ABSTRACT
In this chapter and another appearing in this book (Time and Couples, Part II: The Sixty-Second Pleasure Point), I describe interventions that center on the relationship between couple satisfaction and distress, and the dimension of time. Elsewhere I have argued that the manner in which couples organize themselves in time often provides a ready “window” into issues of power and closeness between the partners (Fraenkel, 1994). Questions that assess how partners have decided to allocate time often reveal one or both partners's underlying concerns about the degree of connectedness between them, as well as feelings that the other is controlling him/her through time demands. These issues of power and closeness often underlie decisions about the amount of time partners are together versus apart from one another, how they balance and sequence leisure activities versus career and work (including household chores), and how partners perceive each other'ss punctuality and pace. For instance, one partner may feel distanced by the other'ss seemingly greater devotion to work than to being together as a couple; another may view the partner'ss consistent lateness to social engagements as a sign that the partner doesn'st really want to participate in these activities; another partner may feel “pushed around” or controlled by the other'ss fast (or slow) pace of walking. Persistent differences between the partners in time allocation, pace, punctuality, and other temporal aspects of behavior may result in a sense of being “out of sync” with one another, which may represent a major source of a couple'ss distress.
