A Clinical Process for Working with Couples

This works in practice over thirty (30) specific relational characteristics. This is an attempt, for one moment in time, in a temporal halt to a once love relationship, to make more objective that part of the subjective experience of love gone wrong. Inequality is probably more objectively measurable, and fairness is subjective. The two measures go together. Fairness is the internal experience of each party where is inequality external set of relational characteristics and practices the parties engage in. This is the relationship between the two analogies that make up the spatial analogy: the inside and the outside. We are probably neuro-biologically arranged for fairness. Fairness maybe be neuro-biological manifestation of inequality. If we follow the work of Marcus and Flannery on the archaeological and the anthropological evidence about human sensitivity to inequality, it is unlikely that this is not manifest in our neurobiology in some way; perhaps arranged after all in our DNA. Humankind cannot bear too much inequality. We need to look at how equal or unequal each person experiences the practice of each particular function and how fair or unfair each person experiences the practice of that particular function.
This gives us some measure of how ‘just’ the relationship is. ‘Justice’ is a central virtue for humans in the ordinary conduct of their intimate, close, attached and working relationships. Justice is a primary human virtue (Rawls: A Theory of Justice). The human experience of any institution including the committed couple relationship and marriage must be that of justice. Justice the way inequality is managed through fairness. A successful committed couple relationship / marriage requires that each unequal function of the relationship be managed so it is experienced by the parties as fair. This is the relationship between two analogies. The inside (neurobiological) and the outside (socio-relational). The words inside and outside are preferred for the moment as they capture the analogic nature of human experience. An equation is always an analogy. The terms neurobiological and socio-relational suggest an objectivity that is not wholly present, a chimera of sorts. 

The Justice Coefficient (© copyright Bower Place Pty Ltd, 2020)
Justice (J), in these terms, is inequality (Q) moderated by fairness (Z), for each particular relational characteristic (N).
Justice = Inequality ∕ Fairness
Justice Coefficient: J = ∑(Q/Z) ᴺ⁽¹¯³⁰⁾ ≤ 1
Where J = Justice; Q = Inequality; Z = Fairness; N¹¯²⁰ = Relational Characteristics [children/parenting; intimacy/sex; money; work; domestic work; friends; family; leisure/recreation; time together; time apart; addictions; communication; violence; conflict/difference]
The more unequal a relational characteristic the fairer the practice of that relational characteristic must be. Fairness is the counterbalance to inequality over any particular relational characteristic that produces justice in a relationship. This is true under all relational characteristic circumstances including parenting, politics, work, and recreation. Fairness is always in the eyes of the beholder. Higher the level of inequality (Q) the higher the level of fairness (F) required to remediate that inequality (Q). J must at all times be less than or equal to 1 (i.e. J ≤ 1) to conform to the fundamental requirements of genuine reciprocity, and an equal give and take, in a relationship. 
The characteristic lines of discourse in a committed couple relationship is –
 

1. Children / Parenting: Refers to the having, attachment, parenting, differentiation, and growing up of children in a family produced, one way or another, out of a marriage / committed couple relationship.  The configuration of this in the 21st century is sociologically different to how this was configured in the families most older people were raised in 50+ years ago. The balance of children to adults is generally different, with adults surviving and partnering and re-partnering more often, we have more adults raising fewer children in the 21st century family compared to 50+ years ago. Historically, the raising of children has been unequal, often appropriating more of the day to day life of the woman over that of the man. How this actually occurs in each family needs to be examined closely. The parenting of a child is, generally, more shared than it was 50+ years ago, albeit between 2 or more women, and that parenting is more likely to be contested in the 21st century than it was 50+ years ago. The altered gender construction of employment and domestic work is also in the mix here. The unequal gender construction of parenting is possibly similar now to what it was 50+ years ago but socially different. All of this shapes the issue of fairness and how fairness articulates with inequality. 
2. Money: Refers to the earning, distribution, management and control of money and the financial arrangements that support the committed couple relationship / marriage, now and into the future. 
3. Intimacy: Refers to the verbal, emotional, and physical expression of the attachment and love two people say they have for each other in a marriage / committed couple relationship. 
4. Sex: Refers to the way the (ordinarily) differential requirements of each person’s sexuality is practiced, accommodated to, and made manifest in the relationship. 
5. Domestic Work: Refers to the translation of love and a love relationship into ‘bricks and mortar’; and how this is controlled, supported, arranged, maintained and managed as domestic life together under the same roof; domestic work is often one of the key implicit measures of fairness in a relationship. 
6. Appreciation / Positivity: Refers to the idea that being positive and appreciating the other person and appreciating what they do, how they look etc. 
7. Employment / Work: Refers to the role that employment, work, careers, and the earning of money plays in our lives in a committed couple relationship; often arranged along gender lines; and in response to   having, caring for and parenting children; women are characteristic lee short change in this domain. 
8. Friends: Refers to the tolerance a marriage / committed couple relationship has for relationships with other people; friends; people who bear some similarity or commonality to you as a couple or as individuals; relationships of similarity, friendships, are necessary to sustain us as individual human beings. 
9. Family: Refers to the tolerance a marriage / committed couple relationship has for relationships with the ‘blood’ each person was born into or comes from; relationship with relatives, extended family / family of origin; this is a very variable relational characteristic, often family and culturally defined. 
10. Time Together: Refers to the connected time the two parties to a relationship want to spend together, actually do spend together; and what by do in that time; many couples find themselves in dispute with each other over this and the way this articulates with  parenting and work;  often in a committed couple relationship / marriage one of the parties is left lonely while the other is engaged in something meaningful, in an activity with other people. 
11. Time Apart: Refers to the  independent time and time apart the parties to a committed couple relationship / marriage have and experience; often time apart is very controlled by one or both parties in a relationship; time apart is important as this is one of the ways in which difference can be brought into a relationship; difference and differentiation are critical characteristics in the health of a relationship – of significance in a relationship between two people who work in the same occupation or in the same workplace is the absence of difference and differentiation; this acts to limit  possibilities and potential transformation in a relationship. 
12. Leisure / Recreation: Refers to the ability of a relationship to renew, reinvigorate, stimulate, recreate, reinvent, etc. itself by taking time out of every day and doing something  completely different for a period of time; something that allows the two people in the relationship reflect upon themselves and the relationship itself. 
13. Addictions
14. Alcohol / Drugs: Refers to the very important shaping role addictions play in the marriage / committed couple relationship; these act as a significant constraint to communication and conflict and play a very important role in violence, aggression and humiliation. 
15. Gaming
16. Gambling
17. Pornography
18. Laughter
19. Comfort / Solace
20. Violence
21. Physical Violence: Refers to the fundamental breaches of the boundaries between people in a marriage / committed couple relationship; involves the exploitation and systematic humiliation of the other person. 
22. Verbal Abuse
23. Emotional Abuse
24. Difference / Conflict: Refers to the way the members of the marriage / committed couple relationship have and experience differences over items 1 to 20 on this list, including ‘difference’ itself; similarity and difference are critical characteristics of any intimate and attached relationship and how these are transacted between two people is a significant measure of the health of a relationship; ‘difference’ is critical to intimacy and without it intimacy dies; a healthy intimate couple relationship is a celebration of the different sexualities of the people involved in that relationship; difference must be manifest and practiced through everything from ordinary differences of opinion through to disputation and direct conflict and argument; difference is to be celebrated not avoided or dismissed or degenerated into sameness or something that looks like sameness;  too much similarity will destroy a relationship through boredom;  too much difference a relationship through disputation; how that balance is struck is critical. 
25. Communication: Refers to the way the members of a marriage / committed couple relationship have and experience their communication with each other over all items from 1 to 14 on this list, including ‘communication’ itself; conflict and communication go hand in hand; communication is necessary to address the ordinary differences people experience in a relationship; ordinary differences are necessary to progress a relationship; this is the process of speaking to each other and not preventing the other person from speaking;  communication is about matters of behaviour, cognition, emotions, interaction, affect and beliefs; communication is about itself;  communication can reflect upon itself; communication is about the way in which people involved in the relationship actually strengthen the relationship through the communication process building closeness, intimacy and resilience. 
26. Cooperation
27. Criticism / Blaming
28. Responsibility
29. Food
30. Sleep
31. Health
32. Authority / Control
33. Secrecy
34. Deception / Lying