#mental flexibility

Relationship skill is actually a set of skills including things such as: emotional intelligence, stress management, assertiveness, communication, negotiation, conflict resolution, moral reasoning. While it may seem overwhelming to think of how much there is to learn, you can view it as an investment. After all, you spent many years of your life learning reading, writing, and arithmetic so that you could one day be able to support yourself financially. Isn't it just as important to be able to handle yourself well socially in order to live a truly fulfilling life? If you agree, then you should be more than willing to put in the time and effort to learn these skills.

From your description, it's not yet clear to me that your spouse is as up to the task of learning as you are, so this seems like the first major issue that needs to be addressed. Imagine that you're learning to drive and you believe you must follow every little rule of the road at all times, in exactly the way the driver's manual taught you. Would doing this make you a "good" driver? Actually, it could make you a terrible driver and even create dangerous situations. An important aspect of being a great driver is adjusting to the immediate conditions of the road. For instance, driving in a snowstorm requires you to slow down, drive defensively, and grant leeway for others to make mistakes on the ice.

Generally speaking, human beings have succeeded as a species not because of rules, but because they have evolved to be highly adaptable, which keeps them in touch with reality and able to confront the challenges of their ever changing circumstances. Adaptability is especially important in relationships because social interactions are very fluid situations, with lots of variables in motion, with lots of potential for unexpected events. The more you can take the whole social context into consideration, the more likely you are to speak effectively and make good social choices. Emotional intelligence is one important way to increase your mental flexibility and thereby your adaptability, which you can read about in the dedicated articles I've already provided.

Of course, human beings need some rules because life would get too chaotic and fall apart otherwise. However, when a person relies too heavily on rules, they become more and more mentally inflexible, and then rule following can easily become a mental health issue that creates more problems than it solves. (I have discussed before how an exacting rule-based approach to life can be a sign of psychological immaturity.)

Mental flexibility isn't a genetic trait, rather, it's largely learned through environmental influences. This is an important point because mentally inflexible people tend to claim "this is just how I am". This is true only to the extent that people can become more and more set in their habits as they get older. However, this decline into stasis is not inevitable and it does not preclude the possibility of change. In fact, one should actually nurture the ability to change periodically in order to keep the mind active and stave off cognitive decline in old age.

It's quite possible to improve mental flexibility, but, first, a person has to acknowledge that their mental inflexibility is a problem that produces self-sabotaging behavior. Once they can admit the problem, they can address the underlying causes. For example:

- Some people feel as though they need fixed rules because they are afraid of making mistakes, getting caught by the unexpected, or feeling unmoored in unfamiliar situations. The underlying issue is often insecurity, low self-confidence, or distrust of the world. They don't feel as though they can handle situations successfully without rules to guide them through the challenges. Unfortunately, they don't realize that their strict belief in the rules is precisely what prevents them from being able to perform well on their feet. They usually need to learn and practice acceptance, in order to relax and go with the flow better.

- Some people only know to follow rules because they suffer from an utter lack of imagination. The underlying issue is often a stubborn narrow-mindedness or short-sightedness. For them, everything in life exists within the confines of the rules, which means life easily becomes stagnant. They never accept new ideas and thus never encounter ways to improve or progress. Eventually, life moves on without them and they become a relic of the past. This kind of alienation is a painful state. However, if they can acknowledge that pain, it can be used to motivate change and rejoin the flow of life. They usually need to learn and practice open-mindedness, in order to take advantage of good opportunities to move forward.

- Some people rely too much on fixed rules because they use laziness as a defense mechanism. They don't want to deal with complexity, complications, ambiguity, or shades of gray. The underlying issue is often an unwillingness to commit. They simply don't care enough to put out time and effort, often because their efforts have been met with disappointment too many times in the past. They may use rules as easy mental shortcuts or hide behind the rules to avoid being held accountable for bad decisions. Eventually, they fall into deep existential boredom that infects their relationships and drives people away. Their relationships won't improve until they can finally confront and resolve their fear of commitment.

- Some people harp on the rules out of arrogance. They take too much pride in their ability to follow the rules and in having the willpower to resist straying from them. The underlying issue is often egotism or perfectionism. They use rule abidance as a way to define people's worth and cast moral judgment upon those they dislike, and they might even lord the rules over people in order to feel superior. Unfortunately, their perfectionist enforcement of the rules can lead to blowback that worsens aggression in a vicious cycle. Until they can step back, reflect, and become more aware of what's really driving the perfectionism, their relationships will remain extremely shallow and unfulfilling for everyone involved.

I don't know your spouse, so I can't tell you why he's mentally inflexible. Perhaps he's resistant because he doesn't want to face up to his own shortcomings. However, it's important to acknowledge that, in many cases, relationship problems are rooted in the unresolved psychological issues of the individual. Thus, it is necessary to do a certain amount of self-work in order to be a better partner.

Psychological issues shouldn't be viewed as "personal failings" to be ashamed of. It's better to view psychological issues as matters of ignorance - lack of knowledge and skill - that can be properly remedied through learning, study, and practice. Many people think they should go to therapy because there's something wrong with them. In my view, therapy isn't about "fixing" what's "wrong" with oneself in any moral sense. Rather, it's about learning the knowledge and skills you missed out on for whatever reason earlier in life. You aren't born knowing everything and you don't always have the opportunity to learn all the tools you need to tackle life's problems.

Relationships are the prime example. People learn their approach to relationships unconsciously as children, through observing their parents, authority figures, and peers (see: attachment theory). This can be a problem when those people weren't good role models or were bad at relationships, thus passing on unhealthy ways to the next generation. As an adult, it's important to realize your true power. You don't have to keep those unhealthy lessons you learned earlier in life. You can learn how to do better at any time as long as there is opportunity and access to the right learning resources. Your motivation to learn should come from deep within you, from a longing to make the most of your potential.

Is there enough willingness to learn and improve, though? Resistance to learning new things is a big obstacle in personal growth and relationship growth. In order to establish the right frame of mind for growth, both you and your spouse have to nurture as much openness to learning as possible. Once the both of you are equally motivated and committed to improving, the learning can begin in earnest.

My suggestion is usually to start at the surface and move your way down into deeper territory as necessary, which allows you to go gradually from easy to difficult in a logical fashion. The first thing you could learn is better ways of communicating, e.g.: choosing more appropriate words; using more constructive language; framing ideas in a way that is more palatable to the listener; listening more carefully to the real meaning; asking clarifying questions in a neutral manner; etc. A therapist can help you with this and you can also consult the communication books I've recommended on the resources page.

In the process of improving your communication skills, you're bound to meet some obstacles. For example, you may find it difficult to communicate when emotions are heightened. This obstacle points to a deeper issue beneath the surface of the communication of not being able to manage emotions well. Thus, the second layer to work on would be emotional intelligence. When you're working on that, another obstacle may arise, such as a past hurt that keeps triggering heightened emotions. Exploring and resolving that past experience would then be the third layer to work on. And so on and so forth.

In short, each obstacle you run into while learning a psychological skill might point you to a deeper problem. In this way, you gradually get deeper and deeper until you finally bump up against the heart of the matter. There is no timeline I can give you as to how long this learning process takes because there's no telling how deep the matter goes until you get there. It really depends on the individuals involved and how much work each of them needs to do. For some couples, improving communication might be enough to get the relationship back on track. For other couples, they might eventually realize that individual therapy is necessary for healing old psychological issues before they can recommence together.