Ep 72: Creating a Marriage of Equals with Catherine E. Aponte

The Learn to Love Podcast

What is the difference between a conflict and a disagreement? Do self-help books actually help? What does it really mean to have equality in a relationship? Find out in this week's episode of The Learn to Love Podcast, where your host Zach Beach interviews the Clinical Psychologist Catherine E. Aponte, Psy.D. on Creating a Marriage of Equals For more on this episode click here: https://www.the-heart-center.com/ep-72-creating-a-marriage-of-equals-with-catherine-e-aponte/ Learn more about your guest below: Catherine Aponte, Psy.D., was previously a clinical psychologist and an adjunct professor at Spalding University. Dr. Aponte is married to a clinical psychologist, Joseph F. Aponte. They married in 1960, a time of significant social change. Joe had his Ph.D. and Catherine had a BS when they moved to Chapel Hill, NC in 1970, where Joe took his first job. It was at this time that Catherine decided she wanted to go to graduate school in psychology. This created a problem for them because Joe had earned his degree and was ready to begin his career in psychology. By this time, his status and earning power were higher than Catherine’s, and would remain so. What this meant to her and perhaps other women in this situation, was that what she wanted to do was limited to some degree by her husband’s greater earning power and by a late start on a career. Dr. Aponte and her husband embarked upon a marital journey guided by the basic principle that neither one of their careers was more important than the other’s. Catherine did earn her doctoral degree in psychology and has had a successful private practice of psychology working primarily with couples. Joe took an academic route. Her book, A Marriage of Equals: How to Achieve Balance in a Committed Relationship and this Psychology Today Blog is based on Catherine’s lived experience during the feminist revolution of the 70s with her loving and supportive husband, her training as a psychologist at the University of Florida, Duke University, and Spalding University, and as a practicing psychologist working with couples for over 30 years in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Aponte was awarded a USPHS Traineeship covering the four years she was a graduate student at Duke University. During Dr. Aponte’s professional career both as a clinician in private practice and an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Spalding University, she made numerous presentations about her work with couples, including her theory about the dynamics of an equitable marital relationship. She chaired eight doctoral dissertations testing her theoretical model of relationships. She created a blog, “amillennialmarriage,” and has maintained a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. She has contributed several letters to the editor of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, related to gender issues. Both her master’s thesis at Duke University and her doctoral thesis at Spalding University focused on gender and marriage. Dr. Aponte has participated in various professional activities during her career such as chairing a State-wide conference on the shared responsibilities of work and family; participating in a radio panel on the Shriver Report; chairing the Gender Issues Committee for the Kentucky Psychological Association; participating in The Third Path Institute, a group working to support sharing parental care; and heading up a residential living program for chemically dependent women. Throughout her career as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Aponte has been devoted to helping couples co-create a committed and equitable marriage because: (1) women will not achieve equality in society as a whole if they live in a gender-defined relationship; (2) women today are more likely not to marry than to live in a traditional marriage; (3) having a good relationship in the context of marriage is good for us as individuals and good for our society; (4) having both mother and father equally invested—equal joy a