Happiest Ever After

What is Their Locus of Control?

“When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” Unknown

In 1954, Julian Rotter, a psychologist, developed a concept he coined: locus of control. This is the degree to which people believe they have control over what happens in their life. Do things happen to you or do you make things happen?

At one extreme is the internal locus of control. People high in this attribute believe they determine their own future. They are in control and their success and failure is attributable to their efforts. ‘If I work hard, I will get a good grade.’

At the other end of the continuum is the external locus of control. They see themselves as a victim of fate. Things happen to them from the outside and, therefore, are not their fault. These are people who feel their efforts do not matter. Factors such as luck, fate, and prejudice are seen as interfering in getting what they want out of life. People with this attribute often don’t respond well to change and are less likely to learn new skills or ways of doing things since they don’t feel it will make a difference.

As with all personality traits, these occur along a continuum, rarely is one at the extreme end. The way a person leans in this respect gives us a window into how they approach life and how they solve problems. A job loss may be met by someone whose control is external with blaming and helplessness. An internal control mindset would approach this by evaluating what they could have done differently, then hustling to find a new job in their field, taking a temporary fast food position, or going back to school.

How will your locus of control effect your relationship? If both people have an internal sense of control, life will likely be pretty sweet. Both will set goals and work to attain them, will accept responsibility for their faults and put in the work to have a healthy and happy marriage.

If both people have a high external sense of control, life will likely only run smoothly when life is running smoothly. When they hit a bump in the road, there will be blaming, rationalizing, and inaction. They will fight, pinning the fault on the other, luck, or fate. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. As they aren’t readily willing to learn new ways, each will maintain the status quo and change for the better is unlikely.

A couple that has one of each will face their own unique issues. The internal person may become over- responsible. They will be doing all the work for their relationship, working harder than they would if they were with someone with a similar bent. The external locus person will become under-responsible. They are less likely to work to change things, to learn new methods. When issues crop up, the external person will heap the blame on their partner who will likely shoulder it as they are wont to do.

People with an internal responsibility have been found to have more success in all aspects in their life, including better health, career, and even relationships. There can be a downside, though. At an extreme, some of these people take on too many of the world’s problems. They blame themselves when things go wrong in the community or globally. They worry they could be doing more or that they are using too many of the world’s resources, so recycle religiously, walk rather then drive, and donate old clothes to charity. While having an internal locus can be beneficial, it can lead to being too responsible.

It shouldn’t be surprising to learn that people with an external bent suffer from stress, anxiety, and even depression when things are not going their way. They are likely to end up stagnating. Staying in a job that leads nowhere. Staying in relationships that aren’t healthy. Never becoming the best version of themselves. I have no evidence to back this up, but I believe these people also become control freaks over the things they can actually control, like eating. They try to manage as much as they can a world they see as doing things to them.

They say you can increase your internal locus of control and learn to take responsibility, so long as you are aware...

Do Either of You Lack Impulse Control?

“Delayed gratification is a sweet lesson whose teacher knows the best is not right now, it is yet to be.” Maximillian Degenerez

Walter Mischel, in 1972, conducted a study at Stanford, advising a group of children that they would get a treat. They could either have one treat that was sitting in front of them right away or two if they waited until the researcher returned. The children who were able to wait to gain a greater reward were the ones able to delay gratification. This “...determines the patience and control of a child. These two characteristics are essential in a child upon growing up to develop core moral values like being honest, kind, trustworthy, and responsible.”

People who have mastered delayed gratification have traits like patience, self control, discernment, and long-term thinking. People with these qualities were shown to be more likely to have long-term satisfying marriages.

While Mischel labelled this as delayed gratification, I would state this ability was also a measure of impulse control. How able are you to manage the urge to tell your boss to screw himself after he has told you your work has to be redone or not eat that piece of cake when you know your cholesterol is too high?

Poor impulse control is an inability or struggle against the pull of a powerful urge to engage in an activity that is illegal, immoral, unhealthy, or otherwise detrimental to oneself or those we care about. We all act rashly sometimes, but this is problematic when there is a pattern of frequently acting suddenly without thought into the detrimental consequences that will result.

When one’s partner lacks the ability to think through how their actions will effect your life together, you may find yourself cleaning up after them. One couple, while trying to rent an apartment, had one partner show up unexpectedly with a puppy belonging to a large breed. It is difficult enough to find an apartment willing to take a small dog, let alone a large one. After struggling to find a place to take them, the partner then came home with a second dog. People with impulse control issues want what they want when they want it.

A person once told me what he was looking for in a relationship: someone who would help him make good decisions as the poor ones he was currently making were costing him a lot. At least he was aware...

Do you love this person enough that you will monitor all their actions or put them on an allowance and generally treat them like a child? It can be exhausting to be the only grown up in a relationship. It is hard to develop trust and feel safe in these relationships. You never know what terrible surprise waits around the corner. While having to be the responsible one can tiring, having an impulsive partner can have devastating effects on your future. If they jump from job to job or money burns a hole in their pocket, will you find yourself deep in debt or without retirement savings? Can you handle all the household bills on your income alone if this were your reality?

Being in a relationship with someone with impulse control issues is like waiting for a disaster to happen. Will they sell your car for some magic beans? Will they start an affair with a fresh faced co-worker and leave you with four kids to support? Will their impulsive behaviour cause them to end up in jail? While these examples are at the extreme end of the spectrum, we need to look for signs that are less subtle. Do they just have to have the latest version of the phone as soon as it comes out? Do they carry a lot of debt on credit cards?

Impulse control disorder can be treated with therapy and, some subsets, with medication. Still, is this something you would stay through?

Impulse Control Worksheet

Look for these signs that someone has poor impulse control or an inability to delay gratification:

Do they carry a lot of debt?
Do they have drunk driving charges?
Do they have financial problems while making a decent living?
Have you seen compulsive lying?
Is there a history of fire starting?
Are there displays of explosive anger?
Is there a history of pulling one’s own hair?
Do they have a criminal record?
Is there a history of destroying others’ property?
In school, were they considered disruptive?
Do they have a history of theft?
Are they frequently drunk?
Is there a history of hurting people or animals?
Is there a history of risky sex?
Do they frequently say inappropriate things?
Do they want to move in together with you after only a brief courtship?
Do they have to have the latest and greatest of everything as soon as it comes out?
Are they indebted to a lot of people in money and in other ways?
Do they have a lot of ‘toys’, yet can't pay their rent?
Do they gamble frequently?
Is there a history of frequent risk-taking activities?
Have they often quit or been fired from jobs?
Do they say they like to be spontaneous or act on the spur of the moment?
Do they abhor lists and planning?
Do they often use the excuse: ‘you only live once’?
Do they get in fights?
Have you seen a lot of outbursts?
Is there a history of affairs or flirting with others?
Do they overeat or have trouble sticking to a diet?
Are there people that are afraid of them?
Have they been referred to as a hothead?
Do they have an addiction?
Do they have any savings?
Have they ever punched a hole in the wall?
Do they jump right in the minute they have an idea?
Has it ever been suggested they need anger management?
Do they buy things they don’t need?
When things are challenging, do they quit?
Do they have a lot of unfinished projects?
Do they often oversleep or are late for other reasons?
Do they plunge ahead with ideas even when everyone urges caution?
Do they fly by the seat of their pants?
Do they make purchases, then hide them?

What Matters to Them?

Everyone has a currency. Do they share their currency with you? Does this mesh with what you value?

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” José Ortega y Gasset

Early in a relationship, we can’t get enough time together. Spending time apart feels like torture and there are frequent texts, phone calls, notes left on each other's cars, and the like. It is easy to slip into the mindset that you are their top priority and always will be. Ask anyone who is in a long-term relationship and they will tell you real life sets in and this obsession cools. After the fierce desire for togetherness during a new relationship, it is easy to feel unloved when day to day responsibilities interfere. It is better to know from the beginning what matters to this person, so you have an idea what life will look like after the honeymoon phase.

Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose Driven Life, states that “...the best expression of love is time. If you want to know a person's priorities, just look at how they spend their time.” The importance of someone or something can be measured by how much time we are willing to invest. This is their currency. It may be status, career, or even money. Dr. Phil says we need to “...pay attention to how they treat what they value.” Also, observe if they share what they value with you. If they value family, but doesn’t introduce you to them, are you really important?

In a marriage, we want to believe we should be our beloved’s first priority. Were life a romance movie, we would set off on a moonlit walk and the credits would say, “And they lived happily ever after.” Real life comes with financial pressure, chores, obligations, and strife. The fairy tales of old did not address these. Cinderella did not have a car accident and Prince Charming did not have to put in overtime to get a promotion. It is a juggling act to meet our daily obligations and also let our loved one know we continue to value them. It is easy to feel lonely and undervalued when we are no longer the focus of what limited free time we have once the ‘must haves’ of mortgage and groceries have been met.

What is their passion? What was their dream job as a child? What is on their bucket list? This will give you an idea of their passions. The book The Passion Test provides a window into this question, but barring that, ask questions that will assist you in ascertaining what is valued. What do they talk about a lot? What do they get excited about? What activity do they devote a lot of time to? Can you not call them on Saturday night when hockey is on? How will this play out over a lifetime?

It is a great idea to understand how your individual styles will blend in order to understand if your journey as a couple will be smooth sailing or choppy waters. If one is devoted to career and another family, this will lead to conflict. If he is passionate about cars and rebuilding them every spare moment, how will you handle that? If she insists she talk every night for several hours to her best friend, but you want together time will you feel shortchanged? While we do not need to do everything together, trying to understand and appreciate what they love and maybe sometimes share in these interests shows a loving spirit.

When one has an outside passion that seems to take too much time away from (at least in the other's eyes) couple time, we need to find a way to navigate this. Can we find a way to include them, can we cut back on this activity, can the other find some way to spend their free time? How will you handle this?

Warren contends a person's decision to spend time with you is important, as time is finite in quantity. He calls it ‘your most precious gift’. “When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you will never get back.” Similar to this, a friend gave me flowers and stated that flowers show how much someone cares, as they are something that has a finite benefit, you are worth something that will die shortly and serve no benefit like food might.

Men don't understand this, Warren suggests. Women seem to naturally take care of everyone's needs, to make sure everyone is happy and have what they need. He hears men express exasperation that they work hard to provide money and luxuries, but it never seems enough. What matters is how much we give of ourselves. People want to know they matter enough that you will stop and listen, lend a hand, instead of something else that needs to be squeezed into their schedule.

We need to, over the course of our relationship, ensure that we carve out time for nurturing our bond. Warren asks us to question ourselves, “Honestly, are relationships my first priority?”

Is There Pressure to Marry?

“This drive for abstinence is putting a lot of pressure on girls to get married earlier.” Dr. Abeja Apunyo

One of the annoying questions we are faced with when we are young is ‘when are you going to get married?’ If a couple has been dating for a few years, the question ramps up. At family gatherings, a couple must run the gauntlet – sometimes even from the young. I once had a boyfriend’s young nephew ask when he could start calling me auntie. It is difficult to be the last person in your family or friend group that is single. To attend all the weddings, see them as they welcome children. It almost feels like everyone questions what is wrong with us if we aren’t married. Sometimes, it feels like all the world conspires to make us feel miserable if we aren’t married.

The decision to make a lifelong commitment to another person is a difficult one. We are trying to get to know who our partner really is, but also to project into the future to who they will be through all the stages and ups and downs of life. Few of us have a crystal ball to make this easy. When one adds on top of this external or internal pressure to marry, it’s easy to be unclear on whether this is a knight in shining armour or an idiot in tinfoil. To know whether we are incompatible and better off apart.

Couples now seem to feel less pressure to make their relationship official with a ceremony, but the older generations still hold onto this as the ideal for their children and grandchildren. Whether there is an official designation on your relationship or not doesn't matter. Many younger couples are as committed as those that are actually married. They buy houses together, have children, and act as a unit. They too may feel pressured to pair up permanently and make choices out of wants and needs and not from a well thought out plan.

Families that are very traditional or those of certain religions put extreme pressure on their members to marry or to wait until marriage to have sex. In these cases, are you asking all the questions or are you just blindly moving towards marriage as an expectation? The news isn’t all bad here. Arranged marriages have a much lower divorce rate. These traditional values aren’t necessarily bad and may lead to a very good outcome, but what if you are someone who doesn’t buy into your community’s beliefs? Choosing a partner is hard enough without being pressured into it.

The push to marry isn’t just an emotional issue. Unlike men, women have a window in which procreation is possible. Studies show that women are most fertile in their twenties, with a sharp decline after thirty-two. Advancements in technology have made it possible to have a child at forty, though there are greater risks at this age. In addition to the risks, who at this age has the energy to chase a high energy toddler around and who wants to be asked continually if you are the child’s grandmother? Perhaps because of this, most people I ask would prefer to have children when they are younger.

Certainly one is able to have a child as a single woman, but Norman Rockwell paintings, the media, and fairy tales we grew up on maintain that the ideal family is Mom, Dad, and children. Even girls raised by single parents want to do better by their children and give them that ideal life. Historically, the only acceptable situation in which to start a family was as a wedded couple. Girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were married quickly or quietly whisked away to have the child and then put it up for adoption. Ideas have evolved and we now have all manner of family structures. Still there are some that desperately want that ring.

At times, one person in a relationship sees forever after and the other just isn’t sure. In a survey undertaken by RelationshipsinAmerica.com (https://relationshipsinamerica.com/marriage-and-divorce/whos-more-interested-in-marrying-men-or-women) found that this occurred in one out of three couples, all of whom were dating or living together. This is a painful dynamic. The one who isn’t sure can be placed under a great deal of stress to make up their mind by their partner, family, and friends. Some have even been known to be issued with an ultimatum. Ultimatums, experts agree, are not the way to achieve a healthy relationship. It is okay, though, to state ones wants and needs and have a conversation with your partner about their wants and needs.

Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. writes, “When you make a decision to be with someone because of the pressure you feel (from yourself or others) rather than because the person seems right for you, you are giving your power away and ensuring an unhappy end to your love story.”

Have You Explored How Having Children Can Impact a Relationship? Part II

Guest Post: C.J. Fitzpatrick

If you read the previous article on how having children can impact a relationship, you probably have a pretty clear idea of some of the questions you should ask. This section, will address the same question, but from a perspective of the queer community.

If you’re in a same-sex relationship, the issue of having children is one that will require much more thought and preparation than it does for your friends in heterosexual relationships. It’s simply not going to ‘just happen’...

There’s likely three routes that you’re going to see your relationship take:

1. You decide children aren’t a want or need for you.

2. You know children are wanted, but you either can’t become pregnant, don’t want to be pregnant, or can’t afford the medical intervention necessary to become pregnant and therefore decide to adopt.

3. You want children and one or both of you are prepared to become pregnant.

All of these are equally valid. But let’s look more in-depth at the latter two options.

Studies have found that queer couples and heterosexual couples experience similar levels of stress when becoming parents, as many of the aspects (such as sleep deprivation and less time spent as a couple) are the same. Of course, there are added aspects that make the experience different... For example, there are matters of ‘legal invisiblity’ that result when only one parent is able to be legally considered the child’s parent. As well, there is the issue of homophobia among doctors – the 2006 study by Goldberg found that as many as twenty percent of lesbians experience homophobia when trying to conceive.

While most heterosexual couples seem to divide household labour based on ‘gender roles’, research has largely found same sex couples divide labour in a more egalitarian fashion (Farr & Patterson, 2013). Research seems to suggest that, in lesbian couples, the biological mother does more of the childcare labour (Patterson et al., 2004); on the other hand, in gay couples, the biological father is not more likely to perform these same tasks. It has been proven that sharing in household and childcare tasks provides more satisfaction in a relationship, regardless of the genders involved in said relationship.

While it’s important that couples looking towards having children ask a lot of questions, such as parenting styles and division of labour, there are a number of questions that are unique to same sex relationships.

Before even beginning on the journey, a couple should do research into the different methods of growing their family – i.e. adoption vs. insemination – and each method’s strengths and challenges. Among these concerns are cost, availability, and legal matters.

An important conversation to have is how to manage and cope with stigma and discrimination that will inevitably be faced. Regardless of how understanding a society you live in, there will always be people who disagree with your lifestyle. A 2015 study by Sabin et al. has found that heterosexual health care providers have in implicit bias that favours heterosexual individuals – this bias will effect the way in which they treat their same sex patients during their conception journey. Experiences such these have a strong impact on the mental health of prospective parents.

One of the things that counteracts such discrimination is having a strong social network (Goldberg & Smith, 2011). It’s important to build up such supports – from family, neighbours, church, etc. - before a child comes along.

Having children as a same sex couple is never going to be as simple as it is for the average heterosexual couple, but take heart! A three year follow up after assisted reproduction (Borneskog et al., 2014) found that lesbian couples reported stable relationships and a high satisfaction with their relationship. As well, in 2012, Huebner et al. found that, among gay couples, there was increased commitment to each other and their relationship following children.

As a note: an excellent resource for lesbians looking to have children is The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth by Kim Toevs.

Are You Ready for Children Worksheet - Non-Traditional Families

Lesbians:

Do one or both of you want to carry a child? Who will go first?
Whose eggs will you use?
Will you use IUI or IVF?
Do you want to use a sperm donor who is known to you or a stranger?
If using a known donor, do you want them to be part of your child’s life? Are you prepared to negotiate a legal contract to make your wishes clear?
Do you want to use a sperm donor who has similar looks to your partner?
Is the non-birthing partner prepared for the child potentially being more bonded to the birthing person?
How will you negotiate the legal issues involved in making sure both parents go on the birth certificate (if any exist)?
Does the non-birthing partner want to breastfeed as well?
How will you deal with homophobia that comes up during and after the process of assisted reproduction?
Do you have a strong support network?
If pursuing adoption, how will you deal with the homophobia that may come up during the adoption process?
How and when will you have the discussion with your child about why their family is different?

Gay Men:

Who will you choose to be your surrogate? Do you want someone you know or a stranger?
Do you want the surrogate to also donate eggs or will you do that separately?
Do you want the egg donor to be a part of your child’s life? Are you prepared to negotiate a legal contract to make your wishes clear?
Who will donate sperm?
Do you want to use an egg donor who has similar looks to your partner?
Do you want to be present for the birth? How involved do you want to be during the birth?
Do you want/expect a say in how the surrogate chooses to give birth?
How will you negotiate the legal issues involved in making sure both parents go on the birth certificate (if any exist)?
Will you ask the surrogate to donate breast milk? If possible, would you want to induce lactation to breastfeed the child yourself? (Yes, this is possible!)
How will you deal with homophobia that comes up during and after the process of assisted reproduction?
Do you have a strong support network?
If pursuing adoption, how will you deal with the homophobia that may come up during the adoption process?
How and when will you have the discussion with your child about why their family is different?

Transgender:

How will you deal with any dysphoria that may come up during pregnancy?
Is your healthcare provider knowledgeable in transgender pregnancy?
As a trans man, are you prepared to stop taking testosterone to get pregnant?
How will you deal with the stares and conversations that will come with being a pregnant man?
Have you done research into trans pregnancy?