Calculating costs and benefits is not just for your bank account. It can help your marriage too

They say that marriage is a “socio-economic” relationship. In other words it has an emotional/social aspect to it and it also has a business aspect to it. Normally we think of the business part as having to do with how finances are arranged how housework is negotiated and how child care is divided — that is how the responsibilities of family life are distributed between husband and wife. However the truth is that even the relationship part of the marriage can be looked at through the economic lens.

Love Is in the Details

Marital love is built or broken in the daily grind of family life. The “what” of marriage (the finances housework and child care for example) is far less important than the “how” of marriage. How are tasks divided and how does that feel to each member of the couple? How do husband and wife communicate about the tasks? How do they deal with differences of opinion and conflicts? How well do they cooperate with each other? When caring and concern dominate the interactions love and harmony is fostered. If not not.

Let’s look at the following scenario:

Meira noticed that her husband’s coat was hanging on the railing — again. How many times had she asked him to put his coat in the closet? How can she teach their kids to put away their things when their own father won’t put away his? Does she have to go and hang it up for him every single day? How hard is it for him to do this simple act that would make her happy? Meira was fuming with frustration.

Question: Should Meira tell her husband how she feels? Pause here for a moment and answer this question for yourself.

Calculating Costs and Benefits

While emotion drives much of the conflict between marital partners a more rational cost/benefit analysis can be substituted to quickly and effectively cut through the mire. Meira needs to do a quick calculation in order to determine her course of action.

• What are the benefits of letting my husband know that I’m upset?
• What are the costs of letting my husband know that I’m upset?

• I will feel better after I release my frustration verbally. (There are no other benefits because Meira knows that her previous expressions of frustration about this issue have never resulted in a prolonged behavioral change on her husband’s part. Hanging up his coat seems to be a chronic challenge for him.)

Meira calculates the costs of expressing her feelings as follows:

• Based on past experience I know he’ll probably react badly to the criticism and we may have an unpleasant evening.
• He’ll be less likely to hang up his coat ever because he’ll feel “controlled” or “nagged.”
• It will add one more negative interaction to our week and possibly tip us into a bad cycle that can affect us for months.
• He’ll like me less because he’ll feel I’m too critical.

Now Meira can do the math. There is one benefit and four costs. Hmmm … which way to go?

Cold Calculations

The cost/benefit analysis helps Meira keep the overall relationship uppermost in her consciousness. A particular issue at a particular moment definitely grabs a person’s attention but in the overall scheme of things it is quite possible that the issue isn’t that important. In this case for instance we’re talking about a coat hanging in the wrong place. On the other hand if Meira’s husband never cleans up after himself never considers her feelings and never addresses any of the issues that are important to her then the real issue is not a coat issue but rather a relationship issue.

People can have trouble distinguishing the big marriage-threatening problems from the minor annoyances that inevitably arise between spouses. Indeed many people act as if each and every issue is a potential deal breaker expressing rage at whatever they disagree with or whatever doesn’t go their way. They’ll fight to the point of exhaustion desperately needing to prove that their way is the right way — over things like where the dishes belong how to save a hundred dollars or whether or not to say “no” to a child.

All of this stress and misery can be avoided when a person decides what to say and do based on a benefit/cost analysis. Marriage issues usually break down something like this:

• benefit of looking away from small (albeit annoying) issues: shalom — the vessel of all blessings
• costs of addressing every single issue small and large: conflict pain animosity children’s mental health issues stress loneliness unhappiness

You do the math.