From Little Lies
Have you ever hidden a price tag so your spouse won't see what you spent? Or covered up for the kids? Or kept quiet about feeling attracted to someone else?Well, you're not alone.
Every marriage counselor on earth will tell you that honesty is at the root of the strongest relationships. With the divorce rate still hovering around 42%, we began to wonder how the truth was faring in the American marriage. So we set out across the land to ask married people what they hide, and what they tell.
This is what we discovered.
Who's More Open, Men or Women?
Let's start with the basics. Women do most of the talking in a marriage, especially about the marriage -- no surprises there. Eighty-three percent of women say they are the ones most likely to begin the discussion that starts with "Let's talk about us." Only 57% of men, though, think their wives speak first.
What's that about? "Men often act out their problems in indirect ways, so they think they've brought them up," says marital therapist Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. "It's harder for men to put feelings into words."
Our poll shows the reluctance to raise problems is not influenced by age.
"It's important to talk, but when you say 'everything' ... There has to be some space in between."
-- husband of 16 years
"We have a zigzag way of bringing up problems. We kind of tiptoe around them for a while - [though] not nearly as much as my parents did."
-- wife of 33 years
"My wife usually has the first word in anything. I have the last."
-- husband of 43 years
What Can't Couples Talk About?
Some of our poll's greatest surprises arise from the conversations married people wish they could have, especially husbands. While women have long complained that their men don't talk enough, our poll shows men are just bursting to talk about matters deeper than sports or money -- but they don't know how.
Among men, the largest group -- 38% -- wish they could ask their spouse to be more affectionate. And they don't mean discussing sex, which was covered in a separate question. "Men are not supposed to need affection," says psychologist Julie Gottman, Ph.D., who with her husband, John Gottman, Ph.D., is co-founder of Seattle's Gottman Institute and its Marriage Clinic. "They feel that asking for cuddling is sissyish. How many men can say they need nurturing?"
This is a crucial issue for the babyboom generation -- people who are in their mid-thirties to mid-fifties -- says Boston psychotherapist Terrence Real, author of the upcoming How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women. "Men are still following the same program, which is that they're not allowed to want intimacy. But women now are strong enough to want more intimacy than ever."
Thirty percent of men wish they could talk openly with their wife about spiritual matters. "That really impressed me," says John Gottman. "It underscores the meaning of how we live, what we value. It's hard for men to talk about that."
One poll result suggests a good way to open the lines of communication: 26% of men and women wish their partners would "ask me questions about myself."
While some things are hard to discuss, others come up all too often. We asked people if there was anything they couldn't budge their spouse on. "Be less messy" is the most nagging topic, with 41% of women (and 29% of men) hounding their partners for messiness. The next most nagging topics are "Please lose weight" and "Stop criticizing me!"
"I had been married to a man who kept secrets, and it really hurt our relationship."
-- wife of 10 years
"We try and spend time together. I think that's what a lot of people aren't doing anymore."
-- wife of 37 years
In the Past
What Are Our Most-Kept Secrets?Have our respondents ever kept something secret from their spouses? Yes, say 42% of men and 36% of women. Our findings suggest baby boomers and those in the highest income brackets are slightly more secretive. "Trust breaks down when there's little time for confiding, and these people are busy, busy, busy," says Julie Gottman.
The longest-married also are more likely to keep things to themselves, perhaps because they were raised before self-analysis became fashionable.
What's the most frequently hushed-up issue? How much we paid for something we bought. This sin of omission is committed by almost half (48%) of both husbands and wives who've ever kept a secret.
This is a surprising number, a red flag, says John Gottman. "There's a problem with honesty and trust here." Julie Gottman adds, "Money is freedom, money is power, and it's interesting that both men and women lie about it."
The second most frequent secret is about a child's behavior or grades, more commonly a secret that wives (18%) keep from their husbands.
One of the saddest findings in the survey: of men who have kept a secret, 20% have concealed a failure at work. "Male ego is a big deal," says New York City psychologist Scott Wetzler, author of Is It You or Is It Me?
Startlingly, comparable percentages of men (6%) and women (3%) have kept a secret about an eating disorder.
"I don't like to tell him how much I spend when I go shopping. I'm afraid he'll cut back on the budget."
-- wife of 43 years
"There are times your kids do things that you know would make the other party ballistic."
-- wife of 26 years
Does Your Spouse Know About Your Prior Love Life?
It's normal to be curious about your partner's sexual past. How much do couples tell?
Asked if their spouse knows all the good stuff about past loves, 62% of women say yes, he knows everything, but only 52% of men spill the beans. Another 38% say their wife only knows some things, either because she has not pressed for the whole story (22%), or because he's only prepared to share a certain amount (17%). Only 10% of men and 5% of women say their partners know nothing of their previous passions.
Does it matter? Knowing the facts per se is irrelevant to a happy marriage, Wetzler says. "There's a feeling that to trust somebody, you have to know everything about them. In fact, what's important is that you have to believe you know all that matters."
We may be married, but we're not dead. Outside crushes do pop up in even the happiest unions, and 19% of men (and 10% of women) have kept secret the fact that they felt attracted to another. Eight percent of men do not broadcast their habit of viewing risque material on the Internet.
"We told each other everything at the beginning. Curiosity, I guess."
-- husband of 20 years
"We've never talked about what went on before we got married. We were very young."
-- husband of 56 years
"A couple of months after we got married, this old girlfriend of his sent him a Christmas card, a real mushy one. I set it up on top of the TV and made him look at it for a year. We tease each other about that to this day."
-- wife of 22 years
The Truth
Do Couples Share Their Dreams?Do you talk about your fantasies and aspirations? One in five people told us they cherish a secret dream, but do not talk about it with their spouse. "That result just blew me away," says Julie Gottman. "Dreams reflect the deepest part of ourselves, and partners need to feel emotionally safe enough to share them. This statistic tells us that one in five marriages are not safe havens."
More than half (56%) of the silent dreamers, especially those married less than five years, yearn to travel with their spouse -- but, amazingly, don't mention it.
Baby boomers in particular seem to suffer from this restless, silent yearning. Those harboring a dream long to live somewhere else (53%), travel on their own (42%), start over in a new career (41%), live on their own for a while (21%), have an affair (14%) or failing that, at least get a dog (10%).
Why don't we talk about these things? "Discussing dreams like this is very threatening to the status quo," says John Gottman. "It says, 'I'm not sure about the way we're living.' People think, 'I have these fantasies about things being different, but if I tell you, you're going to hit the ceiling.' "
These findings prompted Rhode Island psychiatrist Peter Kramer, author of the bestselling Listening to Prozac, to suggest that we be more flexible in the way we think about marriage. "If people want temporary escape, why shouldn't that be built into a long-term relationship? I know a man with a white-collar job who ships out with the merchant marine once a year. Marriage is a term that can cover a lot of arrangements."
"I've always wanted to sing professionally. [Does her husband know?] He knows I like to sing, but, no ..."
-- wife of 12 years
What About An Easy Out?
We asked people to confess if they've ever wished to wake up in the morning and suddenly ... just not be married anymore. Sixteen percent of both men and women said yes.
"Here's what this answer means," says Wetzler. "Since it's difficult to get out of a marriage, these people don't want to admit their dissatisfaction to themselves."
Kramer does not agree. "This fantasy is not a sign that your relationship is in trouble. It's just that marriage is so hard."
So, is it important to tell all? "Yes, definitely, absolutely, lay it all out, the good with the bad," says one successful male veteran of a four-decade marriage. A wife of 33 years says, "Tell as much as you can until you get 'I don't want to go there' signals." Another woman counsels against telling all. "You cease to be a person when you do that," she says.
So there you have it. Three different marriages. Three different points of view. And where do the experts come down? "A good marriage," says Kramer, "is not based on just telling all about what bothers you the most. Some revelations would only panic the other person."
The Gottmans, who have made a study of 3000 married couples over two decades, agree that brutal honesty is not always appropriate. You need a foundation of closeness before you can start difficult conversations. "When you have something yucky to talk about," says John Gottman, "it's better to start at a high emotional point than a low one."
Perhaps the first step, he says, is trying harder to find out what your spouse is really thinking.
The poll was conducted by Ipsos-NPD via telephone from March 19 through March 31, 2001. The margin of error is 2.6%. The respondents were 1000 married people, ages 18 and over, half of them men and half women. Spouses were not interviewed together or within earshot of each other.