Kitchen Wars

Marital warfare often manifests in the kitchen. Take the dishwasher for instance. Who fills it and how, who empties it and when...can all become the battleground fodder highlighting the larger unresolved relational issues. The refrain, “I always have to empty the dishwasher” can become code for a pervasive feeling that things are not “fair” in the marriage. Or “You said you would start the dishes last night and that didn’t happen” may be pointing to a lack of overall trust in the other person. The conflicts related to control can take the form of whether to rinse the plates first or not, whether to place the silverware up or down and which way to stack the bowls. These examples can serve to expose the power struggles lurking in the relationship.


If these types of battles are happening in the kitchen, you can be certain they are happening elsewhere too. Dishwashers and other triggers are the seemingly minor conflicts points of the tip of the much larger proverbial iceberg. Here are the more day-to-day places where the battlelines are drawn and played out. Thus, these examples are not to be minimized or trivialized in terms of what they reveal about the general unresolved dynamics in the marriage. It can feel “safer” to fight these household wars in this way, but by not drawing out the more complex issues directly these issues become harder to recognize and resolve. With this in mind, everyday examples can become an opportunity to explore more deeply into the relationship, beyond who’s on cleanup.

Weeds of One's Mind

The “weeds” of the mind require regular extraction. Distorted thoughts can have a way of seeding and re-seeding themselves not unlike the invasive quality of ivy or dandelions. This weed I refer to, by another name, can also be called projection or transference. Distorted thoughts, like weeds, are difficult to pull up by the roots and if allowed to flourish will only grow stronger and begin to cast longer and longer shadows over the truth.

How to accurately distinguish the weeds from the plants is the ongoing work: what thoughts, beliefs should be nourished and which need to be radically plucked from the soil?

In my work with couples, new clients almost, without exception, enter my office with some variation on a "weedy" distortion. One version is that they come in blaming each other for the problems in their relationship. Their stories, although diametrically opposed are inversely the same. “If only he wouldn’t…or if she wasn’t so….” The other common presentation is that they share the same distortion; both agree that one person in the couple is “the problem".

Both of these orientations are corrosive and destructive to the relationship because neither is based in the fact that the responsibility for the relationship is shared. Couples inevitably resist the reality that each person in the union plays a role and has a choice as to how they respond in every interaction. In this way, the problems that exist between them are co-created and jointly perpetuated.

The distorted thinking about relationships, like weeds, is persistent and could take the form of: “I wouldn’t be like this if I was just with a different person.” “Marriage should be easier.” “Because this relationship is so difficult it must be the wrong one.” All these ‘weeds’ are invading the truth of the matter and interfere with the possibility of real change.

Inhabiting the fullness of responsibility in a relationship involves the ongoing challenge of owning one’s part, not reacting from the past, staying cognizant of the choice each person has to act, feel and respond in every moment. It is not unlike the work of tending an extensive garden. Both require continual care, attention, watering, fertilizing and most especially, weeding....