[By Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R and Chaya Feuerman, LCSW-R]

Improving your marriage relationship is a lifelong journey. Someone who believes that a good healthy marriage does not take constant dedication and work is at best settling for mediocrity, and at worst heading for disaster. In this article, we will discuss the 10 biggest relationship mistakes that people make. These are ideas that come from research and studies about how to maintain successful marriages and our own twenty years of experience as therapists.

Mistake #1: Keeping Score And Bearing A Grudge. This is the absolutely worse thing that you can do for your relationship. Frankly, if you are not able to let go and accept that your spouse makes plenty of mistakes and will definitely disappoint and hurt you at times, you just aren\’t marriage material. Save yourself headaches of legal fees and custody battles – just move into a \”unibomber\” style cabin in the woods and cut yourself off from civilization. Seriously though, if you want a happy marriage you must master the art of being emotionally generous with your spouse. That means doing kindness for your spouse and always making his or her happiness your top priority without calculating if he or she is doing the same for you, and without any regard for how you have been treated.

Do not confuse this with being a \’shmatta\’ or doormat. If your spouse hurts you or you have disappointments or complaints, by all means bring them up and discuss them. The point of this rule is to not retaliate or withhold kindness and love based on the other person\’s actions or misdeeds.

Mistake #2: Never Involve Your Parents In Your Marriage. If you are having difficulty with your spouse, discuss it with a close friend, a mentor or a therapist. Do not discuss your marriage with your parents, as this can ruin your spouse\’s relationship with them for many years after you solved the problem. If you feel you have a parent who is discreet and has respectful boundaries, you might try asking general advice about \”what if\” scenarios without describing or labeling your spouse\’s negative behavior or character.

Mistake # 3. Never Put Family Or Your Parents\’ Needs Over Your Spouse\’s. There was a time when families were more enmeshed and in-law children felt naturally subordinate to in-law parents. Today this is wishful thinking, and potentially a disaster. A healthy marriage requires total loyalty to your spouse. Of course, you may ask your spouse if there is a way to accommodate the needs of your family, but always draw the line on the side of your spouse in situations where you have no choice. Some readers may have concerns regarding the halachos of kibbud av v\’em, and if one has concerns he should check with a competent posek, stressing that sholom bayis is at stake. There are indeed many situations where sholom bayis will take precedence over kibbud av v’em.

Mistake # 4: Do not Become Lazy and Take Your Spouse’s Love for Granted. It is easy to rationalize and tell yourself, “My spouse will always be attracted to me”, or even worse, to maintain an entitled and selfish thought such as, “My spouse is required to be attracted to me, he or she owes it to me for all the things I have done etc.” While it is true that your spouse should work constantly on noticing and appreciating your positive qualities (see

mistake #5), you cannot take this for granted.

A person must work to constantly preserve his or her health and appearance. Do not walk around the house in ratty pajamas, robes or socks with holes. Even when you are taking a day off, or it is a motzai shabbos, make sure you are well groomed and appear attractive. Maintain your hygiene and table manners. Watch your weight, do exercise and ask your spouse what kinds of clothes he or she prefers that you wear. It is important to take this to heart – it is 2012 and even the most sheltered people are exposed to advertisements and images that are far from modest. While it is your spouse’s job to follow Torah guidelines for shmiras enayim, it is your job to work on looking attractive. To our male readers: Don’t think that women are so different and do not have temptations as well. You have to take care of your looks as well and be especially careful that your wife gets quality time and attention from you.

Mistake # 6: Do not Allow Yourself to Obsess Over Your Spouse’s Negative Qualities. Everyone can find features in their spouse that turn them off, whether they are physical or personality traits. We can sometimes address them directly through respectful conversation or hint at it if it is too sensitive to speak of directly. However, aside from these simple efforts, it is your job to focus on the positive and not allow yourself to obsess over what cannot be changed. Your spouse may have a physical or personality feature that you dislike, but the more you pay attention to it, the worse it gets. It is far more helpful to counter those thoughts by noticing and focusing on features that you find attractive. This may seem simplistic, but it is a very important tool.

Mistake #7: Do Not Control or Force Your Spouse into Anything. In relationships, often times, winning is really losing. Consider a situation where you and your spouse disagree about some critical matter of parenting, finances or religion. You may feel you are 100% justified and because you can yell louder or have other means of power you can get your way. But what happens when you win? Every time you force your spouse into something that he or she is not ready for, you just further dim the feelings of love. No one will feel truly in love with someone who they fear or who controls them. It is challenging to collaborate, discuss and compromise, but there really is no choice. Do not be a bully. Control tactics can achieve compliance, but they do not create love. In the long run, control fails because it is contingent upon the power of the stronger party, which as in all dictatorships, eventually fails. However, true love that comes from respect, regard and care, lasts through thick and thin.

Mistake #8: Don’t Confuse Religion with Values. There are marriages that are torn apart because of differences in religious practice and observance. While such situations can be very challenging, they are far from catastrophic so long as there is a basic sense of respect for the other person’s needs and beliefs. One way to cope better is by differentiating between values and religious practice. This requires some explanation:

A value is an underlying ethical belief about what is important in life, while a religious practice is a rule or ritual. For example, a person may have a value that it is important to do kindness and care about others. The religious practice related to that can be tzedaka, visiting the sick, not saying loshon hora and many others. The point is, the religious practice is narrower while the value is broader. Let’s consider two people who both have share a value to be spiritual and connected to Hashem. One person may do this by being very careful with mitzvos, perhaps take on chumros and other minhagim that he or she feels brings about this state of spirituality. Another person may do this by simply praying a lot and talking to G-d. Yet another person may do this by making Aliyah and perhaps another person may do this by rejecting the secular State of Israel. These people, who have opposite positions and disagree forcefully, may still share a common value in that they want a life of purpose and connection to Hashem.

Once you are able to differentiate between values and practice, it allows for a more respectful dialogue and an easier way to find common ground, despite the potentially volatile nature of religious disputes. One spouse might really be disappointed in another spouse’s level of observance regarding a particular matter, but that doesn’t mean that all feelings of respect and admiration are lost – it is possible to connect over values that they do share in common. Usually if you look for good things, you do find them. If you look to see what values you share in common, you will find them and be able to find ways to encourage each other to express them in beneficial ways to the family and the relationship.

Mistake #9: Do Not Fight in Front of the Children. Of course, this is a cliché of marriage; everyone knows you shouldn’t fight in front of the kids, but we are in favor of it for an additional reason. Many hurtful and destructive arguments can be avoided if only people spoke when they were calmer and not in the heat of the moment. If you have a rule not to argue in front of the children, given the propensity of children to be around all the time, it will force you to wait until later on to discuss whatever you are fuming about, and hopefully by then you won’t be fuming. When it comes to managing anger, any strategy that helps delay hostile confrontation is a good thing.

Mistake #10: Never Put Down or Insult Your Spouse. No matter how irritating, foolish and wrong-headed you think your spouse is, this is a line you just cannot cross. You can argue, you can yell, you can say “You are wrong!”, but you can’t insult your spouse by calling him or her a name, or accusing him or her of being stupid or other attacks on character. You might be thinking, “But he or she REALLY IS stupid!” That’s a big mistake if you want to stay married. If you cannot feel that you respect your spouse, then first get help to make sure this is not your own arrogant and self-centered thinking, and if ultimately after all that, you can’t respect and accept your spouse as he or she is, then consider the following point: While it is permissible according to the Torah to divorce someone if the marriage is not sustainable and the couple’s problems prove irreconcileable, there is no heter for ona’as devarim (abusive language) which is a Torah prohibition (Bava Metzia 58b).

Mistake #11: Never Violate Your Spouse’s Privacy

Good relationships depend on good boundaries. No one should open another spouse’s mail, email, phone or wallet. It does not make a difference is there is something to hide or not. We have worked with couples for two decades and please trust us, no matter how curious you are or how much you suspect your spouse of some improper activity, nothing good ever comes out of snooping. If you don’t trust your spouse it doesn’t matter what the facts are, you already have a problem. If your gut tells you your spouse is doing inappropriate things, you must solve the problem not by becoming a spy or a policeman, but by building your relationship to the extent that you feel trust. The alleged behavior is one problem, but the lack of trust is deeper and can destroy the relationship.

Of course, we are emphatically not advising you to stick your head in the sand and ignore suspicious behaviors. If you have a concern, or your gut tells you something is wrong it is important to respectfully share what you have seen or heard (without intentionally snooping or invading privacy) and ask for an explanation. If it is something that cannot be seen or explained in favorable light such as accidentally coming across an email or website on the computer, describe what you saw without attacking or being dramatic and ask: (1.) “Do you want to fix the situation?” And (2), what is the plan to fix the situation?” If the answers satisfy you, then give the person a chance to regain your trust. No one is perfect and some people can make enormous and destructive mistakes, but still be essentially good people. If you don’t feel you could let go, and still feel distrustful, that is fine. You can’t force yourself to trust another person; it has to be earned and grow over time. However, whatever you do, do not get sucked into becoming a spy or a policeman, constantly checking up on him or her. It will never end and you will have difficulty ever finding peace.

Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R serves as a Director of Operations for OHEL. In addition he is President of Nefesh International and maintains a private psychotherapy practice specializing in high conflict couples and families.