This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Marital Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Even though people are reluctant to admit it, most husbands and wives are disappointed in their marriages. There is overwhelming evidence to confirm this.
At least one person out of every two who gets married will be divorced within about ten years. Many of these will indulge in legal polygamy-that is, they will marry and divorce several times. All told, the divorce rate in the United States is 51 per cent.
Marriage is so turbulent an institution that articles on how to patch up disintegrating marriages can be found in almost every issue of our family magazines and daily newspapers, with titles such as “How to Keep Your Husband Happy,” “How to Make Your Wife Feel Loved.” Surveys show that this sort of article frequently attracts more readers than anything else in the publication. It appears because of public demand, a demand which must originate from millions of unhappy, confused, and dissatisfied couples. Evidently the dreamed-of marriage often does not materialize. There are unexpected shortcomings, bickering, and misunderstandings. Most spouses to varying degrees are frustrated, confused, belligerent, and disappointed.
Almost every expression of our culture, including advertisements, has something to say about how to improve female-male relationships. Motion pictures, plays, television, radio, feature the friction between wife and husband more than any other subject.
The offices of marriage counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists are crowded with clients who are concerned over problems which mainly involve marriage, and who pay from twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars an hour for assistance. But these troubled people usually cannot identify their problems; even worse, they usually do not sincerely seek solutions. What each one wants is confirmation that he is correct and good, and that his spouse is the one at fault!
One reason for this marital disenchantment is the prevalence of the mistaken belief that “love” is necessary for a satisfying and workable marriage. Usually when the word “love” is used, reference is actually being made to romance-that hypnotic, ecstatic condition enjoyed during courtship. Romance and love are different. Romance is based usually on minimum knowledge of the other person (restricted frequently to the fact that being around him is a wonderful, beatific, stimulating experience). Romance is built on a foundation of quicksilver non-logic. It consists of attributing to the other person-blindly, hopefully, but without much basis in fact-the qualities one wishes him to have, though they may not even be desirable, in actuality. Most people who select mates on the basis of imputed qualities later find themselves disappointed, if the qualities are not present in fact, or discover that they are unable to tolerate the implication of the longed-for qualities in actual life. For example, the man who is attracted by his fiancée’s cuteness and sexiness may spend tormented hours after they are married worrying about the effect of these very characteristics on other men. It is a dream relationship, an unrealistic relationship with a dream person imagined in terms of one’s own needs.
Romance is essentially selfish, though it is expressed in terms of glittering sentiment and generous promises, which usually cannot be fulfilled. (”I’ll be the happiest man in the world for the rest of my life.” “I’ll make you the best wife any man ever had.”)
Romance-which most spouse’s mistake for love-is not necessary for a good marriage. The sparkle some couples manage to preserve in a satisfying marriage-based on genuine pleasure in one another’s company, affection and sexual attraction for the spouse as he really is-can be called love.
If romance is different than love, then what is love? We do best to return to the definition of Harry Stack Sullivan: “When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one’s own satisfaction or security, and then the state of love exists.” In this sense, love consists of a devotion and respect for the spouse that is equal to one’s own self-love.
We have already shown that people usually marry on a wave of romance having nothing to do with love. When the average American (not long from the altar) lives with the spouse in the intimacy of morning bad breath from too much smoking, of annoying habits previously not known, when he is hampered by the limitations of a small income (compared with the lavishness of the honeymoon), or encounters the unexpected irritability of premenstrual tension or of business frustration and fatigue, a change in attitude begins to occur. The previously romantic person begins to have doubts about the wonderful attributes with which his spouse has been so blindly credited.
These doubts are particularly disturbing at the start. Not very long ago, after all, the spouse believed that “love” (romance) was heavenly, all-consuming, immutable, and that beautiful relationships and behavior were voluntary and spontaneous. Now, if doubts and criticism are permitted to intrude upon this perfect dream, the foundations begin to shake in a giddy manner. To the husband or wife the doubts seem to be evidence that one of them is inadequate or not to be trusted. The doubts imply that the relationship is suffering from an unsuspected malignancy.
To live with another person in a state of love (as defined by Sullivan) is a different experience from whirling around in a tornado of romance. A loving union is perhaps best seen in elderly couples who have been married for a long time. Their children have grown, the pressure of business has been relieved, and the specter of death is not far away. By now, they have achieved a set of realistic values. These elderly spouses respect each other’s idiosyncrasies. They need and treasure companionship. Differences between them have been either accepted or worked out; they are no longer destructive elements. In such instances each has as much interest in the well-being and security of the other as he has in himself. Here is true symbiosis: a union where each admittedly feeds off the other. Those who give together really live together!
But it is possible to have a productive and workable marriage without love (although love is desirable) as well as without romance. One can have a functioning marriage which includes doubts and criticisms of the spouse and occasional inclinations toward divorce. The husband or wife may even think about how much fun it might be to flirt with an attractive neighbor. Such thoughts can occur without being disastrous to the marriage. In many workable marriages both spouses get a good deal of mileage out of fantasy.
How, then, can we describe this functional union which can bring reasonable satisfaction and well-being to both partners? It has four major elements: tolerance, respect, honesty, and the desire to stay together for mutual advantage. One can prefer the spouse’s company to all others’, and even be lonely in his absence, without experiencing either the wild passion inherent in romance, or the totally unselfish, unswerving devotion that is basic in true love.
In a workable marriage both parties may be better off together than they would have been on their own. They may not be ecstatically happy because of their union, and they may not be “in love,” but they are not lonely and they have areas of shared contentment. They feel reasonably satisfied with their levels of personal and interpersonal functioning. They can count their blessings and, like a sage, philosophically realize that nothing is perfect.
We must return once again to the meaning of the word “love,” for no other word in English carries more misleading connotations. The following is an actual example of how distorted the thinking of an individual may become when he believes he is in love.
A young woman and her fiancé visiting a marriage counselor had completed an interpersonal test which told much about their behavior and how they viewed each other. The counselor, after studying the data, asked why the woman wished to marry this man, who was an admitted alcoholic. She said she had sought the counselor’s help because she did have some doubts. Her previous husband, from whom she had recently been divorced, was weak and passive. Now she was looking for a man strong enough to take care of her.
The marriage counselor explained that he could not understand why she had picked an alcoholic-obviously a weak man who could not possibly look after her. She would have to look after him.
Her fiancé sat passively by and did not enter the conversation. The counselor asked again, ‘Why do you want to marry this man who appears to be just the opposite of the spouse you say you need?”
The young woman shrugged her shoulders, smiled happily, and said, with dogmatic conviction, “Because I love him.”
Her fiancé smiled and nodded in support of her unsupportable statement.
It is obvious that this woman did not know what she meant by “I love him.” She did not even know how she felt about him. Because of her complex neurotic needs she had a desire for this man-and it could probably be shown that this was a unilateral and totally selfish desire. Her choice of someone to “love” had nothing to do with her prospects for having a workable or satisfying marriage. The word “love” was a cover-up for an emotional mix-up which she did not understand.
Often “I love you” is an unconscious excuse for some form of emotional destructiveness. Sometimes it is a camouflage for a status struggle, which may continue even after a couple has separated. A spouse who has been deserted (especially for another) may covertly or unconsciously wish to be identified and applauded as the good and loyal partner. The jilted spouse assumes a saintly, pious behavior-especially in public-and makes certain everyone knows he still “loves” the other and will lovingly and patiently wait forever until the other comes to his senses. This can be accomplished with operatic flamboyance while the individual simultaneously has a well-hidden affair with someone else’s husband or wife; and the apparent inconsistency later can be rationalized away: “After John’s [or Mary’s] departure there was such a hole in my life I had to do something to stay on an even keel. If I had had a breakdown it would have hurt the children. But my behavior didn’t alter the fact that I loved him.”
This type of “love” is especially likely to manifest itself when one spouse believes he received ill-treatment from the other for some years prior to the final desertion. The “injured” spouse (for so he regards himself no matter what he did to hurt and destroy the other) will loudly maintain with grief: “But I still love him.” It takes little clinical experience or psychological brilliance to recognize that usually this person really is exhibiting hurt pride and rage at being the one who was left, rather than the one who did the leaving.
“Love” may also be used as an excuse for domination and control. The expression “I love you” has such an immutable place in our traditions that it can serve as an excuse for anything, even for selfishness and evil. Who can protest against something done ”because I love you,” especially if the assertion is made with histrionic skill and in a tone of sincerity? The victim-the one on the receiving end-may intuitively realize that he is being misused. Yet he often finds it impossible to remonstrate.
Sullivan’s definition of love is important. It describes not a unilateral process, but a two-way street, a bilateral process in which two individuals function in relation to each other as equals. Their shared behavior interlocks to form a bond that represents mutual respect and devotion. One spouse alone cannot achieve this relationship. Both must participate to the same degree. The necessity for both spouses to “give” equally is one of the reasons that a marriage built upon mutual love is so rare.
People naturally wish to have a happy marriage to a loving spouse. But such a union is hard to come by without knowledge of the anatomy of marriage, plus much patience, work-and luck. Many people fail to face the fact that if their parents’ marriage was unhappy or their childhood was neurotic, they do not possess the prerequisite experience for choosing the correct mate. Where have they observed a good model for marriage? How can they possibly know what a loving marriage is like-and what elements must be put into it?
Most Americans enter marriage expecting to have love without having asked themselves the question, Am I lovable? Following close behind is another question: If I am not lovable, is it not likely that I have married an unloving person?
There is another misuse of the word “love,” Some people believe that they can love generously even if doing so requires behaving like a martyr. They believe their rewards will come not on earth but in heaven, or at least in some mystical, unusual way. Therefore they seem able to love unilaterally and want nothing for themselves. They suffer happily and enjoy making sacrifices while pouring their love out on another. The more undeserving the other is the more of this love there is to be poured.
This situation is deceptive. Martyrdom is actually one of the most blatant types of self-centeredness. No one can be more difficult to deal with than the one-way benevolent person who frantically, zealously, and flamboyantly tries to help someone else, and apparently seeks nothing for himself.
Nathan Epstein, William Westley, Murray Bowen, John Workentin, Don Jackson, and others who have conducted research on couples who are content with their marriages and have reared apparently healthy, successful children, agree that companionability and respect are the key words in the lexicon these couples use to describe their marriages. A husband interviewed in one study stated: “In love? Well, I guess so-haven’t really thought about it. I suppose I would, though, if Martha and I were having troubles. The Chinese have a saying, ‘One hand washes the other.’ That sort of describes us, but I don’t know if that’s what you mean by love.”
The happy, workable, productive marriage does not require love as defined in this book, or even the practice of the Golden Rule. To maintain continuously a union based on love is not feasible for most people. Nor is it possible to live in a permanent state of romance. Normal people should not be frustrated or disappointed if they are not in a constant state of love. If they experience the joy of love (or imagine they do) for ten per cent of the time they are married, attempt to treat each other with as much courtesy as they do distinguished strangers, and attempt to make the marriage a workable affair–one where there are some practical advantages and satisfactions for each-the chances are that the marriage will endure longer and with more strength than the so-called love matches.
