Keeping the “Fairy Tale” Alive: Maintaining a Happy Marriage

Most of us have seen the divorce statistics…50% of first marriages will end in divorce, as well as 75% of second and third marriages. For the ones that remain, many stay together just for the kids or maybe financial reasons. Thus, it’s safe to say that around 80% of married couples are unhappy despite their best intentions.

When you ask the 20% that are happy in their marriages, they often respond, “it takes hard work” -wow… sounds like a blast…

Then no one really teaches us what this “hard work” really is, or at the very least not make it sound like such a drag. This can leave couples feeling helpless and hopeless.

Of course every couple is unique, but there are a few key concepts that are shown to make a relationship not just tolerable but fresh, exciting, safe, and mutually fulfilling for the long haul.

Accept it WILL get Stale

“Relationship entropy” is a natural and expected phenomenon. This entropy happens when we naturally habituate and automate our relationships resulting in taking them for granted and investing less energy.

Additionally, it doesn’t help that our brain will eventually produce less of the neurochemicals that in the beginning of the relationship allowed us to have less conflict, more sex, and generally be obsessed with our partner.

Left alone, a relationship WILL start to decay naturally like any neglected garden. To keep a garden alive-and-well it’ll need consistent sunlight, ample water, fertile soil, and resilience in the face of storms and intruders. Any relationship should be seen as a living organism that requires constant attention and care.

Simply expecting this will increase conscious effort and reduce feelings of anxiety, failure, and inadequacy.

The trick is to bring this reality to daily awareness, and then invest energy into that awareness. It’s part of the responsibility that a relationship requires to be in any way fulfilling for the long haul.

Know Thy Self, Know Thy Partner

“Every strongly held opinion has a principle, dream, or desire at its core.” -Keith Witt

Keeping with the cheesy garden metaphor: we have to be educated on how to take care of the specific plants that inhabit our garden. How much sunlight do they need? Shade? Water?

Just like these plants, everyone is unique in their needs. Perhaps your previous partner didn’t care about your tone of voice discussing politics, but your current spouse goes into complete shutdown mode.

Every interaction, conversation, conflict, and strong held opinion holds clues about that specific person. Taking stock of this information will be necessary for how to be with this specific person, as well as how to communicate how they can be with you.

Investing energy into the relationship doesn’t do any good if you don’t know where to invest it.

*When discovering this information we often need to pay less attention to the words that are being communicated and rather follow the emotional crumbs to our partner’s deepest principles, insecurities, dreams, and desires. Asking open-ended questions, being curious/non-judgmental, and validating their perspectives allows more of this information to surface.

Repair, Repair, Repair

Relationships are often LOADED with conflict, miscommunication, and general tension. But of course it’s not how much conflict you have, it’s how well you manage it.

Repairing breakdowns in connection allows couples to return to a homeostasis, a clearing of the psychological and emotional air between the couple.  This should generally be done fast; leaving these breakdowns unattended leads to resentment, anxiety, anger, and insidious misery.

Even if you believe its not a big deal that you looked at your phone in the middle of dinner, if it causes a rupture in emotional connection between you and your partner, REPAIR it sooner than later. I’d say that most ruptures in connection could be resolved in less than a few minutes or even seconds, given the right approach.

Commitment Attitude

Research shows that longer marriages tend to have an underlying attitude of “we’ll do what it takes.” If something is wrong the couple will work on it together before threatening commitment.

Couples that put too many conditions on the relationship using verbiage of “if you can’t,” “I’ll stay as long as,” “I can’t be with someone who…” break down the safety and commitment within the relationship.

*Of course there are exceptions to this when couples feel that a significant boundary has been crossed and more of a conditional stance on the relationship is required before recommitting. 

Be Mindful of Defensive States

“In order to be in patterns of connection, we need to relax our survival responses, we can’t be in both.” -Deb Dana, LCSW

Most of us know the ‘Fight, Flight, or Freeze’ response that our ancestors needed to stay alive in the presence of danger. What people may not know, is that our brain needed that response for our most common threat….other people.

Throughout history the people around us were manipulative, vindictive, hurtful, domineering, and just straight up mean. We had to form psychological defenses to keep the deepest parts of us safe.

As a baby we are born with the emotional systems built in, but it’s the training grounds of childhood that determine how many and which kinds of defensive strategies we employ within our closest relationships.

Then, later in life we fall in love to eventually see this person as our new family. Our emotional defensive strategies that lay dormant from childhood begin to protect us from the one person that can hurt us the most. This of course can escalate conflict and lead to deterioration of marriages.

Being mindful of your own and partners favorite defense states may take time, but is necessary for long term satisfaction.

Incorporate all of these…

Many of the items on the following list illicit positive emotion which among many benefits acts as insulation to the marriage (and doesn’t have to feel like work at all). This insulation allows more of an emotional buffer when inevitable stressors impede the relationship.

• Consistent appreciations
• Taking interest in partner’s life
• Sharing personal information
• Rituals of connection
• Curb your ego
• Scheduled and spontaneous sex
• Play
• Make time for “Check-ins” (Example topics: finances, parenting, sex)
• Consentual physical touch
• Kissing (for longer than 1 second)
• “I love you”s
• Taking genuine pleasure in partner’s happiness
• Make sure each partner feels respected
• TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
• Humor and lightness
• Moments of 100% attention
• Getaways
• “Yeah, Ands” not “Yes, Buts”
• PDA
• Cuddling
• Kindness goes a long way
• Maintaining individuality
• Reasonable Acceptance
• Sincere apologies

Relationships can be complex and in no way does this blog represent an exhaustive account of what can keep a relationship alive and well, this is merely a primer to what a marriage could consider to have a chance of being the 20% of happy marriages that remain.

Adam Lencioni is a licensed mental health counselor empowering individuals and couples to overcome their personal obstacles and create flourishing, satisfying lives. He currently practices at CFC Therapy Group in Chicago, IL. Contact him at adam@cfctherapy.com.