The Keys to a Successful Marriage   by Peter Halpin

According to Michael P. Johnson, professor of sociology at Penn State, there are three things that keep a person in a marriage: people want to stay, they feel they ought to stay, and/or they have to stay. This combination of personal, moral, and structural commitment serves to keep people in marriages.

Notice that commitment keeps people in marriage--not happiness. Dr. Ted Huston of the University of Texas Austin studied couples from courtship to marriage. His ten-year-plus study exploded many popular misconceptions about love. For example, he found that many recently wed couples did not experience newlywed bliss; in fact, couples whose marriages began with "Hollywood romance" intensity soon burned out. A couple expecting wedded bliss every day of their lives was actually more likely to divorce than a couple with a less exciting relationship, because they were more likely to consider divorce when those intense feelings subsided. Does that mean that less exciting, even lackluster relationships last? They do indeed, perhaps because they have less far to fall.

Research shows that unhappy periods in a marriage are not indicative of future unhappiness. In fact, one study showed that 86% of unhappily married couples who stayed with their marriage were happier five years later--three fifths of whom were "quite" or "very happy."

According to the 2004 "State of Our Unions" report by the National Marriage Project, the percentage of married people 18 or older who said that their marriage was very happy has declined over the last quarter century, from about 69% in the mid 1970s to 64% for men and 60% for women today. That's less than two-thirds of the married population who considers themselves very happy in their relationship. Clearly, you don't have to be blissfully in love or very happy for your relationship to last. What do you need?

It's not love and luck. It's commitment and companionship. Commitment means that you have powerful personal, moral, and structural reasons to stay in the relationship. Companionship means that you and your partner form a unified team against whatever challenges life hands you. Team members may fight, disagree, and encounter stalemates, but they know that their happiness and satisfaction in life depends on the success of the team--not on their individual success.

When Marriage Fails ... Who and How

Contrary to popular belief, it's not men who seek divorce. It's women, by an overwhelming majority. The reasons for this are varied. Part of it is the nature of divorce laws; another part is the fact that men tend to have more problems with marriage-destroying behaviors like alcoholism, affairs, and substance abuse, that cause their wives to seek separation.

Divorce is hard on everyone. The damage divorce causes to children is usually worse than the damage caused by living in a two-parent home with marital difficulties. This is contrary to the popular belief that children are better off if their parents divorce rather than live together. Studies show that only in a minority of high-conflict situations is this true.

After a divorce, a woman's standard of living can be expected to drop while a man's standard of living may actually improve. Yet men suffer in other ways. Divorced and separated men are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than married men. This is partially due to the fact that men, unlike women, are less likely to have a strong support network to share their feelings. Whether due to this need for companionship or not, divorced men are more likely to remarry than divorced women, and they're more likely to remarry sooner.

Who Has the Real Power in a Relationship

Regardless of whether you're a man or a woman, whether you pay the bills or stay at home, or whether you need your spouse more than your spouse needs you, there is only one person in control of any relationship. That person has the power to turn a relationship around or run it into the ground. And that person usually never realizes how much power he/she wields until it is too late.

That person is you.

You have the choice to either react to the situation you're in (by complaining about your marriage, allowing yourself to be swamped by negative emotions, or feeling out of control), or to take responsibility and choose your actions. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "No one can hurt you without your consent."

Even if you cannot change your partner's behavior, you can choose how you respond to that behavior. You can internalize the blame, the hurt, and the criticism, or you can take responsibility for your own feelings and choose to act the way you want to feel.

Think again about that last concept. You should act the way you want to feel. If you want to feel more loving towards your spouse, act more loving. If you want to feel happier in your marriage, smile more and express gratitude for the good things in your marriage. It's one of the strangest aspects of human psychology that the more you act the way you want to feel (thankful, peaceful, loving, affectionate, etc.) the more you will begin to feel that way.

Few people realize this. When a marriage begins to crumble, their first instinct is to act out their emotions. They feel hurt, so they lash out. They feel criticized, so they become defensive. They feel vulnerable, so they close up. These are reactions, not actions. Your feelings should NOT make you act in ways that you don't want to.

You have the power to transform your marriage, even if your partner doesn't want to. That's because your behavior has an enormous influence on your partner, to the point that married people actually grow alike over time. We can't help but pick up our partner's moods, preferences, and ways of saying certain things. If you transform yourself--your attitude, the way you communicate, how often you show love and affection--your partner will be incapable of resisting. A happy, fulfilling relationship begins with you. And in the next part of this mini-course, I'll show you how to start achieving it.

For an excellent resource and further information, visit Amy Waterman's - Save My Marriage Today

About the Author

For an excellent resource and further information, visit Amy Waterman's - Save My Marriage Today

Home Page > Directory-Home > RELATIONSHIPS > successfull marriage