Odd Couples

     When I was a boy, one of my very favorite TV series was “The Odd Couple,” and lately I have been thinking a lot about that show.  “The Odd Couple” told the story of the ultra-neat Felix Unger and his very messy roommate, Oscar Madison.  I recently read Jack Klugman’s (who played Oscar) touching book about his long friendship with Tony Randall (Felix).  And then the following week, on  Christmas Eve 2012, Jack Klugman died at age 90 (Tony Randall died in 2004).  I was sad and will really miss those guys.

But all this “Odd Couple” material started me thinking about couples-  and couples therapy.  I began to think more about the issue in “The Odd Couple” of neatness versus messiness among couples, and how this often leads to feelings of anger and resentment between partners in a relationship.   Throughout my couples therapy work, I have witnessed how this issue seeps into and toxifies relationships over and over again.  It’s a problem, and I have some thoughts on how to address it.

The remedy does not lie in one partner attempting to persuade the other one that their way is the “right way.”  That will just lead to more bickering.  The solution is that the couple must try hard to understand the personal meaning of the neatness to one partner, and the personal meaning of the messiness to the other partner.

Let me give some examples of what I mean here.  One possibility is that for the neat person, a neat home is soothing- it provides a sense of calm, security, and order in a stressful world.  The person may feel that the larger world is often uncomfortably unpredictable and chaotic.  Therefore having a neat and ordered home provides a sanctuary, a place of comfort and ease.

To the messy Oscar Madison of the relationship, none of this applies. For example, and by contrast, he/she may feel that the world is often controlling, rigid, and stifling.  Coming home and being messy may provide a feeling of liberation and freedom.  The ability to not be neat may provide a sense of ease.

Therefore, at this point, each person in the couple has opposite needs.  Or more precisely, they may have similar needs- to feel relaxed - but their ways of going about achieving that relaxation are polar opposites.   The couple then stress each other out, and it can reach a point in which it feels as if their partner is actually intentionally trying to cause them to be tense and uncomfortable.  And that’s when the fighting can start.

The solution, therefore, is for both people to begin to take a deep breath and stop arguing about the latest incident of who did or didn’t do what (the dishes, the bathtub, etc.) and begin to understand each other- to understand they are just configured differently as individuals. It is essential that both partners understand that each person wants to feel relaxed- but that road to relaxation can be completely opposite, such as being neat versus messy.  If this viewpoint is attained, no one need be the “bad guy”; there is no culprit that likes to just cause problems for the other.  They are both just people who are trying, albeit in opposite ways, to feel a bit calmer in a stressful world.  If this mutual understanding is achieved, mutual compassion and compromise can result instead of anger and resentment.  Of course, achieving this is not easy when there is a lot of “water under the bridge” and resentment has built up.  Sometimes the help of a couples therapist is necessary to get the couple to this point of understanding and change.

Finally, I wish to make the point that in many ways the issue of neat versus messy is not unique.  Relationships tend to develop problems when the needs of the two people in the couple are opposite from each other.  Being neat versus being messy is only one subset of this dynamic.  Another example I commonly see is the issue of money.  Just as being neat can be soothing for one person, being careful  with money can help reduce one partner’s anxiety.  Spending money freely may be anxiety producing.  But to the other partner, such carefulness may have the opposite effect; it may feel depriving or controlling, much like neatness; while on the other hand spending money, like being messy, may feel liberating.  The point is that couples don’t fight when their needs are aligned; they fight when each individual’s way of feeling safe and free differs from the other, producing a clash.  Money, neatness, and a thousand other topics, while important in themselves, are also specific manifestations of how a couple is a combination of two very different individuals- who must learn to understand and work with each other if they are to be happy together.  It is hard work, and frankly, it sometimes seems easier to be alone. 

But Oscar and Felix, despite their bickering, were best friends who really loved and trusted each other.  In real life the actors paralleled these characters.  Jack Klugman, in his book, wrote about his closeness with Tony Randall:

"You see, I hadn't ever told Tony the real gift his friendship had given me….The real gift was the capacity to truly trust another human being completely. …Up until I was diagnosed with cancer, I had spent 75 years living like a hermit inside myself. It didn't matter who I was with, even my family, I had a strict policy that people simply couldn't be trusted. 

…If you're like I was, or you're someone who holds a grudge, or you've never really let someone know what they mean to you because you're afraid, ask yourself this question: what are you really protecting? If you look, you'll see it: nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just phantoms from old wounds that never healed. Give them up and join the people in your life who love you. Risk it all. For me, it was the best gamble I ever made."

For a couple to work, they have to try to see past the bickering.  Being a loving couple means trying to understand each other's motivations, and this takes a lot of hard work. This hard work is especially called for when there is heightened tension in the relationship because each person has opposite needs.  But in order to try to understand each other’s motivations, they have to start by trusting each other’s good will.  Sometimes this can be very difficult, but Jack Klugman made some excellent points about why working hard to find and keep a trusting love is worth it.