How Marriage Is Changing

In today's New York Times, Northwestern University professor of psychology and management Eli Finkel wrote a very interesting article about how marriage is changing. I get to see how  marriages and our expectations for them are changing up close every week in my counseling office in Newport Beach.

After doing a year-long survey of the scholarly literature on marriage, including psychological research and commentary from sociologists, economists and historians, Finkel thinks that the average marriage is weaker, but that the best marriages now are better than ever. This means that for one group of married couples, satisfaction is lower and the divorce rate is higher. For the other group of marriages, they are stronger and provide more satisfaction and personal well-being to both partners than in past generations. Apparently, with marriage, it's all or nothing.

Finkel reviews the literature about the American view of marriage, which has evolved over time. Cherlin and Cootnz chronicled the era of "institutional marriage" from our country's founding to about 1850. Marriage was about survival: producing food, creating shelter and safety. These basics were the foundation of marriage at that time. If you had an emotional connection with your partner, that was lucky. Emotional connection was NOT the central purpose of the union.

Next up, from 1850 to 1965, marriages hit the era of "companionate marriage." This time frame mirrors the shift in American society from rural to urban life. Families became more prosperous, and men's and women's roles became more distinct and gender specific. As families grew more wealthy, they could afford the luxury of looking at marriage differently, having more to do with love and companionship, and less about survival.

The third shift began around 1965 to the present, with the era of "self-expressive marriage." American societal changes in the 1960s and the personal growth movement helped shift expectations of marriage less as a necessary institution, and more as a way to develop, fuel self-discovery, self-esteem and personal growth.

These different expectations of marriage parallel the hierarchy of needs designed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s. There are five levels in Maslow's hierarchy, and if a lower level, such as food and shelter, is not met, then a couple can't get past that basic need to focus on happiness and self-actualization. In recent years, our expectations for marriage have soared. It requires more time and energy invested into a marriage to meet those higher level needs for connection, depth, and mutual growth.

Sociologists Jeffrey Dew and W. Bradford Wilcox have found in their research that couples who spend time alone with each other, either talking or sharing an activity at least once a week are 3.5 times as likely to be very happy in their marriages than those who do not. Having shared mutual friends also seems to help couples. This can be especially hard on couples with different work hours, juggling multiple jobs, or lack of support with their children, so that time alone together is a scarce resource. It creates more challenges for couples who are raising a family at a distance from extended family support.

For creating enduring marriages, the research is helpful. Don't just focus on the children or work. To the extent that you can, couples need to try to increase the amount of time spent together, whether in conversation or in shared activities. Happier couples also try to encourage each other's growth and development. Taking each other for granted is old school in marriage. Most partners are unlikely to lower their expectations of their marriage, so the importance of investing time and energy in making your relationship a priority is more important now than ever. More people now are expecting better, not worse. 

What If Your Partner Doesn't Meet All Your Needs?

Contrary to  the movies, popular culture and the Bachelor/Bachelorette TV franchise, having a happy life requires more than a loving relationship with a partner. Putting all your relationship eggs in one basket may put too many expectations and too much pressure on your love relationship.

I like the Buddhist saying, "before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." The same is true about life before and after finding a life partner. Both before and after, we need friends, hobbies and passions, interests of our own, work that is meaningful, an exercise and self-care plan, a spiritual life, and the ability to spend some time alone.

When people are dating, they often are looking for someone who will make them happy and fulfilled. When people fall in love, their world often revolves around the beloved for some time. At some point, a few months or a year or two into the relationship, most people realize that they will suffocate each other if they don't also balance the couples time with time with other friends and activities. The truth is that even happy couples don't stay perpetually "in love." Over the course of a long-term relationship, couples often go through phases of feeling "in love" and not. That's normal.

Happy people realize that being in love or happily partnered doesn't mean to demand or extract your happiness from that other person. You are still responsible for your own happiness, sense of purpose,  developing yourself, and keeping connected to healthy friends. As it turns out, some separate activities and interests can keep things interesting. (Think Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who were happily married despite his passion for car racing, and her love for ballet. They were happily married over 50 years before Newman's death.)

Maybe happily ever after looks more multi-faceted than we were led to believe. Readjusting expectations of marriage and couples' relationships is healthy. Developing a healthy, sustainable love relationship is just a part of the bigger picture of building a happier life.

Stop Expecting Mind-Reading

When we are young and idealize falling in love, many of us imagined a perfect partner who reads our mind and intuits our needs and wants. Later, the mature person of any age begins to realize that if you are going to have any success in relationships with other people, that's really NOT a healthy or realistic expectation to have. We need to grow up emotionally and make an internal shift on this point.

In emotionally healthy adult relationships, each person needs to be able to reflect and sort out what they are feeling, and what they want to request of the other people in their life. Nobody is ever going to read your mind telepathically and deliver your unstated needs to you by UPS. It doesn't work like that. The sooner you can learn to reduce your expectations of others in this area, the happier you can become. You need to voice your own needs, as well as listen to those of the people who matter to you.

Even the right sensitive, caring partner is not feeling exactly what you are feeling, or understanding the nuances of what you need unless you express it. Sometimes in couples counseling, I find one partner with distorted or "magical" thinking about this, and holding onto childhood fantasies that their perfect partner will know them without any effort on their part. Sorry, but I can pretty much guarantee you that isn't going to happen.

I sometimes find it helpful to think about it being our individual job to identify what we are feeling, and teach others how we want to be loved. We are each different, and you may have a very different love language from your partners'. Neither of you is wrong, but as you accept and learn about the differences between you and your partner----in terms of childhood experiences, unmet needs, unique feelings, and expressed desires---you can actually grow much closer.

As it turns out, assumptions are dangerous in relationships are quite dangerous. For example, here are a few bad ones:

1.      I don't have to tell my partner what I need. They should know. ( A set-up for much disappointment.)

2.      I know everything about my partner. (Watch out! This one could come back to bite you. An attitude of openness and curiosity is actually much more helpful. People change all their lives, hopefully, as we keep living, learning, and evolving.)

3.      My happiness is totally dependent on somebody else making me happy. (Wait! Where's your responsibility for bringing some happiness and sharing it with your partner?)

4.      My partner should always be the one to court me, or reach out to me. (Actually, everyone likes to feel that your partner initiates time and positive contact with you. This shouldn't be one directional.)

Let's put that myth to rest that an ideal, mythical partner will read your mind, understand your feelings without any effort on your part, and meet all your needs. The good news is that you will be a better person and a better role model for your children if you are a grown-up who takes grown-up sized responsibility for sorting out your own upset feelings and asserting yourself in a healthy, appropriate way. That's the grown-up adaptation of that childhood wish, well resolved.