Incompatibility – A factor that affects marital disorders

Incompatibility is commonly suggested by the partners and by their relatives as “the cause” of marital disorder, and this is made more plausible by the fact that when people find themselves in conflict their differences become intensified and much more distressing. Some attention will first be given to various kinds of incompatibility that are found in marital disorders, and then to the whole question of incompatibility in general.

Sexual incompatibility seems to be very common in marriage, and many couples accept it, though not at all happily, without allowing it to bring their marriage into any great danger. In some marriages it appears to be the primary cause of deepening marital conflict-when, for example, the partners from the beginning find themselves unable to carry out the sexual relationship to any degree of satisfaction and come to feel disillusioned and frustrated, or when their whole attitudes to sex are found to be so different as to seem irreconcilable. In such cases an apparently good personal relationship may become greatly and progressively strained, especially when the two partners have had high expectations about the sexual relationship, and regarded it as the main basis of their partnership.

But in many cases what appears to be sexual incompatibility is really of deeper origin, either in the inter-personal relational area, or even in the intra-personal field already considered. In the relational area sexual incompatibility may be a manifestation of a deeper personal incompatibility. For example Harry and Helen have reached the point of almost despairing of their marriage, because Helen has been unable to meet anything like all of Harry’s persistent demands, even though she has tried all she knows to satisfy him. The situation has now become much worse because she has found evidence of an affair between Harry and one of the girls at the office. They have decided, with the help of some well-meaning friends, that this must be a matter of sexual incompatibility, and that there is little hope of making their marriage work. But they came for counseling, and the counselor was able to look with them behind the apparent point of conflict.

As the picture unfolded it appeared that Harry was the only child of a very insecure marriage. His father had an eye for many attractive women, and took little responsibility in their home. His mother reacted to her husband’s neglect by over-coddling and overindulging her son, so that Harry grew up as a “spoiled child” who got everything he wanted. He then fell on his feet in a good job, and was clever-and unscrupulous -enough to get practically everything he wanted there too. Then he met Helen and carried her off her feet, and he got the only girl he ever wanted without any trouble. It was almost inevitable that he should go on to assume that he should get all he wanted in the sexual relationship whenever he wanted it, and that he should resent any “frustration” from his wife when his mother had always given in to him.

Helen, on the other hand, had had a rather sheltered upbringing, by good but reserved parents, with whom she had never felt free to discuss any of the “facts of life.” She had no brothers and no other close “boy friends,” and when Harry came along she plunged eagerly into marriage with little or no intellectual or emotional preparation for it. Her difficulties only drove her more deeply into her shell, which made Harry more insistent and aggressive than ever, until finally, like his father before him, he found some “comfort” outside his marriage.

Here is gross incompatibility, but it is not primarily sexual. It is a deep personal incompatibility (Harry being domineering and Helen lacking in confidence), which is using the sexual relationship as a battleground. This is no hair-splitting distinction, because the healing of such a situation has nothing to do with hormones and everything to do with psychology: with the basic assumptions about life and about people that were behind the attitudes of Harry and Helen to each other. These things are much more amenable to change than hormones. Until Harry can “come to earth” about his demands through seeing himself more clearly it will be very difficult for Helen to cope with the situation, for after all love is not fittingly given at pistol point. When Helen too gains better insight into her own attitudes the way will be open for growth to more mature responsiveness. As they each come to better understanding of the other personality they will find themselves more ready to accept and adjust to their differences, but this will need time and patience, and persistence through many apparent setbacks.

In the intra-personal field an apparent sexual incompatibility may be due to the fact that one of the partners has a sexual abnormality with which no normal marriage partner could be compatible. The frankly homosexual man or woman could only be sexually “compatible” with another of the same sex, and there are many impotent men and frigid women whose difficulties lie deep in their own personalities and need to be dealt with there. Some apparently impotent men and frigid women are basically adequate, but are reacting to a disordered personal relationship with their partners, for example, the nervous man who feels that his masculinity is at stake, and is quite potent with a prostitute but quite impotent with his wife, because of her expressed expectations of him.

A further example of sexual incompatibility is found when one of the partners is the victim of grossly abnormal sexual urges or various forms of sexual deviation. These conditions are generally outside the competence of the marriage counselor, and such people are most appropriately referred for any suitable help they are willing to accept.

Tags: Counseling