Okay, someone I just respect emailed me that this was a hurtful post, so I'm going to rewrite it and put it back up later on. IN the meantime:
What are you saying (or what will you say) to your kids about having a good marriage later on?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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48 comments:
Communicate, communicate, communicate, and please God please make sure you're both being who you really are.
I'm separated right now. He's not a jerk--in fact he is a wonderful man in most ways--but we spent 13 years in our relationship not being fully honest with each other about who we were and where we were headed and all of that.
Oh, and now I've come back to God and he's bitter and angry and contemptuous of faith, especially mine.
I don't have the answers, but unfortunately not all marriages suffer because one spouse is a jerk. Sometimes they're both just broken.
K. is still young enough to insist that she wants to live with us forever and ever and never get married. So we point out the goods and bads in friendships and in fictional characters as relationship examples.
(For our circle of friends, it is mostly the women who have left. It's depressing either way.)
Oh! Also, the parents of my best friend always prayed for the future spouses of their children, which is an idea I love.
So many marriages are falling apart around us, too. I don't know what the magic answer is. Yes, communication is important ind critical, but you're right--so is compatibility too. I think you need to realize that the person you married is not some perfect, idealized cardboard cut-out of a spouse, but a flesh-and-blood person who may not always do everything you like all the time. But if you have true love for each other, and an ability to communicate all the time, then you work past the ups and downs.
We are always conscious that we *could* be a statistic. Life with a child with autism isn't easy. But I think we work together as a team and I have never felt disappointed with the way Scott handles the parenting challenges, and I don't think he's ever been disappointed in me. But I can imagine a marriage where one spouse is doing so much more, or handling so much more, or absorbing more of the stress--then things are thrown off kilter.
I just realized that this is one thing I have never spoken to my kids about: how to pick a good spouse.
I guess I will tell them that they need to look past the shiny sportscar exterior for the qualities that make someone a good partner to spend your life with. Patience, tolerance, generosity, kindness.
And I have to agree with your first commenter: communication is really important. Sadly, I think many men are terrible at communicating. Some women are too but, in my experience, men are worse. Talking about feelings and needs and wants makes them uncomfortable. But just waiting for every disagreement to blow over is a ticking time bomb, in my opinion. Because some will blow over, but some will fester away into resentment.
I talk to my oldest, all the time about friends, relationships and how we should surround ourselves with good people, whatever sex they might be. The most important thing that I tell her is that when thinking about our relationships (friends, boyfriends, people in our "group" of friends) that we want to have the people closest to us be people that help us be better people.
Sometimes they don't start out like that. It's only after years and years you realize that the worst parts of his personality have been accentuated and the parts you thought were good were the weak parts of his personality and are now gone.
Couple that with a bit of "love is blind" and "I'll follow you to the ends of the earth" love worship and one day you wake up and are like, crap, this guy is an ass and he's not going to changes because he thinks he's perfect.
It's not something I can blog about, because he knows about it (as does his family) but it's happening and it sucks a lot.
Great post. My kids are too young (almost 8 and almost 5) to talk about relationships, but I hope we model what's right in a relationship and how to talk to and be with your spouse. One thing I've always said is that when my children are ready to be married, I'll always make sure that they know that it's better to walk away at the altar than to enter a bad marriage...don't worry about the embarassmant or the money that's been spent on the reception...just walk away if you know it's wrong.
Beck, you know I love you, but this post hits a big nerve with me at this particular moment in my life. I just need to say that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with women who find themselves in abusive or demeaning marriages.
To answer your question, I will encourage my daughter to have long courtships and to live together through at least one major life crisis before marriage. Oh, and I will also tell her that while I believe in monogamy, I don't necessarily think that marriage is the be all and end all of human intimacy.
not so sure what i will say...gotta work on that!
but i feel very glad that i married a man who not only is a good, kind, smart, and supportive but who i love and who loves me. i feel solid in that.
i am also seeing marriages around me in turmoil. they are crumbling because of infidelity and because when they got married in the first place they were in a hurry--they never did love each other.
so sad.
I talk to my kids a lot about things like this. About knowing what's important to you and making sure that's what you look for. About not expecting someone to change...who they are is pretty much who they are. About wanting to be with someone who makes them feel good. About hanging in there and holding on and not even thinking the word divorce and about how things do change, and that's not necessarily bad and about how things will change again. You get the picture. I talk a lot. :-)
I knew I was going to marry Gunther before I knew I loved him. I made out a list of what I wanted in a mate and I found him. Loving him was an amazingly wonderful bonus but liking him, truly respecting him and valuing him came first.
I love him more now, 10 years later, than I ever could have imagined then. Our life together just keeps better and better.
I will tell my kids to wait. That what looks like a great idea or relationship at 22 is not what a great relationship looks like at 32. I will also insist (as my own mother did) that they live with him at least a year before marrying. Both my sisters escaped a bad marriage that way. (We're not religious so this is not taboo for us).
mad--just saw your comment and i wanted to say that i know what you mean. i know that some of the marriages i see flailing are ones of love lost (or never was there in the first place), bad communication, infidelity, and childishness.
abuse is different though, i think. often it just cannot be predicted and the women who suffer (from all classes) are often really blindsided by it. escaping that sort of abuse is a hard, hard thing.
I love the advice - don't marry a jerk. I know a LOT of women who marry men on the basis that they will change, and while some people do change, I think that maybe you should wait until they change prior to marrying them. My sister-in-law has had two failed marriages, because she thought she could change the guy. These were not abusive relationships in any way, just that she didn't like the kind of person they WERE - she liked the kind of person they COULD BE.
Do you have the same beliefs? Do you have the same goals for your lives? Do you agree on how to raise children, to use or not use birth control. Can you live with this person every day for the rest of your life?
My husband is my best friend. I can't imagine living without him. That's what I want for my children.
My kids are young, so we haven't had any marriage-specific conversations yet. But I am hoping that by being an example of a good marriage that they will file that away as the model against which they will measure their own relationships. Close friends of ours are separating and it's the first couple of ours that we know to split. We've watched their marriage and each of them change over the years and I am so sad that they are splitting. Yes, they are dysfunctional, yes their daughter will probably be better off this way...but I just want to ask, "why don't you try harder?" I feel like the stakes are so high and that they are giving up. Obviously I am not in their shoes, so I don't know how it is for them, but maybe I still believe in the ideal of a family--and that if you work hard enough (with the right non-jerk person of course) you will get there.
hmmm. I guess i had some things I wanted to say about my friends's seperation. Sorry this went a little off topic.
Best advice I plan to give my daughter when the time comes...
Marry a man who is NOW the man you want to live with the rest of your life, don't expect to change him. But as time goes by and life happens, be willing to change yourself.
I see waaay too many marriages around me where (as a pp said) neither partner is particularly awful-- both are decent, honorable people. But the strife comes from one party insisting that the other be the one to make changes. You can't change other people, but you can always change yourself.
In addition to giving my daughter lots of advice, I plan to pray unceasingly for her and her mate.
hahaha yes stay away from those bad drivers! We talk about the type of people we want to be friends with a lot. I am hoping in time that will transit to dating then marriage.
At this point, I think it's more modeling good marital behaviour since talking about it wouldn't get us too far at this point.
It seems like it's also about us making good choices in friends and being aware of the relationships that our kids see around them. We're excited to be moving to a place where the LG will get to see so many good marriages 'in action.' We want her to know what sorts of behaviours should be NORMAL in a marriage, not extra-ordinary.
Whenever I'm in a setting where my husband and I get asked (as we frequently do after nearly 40 years of marriage) what the "secret" is to a good marriage, my answer is always the same: MARRY THE RIGHT GUY.
It sounds flip, but it's not. I chose my husband with the greatest care, and we dated all through college, during which time I tested him (as he tested me) in many, many ways to make sure that I was going to be getting in return what I intended to give.
In short, it pays to use hormones AND brains in picking a partner.
yes. yes. yes. every word you just said. total agreement.
in our house, we've been talking about this in a sort of running dialogue since the cradle years. The kids have been told "My prayer is that you will choose a spouse that loves God as much as you do" and then we discuss what 'loving God' looks like.
"See that?" I'll say to the girls. "See how we feel so safe/loved/respected when Daddy does that for us? I pray all the time that you'll find a man who will do that for you"
My son hears the same thing... "Why would you want to be married to a girl who.....?" and "I hope you'll never think it's okay for someone to talk to you/look at you/talk about you like that" (or that it would be okay for him to do the same to anyone else in the entire world)
we also talk about preparing ourselves to be people that others would enjoy being married to...
Of course, I too have a husband who I still like very much after 17 years of marriage, and have the luxury of pointing and saying "that! that is what you want!" and we can say about our marriage "This is good! this is possible!"- I'm not sure how I would handle it were both those things not true.
Hmm. I could go on and on about this subject. I really could. But the biggest thing to me is that if you want a quality person you have to be a quality person. And two halves do not make a whole. Marriage does not make you one. You are still two people. And you need to be two complete people when you get married.
Crazy seems to attract crazy. That sounds harsh. But if you are constantly seeking people with issues, you clearly have issues as well, and need to look into that before you can find someone to bring into your life.
Also. Marriage is difficult. The grass always looks greener, but it is not. Passion does not stick around 24/7 for the rest of your life. That is a fairytale. The most important thing is finding a best friend who you respect and respects you equally.
Oh yes.
My dad always told me how he prayed to find a good wife. And he did.
I began praying for a good husband when I was in grade school and on into high school and college. Low and behold my hubby had the same idea and always prayed for a good wife too. I think having faith in a marriage and putting God in the center of your marriage in imperative. Seeing marriage as the holy sacrement that it is makes it slightly easier not to be horrible to your spouse and say awful things when you are mad. ;)
that you make your decision, your commitment, and then you do everything in your power to stick to it. If you've already made up your mind that you're in it for the long haul you won't threaten leaving, you won't seriously consider straying when the opportunity arises, you'll work to make it something you WANT to stay a part of. Think of LOVE as an ACTION, not a feeling. You may not FEEL the love, but you can always put love into action.
Give it up, Beck. It's a crap shoot.
But if you are going to try to tell your kids something, tell them before they turn 12. They can't hear you after that.
Mine are 7, 9, and 11. We have been praying for all three of their spouses from the get go. We hav enot discussed it with the youngest other than training him how to be a good friend and loving towards others. The girls on the other hand have asked questions and we have talked about how important it is to be a good friend to others, how to choose your friends wisely, and how their personalities and what type of friend they are will help them choose a good spouse. For instance--my oldest is an ENTJ according to the Myers-Briggs personality sorter and recognizing that and that she needs time with people (her love language is time and service) helps her recognize why certain friendships have gone and others not so well. We have been very open about our own struggles as a married couple and about what makes it work now and why their grandparents have divorced on both sides and what could have been don to avoid it. Kids are smart and being open with them about such things and treaching them to have self respect makes a huge difference in how they choose their relationships.
I didn't get a chance to read the original post, but...
I think parents have to model a good relationship for their children to understand what to look for in a mate.
I see friends damaging their kids every day because they bicker constantly, disrespect one another, and play games, etc.
If a daughter grows up watching mom get disrespected, she'll probably figure that is the role of a woman.
If a son grows up watching his dad act like a macho creep, he'll think that is what husbands do.
If a daughter grows up watching a rude, ignorant mother who disrespects the children's father, she'll grow up to act the same way.
If a son watches dad get crapped on repeatedly by mom and never stand up for himself--he'll grow up to be abused by his wife as well.
I'm a big believer in divorce. My dad left when I was 14 and honestly, both parents are a lot happier than if they had stayed together. That "making it work for the kids" theory being played out in the form of two unhappy, dissatisfied people hating one another on a daily basis will only teach kids what marriage SHOULD NEVER be!
There is no perfect lesson to teach kids about finding a mate--but, modeling a healthy relationship is the first step! ANd, even healthy relationships include arguments--kids need to see that, too...but they must be given the tools to know how to overcome such bumps (or even recognize when to sever a relationship if it's best for both parties).
One thing I can't escape is the observation that how people treat their spouses has a lot to do with who they are 10 years down the road. I always wonder what role the other spouse played in the descent into jerkdom.
Example, does the professional woman who comes home to find her unemployed husband drunk while watching their toddlers contribute to his breakdown by treating him with disdain, belittling him, or speaking to him as if he is a child? Sure he obviously lacks character in the first place, but would he be who he is right now if she behaved differently?
Does she complain all the time, even when he tries?
I watch marriages around me and it seems always that the cycle could have been broken if one person stopped reacting and took action instead. The couple who married young because of an unplanned pregnancy, she became a shrew, he became a drug addict, she probably drove him to his addictions, he probably drove her to be a shrew with his irresponsible behavior. What if one of them stopped and changed? Would the other change too, given time?
I suspect it's a huge factor in how marriages play out.
The other is character. A man with strength of character will not allow himself to only react to his wife's poor treatment of him by becoming less than he is, he will stay himself, continue to love by action, and she will either grow to appreciate him or leave.
A woman of good character will not belittle her husband when he screws up, will not be emotionally manipulative, will not make it hard for him to please her, will act in a loving way. It's harder to be a jerk around her.
So, when I think about talking to my children about marriage, I hope first that the measure of their character is such that they will reject candidates who are lacking the same. I hope they will seek and accept our counsel. I will continue to teach them that love isn't a feeling, it's an action, and so whether they feel like it or not, they can love someone by how they choose to treat them. These are the things we do our best to model, hopefully it will rub off.
Man, an essay, should have written my own post.
we've not given any of them marriage advice - not even the almost 10 year old. Who knows if they will get married? We really don't. We are teaching them as best we can to respect others (especially girls and women, we have three boys). We don't even really know if they will all be heterosexual, but it seems they are. In any case, they have our marriage, our parents and my sister's to look to. I am sure they will have lots of opinions on that by the time they are in their teens and 20s! I know I did!
The only thing I specifically teach with respect to marriage (Though I don't mention marriage) is I am busting my a-s-s over here to raise three anglo white american boys without a major entitlement problem.
Everyone, please, pray for my success in your spare time. It is a bit of an uphill battle in our culture.
Damn, missed the original post.
Mom, M.Ed got it right. If you want your kids to have good marriages -- you MUST be a good role model.
I believe that a good predictor of a healthy marriage/relationship/partnership is similar views on money. If two peoples' attitudes toward finances is fundamentally in contrast (spend vs save) they're going to be miserable. This is because (in our culture) money is often a metaphor for safety, security and success. I'm seeing a lot of marital friction over finances.
Another key to my marriage is not expecting my husband to communicate his emotions on MY terms. He expresses his feelings in a myriad of ways (tender words, small gestures of respect and grand romantic actions), and being attuned to those nuances is vital to our happy marriage.
Also having a sex drive that's in proportion to your mates. Oh, yeah. This is a BIGGIE, too.
My 4 year old told me he's going to marry his friend S and they will have the master bedroom, we can move to the basement.
That's step #1 toward a bad marriage! haha!
Can't answer this, because right now my husband IS a jerk.
I did not see the original post either, but I am assuming you asked what we are talking to our kids about regarding their future spouses, or the choosing of them.
I've been married to my husband for 28 years. We met on a blind date, and knew each other exactly 3 weeks before we got engaged, and six months before we got married.
It's a good match. But there is no amount of advice that would have prepared me for marriage. None.
Of course it is important to know you have the same basic beliefs in the same basic things. But, for example, there is no way that you can know how you are going to raise children and whether or not that is something you will agree on.
No one can be prepared for what life throws at them. Suppose those children you plan to raise so well together turn out to be ADD, or Down Syndrome, or just plain defiant. You can't possibly discuss every scenerio.
There are way too many unknowns when you walk down the aisle. Will one of you end up in a wheelchair? Will your house burn down?
The only thing you can know for sure is that love has nothing to do with emotions or feelings. Love is a choice. That is why we promise to love "in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part," because we have NO CLUE WHATSOEVER what life will bring.
When I got married I had no idea what real love was. I only knew that I was choosing to spend the rest of my life with someone who was choosing to spend the rest of his life with me.
I thought I loved him, but I had no idea what that meant.
Meanwhile, we've tried very, very, hard to be that kind of example to our boys. And we pray hard that they will choose love someday too. And that they will choose well.
But they are adults. And their choices are theirs,their mistakes are theirs, their successes and failures are theirs.
We don't make their decisions and we don't make excuses for what they decide.
And now I am stepping down off my stool and hoping that what I wrote has even an inkling to what you were asking.
Otherwise ... nevermind.
Pynchon and I have noticed how much our own behaviour in our marriage is based on the models provided by our respective parents.
This makes us very conscious of the model we are providing for Munchkin.
Of course, she's too young to talk to explicitly about this (yesterday, she told me that she was going to marry ME, for example) but she is picking up one vision of how two people can make a family.
I could write at much length on this topic, since, with my husband's and my parents both being divorced, we both knew the odds were against us going into this, so I've always paid attention to topics pertaining to marriage. To try to keep this at a reasonable comment length, though, I think I'll limit to a few thoughts:
For those that recommend living together as a trial period, you should be aware that statistics are against that advice: marriages that start in living together have worse odds of lasting -- at least that was true when I took a marriage prep class in college years ago (before I ever met my husband) and I'm guessing it's still true; living together is different in kind from marriage and doesn't lay a solid groundwork for it. As someone who's religious, I also think that it's setting a child up for a lot of emotional pain to imply that it's okay to be physically intimate where there's not specific commitment through marriage. I think there are other ways to mitigate against marriage disasters, and agree with those who've recommended teaching kids both by word and example what a good marriage should look like.
That said, it's also true that you can marry the right person and then they can change -- so maybe we have to teach kids that they should do everything they can to choose someone compatible, kind, and respectful, but that they also shouldn't blame themselves if their partner irrevocably checks out.
As far as communication goes, I heard a psychologist say that we wouldn't have gotten married if we weren't already good at communicating, but that what really matters is WHAT we're communicating, so good will towards our partner is far more important than just communication.
I really could go on and on and on (NOT because I have a perfect marriage, but because I've tried to learn what I can to help give it the best odds possible,) but I'll make myself stop here.
"Of course, I too have a husband who I still like very much after 17 years of marriage, and have the luxury of pointing and saying "that! that is what you want!" and we can say about our marriage "This is good! this is possible!"- I'm not sure how I would handle it were both those things not true." Ditto.
We only have 9 years logged so far, but I can say that the first and best thing we did was choosing good mates for ourselves. More than anything we're a team. We're friends. Sex drives rise and fall; money comes and goes; emotional strength wanes and waxes...these are not what we married each other for. We married because we respect each other as we are: beliefs, goals, histories, and all.
And so when I talk to my 2 & 3 year old about marriage it's the same as the pp. I point out how kind their dad is for offering me a drink or for fixing us all dinner that we enjoy; or I point out how nice it is that he was responsible and thoughtful and got up early to do some work so we could all have fun together in the afternoon; how he is such a nice dad to them and a supportive and loving husband to me. And he does the same, making a point to thank me for all the traits we value in each other and that I hope the kids learn to expect from their friends and spouses.
Hoping we'll see the original post sometime...
Well. I didn't see the original post, but here's what I've got so far, from the vast wisdom of 5.5 years of marriage:
Commitment. Commitment. Commitment. Like Painted Maypole said, Love is an ACTION. It is also a choice.
And when you get married, you are making a promise to choose that commitment over and over again every day. Even when it's really really really REALLY hard.
I think traditional marriage vows, even if you don't use them in your marriage, can be a useful guide for thinking about this. For instance, think about what "in sickness and in health" means. Say this young, strong healthy person you married gets hit by a bus two weeks after your marriage, and for the rest of your life you are the primary caregiver to a quadriplegic. Or they develop a catastrophic disintegrative psychiatric disorder, and for the rest of your life you get to be married to someone who does not recognize you, who wanders outside naked and pees in the rosebushes and tries to eat the cat. Are you prepared to take your commitment to those lengths? If not, DON'T GET MARRIED.
Also, thorough premarital counseling is a good, good idea. Our mentor couple made us think about questions like "who will take out the trash?" which seems silly but can be a stress if people have opposing expectations. That's really what a lot of good premarital counseling is about: expectations, and making sure you know your own and your prospective spouses. That is a very big deal.
Well, KayTar wants to marry our crayon bank right now, which is an improvement from wanting to marry her brother, her dad, and our best friends (she wanted to marry both halves of the couple and was distressed to discover they were already married to each other!). I think we're moving in the right direction! LOL.
On a more serious note, I totally agree with what Painted Maypole said.
I think that you have to both feel that you`re the one giving 100% to the relationship.
Also, I use the Keaton family standard of marriage - if the marriage is strong, then the family will all fall into place. Nurture it. Don`t forget it.
"Sometimes grown ups get frustrated with each other, but we still love each other."
Which maybe isn't the best, but it's all I've got. We haven't talked much to our 3 and 5-years olds about marriage. Except for blurb at the beginning of the comment.
I hate that I missed your earlier post. I don't like missing out on juicy content!
Wow. I haven't spent even a second thinking about this issue.
I suppose I'd give them Madeleine L'Engle's Crosswicks books. That's where I learned how to conduct a marriage. That, and watching my parents (who are still together).
Respect. Bottom line. Both ways. From someone married 25yrs.
My parents never talked much about it with us kids. I would say that all of us kids are in happy marriages, especially me since I can speak for myself and all.
The only thing my parents talked about was an important thing about verbal and physical abuse in relationships and marriages. My mom once married a couple where the guy was physically abusing the woman (and of course, my mom didn't know about it till well afterwards) and she still carries guilt around because of it.
I'm not sure how much actual training we should do for our kids.
Great discussion here. In fact, I have something totally new to add. But I am going to make it my post for tomorrow. Sorry, but it's just too long to share here.
C'mon over tomorrow, Beck and friends!
geez, hard question. and don't you hate when someone points out that you have been hurtful? it makes my tummy all upset.
what will i tell my kids about a good marriage? TeacherMommy has some great ideas. And I like Inthefast lane's advice that a spouse (or friend) be someone who makes you a better person. I'm not reading any more comments because I really have to go take a shower for God's sake. But clearly when it comes time to tell my kids what makes a good marriage I'll be coming here and searching your archives while they wait, toes tapping, for a good answer.
Marry someone who keeps their word. Who is willing to do the hard thing first so he can do the fun thing later. I know this is called delayed gratification or some such, but my version is self-explanatory.
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