SAVE MY MARRIAGE TODAY
6-PART MINI-COURSE - DAY 5
Why Do We Marry?
by Amy Waterman
First of all, let's take a look at what commitments held marriage together in the past. Historically, marriage has been seen as necessary protection for child-rearing families. In other words, you got married to have kids, because getting married ensures that you'll stay together to form a healthy, stable home for the baby.
Today, Americans don't think that way. Seventy percent of Americans believe that the purpose of marriage is something other than raising kids. We're having fewer children as well. Today, only one third of American households include children under the age of 18, compared to about half of all households in the 1960s.
When a couple does have children together, the presence of children does not have the same kind of deterrent effect on divorce as it did forty years ago. A 1994 study found that only 15% of the population agreed that parents of children should stay together for the sake of the children, even if the parents no longer get along.
In the past, another reason to stay married was because of economic dependence. Marriage used to provide a form of economic security. If one partner's earning ability was threatened, there was always the other partner's income to fall back on.
Today, young people do not believe that a marriage provides any form of economic security. They prefer to make it on their own financially--men and women both--before considering themselves ready for marriage. As a result, financial interdependence is not a strong enough reason to hold married couples together.
Historically, religious beliefs also fortified marital vows. Yet today fewer and fewer couples share a religious view of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman before God.
In fact, according to the National Marriage Project, only 42% of young people consider it important to marry someone with the same religion. As a result, for many couples their wedding vows don't have the same force of commitment.
Currently, there is less social disapproval of divorce or extended periods of singledom than ever. Men and women are single longer and don't feel the need to marry due to the availability of alternative lifestyles, such as co-habitation.
In fact, the median age of marriage for American women is 25; for men, it's 27. Many young people consider their first marriage a trial marriage anyway; they assume that it will end in divorce but marry anyway to have the experience.
There's little social censure in being a divorcé, and the number of divorced individuals in the single scene means that a recently divorced person has a fairly good chance of remarrying.
What forms the basis of a man and a woman's commitment to their marriage, then, if it is not their children, economic stability, God, or social mores?
According to a 2001 study by National Marriage Project, the primary reason that young men and women want to marry is to find a soul mate: someone with whom they have a profound spiritual and emotional connection for life.
If you got married because you expected your partner to be your soul mate for life, you reflect a trend in modern society towards couple-oriented marriages, where the primary focus of the marriage is the relationship between the two people involved rather than social, religious, or financial considerations.
Unfortunately, this couple-oriented focus can create huge expectations and pressures. Couples have a much lower tolerance for unhappiness than in the past. In fact, they are abandoning marriage at much lower thresholds of dissatisfaction.
According to the National Marriage Project, it is estimated that over 50% of divorces now occur not because of dramatic conflicts and fights, but because of more generic, less traceable feelings of dissatisfaction, distress, and unhappiness.
Sadly, marriages that have an underlying feeling of discontentment can and often do get better over time. If couples can stick out the hard times, they find that the good times that follow are worth what came before. It's an important point that many lose sight of: happy marriages are not always happy.
They have periods of unhappiness and conflict followed by periods of reconciliation and reconnection. The trick is to stay committed to the marriage during those unhappy times and find ways of navigating through them.
Challenges to Commitment:
Modern couples have a whirlwind of duties to juggle: they may work full-time, have children to raise, and have social commitments to community service organizations, committees, or clubs.
By the time you throw in commitments to family, social engagements with friends, personal hobbies, gym time, and the rest, the modern couple has very little time for one another.
Obviously, your level of commitment must be divided among a number of things, but what level of commitment should you give to each? Try drawing a pie chart with each section labeled according to the amount of time you dedicate to it. Ask your spouse to do the same. Afterwards, discuss whether the balance of commitments is healthy for you both.
Here are some commitments that often test a couple's dedication to one another:
- Workaholism. This occurs when overtime, job commitments, travel, and pressure make the work relationship (rather than the marital relationship) the primary identity-giving relationship in a person's life, giving them their chief sense of satisfaction and purpose.
If you would rather be at work than at home, or spend your leisure time with your workmates rather than your spouse, your marriage is on rocky terrain. Many workaholics can't see what they're doing.
They claim that their hard work is helping keep the marriage together by providing an income. Both partners must make some difficult lifestyle changes if they are to resolve this issue.
- Children. As much joy and pleasure children can bring to a marriage, they also test the marital bonds by creating stressful situations. Children can pit parent against parent. Their behavior can cause a tense family environment that neither partner wants to come home to.
They can demand enormous amounts of energy and leave none for anyone else. The child-rearing years can also be dangerous for couples because the focus of the marital unit switches from the pleasure of being a couple to raising the children.
Make time for being a couple. Even if your children begrudge it at first, the happy family environment will more than make up for it.
- Other people, usually a needy friend, parent, or family member, who requires large amounts of one partner's time. This often occurs when parents of one or both spouses are getting older and in need of extra assistance.
Spouses should not let anyone get between them. If your spouse resents the amount of time you spend with a needy parent or friend, you need to have a discussion and come to some sort of resolution about what amount of time would be appropriate.
- Any crisis where one partner is completely responsible for the resolution of the problem, with no input or assistance from the other partner. If a married couple distinguishes between "your" problem and "my" problem, they eliminate the crucial sense of teamwork that keeps a marriage together. If you are facing a crisis--even if it's yours alone--you must involve your spouse. A marriage isn't about going at it alone.
- Addictions. In this "soft" sense of addiction, an addiction occurs when a person spends all their time at one thing and uses it to avoid facing real-world commitments and duties.
For example, your spouse may spend all of his or her spare time at the bar, on the computer, or in the garage tinkering. These activities are not a problem until they become an escape mechanism to avoid spending time with you or engaging in conversation.
One common problem occurs when one spouse surfs the internet until late at night. When they go to bed, their spouse is already asleep, which increases the alienation between the two parties. Hobbies are wonderful in moderation, but they should never become your primary source of pleasure. Find activities that you can do with your spouse.
If you want more information on how to balance work commitments with home life, or how to maintain a strong marriage when children demand all your attention, you can find much more information in Save My Marriage Today! Click on the link below for more details.
http://www.savemymarriage.in
See you next time with the sixth and final part of my mini-course, on how to stop you and your spouse from growing apart!
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Yours in marriage success!
Amy Waterman
co-author of Save My Marriage Today!
About "Save My Marriage Today"
The "Save My Marriage Today" course is a comprehensive collection of marriage rebuilding tools designed to assist troubled couples in turning around the negative patterns of behavior that exist in their marriages.
We have a range of experience with a large variety of problems among the members of the Save My Marriage Today team and have managed to help many couples in crisis turnaround their patterns of negative behavior. We have a range of life-changing e-books, and also have a new e-book specifically written for couples in extreme crisis. We also keep our members informed with weekly posts containing thoughts on topical issues, book reviews, and gossip on our official SaveMyMarriageToday LIVE blog. We also offer free access to personal consultations from a member of the "Save My Marriage Today" team.
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