The
bad news has become well known: Fifty percent of today's marriages
end in divorce; half of all divorces occur in the first seven
years of marriage; divorced people who remarry are 10-20% more
likely to become divorced than first-time married couples.
As
if this weren't bad enough, there are millions of couples who
stay together but who aren't happy, and whose damaged relationship
doesn't become part of the divorce statistics. In fact, studies
at the University of Denver Center for Marital Studies indicate
that only 24% of couples that stay together are happy. If you
multiply this percentage by the 50% of couples who stay together,
it yields the alarming perspective that only 12% of couples stay
together and are happy! This is hardly the odds anyone looks for,
or expects to have, when they get married.
Understandably,
many couples today don't marry because they want to avoid the
problems associated with divorce. Perhaps they saw their parents
go through divorce, and experienced the rough ride it gave the
whole family. Inevitably, they saw friends' parents divorce. Today's
young couples are thoroughly familiar with the problems associated
with divorce and they desperately want to avoid these problems
in their own lives. For many of them, living together without
being married seems like an option that makes sense. Besides,
as some couples figure, living together will give them a chance
to check out their level of marital compatibility.
Yet
there are numerous problems associated with living together, or
cohabiting, as it is often called. Living together is a "low
commitment" relationship, sometimes occurring as a natural
outgrowth of having sex together, getting along well, and seeing
the logic of splitting housing costs. Why not? they figure. A
hidden problem is the fact that it is difficult to turn a "low
commitment" relationship into a "high commitment"
one, and marital success, by all accounts, is dependant upon a
high level of mutual commitment. This is viewed as one of the
key reasons why living together before marriage increases the
risk of breaking up after marriage.
A
second problems with living together is the increased risk of
domestic violence for women and risk of physical and sexual abuse
for children, as identified in a comprehensive review of recent
research by Popenoe and Whitehead of the National Marriage Project,
Rutgers University. And, even without the possibility of violence,
three quarters of children living in unmarried-couple households
will see their parents split up before they reach age sixteen,
whereas only about a third of children born to married parents
face that fate. The numerous social, academic, and health problems
of children in broken households are well documented and well
worth avoiding.
It
is important for all couples, married or not, to recognize that
there is a predictable Honeymoon period that lasts 6-18 months,
perhaps even 24 months. Inevitably, the bloom eventually will
be off the rose and it will be apparent to each partner that the
other is a flawed human being. This can be a sad moment of realization.
Each may still recognize the partner as a worthy and wonderful
human being, and someone they love deeply, but there is no escaping
the new objectivity about the person they are in a relationship
with. In our World Class Marriage™ workshop, we tell couples
that this realization is good news because when the Honeymoon
is over and you recognize that you are in a relationship with
a flawed human being, then the real work of relationship building
begins. When
you have developed enough objective data about each other to recognize
the factors that must be dealt with successfully for the relationship
to succeed is the point at which you have then gained the invaluable
opportunity to start building a solid relationship.
You
may have learned, for example, that one of you is very slow about
making decisions, and that the other loves change and hates monotony;
or you may have discovered that one of you is highly sensitive
and easily hurt while the other is quick to blame. Every couple
can be expected to have some places of difficulty, friction, incompatibility.
These are the places of special sensitivity that you need to be
able to handle so that your relationship will thrive.
When
cohabiting couples reach the end of the Honeymoon-when reality
becomes clear, many can and do end the relationship at that point.
"He's a loser" or "she's terrible", they say,
and close the door for good. Married couples are less likely to
end things once the bright light of reality appears. This is a
big advantage as it gives them the chance to learn the relationship
skills that will enable the relationship to succeed.
What
we have come to realize is that virtually 100% of couples need
to learn relationship skills. Very, very few people--my husband
and myself included--grow up without some psychological damage
and dysfunctional behaviors. And very few grow up knowing the
communication, conflict resolution and life skills that are essential
for relationship success.
Therefore,
marriage education and relationship skills are essential for relationship
success. And because in today's society, marriage has become an
option and relationships can be ended quickly, it is all the more
important for everyone to learn the skills for relationship success.
Fortunately,
in the last fifty years there has been a great deal of research,
by John Gottman, Carl Rogers, and others, that tells us--for the
first time in human history--what the key ingredients are for
building a successful long-term relationship. It is no longer
a mystery; it is no longer a matter of blind trial and error,
and couples no longer must operate in the dark, or suffer the
pain and frustration of failure.
This
important new knowledge has ushered in a new era of relationship
intelligence. Marriage education, relationship training, communication
skills training--these are the tools of relationship empowerment
available to couples today. And, as reported in a comprehensive
survey of more than 100 studies evaluated by the Heritage Foundation,
there is "overwhelming evidence that marriage education works".
