The importance of the family system, and how the first years of married life shape how spouses come to know each other, were the subject of an interview by the Tebyan Cultural Institute with Dr Bahmani, counsellor and university teacher at the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, under the title “Three years of learning to speak the same language”.
The interview follows.
Tebyan: Dr Bahmani, one of the problems young couples face is disagreement with their spouse’s family. How should these relationships be managed so that problems don’t arise?
To answer, I need to start a little further back. First we should ask what marriage is. What does marriage lead to, and what is the function of what it produces — a function which, if not met, leaves it dysfunctional?
Marriage is the starting point of what we later call married life, and married life is the ground for what we call the family. Families come in many kinds, but all of them were formed through marriage. We are born and grow up in a family, but before that, one day, a family was formed.
The only accepted and effective way to form a new family is marriage — marriage that leads to the space of a relationship between two people, which is very beautiful, and which we call married life.
Marriage is the starting point of what we later call married life, and married life is the ground for what we call the family.
Other languages have no word as beautiful as the Persian zanāshuyi (married life), because it names the roles of wife and husband together, at once. It is a very beautiful word. In married life, wife is a role and husband is a role; before that, we were talking about a female and a male. The roles of womanhood — woman and wife — and of husbandhood — man and husband — mean the set of behaviours expected of this person in a particular situation. The role of wife and the role of husband together make married life, which builds the family.
So what does the family do, that we stress it so much? The family works like a womb. What does a womb do? It turns a fertilised egg into a foetus and protects it until it is born, and if something goes wrong for the foetus it even helps to repair it. Once we are born from the womb we no longer need it, because a second womb is made to protect us. This second womb is made of the behaviour of two people whose job is to keep and protect us. In this second womb the baby is fed, cared for, and helped if problems arise.
But it differs from the mother’s womb in that this time the man (father) and the woman (mother), together with the child, are part of the womb’s structure. Their behaviour creates a space in which they too are protected, nourished emotionally and physically, grow, and are supported if problems come their way.
Marriage is a bond and a contract between two people who have at least a minimum of maturity: two people must come together. But I stress the words “two people”: it means that two people becoming one is a mistake. It is a psychological disorder for individuality and personal boundaries to disappear.
Marriage builds a unit — but a unit of two
Unfortunately, in marriage some people seek to become one with the other. A unit is built, but a unit of two. If you don’t understand what “person” means, you lose the meaning of marriage. In a good marriage both people are nourished and grow. The reason a good couple’s relationship lasts is that they meet each other’s needs. When needs are met, people become more mature; the more mature they become, the more unique they are; the more unique, the more alone; and the more alone, the greater their need for a companion to talk to.
In a functioning marriage, because wife and husband each grow, they become two people. A healthy marriage is not one being erased in favour of the other, or one going unseen beside the other; it is both of them coming into view. The more you come into view and the clearer you become, the more differentiated you are and the more individuality you have. So in a functioning family, well-settled individualities are accepted. (That is at the individual level.)
At the level of the family itself: there are two families, A and B. A son has come from family A and a daughter from family B, and together they form a new unit — and the walls of this newborn family are still fragile.
A family must take in and give out information in order to regulate itself, and share information among its members so that they grow. This wall that gives and takes information is not hardware; it is software.
What do you think a family’s walls are made of? What separates a family from others? I know families whose front door is shut, whose house number is clear and who have keys — yet everyone knows everything that goes on in the family, because they give their information to anyone. This family leaks; it is as if it lives in a glass house. Everyone sees inside and feels entitled to comment on it. This family has no walls, and everyone gets in.
Some families, on the other hand, are like black holes in galaxies: no information comes out of them, and any information that goes in never comes back. They are isolated. Both are bad.
A family must take in and give out information in order to regulate itself, and share information among its members so that they grow. This wall that gives and takes information is not hardware; it is software. Naturally, family members must exchange information in order to adjust to the neighbouring families. The secret of a family separating gradually, by regulating information, is a birth phase. When a person is born, the mother is in pain, and the baby also faces difficulties that can even harm it if not attended to.
Great care must be taken that the baby is not born late. If birth is too long delayed it is dangerous and the baby dies, which is why, if it is not born naturally, a caesarean is done. A premature baby may even be born two months early and be kept alive with equipment, but lateness cannot run to a month: a few days too long can kill the baby, and even the mother.
Children, too, must be born from their parents’ womb; they must form their own family. Like childbirth, this leaving brings psychological pain for the father and mother, because it feels like a loss, brings worry, and takes time to get used to. In this period they start doing things we call interfering. Parents generally both miss their child and, out of worry, start teaching. They give their child behavioural instructions for the new life that cause them problems.
This leads the husband and wife into conflicts. They are busy making sense of their new situation and adjusting to each other, but someone from outside gives them different instructions on how to behave, and their adjustment is damaged. If the young couple don’t know how to regulate the information that reaches them and goes out from them, others will either have too much opportunity to interfere, or feel shut out and react.
In successful couples, we call the first three years of married life three years of learning to speak the same language.
This stage itself — wife and husband learning how to relate so that the parents are not upset and they do not lose their independence — takes time. Sometimes it takes two or three years, and a heavy price has to be paid for it. We must teach these people how to give their unit of two a wall — one that is not made of iron.
How, and what, to pass on to each side, how to interpret incoming information, and how to share with each other: this is a skill that must be taught, so that the two learn to act, for the sake of their relationship’s identity, in a way that neither rejects the families nor dissolves them into them. It takes two or three years even with training — and without it, they never acquire it.
In successful couples, we call the first three years of married life three years of learning to speak the same language. Unsuccessful couples never come to speak the same language; they only put up with each other.
When choosing, young women and men are drawn to marry on the basis of similarities, and sadly no one teaches them otherwise; then after marriage, seeing the differences, the two think they made a mistake and ask for a separation. In fact, everyone marries on the basis of similarities first, and then has to manage the differences.
This process of a new family being born from two old ones is painful and takes time, but it has its rewards, and if it goes well it brings joy and enthusiasm too. The result is a family with a new identity, which must also build its own private culture — a culture of its own, based on shared values; but thought must also be given to the values that differ. Time must be spent. Some things change in the wife and some in the husband, and some may stay different. If they are not among the fundamental values, that is fine — even good.
Difference should not be a problem. Most of the time, as long as only the two of them are involved, they reach common ground sooner — provided their way is to exchange information. But if, on a particular matter, both families want to get involved too, finding common ground becomes a little harder.
We must teach new couples to solve their day-to-day issues within their own family only. The first days are hard, because they are used to discussing everything with their own families. If it is about what to cook and so on, it causes no problem; but if it is about their way of life, it does.
Young couples must learn, if parents take their child’s behaviour as impudence, how to apologise and tell them: you are still dear to us, we love you, but we cannot carry out some of your wishes.
The two must understand that, when needed, they can get help from people outside the family, or from family members acting as advisers. Both must help each other to be born from their previous families. We must teach young women and men: come, be born, and build your own independent unit. Teach them it is hard and full of problems, but all of it must be done in good faith. Teach them that sometimes their parents will be upset — not because they were impudent, but because it went against what the parents expected. Teach them, if parents take their child’s behaviour as impudence, how to apologise and tell them: you are still dear to us, we love you, but we cannot carry out some of your wishes.
Tebyan: Who do you mean by “someone else”?
A wise person — a friend, a colleague, or someone around them who has a successful life of their own. They can ask them how they solved a problem like this. Of course, it matters a great deal that the person is wise and that we know about their life, that they live well themselves.
Sometimes the two talk it through themselves. For example, the wife says: your mother behaves in a way I don’t like… The husband shouldn’t shout. They should talk, and then he tells his wife: I’ll help you so that the problem is solved, but don’t treat my mother in a way that upsets her.
Then the husband might pass his wife’s wish on to his mother in his own words, because he understands his mother’s language better, and the mother then feels bound to respect it without taking it as an insult. Sometimes doing this takes several months.
Tebyan: What should the first step be after marriage towards an independent family identity?
The first challenge after marriage should be each person adjusting to their own family, and that requires a great deal of coordination between the spouses.
We should teach our young people to act out scenarios — not to fool anyone, but to deepen the relationship.
God says: worship Me, obey, and do good to your parents. It does not say “be just and obey”: justice might sometimes require me to answer my parents’ wrongdoing harshly, but the Qur’an does not approve of that. In every situation you must do good, but with the right behaviour you can manage them — because no father or mother wishes their child harm. If we act on this word, the problems in this area will be solved.
Interview by the Iranian Family section of the Tebyan Cultural Institute with Dr Bahman Bahmani
Summer 1390 (2011)