Finding the Positive in Your Spouse by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb Focus on the Positive in Your Spouse

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

Apparently, the feeling of being “in” love is not merely a state of mind. There’s chemistry behind it: Adrenaline (norepinephrine) and dopamine are increased, and serotonin goes down.

You are most likely familiar with the word “serotonin” as part of the chemical process in anti-depressants. What you may not know is that serotonin is not an upper. It is not a make-you-feel-good neurotransmitter. Rather, its job is to keep a person’s feelings blunted.

When a person is seriously depressed, then keeping depression at bay and neutralizing all feelings may be a good temporary measure.

But serotonin is taken back into the system from the bloodstream – uptake – for a good reason: The healthy person is meant to feel and experience all kinds of feelings, good and bad. That is what makes a person feel alive.

So an uptake inhibitor keeps the serotonin swirling around and taking the edge off of their sadness. All well and good in depression, but in normal love, the excitement is not meant to be tamped down – or else how would two strangers ever get through the difficulties and challenges of connecting?

So Hashem made it so that serotonin must decrease when this “falling” process occurs.

There’s another chemical reason for that, too. Maybe you’ve heard the term “dopamine” associated with the cravings for street drugs that addicts have. Dopamine is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter that alerts the brain to take note of situations that produce pleasure so that it can repeat that action in the future.

If studying hard for a test leads to a good grade, the dopamine released lets the brain know, “Hey, studying is exciting!”

What happens to your mind when the chemicals are doing their job?

Now, as it happens, one of the jobs of serotonin is to decrease dopamine. That is because dopamine’s message to the brain, “This is good!” can go too far, becoming a craving or an addiction. (That is why street drugs will, indeed, raise dopamine levels.) Serotonin’s job is to level off feelings – bad and good.

But wouldn’t you know it, researcher Helen Fisher found that people of all ages who feel “in” love have very low serotonin and high dopamine levels, which, sure enough, leads them to be obsessed with thinking about the object of their affections day and night.

Why would that be?

Well, let’s look at the “in” love experience.

If someone is just a tad interested in us, that piques our interest. Timing is important for this to happen. We have to be “looking” to meet someone, hopefully a special someone.

But the next thing that happens is we ignore any negatives in the object of our interest. Helen Fisher, the researcher, notes that this corresponds to the amygdala deactivating. The amygdala is the brain’s smoke alarm system.

So, on the one hand, we overlook the bad, and on the other, we magnify the good. And what exactly is this good that we magnify? It is none other than the wonderful feeling we get when someone pays us enormous attention.

The truth is that this falling in love experience caters to the narcissist in all of us. Not only do we enjoy the person’s fabulous qualities, but most importantly, this fabulous person enjoys us.

You can see what a major boost to our emotions that is. We wouldn’t want to lose such a wonderful thing; it’s pure gold. So of course we’re going to overlook elements of this situation that we don’t like and of course we will make up whatever seems good to fill in the empty spaces that we overlook.

So what happens when the chemicals wear off?

That is a natural process, and it is replaced with oxytocin and vasopressin, the attachment hormones. After all, being obsessed with the person you love will definitely interfere with childcare and other adult responsibilities.

In spite of this, I hear from people all the time that they “fell out of love” for the person they’re with.

Then they tell me they’re unhappy, which they think explains the whole thing.

It doesn’t.

When reality sets in, we see all the things we chose to “miss,” and we see that what we made up about our beloved was not so accurate.

Next, one of two things happens: Either, we try to dismiss what bothers us about the other person – and that doesn’t work – or we quit the whole problem by rushing for divorce with the famous words, “I don’t have any feelings anymore.”

Neither of these approaches is terribly helpful. After all, why quit a relationship in which you were once invested when you have nothing at all to lose by seeing if the things that became bothersome can be fixed?

And for sure, if something is really bothering you, then by holding back, you’re not giving your partner a chance to rise to the occasion to fix it.

Losing hope doesn’t help; what might help instead?

Step 1: Just like newly smitten people, you must ignore, overlook, diminish.

We are all humans here. The greatest of people were human. Moshe Rabbeinu

lost his temper and hit the rock; he called us “rebels.”

The Shvatim threw Yosef into a pit and then sold him, lying to their father.

We can go on, but there’s no need.

The people you admire most – focus for a moment on them – have human flaws.

I’m not suggesting we overlook being disgusting or criminal or abusive. But we can overlook the long list of general human flaws. We all have them.

Step 2: Focus on the positive in your mate, starting with the huge progress that you’ve seen them make if you’ve been working together in therapy.

Allow yourself to feel awed by how far they’ve come. Notice the positive! Rebbetzin Jungreis, z”l, said we should have an ayin tov, which is another way of saying the same thing.

You like a clean kitchen. I get it. But is it really that distressing to have a partner who ignores some crumbs? She is generous to a T.

You’re a stickler for balancing the checkbook. But if your partner is too busy with work/kids/sick parents, whatever, can you pinch-hit for him or her? He learns every day.

You’re a neat dresser, and your partner just isn’t into clothing. Is it that important in the scheme of things? Albert Einstein obviously wasn’t interested in hair tonic but that did not stop people from admiring him. Yours nevertheless writes you love notes. Step 3: Make the positive outweigh the negative by leaps and bounds in your mind. your partner’s value in your eyes.

Step 4: Add respect to the mix.

You have to feel respect for who this person is. As you practice focusing on the positive, you will see more and more of it, kind of like when you buy a car and then you keep seeing that car all over.

This goes beyond appreciating the extra effort your partner has made.

Not only do we enjoy the person’s fabulous qualities, but most importantly, this fabulous person enjoys us.

This is the equivalent of what newly in love people do – they exaggerate the wonderfulness of Mr. or Ms. Wonderful. You can do it, too.

You’re not into IT, but that’s what your husband does? Feel how amazing his job is, how many people turn to him for solutions, how respected he is at work, and so on. Make it big.

This act alone creates and elevates

This is all about respecting their character, the deep stuff.

Here’s a list of deep stuff to ponder on that you may have taken for granted: • Would your partner give the shirt off their back? • Does your partner smile and chat with people who ring your doorbell for tzedekah? • Will your partner take a minute to help someone in need? • Does your partner learn and apply what they’ve learned? • Does your partner try to grow as a person? • Will your partner listen to you when you’re down? • Does your partner participate willingly in the house? • Is your partner a loving parent?

Step 5: Do something thrilling.

If you want to duplicate the excitement of new love – the dopamine rush – then do something together you’ve never done before. This goes beyond date night. Take a trip to somewhere you wouldn’t have thought of going to; go white water rafting, camping.

But remember, none of this can possibly work until the negative is all cleaned out of the way from the marriage. This is what cements all the good you’ll accomplish when you do that.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb.com/myw-masterclass.