Every new married couple faces questions, generally left unspoken, which powerfully shape the tone and quality of their relationship. Besides impacting the couple's relationship, the answers to these questions deeply influence the couple's effectiveness as parents. The overall goal of addressing these questions is to bring fundamental and somewhat hidden issues of marital relationships into full view. Doing so allows each partner to get more of what she or he really wants. This is a question about power.
Equal sharing occurs when both spouses' opinions and decisions are given the same weight.
An arrangement of domination and submission is present when the couple agrees that one spouse's opinions and decisions are given precedence. Chronic conflict in a marital relationship creates a war-zone tone and is usually associated with unresolved power struggles. Spouses avoid conflict by seeking to think and feel what they believe the other thinks and feels. Over time, individual identity fades and couples may go to the point of denying reality, like the severity of substance abuse, just to keep the sense of closeness intact. A couple's ability to settle conflicts is critically important.