I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even
marry you because I loved you. I married you because you
gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults.
And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect
people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage.
And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that
protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them - it was that
promise.-Thornton Wilder

My oldest daughter is a Biology High School teacher. I knew she was a budding scientist at the age of two. She could pick up an ant and clearly identify its anatomy long before she would sit on a potty. She has a knack for explaining complicated material in a very simple, understandable manner. Last night we went out for dinner and engaged in a huge discussion about marriage. My daughter believes part of the reason so many marriages fail is because they aren’t biologically based (she bases many of her debates from a biological point of view). Men are wired to look for variety to spread their genetics, and women look for stable, secure men who will father and raise their young. As I listened to her, I became more convinced that this is why we should choose marriage deliberately. It’s a challenge, and the only way to prepare and grow with a challenge is to make sure you are “trained” before taking on the challenge.

I work with many professionals, and it is surprising to me how many of these people have miserable relationships. They try to marry and live with their partner in a logical manner. Many times, they don’t give the marriage as much attention as it warrants, and they are confused when their spouse becomes unhappy. No degree can prepare you for the amount or manner in which you need to communicate with your partner. A Ph.D in science isn’t going to help you work through the next argument with your spouse if you have let distance grow in your marriage. If your fiancé helped you pay for graduate school and upon completing graduate school you are going to tie the knot, you would be wise to invest in pre-marital counseling first. You may have been a great couple while you were distracted with studying, but do you have the skills to continue coming home and communicating with this person every night? You may be crazy in love with your partner, but what if your partner’s career has them traveling abroad? Have you talked about the issue of intimacy? Do you have a plan in place if you begin to feel distance within the relationship? Can you talk about your sex life?

I ask these questions and pose these scenarios because I am in a field where every day I see families and relationships fall apart that could have been saved had they prepared for the challenge of marriage. I see more people preparing for a hurricane than they do for a lifelong commitment. My daughter is right; we aren’t wired to stay committed for a lifetime with one person. That’s exactly why we must prepare if we are to continue the marriage lifestyle for our own and our children’s well being. We must understand that love changes, we change, and the marriage will change year after year. The determining factor of the success of your marriage is the two people joined together. Families, friends, and children can influence your marriage, but at the end of the day the race is being run by you and your spouse.  The five suggestions below will help you prepare for the challenge of a married lifestyle.

1.     On your bridal registry, make sure marital counseling is on the list of gifts. If possible, try to get at least two sessions prior to your marriage. Those sessions will be worth their weight in gold.

2.     Surround yourself with couple friends who are committed to their marriage. Divorces are contagious and friends who aren’t faithful many times hang around other people who aren’t faithful.

3.     If your parents are divorced, look for a family member who can help mentor a healthy marriage lifestyle for you. This will help when you hit a rocky time in your marriage (you will hit a rocky time because that is part of life as well as marriage).

4.     Have a faith or spiritual philosophy you both share. Couples who pray together stay together (usually).

5.     As quickly as possible, identify “hot areas” in your marriage. These are areas that when opened create arguments or problems.  Don’t marry someone who has a “hot area” that makes you uncomfortable. It is better to walk away than believe you can change someone. As a general rule, if there is ANYTHING you cannot discuss with your potential partner, DO NOT MARRY THEM.

A healthy marriage is a gift we give ourselves, our spouse and our children for generations to come. It requires dedication, selflessness, and forgiveness. Every human I know has difficulty with these virtues at times. Therefore, we are all prone to failing our marriage. Knowing that keeps me working on my marriage. It is the greatest challenge in my life, the longest race, and I hope to finish it in my husband’s arms. Re-commit to your spouse, and get back in the race.

Week after week I am seeing couples come in who want to get married. They are seeking guidance so they can build the strongest foundation possible prior to marriage. One of the problems that actually make this guidance more challenging is when one of the partners wanted to get married and the other didn’t so they opted to live together. The partner that went along with living together but wanted to get married usually has left over resentment, and it becomes evident in the premarital counseling.

Premarital counseling is usually upbeat and fun. It’s a joining together, an exciting time for the couple, and we have fun as we learn in the sessions. This changes when the couple has lived together, as there is more hostility when they talk about communication. Many times couples who live together think they know one another very well, and pre-marital counseling challenges their assumptions. 

The popular view is often not the truth, and cohabitation is one of those times. Living together prior to marriage is still one of the best predictors for divorce and if you have a child in that union prior to marriage you set them up for an unstable life. The latest research has found that for children, going through a divorce is more stable than being raised by a cohabitating couple.  Many couples find someone with whom they can relate or have sex, and before you know what is happening they decide they will live together. They tell me or anyone listening that they want to make sure they are compatible. Living together won’t tell you if you’re compatible as a married couple. It will tell you what a person smells like without a shower, who is messy and what kind of TV shows and music each of you like. It won’t tell you what sex, money, or communication will be like after marriage because these three things are the first to change after marriage. The biggest problem with living together is that one of those partners usually secretly wants to marry the other. They are trying not to be clingy or pushy so they opt for living together. When you want one type of relationship, but settle for another, it builds resentment and criticism. You may begin to think less of yourself as well as your partner for allowing or forcing you to “settle.” Of course this isn’t talked about aloud, but that doesn’t make it any less true or potent. What you cannot talk about, you usually act out with cheating: having a baby when the other person didn’t want one, or no longer taking care of yourself. Your living situation begins to erode a relationship that could have been a good marriage if you had taken your time to get to know one another, built a friendship, and kept your own place until you were ready to marry.

You cannot put love on a shelf and if you are ready to be married but your partner is not, the best thing you can do is be very clear up front with your intention. Living together is not the same as marriage. People who live together prior to engagement or marriage are saying “I like you, but I don’t like/love you enough to want to share my life with you.” When you hear “Let’s move in together,” it’s important that you also hear “I don’t like/value you enough to marry you, but sharing a place with you would be fun, economical, and less stressful” (there are many reasons other than commitment to cohabitate).  There are two situations that don’t seem to affect marital longevity and yet the couple is living together:

1.     If the couple is engaged to be married within 3 months.

2.     If the couple is over 80 years of age. 

If you love someone enough to marry them, then I suggest when/if they ask you to move in with them you reply assertively and lovingly, “I love you enough to spend my life with you.”  “I don’t want a boy/girlfriend; I want you to be my wife/husband.” At this point, have an exit in mind, and say nothing more. Leave. Let them think it over; the ball is in their court. You have left them knowing you love them, and were strong enough to advocate your intention.

When we are in a relationship, we begin to assume a “knowingness” of each other. We know what they like to eat, like to wear, and familiar quotations. Sometimes couples even begin finishing each other’s sentences, if not aloud then often to themselves. They begin meeting less for lunch because, let’s face it, they know each other. What more is there to say? They begin filling their calendar with meetings, schedules of others. It’s their job, they tell themselves, and the family depends on me to make money, so I need to keep networking. This is true. We all have to keep networking, advancing in our careers. Money is becoming scarcer. If you don’t produce, many times you are out.

Marriage or a committed relationship is the same as your work. The problem is that when people get married they think of their life together as acquiring “tenure.” Tenure is a great concept if you tenure a professor, or a person who is a hard worker, great producer, and self-motivated. But the institution that tenures someone who only wants to show up to work, collect a paycheck and go home is a liability for the company. They can drain the company/institution both emotionally and financially. If you were to tell your boss, wife or husband that you planned to get tenured/married and then just show up each day they wouldn’t tenure you or marry you. Of course, that’s a no brainer. The problem is they don’t tell. They may be obsequious and work really hard to get what they want, and then they become total slackers. My practice is alive and thriving because someone married a slacker. Someone married someone who wanted “tenure” and had no intention of still working after they got it.

Marriage, just like work, takes attention, commitment, and one’s ability to continually produce new stuff. It gets stale and dull if people aren’t willing to make changes, try novel adventures, or remain curious of one another rather than assuming. No one needs to get married or tenured for that matter. It’s a privilege, an honor. Tenure/marriage is vital if you want to promote stability, so in the case of children you need to be married for the best possible outcome for that child to grow up in a stable environment. Promoting marriage and keeping it alive should be one of the areas we explore prior to getting married. When a couple comes in telling me about how in love they are, I am happy and excited for them, but then I have a few questions to ask them. The answers help them decide if they are ready to be tenured/married. As with all matters, people are unpredictable.  Sometimes the slacker never knew they were a slacker until after marriage. Since this happens more than not, let’s confront the “slacker issue” head on with question number 1.

Pre-marital questions to help detect slacker traits:

1.     What do you do when you don’t feel like going to work? Do you work to live, or live to work? Do you feel like what you do at work is important? Is it more important than your marriage? Be careful here…work is often how people identify themselves, but when they marry, the marriage must come first in order to be healthy.

2.     How much time will we each spend at work? Do we prefer early morning work or evening? How will we make that work for us or our family when we have kids? Will one of us stay home when we have kids? How will we budget that?

3.     How much money do you make right now? What are you projecting in 5 years? How about in 10 years? How much debt will we have? Does debt cause you anxiety, or are you comfortable living in debt?

4.     How much time will we spend each week with self care? What is self care?  Do you value each other’s self care as much as our own?

5.     How do you feel about my looks? What if I get fat? What if I stop looking like this (very important to go over, as many divorces happen due to lack of attention because one person became overweight and the other person couldn’t deal with it)?

6.     If we are both working, who is going to do the daily chores? What are our plans for now, in five years, in ten years?

7.     Are we each comfortable with one another’s level of ambition?

8.     Which of us gets more depressed? Has there ever been an issue regarding this? Do you seek mental health care when you need it?

9.     Do we each feel loved with our partner? Does sex feel good for both of us? Do we end up feeling more loved after being loved? Can we be transparent on all issues with each other?

10.  How do we each handle anger? Are we able to resolve anger to the point we feel closer than before the argument (if you haven’t had an argument yet, someone is not being honest/transparent)?

This list is not complete as it doesn’t include family of origin issues which are huge in a marriage. When you marry someone, you marry their family also, as that is your partner’s reference for reality. This list will help you identify a marital slacker, but don’t stop here. Slackers can be rehabilitated, but take your time in giving them tenure or marrying them.  Marriage is sacred; you only want to do it once.