Psychology 409b: The Unity Model of
Marriage –
Appreciation and Expressing feelings
By Nicole May
Instructions for this activity are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/g26-oral1.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon James
Coleman, Joshua. The Lazy Husband (
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409b-g26-lecture-notes.htm
The Lazy Husband-
Pg 191-206
I.
Part 1:
1. Appreciation:
a. Most of Coleman’s book is directed towards the wife, and teaching them how to help change the actions of their husbands. In this section, Coleman is giving advice to men on how to help make their marriage better with their wife.
b. One of the things that Coleman stresses to men is to appreciate their wives more. By constantly telling them that they appreciate them for cooking dinner or for taking care of the kids, will help ease the tensions between the husband and wife and will make the wife feel a little better knowing that the husband appreciates all that she does instead of just taking her for granted.
c. Coleman also points out the fact that woman can be self critical and by appreciating the aspects of her that she likes or dislikes about her self will increase her self esteem and will increase happiness between the man and the woman. Some of these topics include; parenting, career, weight, capacity as a wife and mother, intelligence, etc.
2. Expressing Feelings:
a. Another thing that Coleman encourages is for men to open up, and express their feelings more with their wives. He says men have the habit of being a stone wall and by keeping their thoughts and feelings to themselves, it will make their wives go crazy.
b. Coleman states that by shutting down, withdrawing and refusing to talk about what’s bothering the man will only cause problems in the marriage.
c. Some men think that telling their wives about their vulnerabilities and anxieties will make them look weak in their wives eyes. However, Coleman says that this opening up will make men actually look stronger because he is willing to talk about it and share it with is wife.
II. Part II: Comparing The Lazy Husband to Unity 14 & 15
1.
Coleman’s
advice on appreciation:
a. I believe that Coleman gave good advice to his male readers about being appreciative towards their wives. Through out the Unity model lecture notes we have been learning that the men should always compliment their woman and that being appreciative shows that they care and want to conjoin with their wife.
b. By being appreciative and giving her compliments, he is being romantic and sexy towards his wife just like he was when they were first going out. Unity 14 says that the man should always act as if he was on a permanent date with his wife and treat her like he did during the “honeymoon phase.”
c. One sentence that Coleman stated, however, did not agree with what the unity model tells us. He states, “This doesn’t mean that you can never complain about your wife.” Basically he is saying to appreciate the woman more but it is still ok to disagree with her and complain about her if he needs to.
d. By complaining and disagreeing with her, a fight will occur and the wife will feel unloved and hurt. Unity 14 tells us that there is never any “anger, hostility, disagreement or bickering between them.” If the husband truly wants to be conjoined with his wife, he would not only continue to show his appreciation, but he will also not revert back to the dominance model by being disjunctive with his wife.
2. Coleman’s advice on expressing feelings.
a. Once again I feel Coleman was right to tell the men to open up more with their wives to avoid fights and to show them that they really do care. By keeping a stone wall up, he is being disjunctive and is refusing to allow his wife to conjoin with him.
b. However, Coleman says that it is better to complain to their wife instead of withdrawing because by complaining; the men look engaged in the marriage while the men who withdraw look like they don’t even care. While we agree that the man should not withdraw, the unity model states that the man should not complain either.
c. As stated earlier, complaining will result in a fight and will end up making the wife hurt and unhappy. Both withdrawing and complaining shows that the man is resisting giving up his independence. By keeping his independence, he is refusing to conjoin with his wife.
d. Unity 15 states that if the man is spiritually and rationally enlightened and sees that he needs his wife to become eternally happy, then the man will be a “cooperative and thoughtful partner.” He needs to have total union, and total conjunction to achieve this level, therefore, the man needs to get rid of his male dominance, which includes getting rid of his complaints as well as his independence.
Long, Heather. “Appreciation
Exercises.” Families.com. 2006. http://marriage.families.com/blog/appreciation-exercises
This site gives people some help
on how to show appreciation in their marriages.
These appreciation exercises allow people the chance to practice showing
their appreciation to their spouses with a guide to go along with it. The appreciation exercises include making a
list of the ways in which they appreciate their spouse; taking a walk in their
shoes by trying to do some of the work that they do; and making them a gift to
show their appreciation for all of the hard work that their spouse does. These appreciation exercises would probably
be approved by Coleman and is a good thing to apply to unity marriages as well.
Coleman gives advice to men and women on some things that they can do that will help their marriages. In this site, midlife marriages seem to have the most problems. Increased stress and other factors such as kids can cause a marriage to struggle. Some tips that this website provides are; Spend Time Together, Common Goals and Teamwork, Communication and Expectations, Appreciation and Affection, Sexual Fulfillment, Agreement on Gender Roles, and Commitment to Growth. Most of these tips are given in Coleman’s book as well.
3. Long Lasting Love
This site also gives 5 tips on how to make your marriage last, and how to achieve “long lasting love”. The first is to become the master of commitment, meaning say what you mean and commit to what you say. The second is to become emotionally transparent, meaning to express your feelings with your spouse and not hold things back. The third is to break the cycle of blame and criticism. In unity, blame and criticism should not exist. The fourth is being creative. They say “fully creative people don't have time for complaint,” which is good because complaints are not a part of unity. And the last tip is become a master at verbal and nonverbal appreciation, which is what Coleman tries to tell his male readers.
My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bs2007/may/may-home.htm
Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/classhome-g26.htm