“Love is a painful, poignant, touching attempt by two flawed individuals to try and meet each other’s needs – with gross uncertainty and ignorance about who they are and who the other person is. But we’ll do our best.” Alain de Botton
If there was a magic pill to take that would make you look and feel great, but at least 50% of the people died after taking that pill…would you take it?
If you could place a bet and there was a 50% chance to either win $1MM or lose every dime you had…would you place that bet?
Let’s say there was a 50% chance that your beach house is destroyed by a hurricane, would you live there?
Think about it: if anything else failed at the same rate as marriages fail, most of us would think long and hard before proceeding.
That might lead you to question the validity of marriage altogether.
Certainly, the structure of marriage could use a little evolution…
But maybe we should, instead, question how we’re showing up inside the marriage that’s making us want to end it at least half the time.
Being in a relationship is a skill that (to be successful) needs to be learned.
- How to communicate
- Your needs and getting them met
- How to argue productively
- Understanding ourselves and our partners
- The role of expectations inside a marriage
- How to keep the passion alive
- Parenting together with different parenting styles
- How do we each give and receive love
- Overcoming past hurts and trusting again
- How to interrupt painful, recurring patterns
- Generosity, grace and massive amounts of forgiveness
- To name only a few…
Being in a long-term marriage with someone is the biggest gamble we take in our lives with the odds not exactly stacked in our favor.
It’s not that marriage – in and of itself – is bad or flawed. We aren’t equipped to do it well.
It’s also not that we’re bad people. We are good people who are doing the best we can, but screw it up far more often than we care to admit.
Get equipped so your marriage can work for both of you.