The black-and-white mindset – a polarised thought process also known as dichotomous thinking or all-or-nothing – is a common thinking error that ravages many marriages. This happens when you see your spouse as either completely positive or completely negative, or as never doing things or as always doing things. 

When your mind is thinking in absolute all-or-nothing terms, usually absolute terms like “always”, “never”, “every”, “nothing”, “either or” are used. You don’t see things holistically, but only as right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, and middle ground is not considered.

There is no “in-between” when you see your spouse or each other in an all-or-nothing way. And you may well feel they never listen to you or always display selfish behaviour or tell lies or do nothing around the house. 

However, this is likely not the reality. This thinking pattern turns spouses who “suffer” from it into bitter perfectionists who get emotionally irritated by the smallest deviations from unreachable expectations. 

All-or-nothing thinking usually comes with you convincing yourself that things should be different (read perfect) and then on top of that, blame your spouse for the situation.

The world is not an either/or place. And since your expectations are unrealistic, and then life happens, you are constantly irritated and frustrated as many things in life generally and marriage specifically aren’t as black-and-white as you’d like them to be.

Furthermore, our lives are full of shades of grey. By seeing the world in black-and-white, rather than the complex human brain it actually is, we make it challenging for ourselves to separate good from bad, right from wrong, and beautiful from ugly. 

The all-or-nothing thought pattern in marriage is exhausting, and will  send your marriage through constant ups and downs. Your spouse will always come short, feel less-than and live with dented self-confidence. And on a deeper level, simplifying things into easy, binary terms robs you of much of the complexity that makes the relationship of marriage so rich. 

When you see the world in black-and-white, it distorts your thinking, as you may view a situation as being catastrophic or entirely negative, when in reality, there’s good and bad in most situations. 

With black-and-white thinking, any small imperfection turns your marriage as well as your life into a big drama. Divorce, even though you wouldn’t necessarily want it, is always imagined in your mind. You become judgmental. For instance, if your spouse makes one mistake or has one undesirable quality, you may view them as being entirely bad.

Actually, many times, you even believe you married wrong. And that belief, though you may suppress it, will always surface above your pretences. Now, imagine their insecurity in the marriage and the walls they build around themselves owing to your dichotomous thinking. Also, how good can you really feel about yourself, marriage and life? You will never really experience the fullness of what your marriage can offer. 

So why do you engage in this kind of poisonous thinking?

It’s likely because you have a perfectionist personality, where everything must be done very well, in order and neatly.

Furthermore, you may also be behaving in this manner to alleviate the stress and tension it causes you when your spouse’s statements or actions don’t make sense to you: How could she not know that always leaving dishes in the sink drives me nuts? Or when they don’t fulfill your needs: He never supports me and I’m always left to fend for myself. 

The extremes of this type of thinking then reduce emotional tension by giving you a convenient, easy-to-understand way to explain your spouse’s behaviour that disturbs you. 

So, in the face of these inconsistencies, you attempt to simplify how you view your spouse in your mind with all-or-nothing thinking. This is about self-protection: “It’s not my fault. I’m not the one who always falls asleep.” You need to explain to yourself why your needs aren’t being met and why you’re not the culprit. 

But unfortunately, black-and-white thinking is far more destructive than protective. When you tell your spouse, “You always…” or “You never…” we can guarantee that you will not be discussing your real issues. You would have forced your spouse to defend themselves: “What do you mean I always leave dishes in the sink?” And the whole conversation deteriorates from there. 

Of course you know that no-one is perfect. However, being realistic in your relationship means seeing yourself and your spouse on a continuum of strengths and weaknesses. Being in a healthy marriage means that you don’t see your spouse in all-or-nothing terms. That’s destructive and unhealthy.