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Yes, staying together is what we are all about in our journey called marriage. It's also the title of a book written by a guy named Dr. William Glasser that explained his theory about human needs and their relation to how people could stay or couldn't stay together. Dr. Glasser is a world renowned psychiatrist who has written several books. Since we have read some of them, we are a bit familiar with his control, now called, choice theory.
At the beginning of his book, Dr. Glasser stated that a good marriage is the most difficult of all affiliations to maintain. Aren't we all familiar with that? The underlying problem that he sees is what he called stimulus-response psychology. It leads people to believe that when we fail to find a successful relationship, it is someone else's fault. When we seek help from friends or professionals, we gain support for what we already believe: we are involved with the wrong mate and he or she must change for us to be happy. What we have to understand is that the only life we can control is our own and in almost all instances, we can choose to change. Depending on what changes we make in our lives, there is a strong possibility that our mate also may choose to change. If he or she changes in the right direction, our marriages can become much better.
How do we change ourselves? We must learn a lot more about our needs. Dr. Glasser wrote that there are 5 basic needs possesed by all human beings. The first one is the need for survival. Some are obvious, eating, sleeping, sex for species survival, but some are not. He mentioned that a person with a strong need to survive tends to be very conservative, takes few risks, saves rather than spends, is concerned with security, sticks with his or her own kind, values the status quo, distrusts new things, new ideas and new people. However, it is not only knowledge of need themselves, but also their strength that is important. It's the strength of the needs that form our personality.
The second need explained by Dr. Glasser is 'Love and Belonging'. Women, probably based on their role as mothers, seem to need more love than men, and statistically, tend to marry men who do not need as much as they do. When a woman marries a man who is satisfied with considerably less love and attention than she wants, both partners will be frustrated: she, because he doesn't give enough; and he, because his lesser need makes it difficult for him to understand why she both gives and wants so much.
Power is the next or third need of creatures most driven by the need for it, human beings. Just look at the news stories, lots of them are about the search for power. Most of us are not concerned with the kind of power that makes newspaper headlines. Even though almost all of us would like to have more money or prestige, our power need generally is satisfied if we are respected. To gain respect, the minimum is that someone we care about, usually our partner, listens to us. If we don't have that, almost all of us struggle to get it and, if this struggle persists, we stop loving our partner. Our need for power makes it hard for us to accept a low-power position in any relationship, particularly a marriage. Dr Glasser believes that the greatest obstacle to a happy marriage is the inability of one or both partners to satisfy their need for power. Rarely is the lack of love that destroys a relationship. Love cannot take root in a relationship in which one or both of the partners believe they have too little or no power. When one mate has a high need for power, his or her marriage has the best chance for success if the other has much less of this need. This is in contrast to survival, where two people with high survival needs are a good combination. It is the same, or even more so, for love. Couples with an equal need for love have a good chance for a happy marriage.
All living creatures struggle to be free to live as they think best. This struggle for freedom, the 4th basic need, often takes the form of attempting to get out from under the control of others. Therefore, most prominent in all human relationship is the continual struggle between freedom and power. It seems fairly obvious that people who have low freedom needs have a much better chance for a successful marriage than those with a high need for independence. If both partners have a high need for freedom, the marriage can work if they are able to recognize and accept that this is what they both need.
Last but not the least need is for fun. We have a set of learning genes that when we learn anything that is need satisfying, it causes us to feel good. And when we feel good, we believe it is because we are having fun. What do good teachers do? They make learning fun or they make school fun. Sharing a strong need for fun is supportive to all human relationships and is necessary for a succesful marriage. Dr. Glasser defines fun as: the reward of learning. What is necessary for a good relationship is that the partners share a common interest and learn together. Fun has great staying power. Sex and love may wane over a long marriage but fun remains fresh because unlike sex, it can always go in a new direction, with new interests and new hobbies.
Sorry for the long introduction to our topic tonight but we feel it's necessary to be done before we can start our sharing. We will share our discussion based on choice theory of Dr. Glasser above.
Jusni: As some of you know, Cecilia volunteers at the Tendercare nursing home, near our place. She told me once of a certain lady that she couldn't believe to be so stingy even though she is already 93 years old. I said, "It is her need for survival that makes her like that." Often we heard stories of people who save a lot, are thrifty, and I belong to this club. My survival need is quite strong. In a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is the strongest, I would give myself a 4. Indeed Dr. Glasser suggested spouses do self analysis of their needs to find out and understand one another needs profile.
Cecilia: I think my survival need is a litle bit above average, because I lost my father to cancer when I was still very young at the age of 8. It was a hard life then for my mother and us, her 6 children. So now I am careful about what I eat, and try to follow healthy life habits. I am careful in spending money too, I shop at good but cheaper places like Price Chopper and almost always look at the flyers for sale items that I need. Once Jusni's mom was telling her cousin in front of me that she believes that I can survive whereever I live, and she said that I'm tough. So I give myself 4 for my survival needs.
Jusni: At one particular time in our life, not too long ago, a friend of ours married their daughter and we were not invited even though we know the whole family. I felt OK, no concern whatsoever, but Cecilia was sad. It is obvious that my need for 'love and belonging' is less than hers. In my social life, in organizations where I am, or was member of the board, if I disliked someone or a certain situation, I would speak up with the risk of losing someone's love. In meetings, if there are people who are irritating to me, in either their attitude or behaviour, I would be vocal in voicing my disagreement and often, I would get into a fight. One of my motto: I cannot please everybody and I don't want to. I rate my need for love and belonging to be a 3.
Cecilia: I believe that my need for love and belonging runs in the family. All my brothers and sisters have strong needs for it, it's quite high for me too. Maybe because we needed each other more when we grew up to survive without a father. I like to be included in a group, I am almost always cheerful, friendly, try to help as much as I can so people will accept me. I give myself 4 for my love and belonging needs because even though it hurt when people rejected me, I can easily forget it.
Jusni: As Dr Glasser explained, need for power is not only about control. Feeling good when we achieve something, getting appreciation of what we did, passing an examination or test, are also satisfying our need for power. I got some of my power need through the exercises I am doing, whether in biking to the office, swimming laps throughout the year, or participation in other competitive sports. My power need, even though it is quite high, is still not an extreme. I am happy with what I have and have achieved so far. I got enough satisfaction from my job in the office, without becoming a manager. I have enough control at home, especially that my kids are more reasonable these days. I got it also from my recreation and social activities. I would give myself a 4.
Cecilia: Since I was young, I never liked to lead or ordered my friends around. I'd rather have peace than fighting for someting that is not really important. When I was dating Jusni, I knew a 'psychic' friend (he claimed that when he was young he saw Jesus). He told me that both Jusni and I were strong willed people. He said that I was lucky I met Jusni. He is smart, and one day he will be well known internationally :-). He said that I had to give in a lot if I married Jusni. His word stuck in my head :-), but it turned out that I rarely felt unhappy following Jusni's decisions. I just kept reminding him that I liked to do something else, like when I wanted to go canoeing, at first he didn't want to do it at all. It's dangerous he said, but now he loves it :). So usually I give in but not give up, and sometimes I am happy if other persons do what I want them to do, so I rate my need for power as 3.
Jusni: I have a high need for freedom. I may say 4.5 but because it's not good to be indecisive, I don't mind to put myself at a 5 rating. I don't like other people controlling me, including my wife. If my need for freedom is not that high, I would not have become an immigrant and may still be living in Indonesia, land of the oppressed. Because of this need for freedom, I didn't marry until a bit later, according to Indonesian standard. My parents were so happy when I told them I'd like to marry Cecilia, after courting her for several years. I was very much aware that I would lose part of my freedom after I got married but I was certain that Cecilia would still allow me to do many things I love. After all, this loss was overcome by getting the best love in the world from the most beloved person in my life. Another example that I still have my freedom is in the trust I get from Cecilia. If I have to go on a business trip, either when we still lived in Indonesia or after we moved to Canada, she never asked me what I was doing at night time. Lots of Asian wives know what their husbands would do when they go to Bangkok, Thailand, the capital city of brothels in the world. I didn't have to tell Cecilia about it.
Cecilia: My need for fredom is quite high, I don't like structured time, like doing laundry on a certain day every week, or cooking every day :-). I don't like it when Jusni asked me to do laundry, but when he said nicely that he didn't have anymore clean underwear, I would do it right away :-). I like doing things my own way, I was upset when my mother wanted me to do certain things like she did. I give myself 4 for my need to be free.
Jusni: Fun is a big thing in our lives and indeed we do this together, most of the time. Our last reward of learning or fun is in the canoeing that we now do together. Again, we are fortunate that we enjoy the same thing, be it camping, canoeing, playing Scrabble or other recreational activities we did since we were married. However, I consider my need for fun is less than Cecilia. It is only a 3. People with a 5 rating would do things like sky diving, para-sailing, bungee jumping, or other more exciting things and I don't intend to do those.
Cecilia: I have a high need for fun, I like to learn a lot of new things, but because my need for love and belonging is quite high, I need somebody else to do it with. I'm not highly independent, that's why I'm very happy when Jusni goes along with me to do something new. For the coming winter I want to try cross country skiing, but I have to drag Jusni to do it because his need for fun is just average :-). I laugh a lot, look at life in positive ways. Even though I can't make a joke or funny remark, I like other people's jokes, especially Jusni's comments on the Internet. He likes to tease people, he is very good at writing it, better than speaking. I give myself a 4 for my need for fun.
Dialog question: Knowing the 5 needs, survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun, what do I say about my need profile. In my opinion, how does this profile affect our marriage. HDIFA (How Do I Feel About) this?