Between You and Your Spouse Alone

Many years ago, when Dawna was in graduate school we were approached by another couple slightly older than us, Amy and Greg, whom Mark knew from his work. They invited us to engage in what they called "marital co-counseling."

The idea was simple: Mark would meet weekly with Amy, and talk with her about any issues that he had in his relationship to Dawna. Amy would offer a "woman's perspective" and help him strategize ways to fix the problem. Then they would switch roles, and Amy would talk to Mark about her relationship issues. Meanwhile, Dawna and Greg would be meeting for the same purposes.

Dawna turned them down flat. Bringing a third party into relationship problems is called "triangulation," and its pretty universally understood by therapists to be a bad thing.

In family-systems theory, triangulation is a three-person emotional system that forms when tension in a two-person relationship becomes difficult to manage. Drawing in a third person can reduce anxiety temporarily, but it doesn't resolve the original conflict. It usually makes it worse.

And yet, it's easy to understand the appeal.

When something is wrong between us and someone we love, our first instinct is rarely to go straight to them. Instead, we text a friend. We mention it to a parent. We rehearse our grievance to a coworker. We often will talk to anyone who will listen; everyone, it seems, except the person who actually needs to hear it.

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus offers a very different instruction. He tells his disciples: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone."

Before you gossip about them to a friend, before you complain to a wider community, before any escalation, you are to go directly, and go privately.

Jesus' advice is a template for how to address your spouse when they have hurt or disappointed you: honestly, immediately, and without an audience.

What the Research Shows

The appeal of triangulation can be huge. When you are emotionally distraught, it feels safer. Venting to a friend (or, nowadays, to an AI!) seems harmless, even therapeutic.

The evidence suggests otherwise.

In a well-known study, psychologist Brad Bushman found that venting anger, even in supposedly harmless ways, like hitting a punching bag while thinking about the person who provoked you, did not reduce anger.

It increased it. And it increased subsequent aggression toward the target.

Venting rehearses the grievance rather than resolving it. Each retelling to a sympathetic friend tends to harden our narrative, recruit an ally to our side of the story, and make the eventual direct conversation harder, not easier, because now our position feels validated by an audience.

That's not a good start to a conversation with the other person who actually knows what happened.

This does not mean spouses should never seek outside perspective. But it does mean that the first move belongs to the two people involved.

The 48-Hour Rule

Try this the next time your spouse does something that stings. For the first 48 hours, resist telling anyone else. Not your mother, not your group chat, not your best friend from college, not your ChatGPT buddy.

Instead, bring the issue directly to your spouse, using a soft start-up: describe what happened, name how it affected you, and state what you need, without blame or contempt:

"When you said that in front of my sister, I felt embarrassed. I thought we had agreed to raise concerns about each other privately, and I was completely blindsided."

Choose a calm moment, not the heat of the argument.

Then listen to their response as carefully as you spoke.

Couples who practice this consistently report fewer resentments and a stronger sense that their marriage is a safe, private place. This is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do when he tells us that our issues should first be addressed "between you and him alone." Because if we are heard, "you have gained your brother."

When Two Aren't Enough

Of course, direct conversation does not always resolve the matter. Jesus anticipates this: if the first conversation fails, "take one or two others along with you."

This is not a contradiction of privacy but its natural extension. We bring in a trusted counselor, mentor couple, or pastor, not to take sides but to help both spouses hear each other.

Seeking counseling, in this light, is not an admission of failure. It is following the very same advice, from the ultimate advisor.