Episode 9. Who Wears the Power in Your Relationship?
Join us this week on Marriage IQ as we dive deep into the touchy topic of power dynamics in marriage. We share vulnerability from our own experiences and those of people we know. You'll hear realistic examples of unhealthy power imbalances - like when he controls the money or she leverages sex. But it's not all gloom! We also talk about the traits unique to masculine and feminine identities that contribute to these dynamics. The goal isn't to shame but educate. They explain new research showing equal power correlates with marital success and lower divorce rates. They ask thoughtful questions to help you assess the balance of influence in your own relationship. This conversation is a springboard for part two where they'll give actionable tips to synergize your differences and complement each other better. If you want to transform the unhealthy power plays to create more intimacy, you'll find this super helpful.
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm doctor Heidi Hastings. And I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones, using intelligence mixed with a little fun.00:00:37
This is CB's News. We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this urgently important news flash. Some listeners have wondered why the hosts of marriage IQ, two doctors, two spouses, two researchers, and two lovers, don't always agree with each other while on the air. In fact, at times, one host may seem frustrated with the other, or not see their point of view. There may even be what appears to be some tension between them.00:01:11
Gasp. How could this be? I thought they were supposed to be like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. Ah, insisting their perfect found wisdom on all the poor wretches out there. Why don't they agree before they they come to the show?00:01:34
They agree to be totally unified, totally confident, totally seamless in their delivery of such vital marriage information. Why isn't each episode a beautifully wrapped, symmetrical box with a cute little bow on top? Well, the secret is out. The hosts of Marriage IQ have intentionally created this podcast to show people that a truly intelligent marriage is not perfectly packaged and tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things.00:02:09
It's organic, it's real, it's raw. And sometimes you get to see how we respond, repair, and remediate our relationship in real time. Absolutely. That in no way means we don't come prepared. As we said, we are two incredibly different people with different perspectives, coming together for one purpose, to empower you to change the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones.00:02:41
But as we do so, using authenticity, vulnerability, and honesty, now onto the regularly scheduled programming why on earth do we get married? Why? Great question. We already know that about 40% of first time marriages will end in divorce. Depending on the study, around 25% to 75%.00:03:10
That's a huge range, by the way, of still married. People are relatively unhappy, I guess, depending on the questions that are asked. Well, and I think it also is first marriages versus subsequent marriages. If you get married again, that percentage goes up. So that's why the overall average is about 50%.00:03:32
But first time marriages are 40%. So taking the perspective of a woman, that's so easy for you to do, given all the things that could possibly go wrong in a relationship, I would be tempted to say, as a man, that men just generally suck. So why do you do it? Women. But wait.00:03:57
What if men really don't suck? Maybe it's like learning a new language. A new language? I'm trying to learn Spanish on Duolingo, and this is really hits home for me. We're learning a new language today.00:04:12
Well, I'll tell you why I chose to marry you. You pulled me in with your humor. You completely captivated my heart with the classical piano music that you composed and played for me. And you just bestowed so much love on me. That is why I got married.00:04:36
But why I've stayed married to you is because you've followed up. You've just really showed me so much love, so much attention, so much care. We do things together and so well.00:04:59
I'll slip through the check later. All right. Scott, last week you asked the question, what is the elephant in the room in our relationships? Yeah, we all sense it, but we never talk about it. And a lot of times we can't figure out what it is.00:05:20
So you know what it is? I know what it is. We've been talking about this for a couple of years now, but is it time to reveal? Drum roll. Power.00:05:34
All right. All right. Well, let me just tell you how this came to be. I was doing research, and I notice in this phenomenon that all these women are experiencing. They're talking about giving up power.00:05:51
They don't use those words, but when it comes time to make decisions in their relationship, to stabilize the relationship, they would give up things that were really important to them, and then they'd really. Or they would do things they didn't want to do that were really against their moral code to stabilize the relationship. Oh. And they would also silence themselves and not speak out about what they really thought. So you and I started to have a lot of big conversations during this time about power, and that's why we feel so driven to share that today.00:06:28
But I hear a lot of women say, my husband is the one who primarily makes all the money in my family and protects me and my family, but he also has total control over whatever I can spend. He tells me what I can. He tells me what I can't. He won't let me touch his cell phone. He doesn't listen to me.00:06:50
He doesn't talk to me about major decisions that he makes that impact me and our relationship and our family. So different questions for different women, but those are really frustrating when they feel powerless in all of those areas. There are also a lot of men who say things like, my wife is the only person that I have sex with. And she has total control over how often we have sex and what kind of sex we have. What if I really need it?00:07:22
And she says, no. There's a lot of frustration in that, and that doesn't mean that necessarily. Men are the only ones that say that women have that, who are the higher desire partners also have that same frustration over power. Some men I've heard say, well, my wife makes these large purchases that we don't agree with beforehand. Like what?00:07:50
Like, if I were to buy that freeze dryer that I bought a. How much did that cost? $3,000. Because I want to be prepared. But I didn't buy it without talking to you.00:08:07
Yeah, we talked. But if I had, we agreed. You're right. That would be one of those things that would be really frustrating, that we're trying to live within a budget or we're trying to control. Yeah, right.00:08:19
The money. And she's spending a way more in a lot of areas without being accountable or responsible for that. Yeah. Wow. Those are some of the things I hear.00:08:31
Let's talk about maybe what's behind some of those power imbalances. Let's start by telling you a story. Ah, I like that. All right, well, let's do. Let's talk.00:08:43
Let's jump into a story kind of compounded by just different people who we know. Yep. And, Heidi, why don't you start with some of the problems that a woman might see in a relationship? Okay. So one of the things I've noticed is, like I previously said, men can sometimes exert really heavy financial power in the relationship.00:09:13
They take control of the finances, they say, because they make the majority of the money, and sometimes all of the money, they get to decide where the money goes and maybe give her an allowance or just not let her be a decision maker in where the money is being spent. Sometimes he criticizes her parenting in front of the kids, which strips her of power as a mother, especially if that happens a lot. Every once in a while, we'll see a guy who just has that good guy syndrome. He says, I'm doing all of this for her. And he has this internal sense of superiority, because the story, it's the story he tells himself, right?00:09:54
Yeah. And it's really only one sided. We tell ourselves a story. His words or his body language may indicate that she's not as smart as he is. He's the smart one.00:10:05
And because of that, he feels that he should be the one to make the decisions, to be in charge, even though in all actuality, he's holding power over his wife by doing so. And he doesn't even know it. Huh? He doesn't even realize it. He doesn't want to be accountable to her for anything.00:10:23
He comes and goes when he wants. He comes home for dinner sometimes he doesn't. He has no idea what his schedule is ahead of time to share with her and doesn't reach out to her during the day to let her know. So she doesn't. She's just feeling like, I just don't know where he is, what he's doing, if I can trust him or, you know, also, are we having dinner together tonight?00:10:45
Are we doing things as a family? So just the lack of wanting to be accountable to each other. He prioritizes his interests, his hobby, probably his job, for sure. And relationships outside the marriage, maybe his parents or siblings or hanging out with his buddies. Yeah.00:11:03
Over her. What other things do you, can you think of that men might do that might show power over? So sometimes, or a lot of times we've seen, when he doesn't get the results that he wants from his wife, not the expected outcome, he doubles down and exerts more power thinking that's going to fix it. He also exerts religious power sometimes if they're in a religious household, like, I'm the more righteous one, I'm the man. The scriptures say that I'm the one who you have to obey.00:11:41
Right. I did see that in my research in some religions. Yeah. The power of the victim. He sees himself as powerless.00:11:50
That's the story he tells himself. And so he tries to take more by being more condescending, more restrictive financially. He also has a power in the community. If he's known in the community because of his possible employment and roles in the community as a leader or someone well known. The power of the rescuer.00:12:19
This is a big one. And a lot of men don't recognize this. It's you. Poor little thing. Let me pull you out of this pit.00:12:31
I'm just so much more adept than you are and capable in every way, and that's really intoxicating. So those are a few other things that men can exert power over women in a relationship. Just a few of them. I think the financial one's really interesting, and that's one of the reasons that we feel so strongly about budgeting and handling our finances together and making those decisions together, because that's so easy to exert power with that one. Some of the other ones are a little bit less obvious, but that's not to say that you shouldn't have a budget and that, you know, when you are talking about power and that you're trying to hold each other accountable for it, but one person doing all the holding the other person accountable is where the other person can really feel powerless.00:13:28
Yeah. Well, for women, there are a lot of different kinds of power, but a couple that I feel feed into the power and balance more are when she has a scarcity mindset and this creates in her a sense of fear that she has no power or that she's afraid of losing power, she reacts as if everything's going to be catastrophic. And it really, I think, perhaps, might influence anxiety in some ways. So subconsciously, she takes power through emotional over reactivity at times. We've seen that in people that we know, she exerts sexual power to limit the frequency or the type of the sex that they have according to her desires.00:14:18
Or in other cases, she submits her sexual power, meaning she gives in to what he wants, to stabilize the relationship, even though she feels very uncomfortable with it. She also, at times, withholds performing household responsibilities that they've previously agreed upon, or she completely takes control of all household and parenting responsibilities and leaves him with no power when it comes to those things. Hmm. That's really interesting. So is it normal to have a power imbalance in a marriage?00:14:57
Normal meaning, do most people have power imbalances in their marriage? I would say yes. Okay. Is it okay? I think it can be if it's joint, if the decisions are made jointly.00:15:14
So in some relationships, women mostly care for children, men largely responsible for providing for the family financially. We acknowledge for some of you out there, equal power is out of the question right now. And some of these roles may be reversed, and we totally get that. Don't understand it fully because we don't live it. But I can definitely.00:15:41
We can both definitely respect that, but it can create some division between you, each other, kind of becoming a roommate type syndrome. Right. And I would say with that, if you're in a situation where it's in really unhealthy power imbalance and you're not able to come together to make some of these changes that we might be talking about today, stick with us, because towards the end of the episode, we will have suggestions for individuals as well. So let's kind of delve into what is. Let's try to define power first as an identity, something that we're kind of born with.00:16:27
And I understand that this can be quite controversial given the cultural expectations between genders which is very, very volatile right now. Right. But I do think our identity is largely influenced by culture. And if we realize that, that will explain a lot of why we may pick up these parts of identities as who we really believe we are. It's really like weaving through a field of landmines, again, like the elephant in the room.00:17:01
But some of the things we're going to talk about are also more inherent. So men are physically larger, stronger, and faster. Again, some of you may say that's sexist, and I would say, yep, but it's also reality. All the world and olympic records for speed and strength are held by men. I looked it up.00:17:23
It's true. There's no other way around that. Men are typically thought of, again, masculine identity, protector, provider. And even now, men are the provider in the major provider, financially, in the home for 69% of households. Now, that's come way down from over 80, I think 85% in 1980.00:17:53
But they're still in the majority. They're over two thirds. And so that's still a male masculine type of identity. They are assertive, stoic. So stoic means they're not rocked by emotions, and they may have fewer emotions.00:18:12
In fact, there's a condition called alexithymia, which is a total lack of showing emotion and feeling emotion. And do men have that? More than one, and actually, yes. I just looked this up. There's a big meta analysis, and the men, it wasn't as high as I thought, but men do outnumber women in most of these studies with just struggling to.00:18:37
And they don't know if that's just part of a cultural thing or not. But traditionally tend to be less emotional, independent, aggressive. Men are about twice as likely to cut off another driver than women. Wow. They take initiative.00:18:57
Men are calculating. 65% of men are employed in the science, technology, engineering, and math. So again, another solid two thirds. They tend to be more risk taking. Men own 63% of privately held businesses.00:19:16
They tend to be more dominant. And again, women can have these traits, too. But we're talking about generalities. We're talking about general masculine traits that are found more often in men than in women. So, Heidi, do you want to tell us a little bit about the feminine identity?00:19:37
Sure. Some of the ones that I thought of, first and foremost, only women have the power to create and give life. That is not something shared by men. It's not. Well, what it takes to create life is.00:19:52
But. But we cannot deliver babies. Right. Right. We really have the power to influence future generations, values, morals and knowledge.00:20:03
More than men, we can be captivating, alluring to men, because men are drawn to the female body and find it intoxicating and irresistible sometimes. So just. Just our biology alone with our scent, our tone of voice, our body shape, our level of confidence, and how we carry ourselves really gives us power to captivate. Yeah, power to captivate. Yes.00:20:33
Men can have some of these next things I'm going to talk about, too. But women may be more prone to have some of these types of powers because of inherent gifts or traits. I think, at least right now in culture, women have more power to have faith. They are more compassionate. They are more likely to be teachers in their homes or as a career.00:21:04
Right now, 80% of teachers in the US are female. They have the ability to beautify everything around them, their home, their living space, the world, to make it a more beautiful, a more peaceful place. They have deep ability to be peacemakers. They're more refined, they are more emotional. Like you said, women are actually four times more likely to have histrionic personality disorder, which means that they have an overabundance of emotions, can fluctuate wildly, right.00:21:40
They are more gifted with language and expression most often than men. So what do we do with this? These are two very different sets of characteristics, and they clash a lot of times, right? They do. And when we take advantage of the power that we have in certain areas over another person, that's what makes it problematic.00:22:08
Those inherently are good things, right. That we were just talking about. Excellent. When we use them to create a relationship of power over someone. And we'll talk about that in a moment.00:22:20
But I wanted to talk, just a moment, about some research by doctor Carmen Knudsen Martin. She has conducted quite a bit of research on power in heterosexual couples and found that relationships that have well balanced power have the potential to heal old wounds and promote health and resilience. So if there are some wounds in your relationship that are really difficult to let go, it may indicate that there is an imbalance of power in there. And if you're able to stabilize those power imbalances a little better, then you'll be able to heal and move forward a lot better also. So she came up with four different areas that we can work to create better balance within our marriages.00:23:16
The first one she talks about is mutual influence. So I think about this as when each partner, when you and I can validate each other's worth by letting each other know. I recognize that you have needs. I recognize that your needs are really important. And then I'm attentive and I'm observant, and I'm interested in you and what your needs are and in trying to help fulfill your needs.00:23:46
But it has to go both ways. Women are more inherently prone to care for the needs of both husband and children. And she's giving us a few questions to look at and ideas on how to have a better mutual influence. The first is, how prone are we to engage in shared decision making? Does one of us always make the decisions, or more likely, make the decisions?00:24:18
Or you just outsource it to the other person? Like, oh, you do this. This is your job. Right, right, exactly. Yeah.00:24:27
So what they're saying, maybe open it up, start thinking outside the box. Yes. Talk about those things together. We do that in our businesses. Both you and I have a time set apart that, okay, this is the time we're going to talk about Scott's business, and we make some of the major decisions together.00:24:48
And then, the same with my business, we also do that in things concerning our home and in our relationship. So, yeah, like, on Tuesday nights, we talk about our medical clinic, and on Saturday mornings, we talk about your business. Right. And we set it up. We schedule it.00:25:13
Right. How open are we to being influenced by the other people? By the other person? And just a little example on that one. Years ago, I felt really strongly that we needed to purchase the office space next to our medical office because I felt like we were going to have a growth spurt.00:25:32
And you said, nope, we can't do it. And that was kind of the end of the question. This was before we really had our eyes open to power so much. Within a year, we'd outgrown our office. And right before we realized that, someone else came in and bought the next office.00:25:51
And so we've been trying so hard to just come up with solutions outside the box to stay in the same office space. But it would have certainly helped to have that extra space next door. Are we willing to listen to the ideas of our partner? So you're right. Basically, that's the bottom line here.00:26:15
Well, I might have been whose interests and schedule organize the daily schedules and routines of each other? Is it all around one person or the other? And actually, sometimes it's even around the children. Are we giving children the power in that, that we are not taking care of each other because we are so invested in either one person or someone outside the marriage? How open are you to being changed by your partner and willing to accommodate to their needs or suggestions?00:26:48
So all of these are questions about mutual influence. John Gottman has some research where he showed from a long term study of newlywed couples that men who allow their wives to influence them have happier marriages and are less likely to divorce than men who resist their wives influence. He finds that it's very difficult for men to accept their wives influence in most cases. It's a very intentional thing for these men, statistically speaking. He shared that when a man is unwilling to share power with his partner, there's an 81% chance that his marriage will self destruct.00:27:31
81. They got it down to the percentile. 81. Isn't that crazy? So, wow, that is interesting.00:27:43
Is it actually power giving or just accepting their influence? And I don't know what the criteria were for him to measure that. I didn't look into that, but, so, because I can think of some women who might be saying, well, that's great for the research, but my husband's not going to do this. It's not happening. It's not going to happen.00:28:08
And so there is. It might self destruct. Well, I think, though, that part of what we're doing today is teaching women how to empower themselves, despite. Yes, despite this. So.00:28:22
Right. Another area to look at is shared relational responsibility. And this occurs when both partners are sensitive to their partner's wellbeing, and they make it safe to be vulnerable. They're accountable for sharing the load within their home and with their spouse. As far as taking care of their relationship, they have the insight into what effect their actions have on their partner, and they're actively taking responsibility for creating a relationship.00:28:53
Both partners are. So who keeps track of the need of what needs to be done in the house, for the children in the relationship? How do concerns for the relationship compare with what is good for the self? How entitled does each feel to have their own needs met? These are all really good questions.00:29:12
Yeah. So this could look like a better division of labor with chores in the home or taking care of the children. But it also could look, like I said, as a shared responsibility to invest in your partner, each investing in each other as well as the marital relationship. So it sounds to me like for the woman, anyway, to see her husband come home from work, and he's been. Been at work all day, right.00:29:45
He comes home and maybe she's been at work all day, too, right? And he jumps in and she's maybe making dinner, he's helping kids with homework. Maybe he's doing dinner, she's doing dishes afterwards. Just a more equitable type of a relationship. Right.00:30:09
During graduate school, I had to read a book on division of labor with a much greater number of women in the workforce now. And it shows that, yeah, there are a lot more dual earning incomes households within the US, but there's not collaboration when it comes to household duties. So we've talked about the different powers that both women and men bring into a relationship, the feminine power of women, the masculine power of men, some similarities, some differences, and how that can play out in a relationship. Yeah, some examples in a relationship. Now that we've identified these things, we are going to start a second part of this power podcast next time that brings together this power that you bring into the relationship and learning how to synergize it, to bring it together to complement each other.00:31:10
So as a couple, you become far more powerful as two than you do alone as one. And that is a big part of what helps you have an intelligent marriage IQ. Yes. So wait for the second part that's coming out soon where we talk about all this. It's going to be great.00:31:32
And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves. We really are so grateful that you joined us today, and we look forward to having you join us next time on marriage. Marriage IQ.
