Frames are repetitive social situations with their own rules, expectations and understandings. These social realities are often learned early and may remain more or less unconscious until we interact with someone who has a conflicting frame. This often happens after a couple marries.

Consider the following scenario. A young man growing up in a well to do suburb, has a mother who does everything for him. Each morning he finds his bureau drawers filled with clean socks, underwear and freshly ironed shirts. In the kitchen he finds a well prepared breakfast ready and waiting for him and his lunch neatly packed in a brown paper bag. When he gets back from school he has his milk and cookies and goes out to play. That is his reality, that is what women, mothers do. Now In the same neighborhood, same socioeconomic level, same ethnic and racial background a young woman is growing up with a different reality. Both her parents work and she has to look after her own clothes, and get her own breakfast. After school she may put the clothes in the washing machine, and get some things ready for dinner. In this family everybody just does what need to be done. That is her reality.

Imagine now that when they grow up these two young people meet, date and fall in love. They decide to marry once they finish college--which they then proceed to do. After they return from the honeymoon, they set up housekeeping in a small apartment. The first morning the husband is ready to go off to his new job but he is distressed to find he has no clean socks, underwear or freshly pressed shirts. In the kitchen there is no breakfast or lunch waiting. Frustrated and unhappy, he complains to his wife, “Where are my clean clothes, my breakfast and my lunch, my mother….” To which his wife replies, ”Don’t be such a baby, learn to do your own laundry and to cook.”

When there is a conflict of social realities we have the tendency to attribute bad motives to those who don’t share our view of the world. This is true of married couples as well. In the above example, the husband is likely to accuse the wife of uncaring about his welfare. The wife in turn is likely to accuse her husband of being spoiled and self centered. Other frame conflicts may center around gift giving (big deal in some families, not in others) around bathroom etiquette (left to your imagination), or about how to celebrate holidays and birthdays.

When a couple has children, frame conflicts often arise with respect to child rearing practices. To illustrate, if one parent was brought up in a home where children were given a great deal of freedom and the other parent in a home where there were strict rules and obligations, this can cause a frame conflict. The tendency to see the other parent’s reality as stemming from bad motives can make the situation worse. One parent may accuse the other of being unwilling to take the time or make the effort to discipline. The other may claim that the other spouse is more concerned about keeping the house clean and neat than he or she is about the well being of the children. In such disputes children are caught in the middle.

As a family counselor, I found that such conflicts can be resolved if the relationship is healthy in other respects. I tell my clients something like this, “The best way of dealing with conflicting realities is for each of you to talk a little bit about the way you have been brought up. In this way each of you can appreciate that it is upbringing, rather than bad intentions, which is the root of the conflict. If you can accept such differences, as such, as simply differences, then you can proceed to a rational discussion as how to resolve the dispute.”

In the above example, it is usually possible to find a compromise between freedom and regulation if each parent is willing to give a little. It should be said, however, that sometimes differences between parents stem more from personality clashes, than from learned frames. Personality is harder to change, and for such clashes the relationship can only last if the parents make the effort to adapt to, rather than try and change, the other’s behavior patterns. It is much easier to change frames than it is to alter personality.