Skip to main content

Folder Message
 Are you expecting too much? Are you just "settling"? Author Ginger Tobias asks 10 pointed questions about the state of your union.

Airborne pizza has a way of speed-dialing every doubt you've had about your marriage. And I expected such moments when I signed up. What has thrown me, however, is the drag of compromise, the extra weight of two lives trying to trundle forward together but instead holding each other back. After five years of gradually easing off good behavior, we're left with a nearly constant scrape of differences.

Freedom beckons intoxicatingly, but then I wonder if my expectations aren't unrealistic — whether I've got the makings of a good marriage but am foolishly holding out for perfect. Paul Amato, Ph.D., professor of sociology, demography, and family, conducted a 20-year study on 2,000 subjects who started off married, and says 55 to 60 percent of divorcing couples discard unions with real potential. Most of these people say they continue to love their betrothed but are bored with the relationship or feel it hasn't lived up to their expectations. "It's important to recognize that many of these marriages would improve over time," Amato says, "and most of them could be strengthened through marital counseling and enrichment programs."

So how do you know if you have one of those fixable marriages? A place to start is with the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, who lets women obsessed with being a perfect mother off the hook. According to him, the "good-enough mother" loves and cares for her child but, being imperfect, doesn't satisfy every need perfectly. While the baby may wish for better service, it's the ordinary mother's failures that prepare her child for life — motivating her to get what she needs for herself while teaching her to tolerate frustration.

Similarly, the idea of the good-enough marriage relieves couples of the pressure to have a perfect union, and the inherent disappointments and difficulties may spur them to evolve as individuals. Michele Weiner Davis, author of The Divorce Remedy (Simon & Schuster), offers herself as an example. "In the early years of my marriage, I envisioned our lives as being joined at the hip. He didn't," she says. "At first I was miserable, but then I started going places by myself and I became much more independent. I never, ever would have done that had it not been for his stubbornness."

But what is a good-enough marriage? Or, as Tina Tessina, Ph.D., author of The Ten Smartest Decisions a Woman Can Make After 40 (Renaissance), would have me ask: "Can I make my marriage good enough?" After interviewing several experts, I've uncovered ten questions you can ask yourself to help clarify whether or not your relationship, albeit imperfect, is worth a good go:

1. Are you exaggerating the negatives? For the next two months mark the good and bad days on your calendar to get a reality check.

2. Have you already left the marriage by emotionally withdrawing? Or by giving up all attempts to make the relationship better? If so, can you find a way to reengage?

3. Do you get so angry that you hit each other or throw things at least once a month? If the answer is yes, are you hanging on to a terrible relationship because you're afraid of being alone? Or because you're convinced it's the best you can do?

4. If you're frustrated because your husband won't change (you'd like him to be more forceful or manly, for example), is it really necessary that he does? Is there anything in your family history that may be driving your need to transform him? (For example, perhaps your father never stood up for you when you needed him to do so.)

5. Have you been teaching your husband the wrong lessons by not challenging his hurtful behavior? (You don't say anything when he criticizes you in public. He never washes the dishes, so you just do them, resentfully.)

6. Do you have fun together? Even when things are tough, do you make jokes about it? (A good sign.) If not, can you make time in your marriage for more play?

7. Are there conflicts that you've avoided in the relationship? What do you fear would happen if you confronted them?

8. Do you simply need more time alone? A weekend on your own every so often to make the heart grow fonder?

9. Has something occurred — a death, a big birthday, a job loss — that's throwing off your relationship and needs to be addressed?

10. Have you done everything you possibly can to make this marriage work? Are you certain he has heard your complaints? Have you tried a marriage-education class or couples therapy? If he won't go to counseling, have you gone yourself to see how you might save the relationship?

While pondering these questions, I remembered — from somewhere deep — many of the delightful aspects of my marriage.
For me the most clarity has come from thinking of marriage not as a noun, or a state of being, but as a verb, as in what "I do" (you say those two words for a reason), and therefore something I can do better. So rather than hang my marriage on the clearance rack, as I fear I've done, I vow to try to understand — even appreciate — his faults, er, growth opportunities.

By Ginger Tobias



#August #Family #WalkWithUs

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Theme

For us in TLF we are going to be focusing on Enterprise aka Labour aka Work for the entire month of June. We are urged to work. If you do not work how would you meet your daily needs? Like food, shelter, clothings and transportation? What about having what to give to others in need? There are so many reasons to work. I know many of us love to do what we love, we do not like to go to work if we do not like the job. But what if what you are doing as work and being paid for is actually what you love? What you love may not turn out to be a source of income, but we must still do what we can to earn. Are you enterprising? Please keep it up. Are you in paid labour in the private or public sector? Please do your work as unto the Lord God. Are you working all by yourself as a self employed worker? Please continue to grow and progress for greatness. Always know that in - Happy moments, praise God.  Difficult moments, seek God.  Quiet moments, worship God.  Painful moments, trust ...

UN Days for the Month of June.

The United Nations designates specific days, weeks, years and decades as occasions to mark particular events or topics in order to promote, through awareness and action, the objectives of the Organization. Usually, it is one or more Member States that propose these observances and the General Assembly establishes them with a resolution. On occasion, these celebrations are declared by the specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as UNESCO, UNICEF, FAO, etc., when they concern issues that fall within the scope of their competencies. Some of them may be later adopted by the General Assembly. 1 June Global Day of Parents   3 June World Bicycle Day  4 June International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression   5 June World Environment Day  5 June International Day for the Fight against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing  8 June World Oceans Day   12 June World Day Against Child Labour 13 June International Albinism Awarene...

Thank God For The End Of Our mid-Year Crossover Prayers For 2025

Dear Lord, I thank you for this day, as we continue this second half of this year. I thank You for our  being able to see and to hear this morning. We’re blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for us  and You keep on blessing us . Forgive us  this day for everything we  have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you. We  ask now for Your forgiveness. Please keep us  safe from all danger and harm. Help us  to start this day and second half of the year 2025 with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let us  make the best of each and every day to clear our  mind s  so that we  can hear from You. Please broaden our  mind s  that we  can accept all things. Let us  not whine and whimper over things we  have no control over. Let us  continue to see sin through Your eyes and acknowledge it as evil. And when we  sin, let us  repent, and confes...