I’ve recently come across some new information about marriage. The things that I noted were what causes divorce, generally, and what makes up a strong marriage that lasts. Obviously we all want a marriage that lasts and so I hope to be able to shed some light on how that's possible.
First I’d like to talk about the reasons for divorce. You can attribute divorce to a decrease in marital satisfaction throughout the course of a marriage, but what causes this drop in marital satisfaction in divorced couples? Well, research shows that having children is a major factor in decreasing marital satisfaction. This fact threw me off when I first saw the data because I personally can’t wait to start a family and have kids and I always thought that would be the happiest time in my life and that it would cause me to love my wife even more. After looking into the reasons for dissatisfaction, I realized it makes a lot of sense. In many marriages, when the first kid comes around, the parents tend to spend more time tending to the child than to their spouse. This is especially felt by the husband, who feels left out. This can cause the husband to take a step back and not contribute in the home as much. This can cause feelings of resentment between the couple which could lead to divorce in serious cases, but usually just decreases marital satisfaction. This cycle can continue with each successive child, continuously driving the levels of satisfaction down.
This was really scary to me when I first saw it. I want to have a happy marriage that keeps getting happier, not worse. The good news is, even if you end up in the previously stated situation, there is still a way up. As soon as the parents are done having children, their levels of satisfaction will level out as they focus on tending to the children. As soon as the first child leaves home, for college or whatever it may be, the level of satisfaction starts to rise again! This can continue as the children keep leaving home and can reach all the way back up to honeymoon levels. This is really good news for the majority of couples, who tend to be in these situations.
Things can also just take a swan dive for the worse if you let them. For instance, if the parents become so invested in the care of the children that they neglect their partner, as soon as the children start to leave home, the parents feel less need to stay together because they lost their commitment to each other. This is one of the common causes of divorce.
With this knowledge, we can come up with ways to prevent not only divorce, but even the decline in marital satisfaction. Researchers have concluded a few tools that can be implemented, the first of which addresses the feeling of being left out that the father tends to feel. If a mother can find ways to include the father in the intimacy building events of pregnancy, such as feeling kicks, and also events in the raising of the child, such as sharing the load both with fun and not-so-fun activities, you can avoid the drop in marital satisfaction and even increase it. The ideal marriage, if graphed, could look like a consistently rising line in terms of satisfaction.
Another way to increase satisfaction is to make sure that you constantly remember to show affection and understanding to your partner. I’ve personally seen many cases where couple get complacent over time and stop doing the things that made the relationship so good at the start, such as being affectionate physically and verbally. You also need to make sure that you show understanding for what the other is going through. This is especially true for the father to implement towards the mother because she can experience mood changes and other changes in her body that can cause her to act differently at times. This can be taken as a loss of love if not understood.
As we try to put in maximum effort, our marriages can stronger and stronger as life goes on. There seems to always be a better way, and always a worse way to address challenges that arise in a marriage. May we always choose the better path.
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