Couples Counseling: Comparing Relationships and Baseball

Baseball was once America’s favorite pastime where children would play in sandlots and fantasize about hitting like Hank Aaron or pitching like Nolan Ryan. Adults would sit for hours watching their favorite team on television, listening to the game on the radio, and seeing them in person. Newspapers would print the box scores daily if you couldn’t stay up late to watch the game.

Cable television began to televise games more frequently. Networks develop all-sports channels to allow viewers to see the highlights. The internet came along, and information could be discovered instantaneously. Along with new sources of media came changes to the game to speed it up. Baseball still exists but not in its same form.

Likewise, your relationship may still exist but has likely changed over time. Relationships revise, grow, adapt, modify, transform, or blossom over time.

Like the introduction of the pitch clock into baseball, relationships go through various changes, iterations, stages, and adjustments (dating, engagement, marriage, occupational changes, moving, having children, children leaving the home, overseas business trips, etc.). As your relationship evolves, it will experience ups and downs.

If you feel nostalgic and time has passed you by, you are not alone. Perhaps, you yearn for the “good old days” when there were no interleague games, designated hitters, or “ghost men” on second in extra innings. Perhaps, you are desiring the “good old days” days when there did not seem to be any pressures, demands, or stressors.

Once changes are implemented in baseball, they usually become fixed and permanent. Changes in rules require a supermajority of baseball owners to agree to these changes. Unlike baseball, changes can be made more easily in one’s relationship. Ideally, a couple would engage in the change process, but it only requires one partner.

Because baseball is a sport that involves two teams, the emphasis on relationships in this article will focus on a couple working together. Working together is a Biblical principle. In Ecclesiastes 4, Solomon pointed out that people should work together toward a particular goal, especially when they are partners.

Couples in couples counseling may have many goals for their relationship. Like baseball teams, couples play by the same ground rules. Each baseball stadium has different ground rules, but both teams use the same rules while playing at that stadium. Here are some general couples counseling goals using baseball metaphors:

Seattle Mariners vs. Tampa Bay Rays (2008)

Relationships are like a Seattle Mariners/Tampa Bay Rays baseball game in 2008. (If you are a Seattle Mariners fan, please temporarily suspend your affinity for them.) Imagine that you, as a couple, attend a baseball game with little or no interest in the game’s outcome. Neither team will make the playoffs this late in the season.

Traffic around the stadium is terrible. Parking at Safeco Field is quite expensive. Fans are loud and obnoxious, and hurling profanities. You may ask yourself why you are here. The point is that you are attending the baseball game to have fun together. You take the time to get to know one another, make a memory, and have conversations.

If you are in a long-term relationship or married, it is important to continue to become reacquainted with one another, make new memories, and have conversations. Like baseball, relationships change over time. Relationships thrive when the couple knows what changes are needed, adapt, and accept the new “ground rules.”

Production

Baseball is about production and statistics. The more hits, runs, walks, and home runs created by a single hitter, the richer is his bank account. The more strikeouts and wins from a pitcher, the bigger his paycheck will be. Likewise, the more you intentionally show appreciation and respect for your spouse, the stronger your relationship will become.

In Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul calls wives to respect their husbands. The apostle Peter echoes Paul’s message with instructions for husbands to respect their wives (I Peter 3:7). The return on your investment in your relationship will be immeasurable.

Like baseball, loving relationships require hard work. Hitters spend hours hitting baseballs, watching videos of their performance, visualizing their batting stance, and developing eye-hand coordination before performing on the field.

Couples, especially those going through tough times, must practice and visualize appreciation and respect for one another. Baseball players and couples rarely have the natural talent to perform without practice. Baseball players and individual partners sometimes might not get paid what they deserve, but successful ones continue to work hard for a better payday in the future.

Finding the sweet spot through couples counseling

Successful home run hitters frequently talk about baseballs hitting the “sweet spot” on the bat. The proper stance, eye-hand coordination, right speed, and power are ingredients for hitting the “sweet spot.

Similarly, strong relationships require certain ingredients to hit the “sweet spot” in the relationship: eye contact, facing each other, reflecting what you thought you heard and the point each partner is trying to get across, asking curious questions to stimulate the conversation, not interrupting, or talking over the top of each other, etc.

Unfortunately, we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. Words have different meanings based on their tone of voice, volume, and body language. Sometimes, one emotion is expressed, but another emotion is intended. The world is full of distractions that interfere with our communication. Like showing respect and appreciating one another, hitting the sweet spot in our relationship communication requires deliberate practice.

Slumps

Every baseball player goes through slumps in his career. Slumps occur when a hitter cannot buy a hit if his life depended on it. Pitchers experience slumps when they give up many hits and home runs over several outings. It is easy for baseball players to give up due to the daily grind of baseball over a long season.

It is also easy to give up on your relationship. Hard times will occur. Partners become weary of dealing with each other’s imperfections. The longer the slump in the relationship lasts, the harder it is to remain optimistic about your relationship.

As stated above, life is like a roller coaster with its ups and downs. Solomon echoed this sentiment in Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV) when he said: “There is a time for everything . . .” To keep the relationship roller coaster on track, you must deepen your friendship with your partner, intentionally show appreciation and respect for one another, and search for that sweet spot, especially when times are tough.

Beam ball

Throughout baseball history, countless confrontations have occurred based on unwritten rules. For example, after a player hits a home run and jogs slowly around the bases, he can expect the opposing pitcher to hit him intentionally with a fastball at his next at-bat.

If there are several incidents of breaking unwritten rules, it can lead to a bench-clearing brawl where teams face off in hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, bones become broken, fines and suspensions are issued, and baseball careers, on rare occasions, have ended.

Like baseball confrontations, resolving conflict between partners can be brutal. Partners know each other triggers and how to set each other off. Misinterpreted body language, mismatched communication, criticism, and communication that exhibit utter disdain all lead to moments of “intense fellowship.”

There is nothing sweet about a couple engaged in thermonuclear warfare, at home or in public. When observed, it is cringeworthy and painful. It is no wonder the apostle Paul wrote these words: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12: 17-18, NIV).

Whether on the baseball diamond or in your relationship, living in peace can be challenging, but it is possible. Baseball players assess the risk of getting injured, fined, or suspended as a deterrence against unprofessional behavior.

Couples can choose to stop throwing fastballs at each other’s heads and minimize the damage by discussing the conflict when both sides are calm and ready to engage. They can also reach out to a counselor to help them externalize and separate the issue from themselves.

Couples counseling can help

Unlike baseball, a relationship is not a competition with winners and losers. When a relationship becomes a competition, both partners lose. It is not a quid pro quo situation where the two sides exchange one positive transaction for one positive transaction.

It is not about keeping score, because you play for the same team and use the same ground rules, getting the most production out of each other, finding the sweet spot, enduring slumps together, and not throwing beam balls.

If you realize that you are out of sync with each other, not agreeing to ground rules or other common struggles in loving relationships, feel free to contact one of the counselors to help you work on your dynamics. There is no shame in giving yourselves an assignment (doing couples counseling) to improve your relationship to become an All-Star couple.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, NIV