Before you set a date, register for gifts, and send out the wedding invitations, add these 5 things to your to-do list—if you want your marriage to go the distance.
___
Sorry romantics, but love alone is not enough. Nor is a steadfast commitment to staying together when love is absent or one-sided—that’s just a recipe for a lifetime of misery.
|
Marriage has one of the highest failure rates of anything we try, and the cost and impact (especially on children) of disentangling can be devastating. The problem is not a legal system that makes divorce easy—it isn’t easy—or that we’re just not wired to be monogamous. We can learn to make conscious choices that override our wiring. And the problem is not that modern life has trumped what some call “traditional values.” The problem is that most people who get married have no idea—none—what they’re getting into, what they should look for—or look to exclude—in a potential mate, or how to approach the process of choosing a person they’d like to spend the rest of their life with.
Sorry romantics, but love alone is not enough. Nor is a steadfast commitment to staying together when love is absent or one-sided—that’s just a recipe for a lifetime of misery. Ultimately, marriage is about relating, and the key to forging a successful, lasting bond is knowing, before you tie the knot, how you and your partner relate when you’re not in courtship mode, and that means getting a handle on how you handle challenges together. If you’ve gone through some rough spots while dating and come out stronger, that’s a good indication your marriage will survive. But no one likes to be tested, and how do you check someone’s challenge response without intentionally introducing trouble? Listed below are five things I believe every couple should do before getting married. While checking them off your prenuptial to-do list is no guarantee your marriage will make it, avoiding any of them sets the stage for failure.
♦◊♦
How you introduce disagreement and how your partner responds to it are probably the most important factors in whether your marriage will develop a healthy and constructive dynamic.
|
1. Fight. If you never disagree with your partner, you’ll never learn how to handle disagreement. Stuffing it in and sucking it up only creates resentment, and resentment often leads to the passive-aggressive expression of anger. If you feel strongly about something, say so, and deal with the consequences. How you introduce disagreement and how your partner responds to it are probably the most important factors in whether your marriage will develop a healthy and constructive dynamic. If you’re afraid to disagree—because you’re conflict-avoidant or you fear abandonment—you’re not ready for marriage, and you need to work on yourself. How couples handle conflict is make or break, and you need to know whether the two of you are capable of resolving arguments or only leaving each other more frustrated. Don’t fight over petty things, but pick something you care about and stand your ground. A little unpleasantness early on will prevent a lot of unpleasantness later.
You’ll learn how you plan a day together in the morning and what happens when those plans go awry.
|
2. Travel together to an unfamiliar place. Marriage if it’s anything is an adventure, and you need to know how the two of you handle a journey to new and unfamiliar surroundings and the discoveries that follow. If you go somewhere one of you has already been, the dynamic becomes one of guide and tourist, which is not a partnership of equals. It also helps to plan—and ideally pay for—the trip together. A surprise vacation planned and paid for by your partner isn’t exactly a mutual endeavor. The more unplanned time you allow for on the trip, the better. You’ll learn how you plan a day together in the morning and what happens when those plans go awry. And if you get stuck in the airport or lost in a foreign city, you’re testing out your communal survival skills.
In a healthy marriage, sex is both a generator of intimacy and an act in which intimacy gets expressed.
|
3. Have sex. Trust me, the last place you want to find out you’re incompatible on your wedding night is in the bedroom. If your faith precludes you from having premarital sex, so be it, and pray that you and your partner are a good physical fit. Beyond having sex and finding out if the magic happens, you’ll want to talk about sex—your likes, your dislikes, your taboos and your fantasies. Frequency of sex can be a bone of contention in marriages, so you’ll want to make sure your partner is into it as frequently—or as infrequently—as you are. In a healthy marriage, sex is both a generator of intimacy and an act in which intimacy gets expressed. If sex with your partner feels pleasurable but mechanical and doesn’t create a feeling of closeness, you may end up seeking that closeness elsewhere, which is problematic for a marriage. And if intimate emotional moments don’t progress to physical connection, frustration surely lies ahead.
You don’t have to like your in-laws or call them mom or dad, but you do have to respect the fact that they created and raised your spouse.
|
4. Spend time with each other’s families. When you’re married, your partner’s family becomes your family, and respectful interaction will make your marriage much, much happier.The demands of families, their attitudes towards spouses, and the amount of time and interaction with them can all be major sources of conflict for married couples. You don’t have to like your in-laws or call them mom or dad, but you do have to respect the fact that they created and raised your spouse. Seeing how your partner interacts with his or her family and observing whether there’s a healthy dynamic can clue you in to what this person will be like in your marriage. If your partner doesn’t have a healthy relationship with his or her family, there may be valid reasons, and these are worth discussing. In addition, waiting until right before—or after—the wedding to present your future mate to your family forces everyone into an uncomfortable position. Finally, if there is conflict between your family and your partner, you’ll want to step in sensibly, set your boundaries as as couple, and nip it in the bud. This will set the tone for future interaction during the marriage.
5. Live together. Unless you plan to inhabit separate homes, your husband or wife will also be your roommate—potentially for life. Think back to the roommates of your past. Looking forward, compatibility in terms of household habits, behaviors, and tastes is a critical determining factor in successful marriages. There is a degree to which opposites attract, but slobs and neatniks, hoarders and minimalists, carpet-lovers and wood-floor-enthusiasts may find it difficult to cohabit without conflict. You also want to know what it’s like to wake up with your partner in the morning and go to sleep with him or her at night. If all your dating experience is on visits to each other’s spaces where one of you is entertaining the other, you’re missing the full flavor—both the bitter and the sweet—of the live-in married experience. So give living together a test-drive.
♦◊♦
Some marriages make it without the couples having done any of these things in advance. But if you want a better shot at the long shot of a marriage that lasts a lifetime, taking these actions before the big day will help you avoid becoming just another statistic and make it to the happily ever after.
—
This post is republished on Medium.
***
The Good Men Project gives people the insights, tools, and skills to survive, prosper and thrive in today’s changing world. A world that is changing faster than most people can keep up with that change. A world where jobs are changing, gender roles are changing, and stereotypes are being upended. A world that is growing more diverse and inclusive. A world where working towards equality will become a core competence. We’ve built a community of millions of people from around the globe who believe in this path forward. Thanks for joining The Good Men Project.
Support us on Patreon and we will support you and your writing! Tools to improve your writing and platform-building skills, a community to get you connected, and direct access to our editors and publisher. Your support will help us build a better, more inclusive world for all.
***
Photo credit: iStock
Live together before marriage…fight…easier to leave than to work it out. Have sex…when the sex is no longer new…people just move onto the next thing. This advise is mostly terrible. By telling people to do married people stuff before they’re married you’re actually teaching people how to divorce. Why not advise people to build a relationship that’s stronger than the ups and downs of sex?! Why not encourage people to not pick at the tiny little differences they have (that living together amplifies) but rather to build on the common values and beliefs that bought them together in the first… Read more »
Amen. This article gives terrible advice!
These are a fine start, but if couples truly want to couple consciously, more long and honest discussions need to happen. Like about monogamy — it’s a choice, not a given. Are you good at it? Do you like it? Would one or both prefer to have the commitment of marriage but also have sex with others (ethical non-monogamy)? This is a huge discussion as we know there’s a lot of infidelity. But mostly couples need to get rid of the idea that marriage looks a certain way; now that we no longer need to tie the knot (we can… Read more »
“Stand your ground” is terrible advice. How about “Listen to each other until you understand each other’s perspective.” Fighting is not effective or healthy conflict resolution.
Thanks Silke for that great contribution..
In a community like the Africa community where I’m from and I’m living cohabitation is immoral to us (as we are taught as African children) due to some unpleasant reasons like
– the other partner especially men taking advantage of the lady, turning her to a slave with many examples happening around.
– sometimes it leads to having lack of respect and regard for each other
– the African community like Nigeria when I’m from, shows lack of respect for such act
-…..and so on
I hope Mr. Thom is also reading this?
Woah. The increased risk for divorce if you lived together before marriage studies have been around for a long time now. Kinda common knowledge for people on the dating or relationship advice industry…
The knock on premarital cohabitation, from what I’ve read, seems to be that the barriers to getting out can lock people in to unsatisfactory relationships and cause them to slide into an unsatisfactory marriage that ends in divorce. But wouldn’t that marriage have been unsatisfactory regardless of whether the couple cohabited or not? In any case, recent studies (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf) show that the cohabitation effect seem to be on the wane. The point is, know what your partner is like as a roommate before you vow to spend the rest of your life together. How you accomplish that might vary.
I’ve also seen the studies that show that cohabitation before marriage lead to a higher rate of divorce, but they weren’t 100% sure why. There was some speculation that “sliding in” to cohabitation rather than making a conscious committed choice may be the cause. Often couples just kind of decide that it’s easier to live together since they spend all of their time together anyway and it’ll save money. But then once they’ve moved in together the stakes are higher when it comes to ending a relationship – so often people will stay in a relationship that they don’t really… Read more »
If your too scared to live together before marriage because of what people might think, you’re probably too scared to get divorced because of what people might think.
Hi Thomas Also in Europe studies show that living together (cohabitation) before marriage increase the risk of divorce if they later on get married. It is complicated….. Men get married if they have economic benefit from it and when they choose not to marry but only cohabitate(?) it is because they want full control of their money,That is what studies show us, So economy, how persons deal with money must be on your list Thomas. Marriage is a contract that has to do with sex and money. In our society today in the west marriage is about full filling human… Read more »
Silke,
“Men get married if they have economic benefit from it and when they choose not to marry but only cohabitate(?) it is because they want full control of their money,That is what studies show us,”
Interesting.
What studies? And where were they conducted?
(The wording almost makes it sound like a marriage is a unilateral decision.)
Live together? According to statistics gathered by US Attorney Legal Services, living together before getting married doesn’t accomplish the goal that couples think that it will. A couple who does not live together prior to getting married has a 20 percent chance of being divorced within five years. If the couple has lived together beforehand, that number jumps to 49 percent. Interesting that you didn’t mention pre-marital counseling. In my faith, we do what’s called Pre-Cana which covers: Spirituality/Faith Conflict Resolution Skills Careers Finances Intimacy/Cohabitation Children Commitment Other topics that may be covered by Pre-Cana include: Ceremony Planning Family of… Read more »
Tom, I haven’t seen the study and don’t know what other variables might be involved. The Pre-Cana you mention looks like a valuable exercise. There are certainly other important things besides the five I mention, but I think these are critical.