Jakob, a friend of mine, agreed to collaborate with me on a few blog posts.
In Jakob's ideal world, couples will have mandatory counselling, at least once a year, with an objective and qualified psychologist, social worker, or relationship counsellor. But unlike couples who go to counsellors only when their marriage is at the point of no return, new couples will be treated to a once a year review similar to what employers and employees undertake. From my experience, human resource departments are good about enforcing annual reviews between employers and employees, but don't necessarily follow up on the results. For both the employee and employer, this provides an opportunity to review the year's objectives and also examine the "SWOT" - strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Jakob's not the only one who thinks that couples treat their cars better than each other. Iris Baron, an Israeli sexologist and radio personality (link is in Hebrew), often mentions that people have a strong awareness about having to take their cars for regular checkups, tests, and tuneups, when necessary by law. Cars that don't pass their annual tests are removed from the roads by police. She also thinks that couples, by law, should be taught proper financial planning and other skills, in order to prevent divorce. I heard in South Africa, you need to go to counselling before you can get married. I wonder if the divorce rate is lower there than in Canada, the U.S. or Israel.
But couples aren't forced to seek counselling or get divorced by law. It usually happens as a last straw. According to Jacob, an annual Employee Review for Couples would definitely improve the status of relationships, at least in Israel. Couples get used to their routine and will often bottle up how they feel about each other, or else let it all out in the form of criticism that may start as bantering, follow through to pestering and end up at downright insulting. Children cannot hold a relationship together if a couple is not connected spiritually through effective communication. Jakob also thinks that even if a couple does split up, at least it will do so through awareness and maturity. Divorce will then not come as a big surprise but as a step when nothing else works.
It's true that our needs change as we grow, but people generally remain the same. Can values also change? People don't change that much after marriage, but their reactions can change, especially if affected by factors including but not limited to education, employment, children, aging parents, . Sometimes the values and goals of individuals before getting together conflict right from the beginning. But how do you know that if no one has evaluated the relationship objectively before you started?
So what would the annual review entail? Jakob's vision is that the counsellor would ask the couple to come prepared to the review with the answers to questions such as:
- What worked this past year?
- What didn't work?
- Did you meet your objectives personally and as a couple?
- How do you view money? Where do you want to spend money this year? Vacation? Studies? Having a child? Renovating an apartment? Is there anyway you can cut back? Has your attitude changed in the past year?
- Are you prepared to work extra hours so that your spouse can spend more time with your children and cut back on her/his hours?
- Do you want to study?
- Is your sex life satisfactory? Both in terms of frequency, quality, variation?
- Travel? Hobbies?
- How much time do you want alone, with family, with friends and together?
This writer knows that a relationship is more than a business. But why not think out of the box while the box itself is still sturdy?
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