Let’s stay married.

I believe in marriage. When possible, I do what I can to keep couples together.

I believe that when two people get together, for the most part, they have the intent of staying together, having a sense of harmony, having a family, and building a life together with the idea that they can count on each other along the way, growing old together. After marriage, life keeps happening and it somehow happens that the reason for your frustrations in life get dumped on your spouse and those in your home. They’re the easy target, they get on your nerves, but you can’t imagine life without them either. But life continues to happen and dealing with life in a house with the ones you love just gets really hard.

So, in today’s world, with so many divorced couples, with the popularity of ‘I,’ with the support given to children of divorce, and with women making their own money and not financially ‘needing’ to stay married to a man, there’s a real option of living in your own space without your spouse. Why then stay together? My thought is that sometimes it just doesn’t work and you have to end it. There’s a whole list of reasons why marriages have to end. Generally I think people lack an educational foundation on what a marriage is and how to do it. You can learn these skills while still married, but, you have to be willing to do the work. Working at your job or attending to little Johnnie’s homework and piano lessons give you a result: bonus checks, A'‘s, and so forth. What is the tangible outcome when you work at a marriage?

Well, I think if you learn how to do it, you can have some sort of contentment in your home. It has to feel good to express yourself to your spouse and on top of it feel heard. You maintain financial stability with all in one house and so accumulate more wealth that way. You have support of another adult who shares kids with you, which relieves some complications when parents are divorced. Family gatherings and socializing can have another level of ease. There’s someone in your home who loves your children the most, like you, in this world. At their core they love you and married you because of that love. More importantly perhaps is you learn how to communicate and problem solve. What better skill to develop than learning to be heard and understood whether in your home, with friends, family, or in the workplace? If you are going to have to learn to develop this skill, then why not in your own home with the person you married?

Again, there’s plenty of completely understandable reasons to get a divorce. However, my argument is simply that I would encourage you to try out working on this element of communication and self-reflection rather than thinking you have done the work and are ‘over it.’ Maybe you didn’t get an A in ‘marriage readiness’ and need to study it more. You aren’t alone.

Think about why you would stay married and the good that could come out of it. What have you forgotten is great about your spouse? How can you work on resentment built up over the years in order to make way for forgiveness? I wonder if there are health benefits, positive growth for your children, and personal development you can experience. After all, I assume you earned the stock and accolades at work for all the time you put into your job; maybe you are missing out the return on investment if you put even some of that time and work into your marriage.

There’s much to think about here… give it a try.