I apologize in advance if this blog entry steps on any toes because I really do not mean for it to. My therapist told me not to beat myself up over my marriage because at the time I was deciding who to marry (I was 23 and straight out of school), I had nobody in my life telling me what to look for in a marriage. After 20 years of marriage, I still don’t understand what marriage is supposed to be, and I don’t want to drive both hub and me crazy by having some skewed understanding, so I am hoping you readers can help me out with this.
I don’t intend this blog entry to be specifically about **my marriage.** Instead, I want to explore what marriage is supposed to be – I guess what the “goal” of marriage is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be the coming together of soul mates? A contractual relationship that is negotiated between two parties? If so many married people are so miserable, why is this an institution that society keeps encouraging its children to enter into? Is our culture (at least in the United States) responsible for setting up men and women to drive each other crazy in marriage?
My understanding of marriage as a girl (and I do think this is a common perception in the South in the United States) was that I would grow up and marry a man who “loved me for me.” He would be drawn to the person I am on the inside (primarily my soul/spirit over my physical body) – pretty much be a soul mate.
However, my observation of many marriages (both those that continue and those that end in divorce) is that many of the men were looking for the hottest woman to have regular sex with who would also take care of their other physical needs, such as cook, clean, and rear children. In return, they would pay the bills. As long as the wife keeps her body up, has regular sex, and tends to the household stuff, he is happy even if there is no emotional connection with the wife at all.
Are men and women really that different? Or has the fact that I live in the South in the United States and mostly interact with women who used to be emotionally damaged and are now healing skewed the sample I am viewing? If “I love you” means “I want to have sex with you” to a man and “I see and am attracted to your soul/spirit” to a woman, no wonder the U.S. divorce rate is so high!
What are your thoughts on marriage? Other than not driving you crazy, what is the purported goal and point of marriage?
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Faith, it took me til I was 41 to find out what marriage really can be. I was legally married twice before that and those marriages were certainly roller coasters.
Today I can honestly say I don’t know how I’d stand living without my husband. It sounds trite to say he’s my best friend, but he is. He helped me raise my younger child from the age of five years old; he helped ME grow up emotionally too. He actually cried when I told him about some of the horrible events of my childhood …
I’m so convinced that my husband is my first experience of true, self-giving love (other than my own maternal love for my two children) that I’m tempted to date events in terms of him (similar to B.C. vs. C.E.).
Regarding what you wrote, I don’t think a mature man would be very happy with zero emotional connection to the wife, even if she were hot and kept house and raised the kids. I think for some guys that’s a feast for their ego, for awhile.
OTOH,
if a man is paying all the bills as you suggested, then he would naturally feel disrespected if his wife let herself go to seed, let the house go, etc.
I think the institution of marriage is actually unnecessary because people who are in love tend to make promises to one another anyway (as C.S. Lewis pointed out). And financial partnerships can be forged outside marriage. I’d be just as happy if the state were not involved. And the prices of many weddings these days are ridiculous to me.
Even so, I admit I like hearing my husband mention, “My wife” and I like saying “My husband”. Some people may call it possessive or territorial, but to me it’s also claiming someone because you love them.
As a native Chicagoan, I believe that what you are experiencing is in fact biased based on your sample. (Southern, emotionally damaged, women.)
I have seen cases of men, and women who are looking with the “hottest thing they can regularly sleep with,” women who are looking to latch themselves onto a man for security, gold diggers, and the like.
One of the reasons I like my college (the University of Chicago) so much is because even though most of the guys are wimps who are literally less aggressive than the squirrels, they have much more respect for women and they’re not just interested in physical appearance.
I’ve heard a lot of guys guys talking about how they like Uchicago because the “girls here are smart and you can have a conversation with them,” which is what they want in a girlfriend (and I’m assuming spouse.) They actually seem to be looking for somebody they can connect with at least on an intellectual level.
Of course, I’m only speaking from observation, not experience. I’ve never actually been in an actual relationship because, as stated above, the guys at uchicago are wimps and getting one of them to make a move is harder than catching a greased pig while blindfolded.
Hey Creagan,
I have been to Chicago three times in the last three years. The first two times I figured it was just new and that is why I like it. The third time I understood I like the people there better. So I came home to NH and complained for two days that all people do in NH is complain. NOOOOOOOOOO I am one of them. Smile.
I think it really depends what your background is — that determines what you believe marriage is about. Some devout christians go to college specifically to meet a spouse, the idea being that they are of marrying age and they should therefore find someone they get along with and marry. i’ve never personally known a guy to marry a woman because he thought it was a great way to secure good and frequent sex, but I’m sure it happens. Here on the west coast we sorta just marry if and when we want to…the idea being that it’s not worth getting married to someone unless you actually really love each other and even then it’s usually not until you’ve been living together for years. But I think culture makes a big difference too, like some of the hispanic culture here teaches young women that they don’t leave their parents’ home until they move into a new home with their new husband so…there’s just so much variation, Faith.
Personally I think marriage is a commitment you make when you want to raise a family with that person and you want to be exclusive partners, and also, if it benefits people financially and legally.
Being a lesbian means that I don’t have the option currently to marry someone, so I am lucky that there is no *precedent* for what situationally demands a marriage be performed. I hope the law gets changed, because I think I deserve the right to marry someone if I so wish, and there’s no reason government should decide that for me. But on the other hand, marriage is a decision that many people live to regret, and doesn’t seem to enhance love or responsibility or commitment in the people who marry.It just means they signed a piece of paper saying they would be together forever, which is a way to bind your future life to a choice you made one day wearing a white dress. I don’t know, it seems to me that marriage is a fine idea but it isn’t going to make anyone happy. Married couples, unmarried couples, single people — anyone can be happy in a situation, but I don’t think it’s the situation that determines their happiness, it’s the people.
I agree it is the people that make each other happy not the situation. 🙂 Well put.
It’s got nothing to do with men and women, and everything to do with emotionally stunted people sleepwalking through their lives doing what’s expected of them for whatever reason. And I’m not talking about abuse victims there, I mean people who haven’t had to struggle quite so much, who’ve never been forced to think about what they want in the way that survivors do.
For a start, many heterosexual people don’t seem to see the need to spend time thinking about whether they’re truly monogamous or not. There appears to be no culture of honesty. So many, both male and female, want to have their cake and eat it; if they want to sleep around but the person they want to be with is monogamous, it seems to be usual just to lie instead of coming out as polyamorous and accepting that you can’t win ’em all. There are a lot of jokes about regarding how people “naturally” lie (as in being dishonest rather than as in posture!) in bed; treating unethical sexual/romantic behaviour as normal, even in jokes, lets people off growing the f*ck up.
However, there are good people, but it’s like you say, Faith, you usually have to be emotionally pretty healthy to attract them, which sucks massively. Sometimes it’s only when you stop needing someone that you’ve got a chance of finding them; that’s certainly the case for me. I resent it though.
Personally, I don’t really intend to get married; if I plan on having children I’ll do that first, not afterwards. The idea of being legally bound to someone is just too much pressure. If I had to get married before having children, as has been usual until very recently, I probably wouldn’t settle down at all. I realise that other people may feel differently, but I feel that a social emphasis on marriage (particularly as a measure of personal success; ugh, that makes my skin crawl) is damaging.
Hi, all.
Wow! These are some interesting perspectives. Please keep them coming!
~ Faith
I also got married young, at 22. There has always been a strong romantic attraction. But at 22 I was also fleeing my childhood, as was my spouse. For many years our marriage had the quality of a life-raft as a result. We separated for a while at the time I began trauma recovery work, but the sense of connection and love persisted, and we got back together and have put a lot of work into our relationship since then. The marriage was always partly about taking care of one another, but now it is also about providing support and space for the other person to live & thrive as fully as possible. Still a work in progress, of course. My marriage is also about shared leisure activities and keeping our household running and being a part of our community & (mostly chosen) family.
I spent much of my teen and college years attending a church that saw pre-marital sex as a “bigger” sin than others, so many people I knew then got married, mostly because they wanted to have sex. Once they were married, some found a way to make it work, and many didn’t, myself included. After that I pretty much gave up on the idea of marriage, especially once I was no longer affiliated with that religious group.
Years later, when I met my current wife, that outlook did change eventually, for many of the same reasons others have laid out here. My wife is truly my best friend. Whenever I feel the need to share good news, bad days, etc. she’s the person I want to share it with before anyone else. As an introvert by nature, most social interaction is enjoyable, but work, for me, except spending time with my wife, which is completely natural and not at all work, it’s a refuge and source of energy. It was when we started seeing each other and I began to realize that this was true, that I changed my views on wanting to get married again. It wasn’t about the sex, it wasn’t about infatuation, it wasn’t even about enjoying someone paying attention to me, which is what I think many people confuse for love. It was about knowing that I enjoyed just being in this person’s company as much as possible, and not ever wanting to lose that.
In truth, I think it really came down to having gone through healing, and therapy, to a point where I was happy with myself, and then finding someone who could make me even happier, as opposed to expecting to find someone who made me happy in the first place. That’s the fatal error I see often in our society, feeling like you can’t be happy until you find the right mate, instead of having a happy, full life of your own, and finding someone who makes it even better.
@ Mike McBride: Very, very, wise and insightful!
Hi, Mike.
I really like this:
“In truth, I think it really came down to having gone through healing, and therapy, to a point where I was happy with myself, and then finding someone who could make me even happier, as opposed to expecting to find someone who made me happy in the first place.”
I agree that this is where many couples go wrong. Thanks for sharing this. :0)
~ Faith
Hi Faith,
I was married at 21 to my best friend and am still married to him 35 years later! The ideal I believe, is that 2 people become one with each other. The man is to love his wife as he loves himself ( and by that I don’t mean sex, but wanting to meet what she needs) and the woman to try to help him so that he can be all that he can be. Of course we all know, that is the goal, but the journey there can be pretty rocky at times, because it means that sometimes we have to deny ourselves and sacrifice to meet the other mate’s needs. I’ve watched my parents do this; they’ve been married 66 years! It is not a garden path, it requires commitment and work from both, but the rewards along the way to the goal are numerous and gratifying.
I think that’s a good question – I’ve spent the better part of my adult learns grappling to figure out how to make marriage work. Like the above poster, I belong to a religion where people marry rather young (probably the same one), but my view on why is a little bit different. Marriage is taught to be the ideal – the way it “should” be. And that’s great – if you can figure out how to make it work. I’ve always been taught, and I believe, that a close and good marriage comes from living the doctrine taught in the Bible about love and charity – the reference is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Now, I think that is the ideal. Trying to forge your way to that goal when you both come from backgrounds that have shaped your views of life and relationships is where it can get very hard.
Men are wired so completely different from women. From all the things I have read and studied, men actually connect love and sex. It’s not just a physical thing for them. (This is assuming the male is a healthy, normal male – not someone who is all screwed up sexually which some are.) I remember when my husband and I got married, he would tell me he wanted to have sex to show me he loved me. I had a good laugh and said, “Honey, that’s not how you show a woman you love her. That’s how she shows you that she loves you.” And I think to a large degree that is true. Even if I ever feel loved during sex, I don’t think it’s the same as he feels about it, based on the conversations we have had. However, that makes it easier for me to appreciate where he’s coming from if he’s initiating or wanting sex. Because of my history, he’s very careful when it comes to that and will respectfully ask if he can touch me or if I’m okay with it. He’s careful to leave all of my power in my hands, which I appreciate. It wasn’t that way in the beginning and we had some rough months while we sorted that out.
I’m also from the South (Georgia) and I have to disagree with the poster from Chicago. My husband is also from the South and he’s extremely thoughtful and gentle and careful. He has a very strong value system and deep faith. We are definitely on the same level there and for me it has made a huge difference. I know the caliber of man he is and when things go wrong, I’m usually able to see beyond whatever is happening and remember that I know the kind of man he is.
I personally think that the problems in marriage largely stem from the differences in men and women. And I think those problems are reinforced by negative patterns that come from a person’s family of origin – and pretty much everyone has that. I’ve read tons of books and gone to quite a bit of marital counseling and my latest therapist suggested I read a book that has helped me more than any of the other therapy or books combined. It’s by John Gottman and it’s called Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. It is such an easy read and it makes so much sense.
At the end of the day, I think a lot is based on whether the two people want to be there. Then it’s just about pushing forward and looking for answers and never giving up.
I believe in the institution of marriage. I believe there is something within our souls that want that tie to another human being and I believe there is something within the souls of our children that want to belong to something that is knit together – it offers security and opportunity to grow. And for us, the goal is to have that ideal relationship where we listen and understand each other…. to make it to the level that Corinthians talks about. But it’s a process. 🙂
I can’t accept that men and women are fundamentally different. If that works for you, that’s ok of course, but people saying that differences are hardwired has caused so much fear, pain and confusion that I feel it’s necessary to say that there’s not much evidence for a biological basis for it, and if anyones experiences and own personality contradict the theory, they should trust themselves, not a fringe branch of psychology. Anyone struggling with this may find the book “The Myth of Mars and Venus” by Deborah Cameron an interesting read.
Again, time2heal, I’m not trying to have a go at you, I think whatever helps you make sense of yourself and your experience is totally fine, I just want to make sure of the safety of anyone reading this; I’m not the only survivor I’ve known to be triggered to self-harm (in the past) by the suggestion that such differences are true for everyone.
@ Jan, I remember one time I went on a bike ride with my then, two children. My daughter was 7 and my son was 5 – (18 months apart)
My son would go as fast as he could then cut in front of me just about knocking me off his bike. My daughter on the other hand, was pedaling at a slow, lazy and dainty pace, enjoying the air on her face. 🙂 Fundamentally different!
Hey Jan,
Hardwired is as far as I am concerned and explainable for that which can not be explained. The new God’s plan. Did you know that all defects in children used to come from the mother? It was accepted.
Hey Heavenlyplaces,
Could have been ” My son was 7 and my daughter was 5 – (18 months apart) My daughter would go as fast as he could then cut in front of me just about knocking me off her bike. My son on the other hand, was pedaling at a slow, lazy and dainty pace, enjoying the air on his face.” That is what makes it not fundamental.
I do not have a son. I have a daughter that likes to go up in stunt planes and likes to jump out of some. Her latest is she is going to run a crane.
@heavenlyplaces: Fundamentally different people, perhaps :). And it would be a more boring world if we were all the same, or indeed if personality was distinct between genders rather than individuals.
I should add that the person I’ve been closest to for longest and has treated me the best is male, and we have *exactly* the same needs, so I repeat: if one person’s experience is that these things are divisable along gender lines, that’s fine, but it is *not* true for everyone, and linking it to biology makes it sound like it’s being represented as absolute fact for everyone, which I don’t think is ethical, because it’s invalidating for the many people who haven’t found it to be true.
Inherently biological, I mean; obviously social and other environmental factors can change the brain physically at any point of development.
Hi! I’m that poster from Chicago and I just wanted to let you know that I in no way intended on claiming that in the south men don’t respect women at all.
I do feel that just as the south tends to be more religious than the North (bible-belt excluded) the south also tends to have a stronger culture of feeling that the woman’s place is to cook, clean, and raise children. But that obviously does not apply to everywhere in the south, and of course is purely dependent on comparative socioeconomic factors.
I got married at 18 and stayed in that marriage for ten years because it was what was expected. I grew up in the American South, reared (and abused) by traditional Southern people, and what a girl does in that culture is find herself a boyfriend with good prospects and marry him young, have his babies, cook and clean his house. I did all those things for ten years before realizing that was not the life I was supposed to lead. The marriage was happy for him because he was getting all the things you mentioned in your post, and that was enough for him for a long time. But for me it was soul-destroying. So I took a giant leap of faith and ended the marriage. I have never been happier or more fulfilled! And that’s because now my life is of my own design, not of any one else. That doesn’t mean “I took charge of my life”, but rather that I began taking real responsibility for my own happiness: I looked at things and saw that they weren’t working for me, I learned about how other people live and about relationships and communication and respect, and decided that my biggest problem wasn’t that I was in the wrong marriage (I was), but the biggest problem was that I had never taken responsibility for my own fulfillment seriously.
I don’t think I will ever get married again, mainly because I see no benefit in it. But the one thing which draws me to that choice is that I never again want my lover to be contractually bound to me: I want him to be with me because he makes that choice every single day. I am very happy dating, and I am very happy falling in love periodically. I do keep myself open and inviting to a long-term partner, but I have realized, since being single, that my life is not for rent to the bidder who can promise me anything – I am responsible for enjoying my life on my own terms and if I happen to find my life running closely parallel to someone else’s, I am open to the adventure we can have together!
Love is not a choice, but relationships are.
The problem with all the women I dated is they have bad taste in men.
I can’t get married it is against my religion to sleep with a married woman so it would not work out.
People that are married for a long time live longer they just do not live as much.
I do not see what the big deal is about sex. It only takes a minute.
———————-
I find that it is best for me to stay away from people who want to tell me about me and hang with those that tell me about them. I also stay away from people who tell me about other people.
I would never set a goal with any relationship other than for money. It either just is or is it is not. This does not mean there is not work. Bottom like I either want to do the work or I do not.
It is a red flag for me when someone starts instructing me about relationships I do not care who they are quoting.
One thing that helps me is to be up front that I do not buy into that women know more about men then men do.
i often wonder if the thing about men are all about sex makes some women feel important. I lived in a girls dorm with a resident assistant for two years. In my opinion those females were more about sex than any male fraternity.
As a single male at age 40 who is now 58 I have had many offers from women who will tell you at great length how wonderful there marriage is. Note: Why I get the offers is inexplicable. A big tip off to the advance is when the husband is referred to as a good provider.
One thing I watch for is if the woman changes how she relates to me when the husband is present than I can not have a real platonic relationship with the woman. Often my platonic relationships got bad when I do not want to have sex with the woman.
I never in my life could feel pride in that a marriage lasted a long time. It is such as base measure. That a person was in love with one person their whole life would be an amazing thing a long marriage does not prove that at all. There are many marriages that have lasted a long time that would not be anything I can even imagine anyone would want.
I have had a break through in my relationships. Someone called me incorrigible so I looked it up. “Difficult or impossible to manage or control.” I now just tell people I do not need to be managed or controlled. Seems to work great.
It has been my experience that most women do not know what most men find attractive. Most men would like to say they had sex with Ginger. Mary Ann is the one they want to sleep with. “Gilligan’s Island.
When I ask someone out now I tell them I am going to later and I want to give them time to come up with an excuse. It is kinda a trick as if they are interested they say so on the spot. I then ask them if they like to have fun which they always say they do. They we try and come up with something that would be fun. Then there is the kiss and the kiss does tell all.
For me sex outside a loving relationship is boring at best.
“I do not see what the big deal is about sex. It only takes a minute. ” OMW- I always get a good laugh from you!!! Love your thoughts here!
Hello everyone! I just got out of the hospital and I have done some incredible healing! More on that later. As regards marriage, I read somewhere that a man should love his wife as himself.But what if no body ever taught us how to love, To me, it is very important to love also yourself. But society does not know how to love and so how can they teach us to. My parents both loved and hated me. So I have to go back in and record over the old stuff. I am sorry, but I have to go!! I love you all!!!
What an interesting conversation going on here and so many different opinions. Near the end of August, my husband and I will have been married 40 years. We knew each other only 8 months total before we were married. As several others have already said, my husband is my best friend.
We both grew up in dysfunctional homes and that is probably what initially attracted us to each other. We recognized that we were both Adult Children of Alcoholics on some level. That plus my husband’s wonderful, quirky sense of humor attracted me to him. He did his best to be funny so he could see me smile while we were dating. I was 20 and he had just turned 23 when we got married.
I am also an incest survivor which brings up some major issues in a marriage. In order to feel safe and also because I promised myself that no one would ever control me like my dictator dad did when I was a child, I was a controller after we got married. My husband has an easy-going personality so he let me be controlling without too much argument or discussion about it. We were usually okay until someone else came into the equation. We were poor college kids when we got married. My husband figured it was cheaper living together than separately so we got married with a year of college left for both of us. After about 10 years of marriage, I figured out that controlling didn’t make me happy at all so I worked very hard to stop doing it. Today I recognize that I try controlling when I am scared. Then I can stop again.
For years I lied to myself and tried to pretend that the incest issues didn’t exist and that I was happy. I wasn’t. I can’t speak for my husband. I was smart enough to know that he couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with me. Only I could. Many marriages would have split at that point. For some reason we didn’t. It got a lot worse when I finally admitted that I was an incest survivor and I needed help. We had about 4 years of hell while I learned to feel and my rage came out. I worked hard on learning how to feel and how to manage the rage so that I could release it and not hurt anyone with it. Finally things settled down and our relationship got better. We renewed our wedding vows on our 25th Anniversary. My husband told me that he wasn’t sure we were going to make it through year 24 but we did so our renewal of vows was a recommittment that we both wanted to make.
Over the years, I have fallen in and out of love with my husband but I have always loved him. Again, I can’t speak for him but for whatever reason he has stayed. I think it is because we have been friends as well as lovers. Sex is more important to him than it is to me so there has been some compromise there. I feel that sex is the main area of our lives together that the incest still affects to some degree. Still working on it. Our marriage isn’t perfect. Neither is either one of us. It is something that we both feel is important enough to work on for both of us.
Sorry this comment is so long but it is a difficult topic to talk about in a few words. Today our love and our marriage are stronger than it has ever been. We laugh a lot and we argue occasionally. The important thing is we talk to each other about everything.
I truly believe that the payoff for being with one person is huge – IF the relationship is healthy and the people are both committed to giving to each other. And I think that’s where a lot of relationships fall short.
Time2heal, I agree with you. Someone early in my recovery program told me that a couple either grows together or they grow apart. I have found that my husband and I have done much growing stronger together over the years. You have to be committed to get though the years that are a struggle. It isn’t easy but it is worth it.
[…] Please Help Me Understand Marriage « Blooming Lotus […]
I cannot say I have a match made in heaven- though I thought so when I was in the “rose-colored-glasses” stage. But I got me a good husband. Sometimes he makes me so mad, sometimes he makes me laugh. At times we have cried together. When I started therapy, I discovered it was okay to be who I was, but wait a minute, who was that?
Abuse really has a powerful impact on the ability of a person to just be who they are. But I am learning. It has been rough on both of us.
I have been a SAH mom for over 20 years now, and I am just going to college. My husband and I are both going through mid-life crisis in our own different ways.
He is like a brother to me. We are not really overly romantic. We are very different. Sometimes we connect emotionally, sometimes we don’t.
One thing we have in common that is very major to me is three beautiful children- He is their father. I carried them in my womb- a part of him, grew inside of me.
I am attached to my husband. I definitely feel we are one! I am 44- been with him since I was 18.
I used to say well no one is going to be married 40 years and they say that they wish that had been divorced long ago. Can’t anymore as someone told me that the other day. No he was abusive, drank or anything. Just she wished that she had experienced things differently.
I have an friend that goes to Porto Rico by her self. First year it was a month, second year two, third was four. I saw her for the first time the other day. I strongly suspect that 40 year marriage is over. She said “I do not know why I came back.”
I find it interesting that some have said they got married early. Round here the 8th grade is considered early.
I do believe that some people need have the state say they are a unit I do not have that need or want. Who knows that may change. Probably have to be an inheritance involved. A ceremony of some sorts I can see happening.
I do think anyone that wants to have what goes with the state saying you are a financial unit should have the right to be married.
When I was young I had to listen to not married yet, that went to no children yet ,now it is not grandchildren yet. Oh this is going to be fun. I am going to ask have you had a divorce yet? Actually I seem to be done with people that think like that.
When I got married, I was pretty clueless about what that meant. My wife and I were fairly young (21 and 22) and we always joke that we “grew up” together. But as her dyfunctions began to crash into our relationship, I was left struggling to understand. I had legitimate needs in and out of the bedroom, but she left me know that those were my problem. It was almost 20 years before we found out that she had d.i.d. and by then our completely dysfunctional sex lives had become the lightning rod of a marriage that in many ways was better than most people’s we knew and yet had so much underlying stress.
Once I found out about the d.i.d, I had my eureka moment of why she treated me so poorly in spite of confessing how much she loved me, and after a year of struggling with my own anger over her neglect and mistreatment, I came to the decision that if I wanted our marriage to not only last but finally become the mutually fulfilling relationship I had always dreamed about, then I would have to put her needs first, with the hope that once she and the little girls were healed, she would then be able to care about my needs.
4 years later she and the little girls have come a tremendous way, but I’m still waiting for the day when she will be able to genuinely satisfy my needs (in the bedroom and beyond). Sometimes I wonder if it will ever happen. The emotional pain and heartache because of my wife’s disorder has been the most painful I have ever experienced, but I love my girls. My wife is the only woman I have ever been with, and maybe that’s why I keep sticking it out with the hopes that all the pain will some day be redeemed somehow.
Sam
Well, Faith, I live in the south and i can tell you that your perception is spot on, even now. However, I think men and women do think differently and their needs are very different. I think what you said about men (many men) can and do have marriages with women because they wanted: a hot maid and a cook that they could f–k and who would raise their offspring. I think that men can do this quite easily due to the male compartmentalized brain.
Hollywood feeds us a line of crap too about the soulmate stuff. Not to say that man and women don’t have strong connections which are mysterious, but many times that involves pheromones and etc… Let’s face it, the biological purpose of any life form is to propagate the species, period. Men do it in their way, and we in ours. It’s a big crazy mess.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to marry one of our best friends. However, keeping the sexual attraction going is something that takes real work once emotional familiarity and the exhaustion of children are involved. So there is a middle ground, there just have to be two willing parties. You will not be able to do all the work yourself. (It takes 2..?…)
At least that’s been my experience and my bits of my theory about men and women!
Good luck.
m
Hey Mia,
I know women that want to be a a hot maid and a cook get f–ked and and raise their offspring. I don’t know why.
What I want is a hot maid and cook that I can have sex with that is rich. Smile Came close once expect for the rich part. Sounds awful we were 20 and it was great fun for then.
Hee hee! Yea, the rich part wouldn’t suck too badly.
Hello! I didn’t read the other comments yet, but I thought I would share my perspective with you.
I think marriage probably means different things to different people. To me, its a union between two people who agree to work together as a team. I think an emotional bond is necessary on both ends. In my marriage, my husband and I both care for each other and help each other (whether we’re busy, sick, or upset, for example).
I think the reason so many marriages fail is because people feel pressured by society to hurry up and get married while they’re young, or because they think that finding a soulmate will make them happy…and maybe they’re not ready for the rough patches. Sometimes you disagree, or your affection for each other wanes…it’s not necessarily like a fairy tale where you live happily ever after, but the important part is that you agree to work together and support each other.
It seems like to get married, you have to make a few personal sacrifices, but in return your partner supports you by making his/her own sacrifices for you.
I don’t know any marriages in which the husband only wants a wife for sex and chores. It doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship, to me. I think you have to be careful, and make sure you’re not the only one making personal sacrifices.
Hi Fath,
I have a thought I want to share with you. First, I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t mean to judge any of the commenters here – it is entirely possible that other commenters do have a healthy understanding of marriage and are able to convey that understanding to you.
The thought I have is this: you are posing this question to a demographic who is more likely than not, to have the same difficulties with relationships.
I think it is very brave of you to put your question out there, and wise to seek the opinions of numerous people, which your blog certainly allows you to do with ease. But perhaps there is a way to seek input from a group of people who have experienced modelling of healthy relationships and gone on to enter a marriage which is healthy and fulfilling. Such people may have different ideas to abuse survivors. If you do end up doing this, I think it would be great information to share in a future post.
I really hope this causes no offense.
Dawn
Sounds like a good idea to me,
Hi, Dawn.
That is an excellent point. I am not sure where I would ask, though. I feel comfortable asking here because nobody knows my offline identity. I don’t want to broadcast these issues in my day-to-day life.
The allegedly healthiest marriages I see is through my church, but I feel like the Munsters when trying to compare my own marriage to what I see there. :0(
~ Faith
Faith,
I couldn’t put this book down when I started reading it. Made soooo much sense of all the problems worldwide in marriages and family life. Wish I’d known all this stuff before my own marriage which lasted only about 4 years. Lots of common sense advice. (Is it okay to put a link here?)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2572840-the-secret-of-family-happiness
Since reading it, I decided to work on my own personal growth, sorting out my problems, and the after-effects from abuse/rapes/torture from the past, while keeping all men at bay. It’s worked well. Lots of progress over the last 10 years!
So now, I’ve given myself this next 6-months to heal, with particular emphasis on meeting with the people who hurt me so many years ago. After that, I am keen on looking for a marriage mate, or at least being open to the thought of marrying. (Or not). Maybe just making more friends to start with!
Part of my criteria is that the man would have to be able to cope with what happened to me in the past, and how it affects me. For us both to be aware of how it would affect the relationship. I believe this would be healthier and more strengthening for a marriage. In my broken marriage, neither of us knew what had happened to me.
Truth Seeker
It has been my experience that those that speak in terms of healthy and fulfilling relationships are from my view repressed and in a way want others to join them. They do not know they are repressed and perhaps for them they are are not. Does not matter I just do not want to go there anymore.
“Your well read and well known but something happening and you don’t know what it is do you Mr Jones.” Dylan.
I am more and more going with I do not know,no one else does either and I am OK with that. I can do that now only as I have found a way to process trauma not just past trauma all trauma. In a way it is morphing into processing and is much about what I don’t care to process.
I am surly not in therapy nor ever have been for the benefit of those who I have a relationship with as much as many therapist tried to steer me into that direction. For me it is all about my relationship to myself. I take care of that and it seems other things fall into place. I do not know if my current therapist would have tried to steer me to where it is all about everyone else. I had had enough of that by the time I started seeing her.
This is related although it may not seem so. Today the temperature is going to be in the 90’s and high humidity and that is what I am gong to experience. Not that it is like 102.
I think that’s a fair assessment of a lot of people who talk about their marriages – but then again, maybe they are choosing to focus on the positive? It seems like every relationship has things in common but then again is also so different.
Here is an example… yesterday my husband I were both exhausted. He had to be at work at 3:30 a.m. for a conference call and hadn’t been able to sleep well the night before. I hadn’t been able to sleep either. We’ve been traveling and we’re worn out. But I did sleep more than he did. Regardless, I was just worn out. I struggle a lot with what I’m beginning to think is depersonalization disorder (dissociative) and I feel shut down a lot, especially if I’m tired.
He came home to a huge mess in the house since we’d just gotten back from being out of town the night before. There were clothes all over that needed to be washed, the kitchen was a disaster – dishes needed to be done, I literally had done nothing except cut my daughters’ hair. I had a bad headache and no energy.
He walked into this mess of a house with a big smile and a dozen roses and handed them to me. He told me he’d take care of the kitchen and the clothes. I felt bad because he’d gotten almost no sleep, but he assured me it was fine. He proceeded to get all the laundry where it needed to be and started and cleaned up the kitchen – then he cooked dinner for all of us. Somewhere in all that he ran out and got me a soda to help with the headache and laid on the bed and rubbed my head for awhile and got me to talk so I would feel less shut down.
Now, there are days where I’m the one who has more to give and when that is the case, I do. We share each other’s burdens and try to make life easier for each other.
I do believe that really happy marriages exist and I believe they take a lot of sacrifice and giving on the part of both people for that to happen. That takes a lot of work and dedication. For both me and my husband it is less motivated by our love for each other as it is our commitment to doing what we feel is the right thing to do. The happiness and romantic feelings and emotional bonding comes as a result of the work, not the other way around. And I have no doubt that if either of us dropped the ball on those actions, the relationship would fall apart.
Oh, and he is 100% a southern man. I was married to someone from out west for 10 years who shut me out and eventually cheated on me. I truly don’t believe demographics have that much to do with it, it’s just more obvious in some cultures than others.
Hey Time2heal,
What you described is very cool. It for me sounds like that is just the way it is. Which is the way I work. I do not really have to plan or analyze it. There are some simple things like I do not like to do book work and you do so why don’t you do that. That sort of thing.
It is not focusing on the positive when it becomes a better than thing.
Great post and comments. I have figured out that my 10 year marriage was in my opinion happier than many that are still going on. That is not going on now does not make it less than it was. Many things are like that for me.
Often the I have been married for a long time is childish. Kinda like have you had fun this summer on your motorcycle. Yep put on 3,000 miles. Or degrees. I have my PH’d. Me I rather be John Glen and circle the earth with only a high school degree. I totally see being childlike and childish as two separate things.
So the concept that a short marriage may have been more of a healthy relationship than many that went on longer is not going to be accepted by many.
That is OK it is not accepted that a person who experienced trauma might be more healthy than one who has not. That they are not as healthy as they would be had they not experienced trauma is a different thing.
I am so not about learning to have relationships from a person who has not had trauma. I am done with that anyone that has not experienced trauma has more knowledge than I.
I am more and more when answering a question asking why do you ask first.
I figured this out the other day. Saying something nice does not mean you are contributing. It happened like this. I was picking up trash where I swim. I do so as I like it better if the trash is picked up. Some one complemented me twice. I figured out that she thinks she is doing something. As she has no effect she is doing nothing. I now carry another trash bag and offer it to those who really want to do something.
A reader emailed me this response and asked me to post it anonymously:
I got married at 23, almost ten years ago, and it was the best decision I ever made. But then, I was lucky enough to find the right guy. He loves and respects me, we’re each other’s best friend. He’s been instrumental in my healing, because he’s provided a safe haven where I could feel loved and supported, no matter what sort of horrors I was remembering. He’s always had the attitude that I can tell him anything that happened to me and he’ll listen, even if it’s difficult to hear. He’s also kind, loving, and generous. He never yells at me. He never says unkind or mean things. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his flaws. Believe me, he does! The man wouldn’t know how to put a pair of dirty socks in a hamper if his life depended on it. But part of marriage is forgiveness and knowing how to overlook each other’s flaws and quirks.
I think marriage is a blessing. Ideally, it’s two people coming together because they can’t imagine spending their lives apart. Becoming “one flesh” is both symbolic and literal. You have to merge your life with your mate’s, you have to join spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Love really helps! But you can’t enter into the marriage blinded by love. You have to step back and look at things, to be sure it’s really the best decision. Being in love can blind you to potential flaws in your relationship, so it helps if you have friends and family you trust to point out any potential problems. You also have to consider that love can grow, if given half a chance, which is probably why arranged marriages tend to work so well. Don’t underestimate the power of resolve. If you’re devoted to making something work, you often can, even if you’re not “in love.”
Basically, it’s like the vows say: you have to be there for each other “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.” You have to “love, honor, and respect” each other. Your spouse has to become the most important person in your life. Most people aren’t prepared for that, which is probably why (in my opinion) 50% of all marriages end in divorce. I’ll be the first to say it isn’t easy! We had some rocky points early on, because neither of us was prepared for what it meant to be married, to have to merge our lives together. But we endured, and got help when we needed it, and now we have a very strong marriage.
Prioritising the spouse’s need over ours is very key. Good point made
Reblogged this on Roots to Blossom and commented:
Amazing discussion here, both in the post and the comments. My own marriage is in a state of transformation right now
The best advice I ever received regarding marriage was this:
Don’t marry someone you know you can live with the rest of your life; marry someone you know you can’t live without.
Don’t marry someone who “completes” you. You both need to come to the table (so to speak) with 110 percent. Don’t create a “this is my better half” type situation.
From a woman who is still head-over-heels in love with her husband after 32 years of marriage.
Great advice! The problem is, most of us (here) never had that chance to hear such advice when we were young, and coming out of abuse, most of us were just grappling for some kind of love. I am happy for you though! Always good to hear about a successful love story. 🙂
I didn’t know either so I asked my marriage counselor. I figured he had some idea. He observed that men and women are hardwired to react differently to almost every situation. He chuckled that he would always have a job. I was not amused. I spent years in counseling trying to become emotionally healthy myself. My counselor pointed out that it was like I had been married 2 years with over 30 years of bad habits. Marriage takes work and a certain amount of knowledge about people. Lots of ideas, lots of theories, from my observation every married couple is unique and if one of the partners in the couple changes their behavior then the relationship changes. I have more questions than answers but I am realizing that working hard to become emotionally healthy is paying off in a healthier marriage. This year is our 36th anniversary.
Check out “Passionate Marriage” by David Schnarch and also Peck’s discussion of “love” in “The Road Less Traveled” as well as Fromm’s “The Art of Loving,” and letter no. 7 and 8 in Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Pot.”. What it takes for us to grow and mature and stay committed to another and bring the gift of our best self to a relationship and learn how to transcend our selfishness and actually love another deeply is what marriage is all about. The rewards are immense in terms of the psychological and emotional intimacy, companionship, comforts, as well as the physical intimacy–if two people can do the work and stick with it and each other!
This is definitely a very late response but still something I wanted to mention. First of, there are no soulmates. That is from fairy tales taught to us as children. I am Christian so I will answer this from the perspective of a Christian, and trust me, the Bible does answer your questions and it works too….
God created man and woman to help each other. He created marriage, sex and children to be enjoyed, not to be a burden. However, we have added many expectations to the marriage that it has become a burden than pleasure. Yes, men and women are different but men do like emotional connection, at least mature men. Marriage is not a way to get your dreams come true. It is not a way to vent out your anger or disappointments. It is cruel to place your dreams and expectations on your spouse who is another human with dreams and expectations. Do not load your baggage on your spouse. That is not what marriage is all about. If a man is marrying expecting just sexual pleasure and wanting his wife to be this super model, then he has a very twisted impression of marriage. Likewise, women, if they expect men to understand every emotional rollercoasters they are going through, then they have a very twisted impression. It my opinion, it is no marriage at all. It is bondage and slavery. What is the balance? The Bible says, “Submit to one another (emphasis one another) out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up (and died) for her to make her holy”. So each one has a role to play. Husbands must be willing to give up their all (including their life if needed ;P) to love their wives and wives must submit to the husband. It is difficult for a modern woman and man but not impossible. Ask successfully married people and you will read hints of this same message. Husbands have added accountability as they are the head of the family and in many cases the only bread winners for the family. Their every action will directly affect the family and thus have added responsibility. If someone is offended by this structure, then that is upto them. You asked for help to understand marriage and this the only way to understand it. I am a well educated, working and modern wife. I dont think the above structure is dated, rather it is very helpful in both of love each other. My husband will do anything for me because I know he loves me very much. I have no problem respecting and submitting to his decisions because I know he will not hurt me and give the best for me. He respects me equally, respects my needs, trusts me and loves me just the way I am, just as Christ loved the church.
Ok, on Sunday i turn 25. I’ve NEVER been married, but i’ll put in my 2 cents. (Love your blog Faith, good work keep it up.) I too am an abuse survivor and have D.I.D. I found out about all that at age 21, while i was engaged to be married. I’m not engaged any more.
I say marriage is just a contract and a way in society to publicly announce “ we love each other ect, want to spend the rest of our lives together.”
I then say that for some people as I am no expert on this topic at all, that it (whatever it may be in life) depends on the people, involved as to how it will go.
I say that for some people the reality sets in and maybe they could not keep up with what there idea of marriage was, and it changed them both so they just devoice. I read that marriage originally a long time ago was for a land contract some sort of agreement to get access to land, but only in recent times is an event that takes place with your soul mate, one true love ect.
Life is hard and we want to hope and believe in something better, a way to reach a better easy life. Moving in and living with someone is hard, some people have made it work, my parents both also abuse survivors, they have been married for 45 years. Not many can say that anymore.
Making adjusts in any relationship and compromise is what keeps anything going marriage too.
I guess the goal of marriage, could be to enrich the life of the other person and they you, it could be for some a way to bring kids into the world and raise them, I guess it’s what ever the two parties involved say it is, and that is all that matters. Ex, x and q get married, then it is only x’s and q’s decisions that matter in that relationship, as they are going to be I assume living together ect.
So e, and r have no need to stick there noses in x and q’s relationship that has gone to a new level.
Hope that helps, then again I don’t understand why people have sex or have children? I guess because they want to and marriage is the same because they want too.
Though some people not all but some do thing that kids or marriage can magically fix what ever problem they are currently in and can make a good choice for the wrong reason.
I have a former friend and she is getting married this month, she is 21, think as we have grown apart and lost touch. I split form my old fiends as they were dating and having sex, just being young people ect, I’ve always been old for my age. I’m still not sure why they do what they do, but I guess they do it because they want to , and or are lost and just follow what society tells them to do.
Hope all of this helps ad I am not an expert. All just my 2 cents biased on my life.
I’m surprised at myself, leaving a comment here. After reading your blog (and I have read most of it, near to completion), I have a lot of thoughts that I would like to get out. Marriage has oddly been something I have felt very strongly about throughout my teenage years. (Does being a male make it more surprising?) I don’t understand why such a topic makes me tick so intensely, but it must have something to do with my personality.
A bit of background is in order.
I come from a Christian family and am a strong Christian myself; not as in going to church regularly and doing events. In fact, I strongly shy away from institutionalized everything and anything. But I just *am*.
During my teenage years, I had some great friends who vocalized aspects of their parents marriage that were destructive. One of them was adopted, yet strangely, all their parents were from mainly Christian households as well. All the bad behaviours I saw, I vowed not to become like those parents who were the object of my distaste in their poor behaviour. My parents were the well behaved sort. Upright, well mannered and proper. I was brought up well, in most areas. However, when I was 8, I remember my father walking out the door and there being a horrible, cold lingering sensation in the air. It turns out, my father almost divorced my mother around that time, for reasons I’m only vaguely aware of. They didn’t talk about what happened or why to me. For as long as I have memory of my life (since around the age of 4), my dad has always been argumentative, heated, and easily frustrated. Even to this day. In part, this was due to his mother who was mentally ill; as far as I know, no sexual abuse occured, but there was neglect. My mother is independent, soft-hearted and mild-mannered. I take after her strongly. I have a cheerful and bubbly disposition, but I’ve spent so much of my life around negative energy thanks to the people in my life that I have strong reactions to it.
I read Truddi’s book, When Rabbit Howls (on your recommendation I might add) and a lot of what she mentioned in her book makes perfect sense. Once she started talking about inner selves, I knew exactly what she was referring to. My friend introduced me to them, who and what they were a decade before writing this. I think all this negative energy might have had an adverse impact… I haven’t told this to anyone but that one friend and her close group of friends who are also aware of it: I have an inner self as well. At times, I’ve had a few (we classified them differently), but they were quickly absorbed back. It was as if my body created a natural defence against all that negativity. I’m not very confrontational, like my mom. My body is attracted to negative energy, it absorbs as much of it as it can, even seeks it out, then when it has had enough, He comes out. My reaction time increases, my personality, my tastes, even my writing comes out different when he’s in front. I have glasses, he hates them with a passion. I end up shaking when he leaves because my body cannot handle the energy he does.
Why am I telling you this? Because my stance on marriage is the collective understanding of a lifetime of bad influences. He hates negativity. He hates it with a passion, yet he can convert it to an energy source. He stood up to my dad when my dad was in an angry state. He spent a decade of our life chasing someone he loved. He represents the strong, hateful reactions I could never conjure up. I spent most of my life riding his drive to persue a relationship without negativity. Interestingly, we are both scorpios and we fit the description almost exactly.
Marriage is the persuit of a relationship without negative energy, a bond that represents and should emulate our bond with God. It’s one where you spend time building the other up, connecting, strengthening, creating positive energy. Marriage is not magical, it doesn’t change who you or the other person is. There is no threshold that transforms you. Like any relationship, it’s about getting to know the other person on a closer and more intimate level. How you achieve this is dependent on both people. My love language is spending quality time with the other, and physical interactions. I hope this doesn’t trigger anyone, but I do place a strong emphasis on my sexual needs. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for pleasure. I’m looking to connect with my loved one with my body, my entire body. Every fibre of my being. And thankfully, my fiance and I do not have serious wounds that prevent this from becoming a reality. In that way, we are blessed. But I’m rambling. There are few important details I need to mention.
1. I rekindled my relationship with my ex-now-fiance *after* the fact I had given up interest in finding someone. No one matched and I had just become content with myself.
2. If I do get married to someone else, it would have either meant giving up my main love language, or denying the person access to my more intimate states. I am adamant about not getting myself into a physical relationship from the get-go that will damage me later.
For me, the understanding of marriage doesn’t come from what marriage is defined as, but the ultimate goal of what I want out of the best relationship I can perceive. My perception came from my inner self, not from what I heard, was taught, or thought it should be. It was a reactionary behaviour on what marriage should *not* be.
I could go on about these behaviours and what marriage isn’t, but taking that view is damaging. So here is what I think marriage is.
Marriage is the panultimate friendship between male and female, one that takes the differences both physical, mental and spiritiual and puts them in harmony with one another utilizing their strengths to the fullest and negating their weaknesses. It’s an emulation of the perfect spiritual relationship that we should have had before man sinned in the garden of eden with each other. It’s a relationship that should include all forms of love that exist, you can find them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
It boils down to: non-physical affection, friendship, sensuality, and unconditional love.
Marriage is the foundation, the strongest relationship upon which families are supposed to be built, by providing needs that cannot be satisfied simply by existing as one.
From a personal ideology, I am not concerned with marriage. At all. I would be perfectly happy to live my life with my fiance outside the confines of what society considers marriage because nothing in this world can measure up to the relationship I want with her. A piece of paper that says we’re married I can do without. Tax benefits? worthless. What some people would say is a free pass to having sex, even that can be negated. I’m rebellious in nature, the fact that divorce rates are so high and society has become so shallow pisses the f*** out of me, driving me to strive for even greater intimacy. Perhaps my view of marriage is partly out of greed, out of hate, and poorly controlled passion and dicipline. But if that’s what it takes to truly appreciate and value someone for who and what they are as a spiritual being first and foremost, I’d gladly be seen as the outcast. Every marriage is different. Everyone has different reasons. Simply, marriage is a relationship that emulates God’s bond with us as closely as possible. Relationships are anything but simple. Your life has been thrown off kilter so forcibly I cannot expect you to live by my emotional and physical view of it, and vice versa. But spiritually, I would bet my soul that that’s the answer. And how you get there is part-who-you-are and part-how-you-want-to-approach-it. What matters is that it is unconditional and failures (which inevitably happen) are overcome in time.
The reason I don’t usually post or get involved with people online is because precisely, most of my life is spent contemplating and everything in my mind is so interconnected I can’t make sense of it to other people. I’d gladly elaborate or respond to anything you throw at me.
With love,
np
I should also mention… I overheard my father acting odd and talking secretively one day when I was 19, which wasn’t too long ago. I discovered through my own abilities evidence that we was, in fact, cheating on my mother. I reserve no trust or respect for people who abuse their sexuality, so I have all the more reason not to become such a pitiful creature.
You truly have my gratitude, love and empathy, Faith.