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What Makes Marriage Work ????
Marriage is the process by which two
people make their relationship public, official, and permanent. It is the
joining of two people in a bond that putatively lasts until
death, but in practice is increasingly cut short by divorce. Over the course of a relationship that can last as many as
seven or eight decades, a lot happens. Personalities change, bodies
age, and romantic love waxes and wanes. And no
marriage is free of conflict. What enables a couple to endure is how they
handle that conflict. So how do you manage the problems that inevitably
arise? And how can you keep the spark alive?
In pursuit of the truth about
what tears a marriage apart or binds it together, I have experience that much of the conventional wisdom--even
among marital counsellors is either misguided or completely wrong. For example,
some marital patterns that shows as a sign of a problem--such as having intense
fights or avoiding conflict altogether--I have found can signify highly
successful adjustments that will keep a couple together. Fighting, when it airs
grievances and complaints, can be one of the healthiest things a couple can do
for their relationship.
Many couples tend to equate a low
level of conflict with happiness and believe the claim "we never
fight" is a sign of marital health. But I believe we grow in our
relationships by reconciling our differences. That's how we become more loving
people and truly experience the fruits of marriage.
But there's much more to a
successful relationship than knowing how to fight well. Not all stable couples
resolve conflicts in the same way, nor do they mean the same thing by
"resolving" their conflict. In fact, It is been observed that there
are three different styles of problem solving into which healthy marriages tend
to settle:
1. Couples
compromise often and calmly work out their problems to mutual satisfaction as
they arise.
2. Conflict
erupts often, resulting in passionate disputes.
3. Avoiding
Couples agree to disagree, rarely confronting their differences head-on.
One of the first things to go in
a marriage is politeness. As laughter and validation disappear, criticism and
pain well up. Your attempts to get communication back on track seem useless,
and partners become lost in hostile and negative thoughts and feelings. Yet
here's the surprise.
What really separates contented
couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their
positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other.
Some couples stick together by
balancing their frequent arguments with a lot of love and passion. Such couples
do spend a amount of time fighting versus interacting positively--touching,
smiling, paying compliments, laughing, etc. Across the relationship there is
equitant ratio that exists between the amount of positivity and negativity in a
stable marriage.