Good And Bad Marriages

Inherent Nature

Humans naturally love each other. It is inherent. Two very young, well treated children, will love each other deeply on contact. It's a joy, parents of young children get to behold, at least when they are little enough. With marriage two people who love each other deeply make a commitment to each other to care and love each other. It has all the possibility of a life together "made in heaven". If you listen to enough married people it's plain that the difference between a good marriage and a bad marriage, is not if there is conflict but it is how the inevitable conflict is handled. In a good marriage the conflicts happen and the couple move on spending most of their time together outside of the area of conflict and love each other. In a bad marriage the couple have conflicts and get stuck in them and loose track of what love is about. The question that is a public challenge of our time is- how can we get to have a bad marriage become a good marriage?

Inherent Compatibility

Nature has dealt us the best deal imaginable. Men and women are made for each other in every way. We are beautifully compatible, the embodiment of each others dreams. Socially we have some experience of good friendships that can last a lifetime. These are solid good things to hold out to couples in marriages. Humans are moving steadily over the course of the last 7 thousand years towards a form of society that effectively cares and is good for all humans. Currently we don't know what that is yet and that is hard on marriages. It is in this area of detailing and implementing what is good for humans socially, institutionally and personally that in my opinion holds out the greatest promise for transforming marriages.

Issues Institutional Source

Our institutions oppress people by installing distress patterns on everyone. It's a part of growing that we would all like to improve but have not yet assembled the resources that will allow a young person to grow up with out major life struggles. These institutionally based life struggles can take some time to get free from and discharge the painful emotions fully. Also every identifiable group in society is mistreated in a way that keeps us divided from each other. In a marriage it is these large socially based issues that couple have a bad time with. It helps to find the external source of a marriage issue. Blame can begin to be lifted if an external source can be found for a struggle.

Pseudo Identity

The identity we have as adults and as every other group is made from a "pseudo identity" of "internalised oppression". This is not to blame anyone for not knowing who they really are but we need to face that something has happened. Our identity as large magnificent selves that once played as children has been mostly forgotten. It is time to engage in the process remembering the largeness of our real selves. To have a good marriage one needs to remember who we really are.

Tangle of Issues

In a marriage the issues and distresses a person carries as a "life challenge" get attached to the other partner. Like all life challenges a person gets their personal set quite early in life. Definately well before the marriage. This confusing of life challenges with the loved one is very general and to be expected due to the close contact. It is the very hope of "real love" and intimacy that brings up our deep hurts to be felt with and listened to by our loved one. It's what everyone hopes for in there dearest. A person who loves them well enough to make there worst feeling better. If only for a little while. If they will just try to do that, most of us are happy.

As intimacy developes what is not worked through and discharged from intimate moments gets an extra layer of unworked through "stuff" added to the life challenge. This outer layer has the loved one as part of the "disapointment" experience. It has the effect of making it seem that the loved one is increasingly part of the "life challenge"

This tangle is what will need to be understood and worked through to get a good working relationship back. People feel bad and think that the thing a person does when they feel bad causes the bad feeling and try to get them to behave differently, so that there own bad feeling stops. It's the blame-argue-conflict-control tangle that confuses most people in relationships and is the big one for most marriages I've heard of. In getting to have a good marriage, this is the first thing that can be strategised for change. An early part of a change process is to find a different way of looking at the situation that gives some room to move to each person.

Personal Responsibility

A good beginning point for each person is to reach for full personal responsibility for everything in the relationship.

(Being written 12.07.2003 by Paul Whyte)