Marriage – Life,Challenges

Marriage is the process by which two people who love each other 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. Of course, 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?

Stages Of Growth In Marriage

Social scientists have observed that marriages typically move through a series of at least four stages. Each stage presents unique learning opportunities and blessings, along with challenges and obstacles. Progression through these stages is thought to be cyclic. This means couples can move through the stages several times in their lives, each time with an increasing understanding of what is involved for having been there before. Sometimes these stages can feel like a new marriage. Couples move through these stages at different rates. Failure to accomplish the tasks of one stage can inhibit movement and growth through later stages.

Stage One – Romance, Passion, Expansion and Promise

In the beginning of a relationship partners often communicate effortlessly and at length. They seem to intuit each other’s needs and wishes and go out of their way to please and surprise each other. Couples begin to develop a strong sense of “we.” Individual differences are minimized, if noticed at all; partners are very accepting. Joy, excitement, happiness and hope abound. Partners present and elicit their best selves. Life seems expansive and promising. It is a time of sharing dreams and romance. At this stage couples’ prayer is often filled with thanksgiving and praise. God feels very close and responsive. This is a time to be remembered and cherished.

Stage Two – Settling down and Realization

The high energy and intensity of Stage One inevitably give way to the ordinary and routine. Ideally, in Stage Two couples learn to deepen their communication skills. They work to understand and express their wants, needs, and feelings. They learn to be honest and vulnerable and to listen actively to each other. They become aware of differences not noticed previously and develop strategies for dealing with them. Couples learn about give and take, negotiation and accommodation. In prayer they seek clarity about what is going on within one’s own as well as one’s partner’s heart and mind. For some couples God may not seem as close while others experience Him more intensely.

Stage Three – Rebellion and Power Struggles

Spouses cannot always live up to each other’s expectations. They will disappoint and unintentionally hurt each other. They now become intensely aware of their differences and may use control strategies to bring back the desired balance. Power struggles are common. Blame, judgment, criticism and defensiveness are likely outcomes. Fear and anxiety enter the relationship. Couples’ thinking can narrow into either/or, right/wrong, good/bad polarities.

Ideally, couples learn about forgiveness and accommodation in this stage. They learn to deal constructively with anger and hurt. A supportive community becomes especially important.

This is also the time when individuality and independence rise to the surface. While the early relationship emphasized a strong sense of we, now couples need to find ways to honor autonomy and separateness. They learn how to be an individual in a committed relationship. Couples’ prayer is often about petition and spontaneous lament. God can seem distant and unresponsive and/or quite present.

Stage Four – Discovery, Reconciliation, and Beginning Again

Couples can push through the previous stage through deepened communication, honesty and trust. Ideally, they discover and create a new sense of connection. They learn more about each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities. They learn to identify and talk about their fears instead of acting them out. They refuse to judge or blame their partner; they translate their complaints into requests for change. They move from win/lose to win/win conflict strategies.

Partners see each other in a new light, as gifted and flawed, just as they themselves are gifted and flawed. Empathy and compassion increase. They learn to appreciate and respect each other in new ways; they learn not to take each other for granted. They find a new balance of separateness and togetherness, independence and intimacy. Their thinking becomes more expansive and inclusive. A new hope and energy return to the relationship. Prayer focuses on gratitude and thanksgiving, and couples often move to a more honest and mature relationship with God.

Additional Challenges and Stages

Many couples will encounter additional life cycle stages, each with their own blessings and challenges. Just like marriage, creating a family will elicit the best and the worst, the gifts and the limitations of the parents. It is another opportunity to learn about cooperation and becoming a team, about dealing with differences and conflicts, and about taking time to pause and choose. Parenting is a spiritual journey that involves not only the growth of the children but the growth of the parents. Like marriage, it will have many opportunities to surrender and die to self, to let go and to grieve.

Other life cycle challenges include illness, unemployment and other financial crises, retirement, and the death of one’s partner. Many couples must take care of the older generation while letting go of the younger one.

What Makes Marriage Work

Communication

What is the one indispensable ingredient for making marriages work? Family life educators usually answer: communication. This is good news, because effective communication can be learned. Skills such as active listening, using “I” statements, paying attention to my feelings and those of my spouse, and learning tips for “fighting fair” make marriage easier. Some couples use these skills intuitively because they saw them modeled in their own upbringing. Others can learn them through classes, workshops and reading.

Of course, the hardest part of communicating usually comes when there is disagreement between the two of you.

Commitment and Common Values

Some ingredients, if missing, can doom a relationship from the start. Two primary ones are commitment and common values.

Commitment bonds a couple together when you are tired, annoyed, or angry with each other. Sometimes, remembering your vows can prompt you to push past these problems and try to forgive and start again.

Common values are important. If you aren’t together on basic values such as children, honesty, fidelity, and putting family before work, no amount of learning or effort of the will can resolve the conflict. For example, constant tension will result if one spouse wants to live simply while the other wants life’s luxuries.

Spirituality/Faith

You might not consider yourself a spiritual person; however, anyone who seeks the deeper meaning of life, and not a life focused on personal pleasure, operates out of a spiritual sense. For many this desire is expressed in commitment to a specific faith tradition. Here one joins with others to worship God and work for the common good.

Although being a person of faith is not essential to making your marriage work, it’s a bonus. Certainly good people throughout the ages have had happy marriages and not all of them have been religious. But it helps to have faith principles to guide you and a faith community to encourage your commitment.

MOST COMMON MARRIAGE ISSUES

1.INFIDELITY :Healing a marriage when there has been infidelity takes teamwork. As a marriage therapist for the past thirty years, I’ve met with countless clients who thought that this would be the end of their marriage.

Both spouses must commit to getting the marriage back, or possibly getting to where it never was. This calls for courage. The infidelity may flag a boundary issue, difficulty with a new stage of family life (such as children or aging), or possibly indicate more chronic factors within the marriage or within one of the spouses. Marital infidelity is often both a problem as well as a symptom for whatever else may be missing or not working within the marriage. This makes it a difficult presenting problem since both need to be adequately addressed.

Many couples do work through this trauma and are able not only to reestablish their marriage as it once was, but bring it to a newer and healthier place. With sincere efforts from each partner, a commitment to look deeper into oneself and the relationship, plus the assistance of a trained professional, healing often is remarkable.

There are some infidelities, however, that are not of a sexual nature. While these may appear to be less severe than sexual infidelity, they can also cause harm to a marriage, especially if left unchecked.

For example, one partner may have a relationship that mimics an affair in that a third party or entity takes an inordinate amount of one’s time, energy and emotional investment to the detriment of the primary marital relationship. This “third party” may be the custom of sharing daily coffee, or a similar get-together, with a co-worker without the marriage partner’s knowledge.

Another “third party” can be seemingly innocent leisure pursuits or good works. There is a big difference between a hobby that allows a spouse to bring more to the marriage versus extracurricular activities that drain or pull the person away from the marriage. This can include such things as one’s golf game, over-involvement with the children, career, or a volunteer commitment in the civic, political, or church arena. Whenever one spouse is heavily engaged with some third party, then this third party can really be seen as a “mistress.”

Similarly, internet chatting can be either sexual or non-sexual and has the potential to be a dangerous form of unfaithfulness within the marriage. This particular problem can also become an addiction and needs to be addressed, often through the use of an intervention.

 2. ADDICTION: if you or your spouse in the past month has taken a drink first thing in the morning to help you recover from a hangover you may be dealing with an addiction problem. There are other possible symptoms, as well. For instance, as a person with an alcohol addiction you may have gotten home from a party in one piece, and even though your car went up on the lawn a bit, you were able to park it and get into the house. But if you don’t know how that scratch on the rear bumper got there, you are showing addiction symptoms.

You may tell yourself, “It must have been someone else who did that” but this is part of your denial. Maybe you say, “What’s the big deal, almost all of my friends are serious drinkers. They drink way more than I ever do.” Such rationalizations also indicate a problem. Most people with an alcohol problem will report that they know exactly how much they drink each night, although they usually low ball the number. They may say, “It’s not even the hard stuff, it’s only wine or a couple of beers.” If your wife or husband complains about it, you write it off as just so much nagging.

If any of this is familiar, or if you or someone close to you thinks you have a problem with alcohol or drugs, most likely you do. If you have a loved one who has this problem you need to get help. Substance abuse and addictions do not disappear; rather, they only get worse when left untreated. Substance abuse, which includes alcohol addiction, is a major problem in the United States, and it is a major source of marital breakups and family problems. It affects all the members of the family, not just the one abusing drugs or alcohol.

Individuals with alcohol or other substance addictions have a distorted sense of reality. They will justify hiding their addiction from family and friends. They might even explain that they drink or escape through drugs to deal with a spouse who makes life difficult, or because they have a stressful job, or their children are such problems.

In addition to the person with the addiction, there is often a spouse who suffers from co-dependency. One of definitions of co-dependency is a set of maladaptive, compulsive behaviors learned by family members in order to survive in a family which is experiencing great emotional pain and stress. As adults, co-dependent people have a greater tendency to get involved in relationships with people who are unreliable, emotionally unavailable, or needy. A co-dependent person tries to control everything within the relationship- but can’t.

“Recovery” for co-dependent spouses comes when they eventually address their own needs instead of tolerating mistreatment or trying to rescue their spouse. Whether the addictive behavior is relatively minor or more serious, often it is the co-dependent spouse who starts the recovery process by first addressing his or her own need for assertiveness plus improving listening and communication skills. Counseling can bring awareness of dysfunctional behaviors, and help the couple develop new, healthier coping skills.

The denial that accompanies an addiction is a family problem because it often includes the spouse as well. Spouses may cover up for their partner, make excuses, call in to an employer and say he/she is sick when it is really a hangover. They will overlook the fender bender accident. Most of all they tolerate the lack of physical and emotional availability from their spouse due to their “affair” with drugs or alcohol.

Alcoholics Anonymous known as A.A., and the other 12-Step programs are a great resource. Meetings are held morning, noon and night. Individuals get the support of a sponsor- someone who has gone through the process of recovery and lives their life fully. These people are models of living a life of sobriety. They support and encourage, and help the co-dependent spouse to stop the ways that he or she may have inadvertently been enabling the addicted person.

With the emergence of the internet, sexual addictions have become an even greater problem. Sexual addictions can range from masturbation to pornographic magazines and videos, to infidelity and paying for sex. It may even be as pathological as breaking into apartments and raping unsuspecting residents. This stage of sexual addiction requires major intervention and usually results in criminal charges as well. Whatever the magnitude of sexual addiction, the one thing all have in common is that the need for sex is more important than the addict’s feelings for his/her spouse.

Addictions are often ruinous to a marriage if they are allowed to continue. They are compulsive behaviors that are usually fueled by deeply seated anger or fear of intimacy. You might be married to a person who was shamed in early childhood. They might have had poor or no sexual education, experienced a parent that sexually acted out, or had serious childhood trauma. They may be a victim of incest or sexual abuse. Sexual acting out in these compulsive ways, as well as other addictions, often indicate emotional pain. They are also used as a substitute for true intimacy.

Treatment often takes the form of individual, marital, and group therapy. Key tasks for recovery include, first and foremost, breaking through the denial. Sometimes this requires that the co-dependent spouse first break his or her own denial and also learn about the addiction process and how one goes about establishing sobriety. Then it is a matter of getting the addict/alcoholic to start a treatment plan.

Couple therapy is also an essential part of recovery. A spouse may not be able to recognize the need for his or her involvement, but recovery is much more successful when both spouses are involved. If the addicted person attends A.A., and the spouse possibly attends Al-anon meetings, plus they receive marriage counseling, the marital relationship is more likely to stabilize and the couple can work through the trauma they experienced from the addicted partner’s behaviors. With addictions comes the need for reconciliation and forgiveness for the damage caused in the marriage. With help, hard work, and the right kind of support, many couples are able to heal their marriage and create a new and healthier marital life- something they could not have imagined while in the midst of their crisis. With time, patience, and persistence trust can be restored and a new level of intimacy reached. By moving beyond the initial denial and earnestly working each recovery step, a couple can heal and reclaim a life a sobriety from addictive behaviors

3. FINANCES :Do financial problems cause divorce?

Financial counselors often point to finances as the most common cause of divorce. That’s only partially true. A study by Jason Carroll of Brigham Young University looked at 600 couples from across the nation from various ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. According to Carroll, the study showed that “financial problems are as much a result of how we think about money as how we spend it.”

One of the first things couples need to notice about each is their “spending personalities.”

Money may be the presenting problem that gets a couple to counseling, but the solution is not just to make more money. Rather, couples need to improve communication skills so they can talk about their different ways of spending money and the different values that may underlie their financial decisions.

Carroll’s study found that when at least one spouse is highly materialistic, couples are 40 percent more likely to have financial problems that put a strain on their marriage, regardless of income level. The reason is that the couple expects that their lifestyle will bring them happiness, rather than finding happiness in each other.

What’s your spending personality?

One of the first things couples need to notice about each is their “spending personalities.” Is one thrifty and the other a spendthrift? If these traits are deep-rooted and significantly different, they can cause major tension and conflict.

If both spouses are spendthrifts the likelihood is that they will face issues of debt management – even if they have a high income – because desires tend to increase just a little beyond our incomes. As John D. Rockefeller said when asked how much money it takes to be really satisfied, “Just a little bit more!”

Of course, if one spouse is high on the spendthrift scale and the other tends toward being a miser, the probability of tension and conflict over money is obvious. It the extremes are not too severe, good communication skills can bring compromise and a healthy balance. It’s wise to have the thrifty, detailed person keep the books and write the checks.

Having two frugal zealots, however, is not necessarily the ideal either. If both spouses are extremely thrifty, they may tend to hold themselves to a very Spartan lifestyle, seldom spending any money on recreation. They may find themselves in a rut of all work and no play.

What’s your shopping style?

Beyond a couple’s basic spending personality, couples sometimes experience tension over their shopping styles. For example, which of the following shopping styles fits you?

• Utilitarian: I shop for what I need and that’s it. I’m usually in and out of a store quickly.
• Laissez-faire: When I see something I like, I buy it. I don’t plan for it, I just follow my whim.
• Bargain Hunter: I check the ads. When something’s on sale, I snatch it and stock up. I feel great when I know I’ve gotten a good deal. Shopping is like a sport for me.
• Therapy: When I’m in a blue mood, buying something helps me feel better.
• Recreation: I like to window-shop. I can spend hours shopping alone or with friends.

If your shopping styles conflict, it may be easier just to acknowledge the difference and not shop together.

Who’s got the power?

The complicated thing about money in a marriage is that it’s often tied up with power. We may believe that the person who makes the most money is more valued or should have the greater say in financial decisions. We need to remember that spouses perform many tasks for which they are not paid. They contribute to the marriage and common life in different ways. At times one spouse may be ill or unemployed and not able to contribute financially or in other ways. Spouses need to feel valued and respected in their own home, regardless of how much money they bring in.

Is it ever better to have less money?

In a strong, life-giving marriage, financial responsibility is not just about making money and spending it or saving it. It also includes giving it away – to religious institutions, charities or our neighbors in need. Sometimes living more simply so that others can simply live is the most direct path to satisfaction and happiness.

4. CAREERS : At first it probably sounds simple. Get a job to pay the bills so we can live happily ever after. But jobs take a lot of time and sometimes that time is stolen from the time that the marriage relationship needs.

Factor in that there are jobs and then there are careers and things get even more complicated. Generally a job is considered something one does for pay, but it does not necessarily require specialized education. A career is a job that you get paid for. It requires dedication to the field of work, plus you are expected to progress in knowledge and commitment over time.

Careers are usually more satisfying than jobs. The rub for married couples is when career decisions of one spouse conflict or compete with the marriage, family responsibilities, or the career of the other spouse. It’s a matter of discernment and juggling. The balancing act is often not easy. Following are some things to consider when making career decisions.

How much money do we need?

Ignore the temptation to give the flip answer “as much as possible.” A need is different from a want. Sure, it might be nice to have a swimming pool, a fancy car, or an upscale address (choose your luxury), but what is really necessary are the basics: food, clothing, shelter, health care, safety, and care for any children you may have. It’s OK to splurge occasionally but be sure to weigh the cost against the impact these things will have on couple and family time.

Should both of us work outside the home?

This is a complicated question with many variables, such as:

1. How necessary is the double income to survival?

2. How invested are each of us in our jobs or careers?

·         Would it be possible for one of us to take a leave from our career for a time and re- enter without undue penalty later?

·         Could one of us work part- time?

·         Could each of us work half time?

·         Could one of us stay current in our field and feel fulfilled by doing volunteer work?

3. Do we have young children, teens, or aging parents who need attention and personalized supervision?

4. If we have young children, do we have reliable child care providers who share our values and discipline beliefs?

5. Do we both strongly want to work outside the home?

What if our careers create conflict between us?

Some careers may put a marriage at risk because they are all-consuming. The job becomes a mistress or an addiction. It not only takes time, but also energy, away from the marriage. Sometimes the workplace provides the temptation to pursue an extramarital affair. Following are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Does your career require time commitment significantly over 40 hours per week?

2. Does your career require a lot of out of town travel?

3. Is your career so foreign to your spouse that it’s hard to share the nature of your work, at least in a general way?

4. Does your spouse’s work setting put him/her in frequent, intense working relationships with the opposite sex? Are your marital commitment and boundaries clear? Does the workplace support your marriage or put it at risk?

What are some ways to keep work, marriage, and family in balance?

Generally, work and children take their time off the top of a relationship. Work provides necessary income and includes built- in accountability, i.e. a boss, wages, reviews. Children make demands, plus we are responsible for their well- being.

The challenge is to give work and children their due but to balance them with what’s needed to keep a marriage strong. The temptation is to let the marriage go on autopilot because you’re both adults, you know you love each other, and you can let it slide for awhile, when job or kids are demanding your time. The key phrase is “for awhile.” Indeed, most marriages can absorb temporary spurts of attention to an urgent work project or an ailing parent. But it’s easy for a temporary crisis to slide into an ongoing pattern. To avoid this it’s helpful to have some regular marital practices that can prevent the balance from getting out of hand. For example:

1. Commit to a weekly date. This might not always involve spending money or going out, but it should be sacred time to renew your relationship and do something fun together.

2. Agree on how many hours of extra work (at the office or brought home) you can tolerate as a couple. Where do you draw the line and say it’s time to look for a different job?

3. Share what you love and hate about your work with your spouse so you stay connected with each other.

4. If necessary, lower your housekeeping standards (or pay someone to do chores you could do yourselves) to maximize couple/family time.

5. Include your spouse in work travel and parties when possible.

6. Staggering work schedules to minimize child care can be good for your relationship with your child but hard on the marriage. Make sure that your only together time is not while one is sleeping.

7. If you need to gain couple time, say no to nice but non- essential tasks such as:

·         baking cookies for the PTA

·         chairing a charity fundraiser

·         going to events that you can’t do as a couple

·         going to events that you don’t really care about but are in the habit of attending

·         TV, videos, and computer gaming- they can be time wasters

Prioritize

There are so many important and wonderful things we want to do with our time. How do we decide what to do and what to give up or do later?

The bottom line is:

1.      Marriage first (This is the vocation to which you committed yourself.)

2.      Children second (Your children may take more raw time, but not at the expense of your marriage. A healthy marriage is good for your children.)

3.      Job third (Again, your job may take more hours, but don’t let it rule your life.)

4.      Service and Recreation (Good and healthy to do, but make sure the other bases are covered.)

5.PARENTING : Raising a child can bring parents to the height of joy and the depths of despair. How can such an innocent, cuddly baby have the power to change our lives and provoke such emotional extremes? Because you love. You love your children and want the best for them. Their accomplishments bring you pride. Their hurts make your heart ache. Their mistakes bring you frustration and the temptation to rescue them.

Once you’ve met the basic family needs, often your child will benefit from your presence at home even if it means cutting back on work hours or taking a less stressful job.

So what prompts a couple to be willing to undertake the daunting and risky job of becoming a parent? For some it is just what they always expected to do. Isn’t that what life is about? You grow up, get married, and have children. For others, they just love babies (and hopefully young people in general). For many, it’s a gradual awareness that pulls you to expand this wonderful love you have for each other to create new human beings. You are mystified by the miracle of a new human sharing your DNA, your home, and your future. What will this new creation look like? What traits of each of you will he or she possess?

As momentous and all consuming as parenting a child can be, it may sound counterintuitive to suggest that the child does not come first in a married couple’s life- the marriage does.

Yes, a child usually takes more time out of your life for direct care. Yes, a child’s needs are often urgent and immediate and parents must sacrifice comfort, sleep, or plans to respond to the child first. But, the bottom line is that if the marriage is not working, it has a profound impact on any children born to it. If you can stay attentive to your marriage, the children will reap the benefits in time. 

 “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

So what happens when children become a source of difficulty in a marriage? It could be a sick child that requires extra care borrowed from couple time and energy. It could be worries over your child’s path in life. It could be disagreements about ways to discipline your child. It could be many things and usually is. Following are some rules of thumb for the most common issues that parents face in raising children:

Balancing children’s needs vs spouse’s needs

It’s normal and necessary for parents to respond to their children’s urgent physical, emotional, and educational needs. This usually takes more hours of the day than time devoted to relating to your spouse. To keep your spouse a priority, however, family life educators recommend:

·         daily affirmations (words, hugs, kisses)

·         a weekly date

·         an annual get-away (without the children)

Some of these require getting a baby sitter (or having family or generous friends) but think of the cost as marriage insurance.

Dealing with worries about children

Worrying and fretting about your children come with the job and can prompt needed action. Some parents, however, “over worry” and become “helicopter parents,” hovering over their children. Remember, you are responsible for the process you use in raising your children- not the outcome. When all else fails (and hopefully before) turn it over to God.

Disciplining children

Even parents who have read all the books about childrearing, attend lectures, and love their children with all their hearts will at times differ on how to discipline their children in a specific instance. Ideally, parents will agree beforehand on standard consequences for misbehavior, but when one parent gives a discipline that the other thinks is inappropriate (too harsh or too lenient) it’s best for the second parent not to contradict the first. Mother and father should then discuss their differences privately. If the first parent agrees to change, that parent then goes back to the child and informs him or her of the change.

All reputable family life professionals agree that corporal punishment (spanking, hitting, etc.) is no longer acceptable as a way to discipline children. Society has learned better, safer, and more effective ways to discipline. Take a parenting class if you need help.

How much money does it take to raise a child?

More than you thought but less than stores would have you believe. Children can thrive without the latest fads, technology, and baby paraphernalia. Go for sturdy, safe, creative child purchases. Children need your presence more than your presents.

Balancing work and family

Although responsible parents obviously need an income, how much is enough? Once you’ve met the basic family needs, often your child will benefit from your presence at home even if it means cutting back on work hours or taking a less stressful job. If you’re missing more family dinners than you make in a week, that can be a warning sign to readjust your schedule and priorities.

FOR EVERY MARRIAGE - Overcoming Obstacles

 Over the years a couple can expect to face many issues, both big and small. Some, such as financial, career, and parenting decisions, can be handled by honestly discussing them with each other or with friends who can provide wise advice. Others, such as infidelity, addictions, or infertility, need the counsel of professionals and a tremendous amount of commitment to change. Still others, such as illness, may have to be endured patiently with the support of family and friends.

We all want to live happily ever after. Inevitably, though, we all experience bumps along the marriage road.

Some bumps come from within the marriage. We may start to think our love wasn’t real, or that we’ve fallen out of love. We may even want to give up. Most couples go through a disillusionment phase. Preventive maintenance can minimize the damage. This means taking time to nurture the relationship, and perhaps attending an enrichment program or two.

Then there are the bumps that come from outside the marriage. For some couples, that means dealing with the heartbreak of miscarriage.  A growing number of couples face the challenge of caring for aging parents.

Whether the difficulties arise from inside or outside marriage, many couples can benefit from counseling. Find out when to seek counseling, how to find a counselor, and what to expect from the process.

Domestic violence is the one deal breaker. It is never part of the normal ups and downs of marriage. Safety for the victim and children must be the top priority.

Conclusion

Growth throughout the marital journey requires openness and flexibility. For people of faith, it also means being alert to the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit. Contemporary culture wants answers and certainty; faith requires trust and surrender. The invitation to the marital journey, and the resources to undertake it, come from God. God gives us enough clarity to take the next few steps, even if we cannot see the entire road and where it will end.