Jill Goldson: Does your marriage need a review?

Couples could avoid relationship problems by reviewing their partnership. Photo / Getty

The very notion of a performance review can make many of us feel uncomfortable and slightly apprehensive. Maybe it's the word "performance" and its association with "could do better" or "doesn't apply herself" - memories from school reports.

So the recent recommendations from a growing number of researchers and therapists that performance reviews for marriages are constructive may not be initially alluring.

Probably the combination of words "marriage", "performance" and "review" is more palatable when branded as a "check up" - and indeed this is the term that James Cordova, professor of psychology and director of the Centre for Couples and Family Research at Clark University Massachusetts, describes it as.

Calling it "the relationship equivalent of a six month dental check up", he cites in his research results that this activity significantly improves relationships in the areas of satisfaction, intimacy and feelings of acceptance by their partner.

Added to this list of benefits is a decrease in depressive symptoms. Cordova demonstrates the poor outcomes of the control group (who answered a questionnaire as well but did not go on to discuss it with a therapist). And interestingly, the couples with the most problems in their marriage before the check up saw the most improvement.

This concept is not new and many clients I see institute these performance reviews or "checking back " as many prefer to call them. But, be warned: these reviews are not for clients in crisis.
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Take Rob who came to see me recently, and who is beside himself about the fact that he has found out his partner has been on dating sites and is being untruthful with regard to what her after work meetings are. Quite clearly a "performance review" is going to be about as useful as the proverbial bull in a china shop in his marriage.

However, having now met with Rob's wife, Linda, and embarked on the untangling of the web of emotions which involve Rob's compulsive working habits, Linda's low self esteem and their arguments and lack of intimacy, it becomes obvious that the "performance review" touted by Cordova and colleagues may have been the very mechanism to have nipped their escalating problems in the bud.

That men are more opposed to the idea of any relationship counselling or therapy is well known. Typically it is the fear of injustice that constitutes the common underlying factor.

And which of us doesn't rightly fear injustice? Professional therapy or counselling should never perpetuate injustice - don't trust the process an inch if it does. Typical responses to those resisting are often framed around "feeling I will be blamed" or "you are the one with the problem" or "we can work this out ourselves" or "it costs too much".

But interestingly, marriage checks or reviews are found to be very acceptable by even the most ardent refusers of counselling.

Why? The answer is that the check in focuses on a couple's strengths and goals and finding strategies to solve problems without blame. And if you start from the notion of working out problems for the sake of the relationship there is a far greater chance of buy in.

"You need to change" becomes "I love you and and I want to be with you and it would really help if we could get some more time together without the computer or phone on", to give an oft heard example.

The idea of marriage reviews might sound too simple to be true - but then simple things can often be true. These reviews work. And without wanting to put too much of a depressing slant on it - we have a very high rate of divorce and separation.

What was once endearing in a partnership can become annoying and then intolerable. Our clipped and unromantic messages to each other over time - even if they do say "love you" at the end, are hardly the loving texts of earlier days.

Unnervingly stealthily, and over time, a marriage is suddenly seen to be holding together by a thread made up of intertia and fear. And in reality, despite good intent and awareness on the part of partners, I see so very many relationships teetering or fallen over, by the time they arrive at counselling.

Waiting too long to do something about the long slow slide to crisis is a game of Russian roulette.

There will be some issues in marriages, which will always trigger the need for more intensive therapeutic work. But, in general, daily life together can run so much more smoothly if, without blame, the two architects to the same contract can name the good parts and work on a few challenges (and I mean a few - there will only ever be two or three themes).

A competent therapeutic mediator can facilitate this - keeping the process constructive, brief and solution focused.

So before you discard the idea as a gimmick, give it some thought. We get WOFS on our vehicles, undergo job performance reviews, purchase insurance assessments on our houses, we attend parents teacher meetings, undertake fitness assessments and most of us have the mouse hovering over reviews on line - be they for holiday accommodation, blenders or gyms.

For some reason the one thing in our lives in which we have such a very significant investment, can so easily slip between the cracks. Like all the most useful guidelines in life, this concept of reviews is about common sense. It's evidence backed and accessible.

You can complete your own marriage review as compiled by the Wall St Journal

6 tips for reviews

1. Begin by identifying strengths as a couple
2. Focus on the behaviour not the person
3. Shows you are aware of stresses in your partner's life
4. Allows the other person equal time to respond and provide input
5. Works together on ways to change the identified problems
6. Is a short intervention of two sessions

- nzherald.co.nz