Counselors Specializing in Marriage
WHY MOST MARRIAGES STRUGGLE
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Reason #3: Maturity and Self-Care
One of the things about marriage that is both wonderful and horrible at the same time, is the fact that it will expose how incredibly immature and emotionally underdeveloped you are. Like a mirror, marriage can show you all the things you need to change and address. This can also be horrible, because how many of us like looking into a mirror only to realize how unkempt and out of shape we actually are?
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There are a few core skills that are required in order to be able to pull off the things discussed here in this article. If marriage was like exercising, communication would be the form we use to work out. Good form is absolutely necessary in order to achieve results and to avoid hurting yourself. Narratives would be your mental barriers, reminding you of past failures and the belief that certain things will happen or won’t ever change.
The core skills we’re talking about here are all the muscles required to actually exercise. Working out will reveal how weak those muscles are, but a combination of good form (communication), pushing through mental barriers (narratives), and good old-fashioned effort will help to build those muscles up. Overtime, couples will find they’re able to not only resolve conflicts well, but actually become stronger together as difficulties in life come their way.
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The reason why most couples overlook this area of need in their marriage is because it’s easier and more natural to focus on their spouse’s short-comings than their own inadequacies and lack of maturity. Imagine running a three-legged race with your spouse. At first, it’s all fun and games, but imagine having to run a marathon and the stakes become much higher if you fail. When things aren’t going so well and it’s no longer fun, do you think you ponder what you’re doing wrong and where your technique is off? No, you’re probably thinking about why your partner doesn’t understand what to do and how what they’re doing isn’t helping.
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But there is much to learn about where we fall short and ways we can grow and develop. Regardless of what our spouse does in running the race of marriage with us, we are tasked with the need to develop a certain set of skills if we have any chance of making it to the finish line.
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Reason #1: Communication
Without question, the most common reason for marital dissatisfaction is communication. This is not because it’s the most important issue or even the real issue for that matter, but because couples realize this is often their first and most difficult obstacle to overcome. No problem in a relationship gets resolved without good communication and conflict-resolution skills. All roads on the marriage map lead back to communication. Because of this, communication is where we start in order to understand why relationships struggle.
Reason #2: Narratives
Does it seem like the arguments in your marriage just keep happening over and over again? This is perhaps one of the most common experiences in marital dissatisfaction. Marriages end in divorce because these seemingly small but recurring conflicts eventually turn into big and irreconcilable ones. It’s not for lack of trying, either. Couples often feel helpless and even like failures because they can’t seem to figure out how to resolve these recurring conflicts.
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The reason why this pattern is so prevalent among couples is because they rarely see beyond the surface of what their conflicts actually reveal to them. Couples can have twenty fights about twenty different things on twenty different days, but all those fights are likely driven by just one or two narratives.
A narrative can be as simple as, “I feel like I’m not important enough for my spouse to listen to me or understand me.” Yet don’t let the simplicity of the statement fool you. A single thought like that can persist throughout a marriage and alter everything a person sees and believes. Like an old tape that plays again and again in back of your head changing the way you think about yourself and others. And what’s worse is that it doesn't matter if these narratives are true or not. The simple fact that it’s there is all that matters and correcting them isn’t as easy as it might seem. Allowing these narratives to go on unchecked is like allowing an infection to grow within your marriage. You might not ever see it without the help of a professional, but eventually you’ll experience all the collateral damage that it can inflict on your life.
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The majority of marital issues are completely solvable. And while it’s obvious that every couple is different, there are a few areas of a relationship that are commonly difficult to almost all couples. Chances are your relationship has struggled in one of these three areas, and improvements in any one of these places should dramatically improve the quality of your relationship.
Good Bang for Buck
It would be overly simplistic to say doing these three things well will make for a happy and successful marriage. Each marriage is unique in its own struggles and strengths. But every couple needs a toolbox with a few basic and often-used tools. Investing time and energy into developing any of these three tools for marriage is good bang for buck for any couple.
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No Pain, No Gain
Imagine signing up to run a marathon and only committing yourself to expending the effort needed to run a 5K. Sounds silly, but that’s what a lot of couples do when they get married these days. A trainer can teach you all the skills and exercises required to get you in shape to run the race of your life, but if your commitment to the process isn’t all there, all the tools and training in the world won’t make a difference. Ready to get it in gear and start your training? Reach out to us and we can help get you to where you want to be.
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