but they despise being found wanting by other members of their group. It is this accountability that—when it works well—reminds Conventional couples to care for their marriages. Those Conventional couples who belong to “values groups” that do not specifically support marriage run a considerably higher risk of divorce
Now let’s look at the Storybook marriage’s estranged cousin, the Star marriage.
Star Marriages
MARITAL THEME: Supporting and maintaining each other’s place in the world.
The only real difference between Storybook and Star marriages is that Star couples build their marriages around more liberal political beliefs, including feminism. Likewise, rather than seeking more active involvement in traditional religious and community organizations as their Storybook cousins do, the Star couple often get involved in professional and political organizations and community groups with a more liberal social agenda.
The Star couple’s marriage is the thing from which the husband and wife can draw strength to go out and conquer the world. Proving themselves in the workplace is perhaps the single most important agenda for the Star couple. Their work may or may not be glamorous, but this is less relevant than the fact that “doing the best job possible” or “shining” at the office is personally important. The Star couple is susceptible to all the pitfalls of their Storybook cousins. Only the details differ. For example, the Star couple’s risk of growing apart is played out in both the husband and wife’s devotion to their work. If the couple is not careful to share some interests and schedule some time to be together, their home can become the place where they carry on a collective monologue as they work on separate projects, coordinate separate schedules, and pursue separate civic involvements, but rarely, if ever, relate to one another.
Also, the Star couple, being consciously or unconsciously more sensitive to the motto, “the personal is political,” is very attentive to domestic scorekeeping. Arguments about the “fair” division of labor are fairly common, especially in the earlier stages of the marriage. As for marital chicken, it is often played when negotiating work schedules. “You know I can’t go to your office party on the third, I have a meeting that night. I would never ask you to give up an important meeting for me!” or “Of course I’d love to come home early and go to a movie but the project committee is meeting for dinner. You know how important this is to me. Why are you being so needy right when I’m getting my chance to shine?”
Children are also a sensitive issue for the Star couple, who tend to fear both “losing themselves” to the parenting role and what having children may do to the balance of power in the relationship. As with Storybook couples, Star couples need to remember that a truly solid identity cannot be lost. To achieve greater identity strength, Conventional couples will have to develop a clearer sense of their own values, ideals, and goals which will then form the basis of their marital imperative. This, more than anything, will move the marriage toward Exceptional couplehood (see below).
Recommendations for Conventional Couples
To move beyond the Conventional stage, couples must concentrate on the following.
1. Solidify your value system. The most important challenge that stands between the Conventional couple and Exceptional couplehood is developing a marital imperative: a deeply held and mutually shared set of values, ideals, and goals that will guide the couple’s life and marriage. In order to become an Exceptional couple you must examine how your values can motivate you to give more of yourself than seems “fair” and make choices that might make you seem somewhat “unconventional” to others. For example, a more Conventional husband may excuse himself from acting lovingly toward his wife because he feels her present behavior does not warrant such generosity (and his friends may congratulate him for not being a doormat), but the Exceptional husband is more immune to such periodic lapses by his mate (after all, he has them too) and will continue to be loving even in the face of them because that is the kind of person he wishes to be when he “grows up.” The Exceptional person will not allow himself to become a victim, but he also knows that to be true to himself, he must first be true to the values he upholds.
One major aid to the process of clarifying and solidifying one’s values, ideals, and goals is pursuing a continually stronger identification with, and apprenticeship to, the specific ideals upheld by a particular values group (church or synagogue, men’s and women’s groups, political organizations). This is the method used by many “naturally occurring” Exceptional couples.
Up until now, the more Conventional couple has appreciated their particular values group for the comfort they receive, or sense of importance they derive, from being involved. For example, a Conventional couple might attend a particular church because, “even though we don’t agree with many of the teachings, it gives us comfort to go,” or they might belong to a civic organization because “it gives us a sense of purpose.” This attitude is fine up to a point, but good as it is, it is basically a self-centered approach to faith and works. To move to the next level, couples must ask not what their values can do for them, but ask what they can do for their values, to borrow a phrase. Apprenticing themselves to a values group can provide the clarification, accountability, and support most people need to be true to their own values when the going gets tough. By way of example, some prominent couples who I believe (based on their writing and reputations) meet the criteria for at least the first category of Exceptional couplehood (the Partnership marriages) include movie critic Michael Medved and psychologist and author, Dr. Diane Medved; businessman and motivational speaker Stephen Covey and Sandra Covey; and nationally known child-care experts, Dr. William Sears and Martha Sears, R.N. In addition to the many admirable qualities about these couples, each is an active member of a strong faith community (Judaism, Mormonism, and Evangelical Protestantism, respectively.) Similarly, one can also have an Exceptional marriage based on more secular values. Perhaps a good example of this would be the marriage of Democratic political strategist James Carville and Republican political strategist Mary Matalin. From a psychological perspective, the “ism” you subscribe to is not as important as the need to become a hard-working, faithful apprentice of that “ism” in order to ultimately clarify your own beliefs and sense of self.
The idea of apprenticing oneself to a particular, organized values group is admittedly distasteful to the Western—and especially, American—mind. But Erik Erikson and Abraham Maslow’s independent work on identity development, Lawrence Kohlberg’s studies of moral development, and James Fowler’s research on faith development all agree that often it is important