"He doesn't care." "She's just too clingy."
"He shuts me out." "She's too dependent."
"She doesn't do her share at home." "He doesn't care about the kids."
"She's so tight with money." "He's irresponsible about spending."

When couples finally come in for help, they are full of anger, disappointments, accusations, and unfriendly interpretations about their partner's motivations and behavior. Usually the same old fight has been going on for months, even years. By now they know their own and each other's lines perfectly. They are no longer listening to each other. They've heard it all before. Each is locked into her or his own position and asks me to verify it. As painful as it is, they can't seem to turn to each other for comfort. Nor can they break free of the battle. These people loved each other once. Why can't they work their way through their fight?

If a couple is in my office instead of a lawyer's, I assume that each still harbors some hope for the relationship. Frustrated by their endless battles but wanting to stay together, they have already turned to family members and friends who have usually been sympathetic but not very helpful. By the time they arrive at the office of a professional helper like me, they're pretty discouraged. Unless we can quickly affirm that there are reasons to be hopeful, they won't find much help in the counseling room either.

Often hope lies in redefining the problem. As long as she thinks he's an idiot or he thinks she is a shrew, she thinks he is an arrogant chauvinist or he thinks she is an entitled princess, there is little we can do. Defining the problem as a character flaw leaves us all helpless. The definer feels righteous and the definee feels defensive. Neither is a position that allows for working as a team.

Our job is to move away from labels and to begin to understand what each person is valuing and what each is protecting when she or he fights. Compassion and willingness to compromise often flow naturally when people begin to see each other's goals and pain.

Here's a good example:

Ed and Sue have been married for 9 years. They have two young children, ages 3 and 1. They describe their 5 years of dating and the first 6 years of their marriage as fine. Since the children arrived, they've been fighting with increasing frequency and hostility. Most of the fights are about balancing the financial needs of the family with family time. They both work at demanding jobs and the children are in childcare for about 7 hours a day. Sue complains that Ed works too much and doesn't share enough in the childcare when they all finally get home at the end of a busy day. Ed complains that Sue is pushing the children off on him and that she is never satisfied with how much money the two of them make.

Careful questioning of the couple revealed that they had come from families with very different expectations about the roles of men and women and the importance of father time with kids. Ed's dad was a construction worker who often worked overtime to support the family. He didn't see the kids much but both parents were proud that he could provide them with what they needed. Ed's mother stayed home, did all the housework and childcare, and let everyone know that men are incompetent at such things. Ed developed the conviction that being a real man meant working very hard to support his family financially. He saw childcare as a mysterious and wonderful talent that women have and men don't.

Sue was raised by a hard-working single mom who could never get ahead of the bills. Her father walked out on the family when she was only 4. Sue decided early in life that she never, ever, would let her family be poor and that her kids would have the kind of involved father she never had.

With just this little bit of information, we could begin to redefine the problem from hopeless character flaws (he's a workaholic; she's an ambivalent mother) to a far more hopeful understanding of the unfortunate hook-up of conflicting values and fears that went on between them.

Ed was working very hard to measure up to his own standard for manhood, i.e., taking care of his family financially. When Sue complained about not having enough money, she added to his inner sense of pending failure. Further, he was afraid his ignorance about children's needs would cause them harm. He saw himself as turning the kids over to a superior caretaker when he pushed them back to Sue.

Sue needed to bring in her own paycheck to feel safe. She worked herself to the point of exhaustion in order to have the margin of financial comfort she needed but then had little energy left for the kids at the end of the day. She didn't understand that although she was carefully ensuring that the kids had an involved father, her overwork was preventing them from having an involved mother. When Ed didn't get involved with the kids, all her old anger about having a father walk out on her got activated.

The conversations in my office were honest, painful, and heartfelt. As each was able to share the motivations behind his or her behavior, the other was able to let go of hurtful labels. Compassion began to replace anger. Ed and Sue came to a new problem definition. They understood that the challenge for them as parents was to give their children financial stability and two involved parents. They also decided they needed financial goals that were based in current reality instead of childhood myths. These were problems they believed they could solve.

Dr. Marie advises:

When the same fight goes on and on and on and on . . .

• Give up on character assassination. It doesn't help, most certainly hurts, and only further masks the real problems.

• Know that you're not fighting about what you seem to be fighting about. There's usually some old fear or hurt motivating what looks like irrational or hurtful behavior. Search for the fear and you'll be able to address the underlying problems.