Newlyweds' 5 Biggest Pitfalls
Newlyweds' 5 Biggest Pitfalls
By Leanna Skarnulis
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
Love and marriage may "go together like a horse and carriage," but most newlyweds set off without a shared road map. Each partner comes to the journey with their own set of directions including -- assumptions about roles, expectations about how to spend time and money, and deeply held beliefs about children. Then there's also -- baggage. Experts say it takes desire, honest communication, and hard work to move a relationship from the romantic stage through the power struggles to a loving marriage based on shared meaning. Get off to a good start by avoiding these five major pitfalls:
My family does it this way.
Marriage will make me happy.
My partner will change once we're married.
Talking about issues like his rowdy friends, her credit card debt, when to have kids, and who should clean the toilet, will take the bloom off romance.
We should avoid conflict at all costs.
My Family Does It This Way
His family sits down together around the dining room table for dinner every night. Her family scatters and grabs dinner on the run.
Couples often underestimate the influence of their families. "People go into marriage with expectations that are engrained almost subconsciously," says Addie Leibin, MS, LMHC, a private mental health counselor in Winter Park, Fla. "They think, I'll get married, and I'll do it like my family did it. But you can't build a house with two sets of blueprints. The whole object is to come up with your own set of plans. It's not your mom and dad's house."
Mark Freeman, PhD, agrees with Leibin that families operate on both conscious and subconscious levels. He counsels couples and teaches a class called "Marriage and the Family" in his roles as director of personal counseling and instructor at Rollins College, also in Winter Park. On a conscious level, he says, when there's interference from one of the spouse's family members or a person doesn't have total allegiance to his or her spouse that creates problems within a person's marriage.
On a subconscious level, families provide the frame-of-reference that individuals bring to the marriage regarding money, gender roles, and other important issues. "Know each other well enough to find out what the stated expectations are, and recognize sometimes there are unconscious expectations. For example, you could say 'I'm open and like to deal with things,' but in your own family when conflict arose, you shut down. So it's the stated vs. the unconscious. Sometimes we have the best intentions to be one way, but then a coping strategy from our own family comes up and violates the thing we are. We're human, not perfect."
Marriage Will Make Me Happy
He's lonely and has no friends. She feels inferior to her prettier, smarter, and wealthier sister. Both believe marriage will make them happy.
"In the early stages of a relationship, everything is beautiful," says Leibin. "Couples have to understand that love is never enough, and marriage doesn't make you happy. Happiness is a do-it-yourself job."
According to a 15-year survey reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, an individual's level of happiness before marriage is the best predictor of happiness after marriage.
My Partner Will Change
She assumes he'll stop having lunch with his ex-fiancée. He assumes she'll give up expensive spa weekends with her friends.
Marriage inevitably means compromise, but couples need to compromise without giving away too much of what they value. Freeman advises articulating a marital contract that addresses the expectations each has for the other. "The expectations can be high, but make sure they're realistic," he says.
One task he addresses with couples in pre-marital counseling involves helping them overcome romantic illusions and unrealistic expectations. "When the romance diminishes, the relationship moves to a power struggle, and for a while, each person tries to change the other. Even though people mouth the words that they don't want to change the partner, they still try. It's a developmental stage, and if couples resolve it in a healthy way, they move into stability and long-term commitment. Marriages that blow up early have a romantic view, and once that's dissipated they think the marriage is broken and can't be fixed."
Leibin tells WebMD that rather than compromise and share, some couples continue to lead separate lives after marriage. "They end up pulling apart. Couples should be friends and learn to work together. I believe in a Saturday night date ritual, and maybe she makes the plans one week and he the next. It's a time to share their lives and try to understand each other's worlds."
She says love starts a relationship, and communication makes it grow into a good working relationship in which partners respect one another's differences. She sees many couples who don't make an effort to learn about each other. "One newly married couple divorced over crumbs in the sink. He'd go off on her if there were crumbs, and she couldn't stand it."
Talking About Hard Issues Will Take the Bloom off Romance
She doesn't tell him that once they have children she wants him to quit working. He doesn't tell her his company might relocate him to Singapore.
Leibin tells us that in recent years she's seen an increase in the number of couples in trouble as early as the eighth month of marriage. "Often they'll say, 'I wish I'd known such-and-such.' People present their best selves before marriage, and they overlook serious issues, like alcohol abuse, that can destroy a marriage."
Far from ruining romance, talking openly and honestly fosters acceptance and deeper understanding which is essential if partners are to feel safe with one another. "When you feel safe with someone you love, you won't find anybody prettier, richer, or more desirable," she says.
We Should Avoid Conflict at All Costs
He leaves and goes for a drive when she confronts him about viewing computer porn. She learns to stifle her feelings about computer porn and keep quiet.
Couples who claim "we never fight" are missing an opportunity to build their relationship. "It's how couples handle the conflict that matters," says Freeman. "Do you de-escalate situations? Can you repair the relationship? Do you validate your partner after a big fight? When people give up on each other, it's usually because they've stopped trying to resolve conflicts."
The research of John Gottman, PhD, has had a profound impact on the field of marriage counseling. Freeman says Gottman can tell with 95% accuracy which couples will stay together. "He puts them in a room and videotapes them discussing their relationships. Then he observes their verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and counts positive behaviors, such as nodding or placing a hand on a shoulder, and negative behaviors, such as whining or stern criticism. With successful couples, the ratio is five positive behaviors to one negative. What makes them successful is the ability to reduce the negative feelings."
"Even good marriages will have criticism and defensiveness, but there's danger when people stonewall or feel contempt. If you hold someone in contempt, you don't think the problem can be resolved. Contempt replaces hope."
Freeman says some important lessons emerging from the research are different for men and women. "Wives who stand toe-to-toe with their husbands and don't give in do well. But when wives raise their tolerance levels, the marriage is doomed, because the husband makes a power play. Husbands who can calm themselves down and lower their anger are more likely to have happy marriages."
Making Marriage Last
Making Marriage Last
Here’s some good news: If you’re courageous enough to pick up this booklet, you’ve taken the first step toward making your marriage work. That you are willing to learn what is needed to make a successful marriage means that you believe in marriage as a lifelong commitment.
It may strike you as odd that a group of people who make a living off of failed marriages would write a booklet about divorce avoidance. After all, if every couple stayed together until death did they part, none of us would have jobs. Unfortunately, we all know that not every marriage makes it through thick and thin and that we, as matrimonial lawyers, will always have work.
We will continue to see thousands of men and women walk through our doors wanting out of a marriage. We’ll still hear every sad story. We’ll still see couples who split up because times are bad and divorce seems like the next step.
The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a non-profit association of attorneys who are experts in family law, was established in 1962. During the last few decades, our 1,500 members have learned a lot about marriage and the pitfalls of divorce.
The information provided in this booklet evolved from a comprehensive survey of our members on what they see as the most common factors leading to divorce.
Our members know that divorce isn’t always the answer. Though some marriages should be abandoned – for reasons such as physical or sexual abuse or other intolerable situations – many “unsalvageable” unions can be saved. If you are willing to devote some time and energy to identifying and correcting the problems in your marriage, chances are, you can avoid the financially and emotionally draining process of divorce.
Please treat this booklet as merely an introduction to the process of working on your marriage. In addition to the tips and information contained here, your library or local bookstore contains a wealth of information, as does the Internet. We have included a sampling of books on marriage, as well as a list of support groups and organizations aimed at helping marriages. Couples should also not be afraid to seek professional help from a trained marriage and family therapist. Churches and synagogues are also good resources for family support.
We can’t emphasize this enough: It takes time and energy to strengthen a weakened marriage. But it can be done. And we hope this booklet helps.
In fact, we hope we never see you again!
Why Marriages Fail
Not all marriages fail for the same reason. Nor is there usually one reason for the breakdown of a particular marriage. Nevertheless, we hear some reasons more often than others.
They are:
Poor communication
Financial problems
A lack of commitment to the marriage
A dramatic change in priorities
Infidelity
There are other causes we see a lot, but not quite as often as those listed above
They are:
Failed expectations or unmet needs
Addictions and substance abuse
Physical, sexual or emotional abuse
Lack of conflict resolution skills
Communication
Poor communication is often the catalyst for all other marital problems.
Unfortunately, the simple act _of saying “I do” doesn’t turn a spouse into a mind reader. _So couples must share their thoughts and feelings or they risk losing touch with what is important in their marriage.
Direct communication is always best. As the old saying goes: Mean what you say, say what you mean. If you want or need something, tell your spouse. If your spouse is doing something that bothers you, tell him or her why it bothers you and what you would like your spouse to do about it. As with all communication, however, the secret is in the delivery. Never be accusatory or disrespectful.
If your spouse reacts badly to something you’ve said, it’s possible that he or she did not understand what you meant. Before you overreact, take time to find out what your spouse thinks you meant, and, if necessary, explain what it is you were trying to say.
Arguments are a legitimate way to communicate, but the arguments must be based on a person’s actions or words, not what one side imagines is motivating the other side. Arguments are also okay when they are fair, honest disputes about family policy or priorities.
Personal attacks against your spouse are disrespectful and they get in the way of real discussion about important matters.
Some communication problems may be the result of the different ways men and women tend to communicate. Each sex often expects a particular response when they say something, and some are surprised or offended when they get something else. Women often want their feelings acknowledged, while men want to fix things, to solve problems.
For example, a wife who complains about her terrible day at work probably wants empathy, not a discussion about what she should have done to avoid it. Alternatively, a husband who asks his wife where she wants to go for dinner probably wants an answer, not a vague response that “anything is fine.”
It is dangerous to react to your spouse with anger. Anger impairs judgment and impedes communication. When people get angry, they may be speechless, or they may cry, yell, stomp out of the room, run away, or throw things. Some may even beat their spouse or children. None of this conduct helps a marriage thrive. It does not resolve disputes; it simply intimidates the other person.
Communication Do’s and Don’ts
Focus on solving the problem instead of winning the argument;
Listen with an open mind to make sure you understand what your spouse means instead of launching into an unnecessary argument;
Explain yourself if you feel you have been misunderstood;
Respect each other’s opinion, even if you can’t find an immediate solution to the problem;
Spend time discussing problems and issues you each think are important;
Be quick to forgive, quick to forget;
Be sincere. Your words may say one thing, but your body language may convey something completely different;
Don’t talk in code. Say what you mean, and say it respectfully;
Don’t go to sleep before resolving a conflict;
Don’t talk to your spouse in a rude, disparaging way;
Don’t criticize your spouse in front of others;
Don’t let anger cloud your judgment about the proper way to speak to and treat your spouse;
Don’t start arguments based on things that happened long ago;
Don’t assume that your spouse is personally attacking you just because he or she disagrees with you.
Financial Problems
No matter how rich or how poor a couple is, one of the constant subjects of marital disagreement is money. Whether it’s over how money is earned, spent or saved, money fights are common because money is a part of daily life, from paying the electric bill to saving for retirement.
Attitudes toward money are learned in childhood. When spouses are raised with widely differing attitudes toward money, conflict is inevitable. The key is for couples to discuss their views on money and to decide among themselves how they will make decisions about how the family money will be controlled.
It is probably not a good idea to have one spouse in complete control of all family assets. That’s not to say that a spouse with a particular skill in managing money should not use that skill, but that spouse should always discuss with the other spouse what he or she is doing.
There are several ways you may decide to divvy up the responsibility. Some couples keep their earnings separate but agree in advance who will pay what bills. Some couples put every penny of their financial lives into a joint account. Financial togetherness can be as intense or as separate as the parties wish. As long as the goals and attitudes toward money are shared, the mechanics of fiscal management are less important.
Managing The Marital Money
Here are some ways to prevent money-management disputes from destroying a marriage:
1. Regardless of who earns how much, make a fair division of responsibility for both routine family financial decisions (such as utilities or groceries) and the major ones (such as a house or a car).
2. Set short- and long-term goals together, and stick to them unless you both agree to change them.
3. Be sure each partner has some money they can spend however they like. The amount, of course, depends on your financial circumstances. Neither spouse should ever have to beg for money.
4. If you spend more than you earn, work out a budget together and follow it for at least a year. Don’t deviate from the budget unless you both agree. If you can’t work out your own budget, see a financial planner.
Lack of Commitment
Marriage is supposed to be a lifetime commitment, a pledge to do whatever is necessary to keep the relationship together. If couples look at matrimony as a job they can quit or an apartment they can break the lease on, their marriage is headed for trouble. Spouses have to agree that keeping the marriage healthy is their top priority. To do that, they have to commit time and energy to it. Both spouses should be as concerned with the welfare of each other as they are with themselves.
Devoting time to one’s marriage can require some tough decisions, such as turning down challenging work assignments that would take away from “couple time,” spending less time with friends, leaving the office even when duty calls, etc. But it can also be as simple as having a weekly “date night.”
Though unexpected events, such as death of a family member or loss of a job, happen to everyone, these events should not be used as an excuse to ignore one’s commitment to their marriage. Committed couples who deal with unexpected problems together actually strengthen their marital bonds.
Do you lack commitment to your marriage?
Are you a “workaholic”? Do you spend so much time at work (or at your volunteer job) that you miss important family functions? Do you rationalize the excessive time you spend at work by saying it’s “for the family”?
Have you physically or emotionally abused your spouse? Are you so hung up on having control over everything that you lash out to keep your spouse in line?
Do you spend hours and hours meeting strangers on the Internet?
Do you complain about your spouse in anonymous chat rooms?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may lack the necessary commitment to keep your marriage afloat. These aren’t the only situations, but they are ones we see a lot. Workaholics use work as an excuse to avoid conversation and intimacy with their spouse. Abusers use threats and violence to make sure they always get what they want. Internet junkies shut their spouses out by talking to strangers about marital problems.
If you notice yourself in these scenarios, it’s time to recommit yourself to your marriage.
Changes in Priorities
The most common change in priorities comes during a “mid-life crisis." Fearing the transition into older age or more responsibility (such as having children), many people push aside all that they have valued in exchange for something new, exciting or completely opposite.
But there are other reasons for changed priorities: children going to college, which can often prompt stay-at-home moms to re-evaluate their lives in their children’s absence; a deteriorating sex life; major health problem; the completion of a longtime goal; or death of a parent or child. Any of these things can make a person feel the need to break away from their “routine” as a way to get back what they feel they have lost.
Once again, the key is communication. Couples need to discuss their priorities and their expectations, and what they hope to achieve in the future. And they should do this not just on their honeymoon, but throughout their marriage. Even if they don’t always agree on the specifics of the new priorities, an open line of communication will facilitate a resolution as well as prevent unpleasant surprises.
Infidelity
The sad fact is that that some people will risk their entire marriage for the sake of an extramarital affair. But infidelity is rarely the only reason a couple breaks up. Usually, a couple has a host of other problems and infidelity is simply “the last straw.”
The expectations and priorities of a spouse who commits the adultery may have shifted, as discussed above. A cheating spouse may find comfort in the arms of someone else when the other spouse has stopped communicating. Neither scenario is an excuse, but spouses who have extramarital affairs pick an inappropriate way to fulfill a need that’s not being met at home.
The spouse who is betrayed may feel humiliated. Children sense these feelings and may worry that the unfaithful parent will someday betray or abandon them in the same way.
In addition to the emotional toll on the family, extramarital affairs also present health risks, such as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases that can cause infertility or death to an unsuspecting spouse.
Not all couples split up after infidelity. Some may be able, after a great deal of time and effort, to repair the broken bonds. If staying together is an option, a marriage counselor will be of enormous help in making the transition.
The Journey to Happiness
It has been said that most of life’s happiness, and most of its misery, emanate from one’s marriage.
Spouses in a happy marriage are more productive on the job, are physically healthier and experience less emotional stress than their unhappily married counterparts. They also raise happier, healthier, more confident children who themselves go on to have happy marriages.
With so much riding on it, it makes sense for couples to make their marriage their number one priority. We hope that the information provided here helps couples begin the journey to their own happiness.
Improving Your Marriage
Treat your spouse like your best friend or most important colleague.
Don’t expect to get more from your spouse than you give of yourself.
Don’t lose your sense of humor; have fun with your spouse.
Don’t demean your spouse in public or in private.
Learn to listen, learn to hear.
Learn to argue respectfully.
Look for resolution rather than victory.
Assess your own mistakes and acknowledge them.
When you apologize, mean it, and sound like it. Be short on blame and long on forgiveness.
Be willing to change your opinions and attitudes.
Look at changes in your life as an opportunity to grow.
Don’t try to change your spouse; accept your spouse “as is.”
Here are some resources for further investigation.
Dr. Joy Browne's Simple Steps to Solving Any Relationship Problem
Dr. Joy Browne's Simple Steps to Solving Any Relationship Problem
Joy Browne, PhD
O ver the years, most people who've called my radio program have been unhappy, seeking my help to convince someone else to stop making them miserable. The work I do is based on my conviction that we are all capable of change. But we can change only our own behavior, not that of someone else. I believe this as fundamentally as that the sun will rise tomorrow. Ways to break free...
IDENTIFY PATTERNS
When counting or recounting your woes, listen to the words you use. If "always," "usually/tends to," "never" or "everyone" recurs, a pattern may be at work. Listen to yourself...
"Aunt Tish never liked me." "My friend Leslie has always put me down." "The people next door avoid me." (Do you hear "usually" in the last one?)
Is everybody else really that stuck? Or could it be you?
Danger: If you notice yourself feeling good about feeling bad and trying to win sympathy, beware -- you're on the wrong track.
Solution: Try to determine why people "always" and "never" do things to or for you. Aunt Tish may be unskilled at demonstrating affection... Leslie may not realize how harsh she sounds... your neighbors may have their own issues unconnected to you -- they may be busy or even assume that you are avoiding them.
TURN A NEGATIVE INTO A POSITIVE
When you feel stuck in negative patterns, apply to the situation the positive patterns that have helped you succeed in other areas of your life.
Example: Marvin yells at members of his family, who then get upset. He formerly prided himself on keeping his head in difficult situations at work. Recalling the tools he used to remain cool at the office before his recent retirement -- taking deep breaths, waiting 10 minutes to respond when angry, talking about problems, striving to see others' points of view -- he can learn to adapt those patterns to his home life.
OLD WOUNDS, NEW TRICKS
In many cases, callers to my show have made an unconscious decision to dwell on injustices of the past instead of working creatively toward a more rewarding future. As a result, they perpetuate their own unhappiness.
Examples: Shelley's husband had affairs, but, despite feeling lonely, she hasn't dated since the divorce... Margo avoids family get-togethers because she believes her daughter-in-law doesn't like her... George, eyeing a pile of rejection slips, stops writing poetry and misses it.
See my point? Yet the "stuck" quality that was clearly holding them back had to be pointed out to them. The next step -- accepting the past and moving toward the present -- became obvious.
IT'S CONTAGIOUS
You may find that the past in which you are stuck is someone else's.
Example: Sal called my radio show and said, "The woman I love is mourning her lover of 15 years who died three years ago. She says she's not ready for another committed relationship. She's 77. I'm 84 and running out of time. Should we break up?"
Sal's love is stuck in her past, a place he doesn't want to go.
Compromise: You can't rush someone else's love (or life) for your own reasons. I suggested that Sal consider his girlfriend more of a friend and less of a mate and begin to see other women.
DOORS OPEN, DOORS CLOSE
Resistance to change can be disruptive, as can change itself. Admittedly, accepting the inevitable isn't always easy. Shifting family dynamics, for example, can be rough.
One woman's stepdaughter-to-be upset her family by refusing to face the closing of a door. Grace, age 74, a widow of 16 years, called to say, "I'm engaged to Bill, who's 81. Our families are happy for us, except Bill's daughter Jane, who is having a hard time celebrating. After assisting with her dad's physical problems since her mother died six years ago, she resents me. Shouldn't Jane rejoice at her father's new life?"
Many grown children would happily cede caregiving tasks, I told Grace, but Jane may feel that having you on the scene will reduce her significance as the favored child... or see you as a rival, stealing her nurturing role.
Solution: Grace and Bill need to convince Jane that she'll always be important and loved. I recommended inviting Jane to participate in the wedding in a special way... treating her to a lavish meal... giving her a token of their appreciation. "But don't wait for her blessing before getting married," I warned. "Make her feel appreciated, and she'll probably come around in time."
If only Jane had called me.
THE LOSE-LOSE GAME
Relationships between siblings can remain stuck in their childhood dynamics. Those connections fare best without constant criticism. A classic example...
Maggie says, "My younger brother, Bob, is about to move in with our 80-year-old mother. His two marriages and a long-term relationship ended because he accused all three women of cheating on him. Mom and I have repeatedly explained that the real problem is his jealousy. He doesn't listen. She's worried that they'll fight after he moves in. What should we do?"
I told Maggie: "If you violently disagreed with Bob about politics, your best approach would be not to discuss it. Do the same about this issue."
"Give up the notion that you and your mother must convince your brother that you're right. Your mom can tell Bob, I'm looking forward to your visit. Let's agree in advance that we're not going to discuss your marriages because those conversations make us both unhappy."
ABANDON GENERALITIES
The more specific you can be about what's irking you, the better equipped you'll be to find a solution. For a jump start, pose your problem as a question. If you get stuck, call in to my radio show at 800-544-7070.
Reason: The moment you can formulate a specific question or state a need, you'll have begun to take charge of your present and your future -- and refuse to carry the bulky baggage of the past.
For Better or Worse
For Better or Worse
Like the disappearance of the well-mannered and respectful adolescent, the imminent (or, for some commentators, already accomplished) collapse of the institution of marriage has been a popular lament, at least since the mid 1960s.
As so often is the case with social institutions, however, a closer and more longitudinal look suggests that what we took to be the norm was not only regarded as under fire for decades—even centuries—before we came along to worry about it, but may have been a peculiar, uncommon, elastic, and highly contextual norm even then . . . and possibly not even a norm at all.
The central thesis of Marriage, a History might have been taken straight from Stephanie Coontz’s startling and delightful 1992 book, The Way We Never Were: America’s Families and the Nostalgia Trap, wherein the professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Washington state observed: “Some commentators conclude that marriage is becoming less permanent but more satisfying.”
According to the arc of her new book, the primary bases for marriage until only a few centuries ago were property and politics (specifically, that a promising workmate and good in-laws were what one hoped to find in a spouse, more than someone who rang one’s chimes personally); that love and personal satisfaction only began to be a central factor in choosing one’s partner in the 18th century; and that the “perfect” 1950s nuclear family was little more than the last gasp of an ideal right at the moment it began to be fully realized and just before it collapsed, rather than the longtime model for traditional marriage and family patterns in reality.
That many readers will probably need little convincing at this point is less notable than the fact that the myths cling so fiercely among so many of our fellow Americans. Coontz already took us a long way down this road with her earlier books, yet in the public arena one continues to hear the same tired and largely pointless wailing over extramarital pregnancies, divorce rates, abortion, and single parenthood, and opposition to innovations such as gay marriage.
The devil is in the details, as the saying has it, and to a traditionally-minded American, it might seem that way, but most readers of Marriage will more likely delight in the details. Readers may retain some skepticism over Coontz’s reading of the larger patterns, but the sheer volume and variety of past marital practices—how they changed across time and geography—make for memorable and instructive reading in themselves.
Even if the facts are new to the reader, familiar patterns emerge:
The hypocrisy of leaders. Caesar Augustus presented himself as a “family values” emperor who sought to raise the birthrate by penalizing Romans who were not married by a certain age, and by giving preference to office seekers who were married and had children. But he was divorced, had affairs, and arranged for the murder of several political rivals. Through the Middle Ages, incest taboos promulgated by the Church were spottily enforced if royal power matches were involved. (For example, in 1152 Louis VII divorced Eleanor of Acquitaine, a cousin four or five times removed, on grounds of “incest” to marry Constance of Castile, an even closer relative).
The mercurial nature of “traditions.” For more than a thousand years, the Church did not officiate at marriages, but simply took couples’ word for it. It also did not object to no-fault divorce until the 8th century. Long after St. Paul’s famously grudging endorsement of marriage (“it is better to marry than to burn”), various Christian authorities, from Pope Gregory in the 6th century to Puritan pamphleteers in the 18th, warned of the threats of love, carnal pleasure, and other potential pitfalls of marriage which they felt bordered on idolatry and detracted from the love of God.
Throughout most of U.S. history, women worked outside the home (in the fields) or alongside their husbands (as mercantile partners), as did children—many of whom were farmed out to other homes as servants and apprentices, and later recruited into factories; thus, astonishingly, the very first time a majority of American families featured a primary breadwinner father, a nonworking mother, and children who were in school rather than the workforce was the 1920s!
The influence of economics on social practices. The supposed “late” marriages of the past 30 years have nothing on Western European couples of the 16th and 17th centuries, who delayed wedlock (though not necessarily sex) into their 30s and 40s because they were saving to buy a business or start a farm.
The backfiring of well-intentioned social tinkering. Because the punishment for adultery in ancient Greece was so much worse than for prostitution, upper-class married women registered as prostitutes to avoid stiff penalties for their affairs.
Progress is not always forward or permanent. New Jersey gave women the vote two days after the Declaration of Independence was signed . . . and quickly took it back after no other states followed suit. Abortions were common among respectable married women in the mid 19th century United States and still easier to obtain in the 1930s than the 1950s, and same-sex affection, physical demonstrations, and even sleeping together (without sex) were practiced in the U.S. and England without the taint of homosexuality. (Coontz doesn’t mention a famous example from 19th century American history: that Abraham Lincoln shared a bed with Springfield, Illinois merchant and lifelong confidant Joshua Speed for two years when they were in their 20s.) Job segregation and pay discrimination against American women increased in the first 40 years of the twentieth century.
Conservative advocates may have difficulty recognizing marriage as they know it in the practices of other cultures. The couple must live together? Males among the Ashanti of Ghana and the Minang-kabau of Indonesia continue to live with their mothers and sisters after marriage, and men of the Gururumba people in New Guinea sleep separately from their wives and work different plots of land. A couple raises their own “legitimate” children? Not among many African societies, where one parent’s extended family cares for the children, and a child may even “cease” to be biologically related to the other parent if they divorce. Babies in the Na culture, in the southwestern China province of Yunnan, are created through furtive night-time romantic encounters between couples who otherwise have little or no contact whatsoever: the women continue to keep a household with their brothers and uncles who assist in raising their children.
In some West African cultures, a woman may have a “female husband” who becomes the parent of her later children by marriage or male lover, if the female husband’s extended family takes economic responsibility for them. In China and Sudan, a young person may become a partner in a spirit or ghost marriage, in which their spouse is dead, in order to forge larger family connections. A girl could be married as young as 2 or 3, in the Toda culture of southern India, whereupon she was considered the wife of not only the boy to whom she was married, but all of his brothers as well, and had sex with them once she achieved puberty.
Quaint as the romp through centuries past and other cultures may be, and useful in illustrating the marvelous elasticity of marriages through time, it is the upheavals of the developed West in the twentieth century that inevitably interest us the most, and Coontz devotes the final third of the book to them.
First, she makes it clear that marriage was “in trouble” (at least according to most of the measures favored by social conservatives) before the advent of the Pill, no-fault divorce, women’s lib, and legalized abortion. Premarital sex had been steadily on the rise from the 1880s to the 1940s. U.S. divorce rates started to rise in 1957, a bit before the storm broke, and one in three couples married in the 1950s eventually divorced. The divorce rate in no-fault states was not terribly different from that in states that did not have no-fault divorce (and divorce rates have been on the decline since 1981, four years before the last states in the U.S. passed no-fault laws).
Coontz describes several American “sexual revolutions” that preceded the one we know from the 1960s. One that occurred in the 1920s meant that 1/3 to 1/2 of American women had had sex before marriage; in 1928 child psychologist John Watson wrote that in another fifty years there would be “no such thing as marriage.”
In a pivotal passage, Coontz writes: “This unprecedented marriage system was the climax of almost two hundred years of continuous tinkering with the male protector love-based marital model invented in the late eighteenth century. That process culminated in the 1950s as the short-lived pattern that people have since come to think of as traditional marriage. So in the 1970s, when the inherent instability of the love-based marriage reasserted itself, millions of people were taken completely by surprise. Having lost any collective memory of the convulsions that occurred when the love match was first introduced and the crisis that followed its modernization in the 1920s, they could not understand why this kind of marriage, which they thought had prevailed for thousands of years, was being abandoned by the younger generation.”
In centuries past, then, property and politics were greater considerations in marriage than personal satisfaction; as Coontz puts it, “love in marriage was seen as a bonus [and often one that turned up long after the nuptials rather than before], not as a necessity.” The expectations we place on marriage today—deeply loving, partner is top priority, couples should be best friends, openly affectionate, talk honestly about problems, sexual fidelity required—are, in her historical survey, “extremely rare.”
Perhaps the most surprising myths are the ones we cherish about ourselves even today. In her final chapter, “Uncharted Territory,” Coontz notes that:
* Highly-educated Americans are more likely to think remaining single or having a child out of wedlock is acceptable, but are also more likely to marry and less likely to have children as singles
* Conversely, Americans with lower incomes and less education are more likely to view marriage as the preferred state, but less likely to marry
* Afro-Americans are less likely to approve of unmarried cohabitation than whites, but more likely to do it
* Born-again Christians are just as likely to see their marriages end in divorce as non born-agains, and both enjoy a divorce rate only 2 percent lower than that of atheists and agnostics
Thus, in the Bible-Belt, low-income South, rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births are higher than anywhere else (and more likely to be regarded with disapproval). Women who hold more traditional views are less likely to divorce, but also less likely to marry (and traditionally-minded men are more likely to do both).
In reading the facts and the patterns they appear to weave, Coontz is no more sentimental about feminist myths than old-fashioned ones. “I do not believe,” she writes, “that marriage was invented to oppress women any more than it was invented to protect them.”
She is very clear that adjustments in marital practice have inevitably involved tradeoffs; something valuable is almost always lost every time something is gained. “Marriage has become more joyful, more loving, and more satisfying for many couples than ever before in history. At the same time it has become optional and more brittle. These two strands of change cannot be disentangled.”
She is also certain that “contrary to what many marriage promotion activists believe, these dilemmas cannot be sidestepped by making divorce less accessible.” The “tragedy” of no-fault divorce has coincided with a 20 percent drop in married women’s suicides, a general decrease in marital violence, and—between 1981 and 1998—a 2/3 cut in the rate of women who kill their husbands. Would social conservatives accept the return of this bath water with the discarded baby of traditional marriage?
Changes in marital dynamics probably still depend much more upon economic trends and policies than any of us realize. Coontz addresses this to some extent—as she notes, marriage can simply be a bad economic choice for a lower- or working-class setting, where those who marry and divorce suffer higher rates of poverty than those who never marry—but we could use a stricter and more global analysis of this aspect from a theorist with the proper background. Coontz quotes sociologist Frank Furstenberg, who suggests marriage has become almost a “luxury consumer item,” though she modifies this to a “discretionary item that must be weighed against other options for self-protection or economic mobility.”
One might add that while more traditional forms of marriage might have been better for the stability of a society as a whole, the “love match” (whether it works or fails, and includes wedlock or not) is more fruitful for retail sales rates (from the bridal loot and housing rentals and mortgages to the post-breakup chocolate, alcohol, toys, and therapy—not to mention the boom in single-person households and all the accoutrements thereof), and therefore corporate America really couldn’t give a rip that older forms of marriage are endangered species. If business didn’t necessarily encourage the death of traditional marriage, it certainly has done little to prevent it.
Stressed-out couples and parents rush to blame their partner’s selfishness, women’s lib, “essential” gender differences, and other ready demons, but as Coontz observes, “If they had thought about the broader picture, these men and women would probably have agreed that the real problem was the lack of work policies amenable to family life. But in practice their daily tensions turned them on each other rather than on their employers.” Funny how those in power, whether unintentionally or not, so often enjoy the convenience of having their underlings go for one another’s throats instead of challenging the system as a whole. (Think of the squabbling and shifting alliances between the multiple wives of a mostly faceless master in Zhang Yimou’s “Raise the Red Lantern”: they could be non-union workers in a Western shop today just as easily as a passel of Chinese spouses at the turn of the last century.) And too many Americans hardly seem to care that recent administrations—Democratic as well as Republican—have paid much “mouth-breath” to the family, but favored business to the family’s detriment.
Coontz does not discuss the same-sex marriage issue at any great length, partly because legally-sanctioned examples from the past (as distinct from quietly tolerated exceptions) are probably rare, and partly due to the fact that its centrality as a policy issue is so recent. But Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Canada have forced the matter onto center stage internationally, and my dear home of Multnomah County, Oregon managed a sneak attack that temporarily legalized several thousand gay marriages in 2004. The author’s analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the older and newer models of heterosexual matches should prove invaluable to this ongoing debate.
If people can manage to calm themselves enough to pay attention.
PostCommunication..Pitfalls to and derailers of Marriage
PostCommunication..Pitfalls to and derailers of Marriage
Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2003
What do you see as the major pitfalls to successful couple's communication? What stops listening? What stops open expression?
Here is a small list to start with.....
*Expectiing others to know how we're feeling or what we want without expressing ourselves directly. Expecting others to read our minds... A killer!
*Conflict avoidance--sweeping it under the rug. Conflict avoidance is often fueled by silly beliefs like "people in love shouldn't argue". Perhaps we're fearful of hurting another's feelings or being hurt ourselves. People get very frustrated with folks who are constant conflict avoiders. Some level of conflict is to be expected in any relationship. The trick is in how people negotiate these conflicts.
*Anxiety about dissaproval and rejection often stops some people from expressing themselves.... They don't get their preferences, wants, and desires addressed because they're too fearful of voicing them. People suffering with approvalneeditus will be afraid to let others know what's really happening inside themselves.
*Passive-aggressive behavior, a very indirect and often highly frustrating way of expressing anger and annoyance. Passive-aggressive behavior decimates couple communication. Passive agression is sometimes mistaken for with conflict avoidance and vice versa.
*Strong fearful or negative attitudes towards change may block persons from even asking for it. Here people label their partners as unalterable, stubborn, always like "that". "What's the use"?..."They never will" and "they always"...
*Believing we must not have certain kinds of feelings or express them. We should never be anxious, envious, jealous, angry, or down. This leads to an inhibition in expressing how we feel. Some people who feel angry but lacking a suitable outlet for that anger turn in upon themselves...the is sure fire recipe for depression.
*We become silent martyrs to indirectly get attention. Sulking and pouting are in this vein. This does wonders for couple communication. NOT! Complaining, nagging, cajoling, and becoming a victim are more direct derailers of good communications.
*Focusing on solving problems instead of listening, when only a listening ear was wanted...This can disconnect us from someone who is trying to express their feelings and thoughts.
*The license to say anything we want regardless of how the other person feels. What we say does have some impact. Some people use their "honesty" to whip others with....They often decribe themselves as "straight shooters" or that they "fire from the hip"....often they will say things along the lines of "well that's just the way I am"....or 'that's me", as if this were an acceptable excuse for acting like an emotional neanderthal.
*Blaming our partner and seeing them as the sole cause of a problem.
*Believing we're right and the other person is wrong. Proving a point becomes more important than the relationship. Winning the battle becomes everything even to the point of losing the campaign.
*Blindness to our own behavior. We focus on your partner's "nagging", yet fail to see that we DON'T..... feed the dog or put out the trash, and that we DO leave clothes strewn all over the floor of the bedroom.
*Self-absorbtion and entitlement. Thinking we're the axis on which the world turns creates large communications problems.
*Defensiveness. The Big One. This is where we shut down listening to others because we fear criticism. Here we argue and defend ourselves instead of hearing the other person out and noticing that there is a kernal of truth in their statements. (Sometimes many kernals)
* Lack of trust. We wall ourselves off because we automatically assume we're going to be ripped off in some way or come out one down in the exchange. This makes communication difficult.
*On guard for being controlled. We see being controlled around every corner. This leads to automatic opposition on our parts which dampens communication.
*Helpaholism. Compulsively seeking to help when others just want to be heard. Helps to create frustration.
*Hidden agendas. The actual motives for why we want to do something are not being voiced.
*Global labels and generalizations distort communication. They can be used to personally attack someone instead of focusing on behaviors.
*Regurgitating the past (both distant and near) can stifle present communications.
*Making strong negative comparisons between our partner and ex partners, families of origin may shut down communications. Labelling them as being "just like your mother, father, brother who is in the a mental ward, prison and so on...
*Threats block communications. Threatening divorce or mayhem can shut down communications.
*Sarcasm. This form of communication shuts it down. It demonstrates contempt for another.
*Changing the subject.
*Being overly placating. This frustrates others because they sense we don't want to communicate or that we're not really involved.
*Our minds are elsewhere either daydreaming or displays or impatience.(finger drumming, foot tapping etc...)
*Selectively hearing only parts of the other person's communication.
*Stonewalling...
How To Ruin A Marriage In 5 Easy Steps
How To Ruin A Marriage In 5 Easy Steps
By Steve Felton
Obviously you don't want to ruin your marriage. The majority of your life is going to be lived out with your spouse so you don't want to try and grit your teeth to endure it through marriage either. No, most stable and healthy people want a happy marriage. The problem so often is trying to find out how to go about making a healthy marriage. My simple advice is to avoid these pitfalls of marriage.
Don't listen to your spouse. Keep thinking about what you are going to say and not hearing what your spouse is really saying. This is a sure way to ruin your marriage. Watch as the hostility and resentments build.
Stop With the Sweet Nothings. You remember the roses that you used to bring home. The little notes, poems, or other special little communications of love. A happy marriage consists of keeping the relationship special and not taking each other for granted.
Make the Children the Focal Point. Of course, I realize that children need to be taken care of, I have three of my own. But we cannot do this at the expense of ignoring our spouse's needs.We have to continue to nurture our relationship with our spouse if we want to stay happily married.
Avoid Intimacy. When either spouse focuses on what they need rather than the needs of the spouse things get thrown off balance and a marriage suffers. A woman needs to feel loved and secure and the emotional aspect ties into the rest. A man needs to feel respected and desired also. Of course we all share emotional and physical needs and when partners are focused on giving rather than getting it is amazing how good marriage can be.
Control Your Spouse This will ruin a marriage very slowly but surely. Over time a controlled partner will become resentful and usually act out in ways that seem unattached to the real source. If a person is controlled they will rebel in one form or another. We were not made to be controlled. A happily married couple trusts the other enough to give them the freedom to fail or make mistakes. The freedom to be who you are is an inalienable right we should all be allowed to posses in marriage. We should seek to bless not possess in marriage.
If you're marriage is struggling and could use some help here is a resource that will really help. Check it out, you'll be glad you did.
subject: Avoid typical pitfalls of Marriage 1/2/02
Avoid typical pitfalls of marriage
By Ann Douglas
Chicago Tribune Jan. 02, 2002
No couple embarks on married life expecting to end up in divorce court, but
that's what happens to more than 1 million American couples each year. And
when they do the postmortem, they often find their marriage was sabotaged by
one of these 10 traps:
1. Taking your partner for granted. That's like having a garden that you're
not weeding or fertilizing, says Robert Billingham, professor of human
development and family studies at Indiana University. "You can't expect it
to continue to thr ive." Let your partner know you appreciate him or her.
2. Forgetting that a good marriage takes work. "People think that having a
happy marriage is a magical, mystical occurrence," says marriage and family
therapist Leslie Parrott, co-author of When Bad Things Happen to Good
Marriages (Zondervan/HarperCollins). "We've accepted the fact that parenting
takes a lot of skill, but we don't want to accept the idea that romantic
love takes a great deal of work, too."
3. Not talking through conflict. If you rely on heavy sighs, slammed doors
and other non-verbal communication when something is bothering you, you
could be playing with fire. As painful as it may be to get the conversation
started, you must speak up. "Otherwise, problems start festering and begin
to take on a life of their own," explains Sharon Naylor, author of The
Unofficial Guide to Divorce (Hungry Minds).
4. Failing to romance your partner. "We all want to be made to feel
special," says psychologist Kate Wachs, author of Relationships for Dummies
(Hungry Minds) and Dr. Kate's Love Secrets (Paper Chase Press). "That's why
it's so important to set aside at least one night per week for you and your
partner and to use this regular 'date night' to share your hopes and
dreams."
5. Fighting dirty. The better you know somebody, the easier it is to hurt
that person. "No matter how angry you may be about something," Naylor says,
"you need to resist the temptation to figure out the one thing that will
hurt your partner the most and then use that against him."
6. Fighting over money. A recent study by the Million Dollar Round Table, an
international association of life insurance and financial services
professionals, found that 43 percent of married couples argue about money.
If money is becoming a major source of conflict, you might consider sitting
down with a financial planner or some other third party that can help come
up with a financial game plan you both can live with.
7. Letting the passion fizzle. "Have sex often - anytime either of you is in
the mood," Wachs says. "If you wait until both partners are in the mood, you
won't end up having much sex at all and, over time, you'll end up drifting
apart."
8. Shutting down sexually when you're angry rather than dealing with issues.
Although withholding affection may seem like the ideal way to punish your
partner, you risk seriously damaging your relationship, Wachs says.
9. Failing to understand that marriages have ups and downs. "It's OK to
expect incredible moments in your marriage," Parrott says. "Just don't
expect them to happen every day."
10. Throwing in the towel too easily. "We're so accustomed to the concept of
obsolescence that we treat our partners as disposable," says Herb
Glieberman, a Chicago divorce attorney and author. Vow to rekindle the
flames rather than looking for the closest escape hatch.
- - - - - -
Note that Les & Leslie Parrott featured in this piece will present three
times at the Smart Marriages conference and that the new PREP Money book,
"You Paid How Much For That?!" will be presented by co-authors Natalie
Jenkins and Scott Stanley. Of course, the entire Smart Marriages conference
is designed to equip couples with the practices that will help them avoid
the typical pitfalls - courses like Marital Sex As It Ought To Be, Dating
Your Spouse, Hot Monogamy, PAIRS, Keeping Love Alive, Fall In Love/Stay In
Love, Couple Communication - 200 of the country's leading presenters and all
the great courses.
subject: Avoid typical pitfalls of Marriage 1/2/02
Avoid typical pitfalls of marriage
By Ann Douglas
Chicago Tribune Jan. 02, 2002
No couple embarks on married life expecting to end up in divorce court, but
that's what happens to more than 1 million American couples each year. And
when they do the postmortem, they often find their marriage was sabotaged by
one of these 10 traps:
1. Taking your partner for granted. That's like having a garden that you're
not weeding or fertilizing, says Robert Billingham, professor of human
development and family studies at Indiana University. "You can't expect it
to continue to thr ive." Let your partner know you appreciate him or her.
2. Forgetting that a good marriage takes work. "People think that having a
happy marriage is a magical, mystical occurrence," says marriage and family
therapist Leslie Parrott, co-author of When Bad Things Happen to Good
Marriages (Zondervan/HarperCollins). "We've accepted the fact that parenting
takes a lot of skill, but we don't want to accept the idea that romantic
love takes a great deal of work, too."
3. Not talking through conflict. If you rely on heavy sighs, slammed doors
and other non-verbal communication when something is bothering you, you
could be playing with fire. As painful as it may be to get the conversation
started, you must speak up. "Otherwise, problems start festering and begin
to take on a life of their own," explains Sharon Naylor, author of The
Unofficial Guide to Divorce (Hungry Minds).
4. Failing to romance your partner. "We all want to be made to feel
special," says psychologist Kate Wachs, author of Relationships for Dummies
(Hungry Minds) and Dr. Kate's Love Secrets (Paper Chase Press). "That's why
it's so important to set aside at least one night per week for you and your
partner and to use this regular 'date night' to share your hopes and
dreams."
5. Fighting dirty. The better you know somebody, the easier it is to hurt
that person. "No matter how angry you may be about something," Naylor says,
"you need to resist the temptation to figure out the one thing that will
hurt your partner the most and then use that against him."
6. Fighting over money. A recent study by the Million Dollar Round Table, an
international association of life insurance and financial services
professionals, found that 43 percent of married couples argue about money.
If money is becoming a major source of conflict, you might consider sitting
down with a financial planner or some other third party that can help come
up with a financial game plan you both can live with.
7. Letting the passion fizzle. "Have sex often - anytime either of you is in
the mood," Wachs says. "If you wait until both partners are in the mood, you
won't end up having much sex at all and, over time, you'll end up drifting
apart."
8. Shutting down sexually when you're angry rather than dealing with issues.
Although withholding affection may seem like the ideal way to punish your
partner, you risk seriously damaging your relationship, Wachs says.
9. Failing to understand that marriages have ups and downs. "It's OK to
expect incredible moments in your marriage," Parrott says. "Just don't
expect them to happen every day."
10. Throwing in the towel too easily. "We're so accustomed to the concept of
obsolescence that we treat our partners as disposable," says Herb
Glieberman, a Chicago divorce attorney and author. Vow to rekindle the
flames rather than looking for the closest escape hatch.
- - - - - -
Note that Les & Leslie Parrott featured in this piece will present three
times at the Smart Marriages conference and that the new PREP Money book,
"You Paid How Much For That?!" will be presented by co-authors Natalie
Jenkins and Scott Stanley. Of course, the entire Smart Marriages conference
is designed to equip couples with the practices that will help them avoid
the typical pitfalls - courses like Marital Sex As It Ought To Be, Dating
Your Spouse, Hot Monogamy, PAIRS, Keeping Love Alive, Fall In Love/Stay In
Love, Couple Communication - 200 of the country's leading presenters and all
the great courses.
Would you identify some of the major "marriage killers" that are most responsible for the high divorce rate that plagues today's families?
Any one of the following "dragons" can rip a relationship to shreds if given an opportunity to do so.
Overcommitment and physical exhaustion: This condition is especially insidious for young couples who are trying to get started in a profession or in school. Do not try to go to college, work full time, have a baby, manage a toddler, fix up a house and start a business at the same time. It sounds ridiculous, but many young couples do just that -- and are then surprised when their marriages fall apart. The only time they see each other is when they are worn out.
Excessive credit and conflict over how money will be spent: Pay cash for consumable items or don't buy. Don't spend more on a house or a car than you can afford, leaving too little income for dating, short trips, baby sitters, • Selfishness: There are two kinds of people in the world, the givers and the takers. A marriage between two givers can be a beautiful thing. Friction is inevitable for a giver and a taker. But two takers can claw each other to pieces within a period of weeks.
Unhealthy relationships with in-laws: If either the husband or wife has not been fully emancipated from the parents, it is best not to live near them. Autonomy is difficult for some mothers and fathers to grant.
Unrealistic expectations: Some couples come into marriage anticipating rose-covered cottages, walks down primrose lanes and unmitigated joy. There is no way a marriage between two imperfect human beings can deliver on that expectation. The late counselor Jean Lush believed, and I agree, that this romantic illusion is particularly characteristic of American women who expect more from their husbands than they are capable of providing.
Space invaders: My concern is for those who violate the "breathing room" needed by their partners, quickly suffocating them and destroying the attraction between them. Jealousy is one way the phenomenon manifests itself. Another is a poor self-concept, which leads the insecure spouse to build a cage around the other. It often suffocates the relationship. Love must be free and it must be confident.
Sexual frustration and its partner, the greener grass of infidelity: It is a deadly combination.
Business collapse: Failure in work does bad things, to men especially. Their agitation over financial reverses sometimes sublimates to anger within the family.
Business success: It is almost as risky to succeed wildly as it is to fail miserably in business. King Solomon wrote: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread" (Proverbs 30:8). It's true.
Getting married too young: Girls who marry between 14 and 17 years of age are more than twice as likely to divorce as those who marry at 18 or 19 years of age. Those who marry at 18 or 19 are 1-1/2 times more likely to divorce as those who marry in their 20s. The pressures of adolescence and the stresses of early married life do not mix well. Finish the first before taking on the second.
Alcohol and substance abuse: These are notorious killers, not only of marriages but also of the people who indulge excessively. It has been said that upward of a third of all Americans and Canadians are close family members of an alcoholic.
Pornography, gambling and other addictions: It should be obvious to everyone that the human personality is flawed. During an introductory stage, people think they can tamper with various enticements, such as pornography, gambling, hard drugs, etc., without being hurt. Indeed, many do walk away unaffected. For some, however, there is a weakness and vulnerability that is unknown until too late. Such people then become addicted to something that tears at the fabric of the family. This warning may seem foolish and even prudish to my readers, but I've made a 20-year study of those who wreck their lives. Their problems often begin in experimentation with a known vice and ultimately end in death ... or the death of a marriage.
These are a few of the common marriage killers. But in truth, the list is virtually limitless. If you are going to beat the odds and maintain an intimate, long-term marriage, you must take the task seriously.
Chapter One
Lie: All You Need Is Love
Truth: Marital Love Is Conditional -- Love Is Not Enough for Successful Marriage
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien, letter to Michael Tolkien, March 1941
"Romance is dead," we moan, but we don't mean it for a second. We collectively keep the notion alive by cherishing the belief that "somewhere out there" a human being exists with whom we can fall in love and from whom we can get love back, no matter what. We expect to develop with this person a lifelong relationship that will nourish both of us as we build a family.
Our relationship and our children will simultaneously thrive and grow, and our whole family will find fulfillment. We'll weather the years of child rearing and be brought closer together by the process, providing a loving model relationship for our children and later our grandchildren. Sure, there will be rough times, but love will keep us together.
We'll love each other unconditionally, taking the good with the bad, until, still close and warm at the end of our days, we'll look back together and believe with conviction that it was all worth it.
It sounds great, and we all want it. But how do we really get there? The songwriters tell us that "all you need is love" and "love will keep us together." Pardon me for disagreeing, but as any divorced person knows, love simply isn't all you need to keep your marriage happy or together.
Nonetheless, many of us still have a belief in the absolute power of love to guide and preserve marriage. This belief is embodied in two dominant lies that strongly influence our thinking -- the lies of romantic love (merging with a soul mate) and marital bliss. These lies are fed to us from earliest childhood, and we long to have them materialize as we grow into adulthood. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that most marriages begin with love, they do not come with ready made "happily ever after" endings.
The story of Cinderella is a wonderful example of how these myths function in our collective psyche. Every one of us knows this story, and probably most of us have seen its modern-day equivalent, the movie Pretty Woman. The overriding message of romantic fairy tales is that in the end, against all odds, two people meant for each other will miraculously find each other, fall in love, and then live "happily ever after."
We find fairy-tale endings so satisfying because the beginnings of such stories usually make us anxious about the grimness of "real life."
Cinderella, for example, has lost her parents and is forced to live with a seriously overtaxed stepmother responsible for the well-being of three daughters. They live in a society in which a woman's success and security is measured only by the economic value of the marriage she makes. Beautiful people are given chances for success that ugly ones don't have. There are rich and poor, and the rich cleave to the rich. Though Cinderella comes from a well-to-do family, her stepmother, who controls Cinderella's father's estate, treats her badly. The stepmother wants the best for her biological children and sees Cinderella as just one more woman with whom her girls will have to compete.
The prince in the story is being pressured to marry by his parents, who seem to care little for his feelings. Instead, his buffoonish father and domineering mother are preoccupied with maintaining royal lineage, wealth, and strategic alliances. His life is presented as full of privilege, but it is clear that he exists for little more than the fulfillment of his parents' narcissistic goals.
Real life in Cinderella teems with envy, greed, pettiness, unhappiness, ambition, and vicious competition. But with the final union of the prince and Cinderella, all those problems are supposed to be conveniently erased by the triumph of romantic love and the presumed marital bliss that must inevitably follow. When Cinderella slides her foot into the glass slipper and then marries the prince, we breathe a sigh of relief because we believe that with the marriage sealed, her troubles are over.
Even though we know we're too old for fairy tales, we still hope that marriage will bring this same relief to our lives. We want to forget that married life is complicated and problematic, that couples regularly have to solve many serious problems, and that we live in a complex and sometimes difficult world. In real life, Cinderella would certainly have difficulties getting along with her calculating mother-in-law.
She would probably have to deal with an entitled husband who might turn out to be a buffoon, like his father, or an arrogant brat, like his mother. Cinderella might end up with a child with learning problems or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). With no models or experience of good mothering, her children would be lucky to get even a modicum of care from a mother who is little more than a child herself.
In our romantic notion of marital bliss, the prince would never go off to war or to work, never come home too tired to play with the kids, and never bury his head in a newspaper or park himself in front of a television. He would never be too tired to have sex with his wife and never have erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation. Cinderella, of course, even while taking care of a slew of children, would always have time for sex, which she would love; exhaustion or worry about losing her looks would never dim her libido ...
Why sign up for counseling BEFORE you have a problem? For the same reason you would take a course before attempting to snowboard -- even if you alread
Csara
09-08-2003, 06:28 PM
---my question first, before anyone even reads this article b/c it's kinda long. Do you agree with it? Do you think it's necessary to hash out all of the below mentioned before you are married or do you think it's ok to work these things out as you go along? Personally I think they bring up some very good points and I think it's highly necessary that you atleast TALK about all of these things, but I don't think it's even possible to have them all completely worked out ahead of time. Some of the things (i.e. raising children) are things you can only know once you get there. It's a good idea to talk about your ideals and projected goals/styles of parenting ahead of time but there is no way you can hash that all out before you are actually in the situation. More comments later....
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Here is the article:
Why sign up for counseling BEFORE you have a problem? For the same reason you would take a course before attempting to snowboard -- even if you already know how to ski.
Counseling provides a cushy pillow for the times you will fall down. And even great couples will.
Considering that somewhere in the vicinity of 40 percent of all first marriages end in divorce, taking time to study the blueprints for the marriage structure before breaking ground would seem wise. For those alliances that were doomed from the beginning, there's the possibility to avert a divorce by avoiding an unrealistic marriage. And for those who will speed ahead, there will be the knowledge of the sticky places and some compromise already in place.
We require anyone who wishes to drive to take a course and pass the exam. Yet we assume that emotional connections are instinctive and that having children is easy enough to not need a manual or instruction. Are we nuts? Most of us know about relationships from what we experience around us. For many that is a chaotic or hurtful relationship that ended in disaster during childhood. Pre-marital counseling explores the areas that are predictable crises in a couple's life.
Here are some areas that any love-struck couple should want to discuss and be clear about -- before setting up dates with the band and the caterer.
Goals
What are you hoping this marriage will bring? A friend? A sense of belonging? Is it a family? Will you have kids? How many? How will you divide the time between family and career?
Communication
How will you resolve an impasse? Do you know the other person's style of communicating? Their stuck places? How is anger dealt with? What if one wants to talk about the relationship and the other refuses? Whose job is it to keep the lines open? If you get really bogged down - will you go for help?
Friends
Where do they fit in the scheme of your life? How much time will spend with them? What about friends that the other dislikes? Are they welcome ? Boys' night out, girls' night out? Confiding in friends, helping them out -- what are the boundaries?
Money
What's the philosophy about money? Who decides where it is spent? Does each of you have discretionary cash? What if there's a great job offer 2000 miles away? How will you pay the bills and apportion the income? How much to save?
In-laws and family
What is their role? Who will call them to keep in touch? Are one or both of you going to have to help out a parent? How will you do that? What if there is a disagreement or feud?
Sex
If there isn't enough of it, how will you deal with the feeling? Birth control? Attractions to other people? What if sex becomes boring?
Kids
What is your philosophy around bringing up children? Punishment and consequences? Who will care-take them? How many? What if there is a child who has mental or physical problems?
Religion
Can you both respect each other's beliefs even if they are different? If there are children, how will you deal with this issue? How will you handle your respective families around religion? Do you have any opposing beliefs?
If this seems like an exhausting task, think how tiring it is to run around to lawyers and fill out separation papers. If you know the inner workings of the mind you plan to snuggle up to for the rest of your life, there will be fewer surprises and more time to enjoy each other's company.
Counseling provides a template for conflict resolution that can be drawn on when needed. A couple that knows how to fight fairly and how to compromise is going to have a head start on a couple that makes up the rules along the way. You'd spend the time and money to ensure a satisfying Caribbean cruise -- why not invest the same energy into a much more precious adventure?
source: MSN
Avoid the Marriage Pitfalls
Too often we hear the same marriage woes. Every couple, no matter how long you've been married, needs to be active in keeping their marriage interactive and fresh. Here are five "pitfalls" and how to overcome them to avoid marriage trouble and enhance your partnership.
You've got to talk - So you think you know your partner's reaction to everything? Think again. The more you assume, the more you'll drift apart. From the most mundane conversations like "What did you do during your lunch break?" to "How will we make ends meet this month" show your spouse you care, even about the little things. It's not only important to ask the questions but listen to the answers as well. Poor communication is the most common complaint among couples seeking counseling. A recent survey the Institute initiated also showed that communication issues are the most important thing people wish they had focused on before their marriage. Marriage communication is obviously a critical and often challenging dynamic in a marriage. Visit Mastering Communication and Tips for Talking for more information.
Take some time - Whether you've been married for 1 year or 30 years, your partner will always appreciate a heartfelt thank you, a card out of the blue, or an unexpected phone call to say "I am thinking of you." Just because you're married doesn't mean you can't get dressed up and go on a date. Take a minute, literally, and call your significant other to set a date and time. You'd be surprised how good you'll feel doing it AND how happy they'll feel that you've called.
Fight fair - Couples can fight over everything, from what to have for dinner to what you didn't do today (that was suppose to have been done weeks ago). Remember that each of us, even those who are "happily" married, can have frustrating, hectic days- that goes for CEO's of a company to the CEO of the household. No matter what the disagreement, resist bringing up the one (or few) words that will send them over the edge. Once you've gone that far you've gone too far. Take a break, cool down. Revisit the discussion when you're clear on what you want to say and open to listening to your spouse's perspective.
Maintain Expectations - Many people enter marriage with preconceived expectations of what life will be like or the roles both partners will play in daily life. Sometimes these expectations aren't met and the disappointment and frustration can build into resentment. It is best to discuss your respective expectations and to voice any concerns you have about the direction of the marriage or the role each partner is playing in maintaining the household. Visit Tips for Talking for helpful advice on having productive conversations on sensitive subjects.
The roller coaster - Just as you have good days and bad days, so can your marriage. There will be days, weeks and even months where you'll feel you've got the best partnership going - then your spouse lays one on you. It is true that working through hard times together can deepen the bond of your union. If you are seeking marriage help, there are marriage retreats and trained marriage counselors. For resources that provide support, visit Revitalize Your Marriage
Celebrating Special Moments.
Money troubles - Did you know that 43% of all couples fight over money issues, making it the major reason couples fight? If you and your partner handle money differently, and if this is a problem, perhaps you want to visit a financial advisor. There are also plenty of books you can read together on how to manage your money. For more helpful tips, visit Money and Marriage.
Managing Marital and Relationship Conflict
Managing Marital And Relationship Conflict
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Couples who request professional counseling often bring with them to the first session various myths about the nature of conflict and how it should be managed in a serious relationship or marriage. Couples often are surprised that their relationship is in serious trouble since they have had very few “fights” and few outward signs of serious relationship conflict. In the other extreme, some are surprised to learn that when they simply express how angry and frustrated they are at each other that those encounters often damage the relationship further. It is important to note that the frequency of conflicts within a relationship is not usually related to the quality or satisfaction … or the “health” of that relationship. As illustrated by the examples above, a relationship may suffer greatly with little or no outward expressions of conflict and a relationship may suffer greatly with intense and/or frequent expressions of conflict. The manner in which conflict is managed within a relationship is of critical importance.
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Marriage Advice: Eight Steps to Marital Harmony
Marriage Advice: Eight Steps to Marital Harmony
Great article. Read on, click on title.
Marriage and Money
Marriage and Money
A very important issue to the sucess of a marraige, not so much the amount of money, but the ability to stay on top of it together.Click on the title to read more.
