Differentiation in Marriage
Falling in love is like two magnets pointed in the right direction—they tug toward each other effortlessly. But after a few years of marriage, it can feel like those magnets have flipped around. Now they're pushing away from each other.
In psychology, we have a fancy phrase for this: interpersonal differentiation. Or just differentiation for short. It's the process of flipping your magnet around so it points the right direction again. And when you do that, it makes it a lot easier for your partner's magnet to flip around too. Then you start tugging toward each other again.
Differentiation can be hard to understand, so I'm going to explain it a few different ways.
It's like being able to hold onto myself and belong to my wife.
It's my ability to be true to who I am while also being true to her.
It's my capacity to be close to her without losing my sense of self or my personal integrity.
Why Marriage Forces Differentiation
Marriage is the main driver of differentiation because if you don't differentiate, your marriage is going to be miserable.
Marriage pushes us toward this growth. And over the last few years, I've watched my own marriage change as my wife and I have been going through this process together.
One of the most important changes is that we're both more comfortable with the other person's disapproval and disagreement.
Two people living in the same home—there's obviously going to be a lot of disapproval and disagreement. That's just the way people are. But when we got married, it was really hard for both of us to handle that.
We both put a lot of effort into trying to talk the other person into seeing things our way. Into approving of us. Into not judging us. We exhausted ourselves trying to avoid the conflict of "I see it this way, but you see it that way."
As the marriage progressed, it became more and more obvious that we were just different people. We saw things differently. We wanted different things. And that felt really bad.
But over the last few years, I've learned how to make room for those differences. When my wife disapproves of me now, that's okay—because I don't have to have her approval.
It's easy to say that. But it took me years of dealing with the discomfort of her disapproval, years of feeling like I had to do something to get her to change her mind.
I don't feel that way anymore. It's still uncomfortable when she disapproves of me. But I'm used to the feeling now. And I've realized that what I need to do is simply tolerate that discomfort instead of trying to get her to change her mind.
Earning Your Own Self-Respect
Because I'm no longer focused on trying to get my wife's approval, I can put my attention somewhere else: earning my own self-respect.
That means asking myself: What kind of a man do I want to be? What kind of a husband do I want to be? What kind of a father do I want to be? Even what kind of a therapist do I want to be?
It's based on me following my own goals. Being my own judge. Deciding who I want to be and taking the next step on that path.
Shifting from "What Are You Doing to Me?" to "What Am I Doing to You?"
The last change I want to talk about is that I've been able to focus a lot more on what impact I'm having on her instead of focusing so much on what impact she's having on me.
As I've learned to see myself as someone who's going to be okay—even if she disapproves and disagrees—it's allowed me to take my focus off how she sees me and how she's impacting me.
Now I can put more of my focus and energy into: How am I impacting her? What's it like for her to live with me? What's it like for her to be married to me? How does she feel when she's around me? And how am I contributing to either her distress or her emotional wellbeing?
