Week 8-"Special Topic Paper" (posted for public viewing)
Making Marriage Work
It starts with “butterflies in your
tummy,” giddiness and wanting closeness at the beginning of just about every
relationship that is mutually felt between two people. Before children are ever involved in the
picture, it’s all about the couple—not much else can dictate the couples’ plans
they have together. We all feel like the
feeling of comfort and love will never sway in the years to come…
I
have never met a person who was ever thoroughly explained to what a marriage is
really all about; the responsibilities, the sexuality, the conflicts that may
arise and the clash of individualities.
Is this because many of our adult, married role-models didn’t know how
to survive a marriage well either?
Over
the centuries, marriage has changed and involved in so many ways. Generally, the definition of marriage tends
to stay consistent and is seen as a mutual or contractual agreement between two
(or more) parties that entails interpersonal relationships, and intimacy. In today’s society, people get married for
many reasons: emotional, legal/business reasons, religious, etc. Still, many people get married for the “wrong
reasons.” Centuries ago, many marriages
were arranged between two families and were based off of skills and success
each of the families had to offer. It
didn’t matter if the ones to be married were attracted to each other, because it
was in the “best interest of the family.”
Many people, even to this day, get married “for the children”; they have
adopted the mind-frame that children need both a mother and father figure,
whether or not that mother and father get along well. Are we still carrying some of the
old-fashioned thought processes into our new marriages? According to an observation made from years
of practice, Betty B. Paul, ACSW, states, “If bitterly hostile spouses are
remaining together ‘for the sake of the children’, I caution them that growing
up in a home characterized by chronic acrimony and alienation is
psychologically more damaging to children than the trauma of divorce.” As adults, we lead by example, and our
children will follow in our footsteps.
According
to a 2009 study, 46% of marriages in the United States end in divorce (Divorce
Census Bureau), and 45% in Europe. Why
is it so difficult to keep a marriage together?
There are many forces that influence a divide between couples, but it seems
to be that self-realization is becoming more and more apparent during our
current “Age of Enlightenment.” A
cultural movement began in the 17th-18th centuries that
encouraged reason and individualism, rather than tradition. Individualism started to make a big appearance
in the 19th century during individual-rights movements. Someone somewhere, while following along as another
cog in a wheel, stopped to think, “Wait!
This doesn’t feel right. What
about what I want?”
Personal
growth is now often the reason for divorcing; people do not seem to agree on
many things in life and it causes a divide.
This is due mostly to the fact that we all have different
biopsychosocial framework that has shaped us into who we are—from birth to
death, we are constantly learning and adapting to the dance of life, and this
continuously shapes our thought processes.
This is what is so special about being a human being. We have such complex minds, and no two people
will think exactly alike.
So,
how are we supposed to successful adapt to another’s way of thinking and
living, “until death do us part?”
Psychologists seem to agree that there is a trend consistent with the “Seven
Year Itch.” The risk of separation and
divorce are very low during the first months of marriage, tensions tend to raise,
hit rock-bottom during the 7th year of marriage, and result in an
elevated risk of marital separation or divorce (Schoen 1975; Thornton &
Rodgers 198; Andersson 1995). “Those
couples that survive the seven year itch adapt to each other and accept their
partners as they are,” (Hill Kulu, School of Environmental Studies, The
Seven Year Itch or Life Long Itch?).
Dr.
Liberty Kovacs, Ph.D., developed a system to chart the martial relationship as
it progresses. The marriage experience
seems to progress in 6 stages, and almost always comes close to an un-doing,
while continually trying to accommodate two people who are evolving as
individuals. The first phase, also known
as the “Mooning and Spooning Phase,” entails the beginning of the relationship;
the partners see each other as perfect and can relate in many identical ways. The second phase involves the experiences of
individual change as disappointment, anxiety and self-doubt—“What’s wrong with
me?” Through the next 3 phases, the
partners’ interests seem to split and develop independently, and they have a
harder time trying to accommodate their earlier efforts. “Typically, each try to control the other; it
is a classic power struggle with all the accusation they can muster,” says
Kovacs. During the fourth phase,
generally around the “seven year-itch”, one of the partners may be feeling the
urge to run from the relationship. Dr.
Kovacs feels that a separation at this point is good, but only if both the
partners see it as a time to “figure out who I am and what I want.” Once the couple survives the earlier
struggles, they enter phase five: “The promised land of reaching towards
intimacy.” Each of the partners now has
a full identity to share. Finally, in
phase six, the couple now realizes they can separate and reconnect without
losing that identity.
Dr.
Kovacs is not the only psychologist who firmly believes that marriage is
essential for growth and individualization. Dr. Norman Paul and Betty B. Paul,
ACSW, both believe that marriage counseling is an important tool to make each
spouse an expert in his/herself. They
also agree that an even greater tool, when struggling through the fourth phase
of marriage, is a process called “creative separation.”
There
are two general types of separation: It is either a prelude to preparation for
a divorce, or it is a means of developing self-knowledge and self-reliance of
each partner and is designed to ultimately improve their relationship. Creative separation is used to assist each partner
in gaining self-knowledge and self-reliance; teaching the spouses to think for
themselves. It is thought to be “beneficial
for the troubled couple who don’t have lives independent of one another,” (Deciding
When Separation is Best, 1983). This
type of separation is not anything new.
In fact, before 1987, in the country of Finland, the partners who had
considered divorce had to first live separately one year before their
application for divorce was approved.
This was done in hopes that the couple would have time “for themselves”
to reflect on what is important to them.
Now
that we are able to view marriage as a process that unfolds in stages, this
information aides psychologists in helping the couple become a more successful
team, and can also provide some relief for the strife they are experiencing as
different individuals trying to work toward a common goal. It can also give them hope, and an agenda for
working out their problems. In a study
of 20 marriages lasting 25 or more years, the couples that were most satisfied
with their relationships attributed their longevity to joint problem-solving
abilities (The Reinvention of Marriage).
They also praised having fun together (and treasuring it), expressing
affection and the communication of loving attitudes.
It
has been proven with physiological measurements of the human body taken during
marital conflicts and interaction by Dr. John Gottman, Ph.D., professor of
psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, that men and women
handle conflict in radically different ways.
Men tend to flee, whereas women tend to want to stay and fight. “Men feel pain differently,” says
Gottman. They get more physiologically aroused—their
pulse increases, they sweat more, and they even move more during these
conflicts, or even anticipating them!
According to Gottman, “Marital conflict by itself is not destructive for
marriage if it also includes positive effects such as humor, positive
problem-solving, agreement, assent, empathy and active non-defensive listening.” Few people really know how to truly listen.
Think about it for a moment: “When you hurry someone along, interrupt
someone, or finish his or her sentence, you have to keep track not only of your
own thoughts but those of the person you are interrupting as well. This tendency encourages both parties to speed
up their speech and thinking. This, also,
in turn makes both people nervous, irritable and annoyed… How can you really
listen to what someone is saying when you are speaking for that person?” (Dr.
Richard Carlson, Ph.D., Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and it’s all small
stuff).
Conflict
resolution is a must-have when it comes to partnering. Good styles of joint problem-solving can be
learned (the earlier the better). Now
that psychologists are able to pinpoint where people fail in relationships, we
can avoid divorce. This type of
education should be made available in the high school years, when teenagers
become more and more serious in their relationships. One doctor (Dr. Howard Markman, University of
Denver, Center for Marital & Family Studies) and his team of colleagues
developed a program called PREP (Premarital Relationship Enhancement
Program). This program is aimed at
teaching problem-solving skills to soon-to-be-married couples. Together with knowing, and understanding, the
6 phases of marriage and the PREP education being made readily available to
adolescents, we can dramatically reduce the percentage of world-wide marital divorce.
References:
Split Decisions, Newsweek. 23 Jul. 2007: 10. eLibrary. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
The Reinvention of Marriage, Hara
Estroff Marano. Psychology Today. Jan-Feb 1992 v25 n1 p48(7).
Don’t
Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff, Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
Human Development;
A Life-Span View; fifth edition, Kail & Cavanaugh
Deciding When Separation is Best (1983)
