INFORMAZIONI SU QUESTO EPISODIO
Following up on the idea that Not divorcing is not enough, not fighting isn’t enough either. Marriage is not supposed to be lukewarm and when it is it slowly dies. A fair number of divorces occur not because anything is horribly wrong, but because the couple has become little more than roommates. In the church, many such couples stay together or last longer, but they are hardly the example of Christ and His bride that God called us to be. Aside from that failure, the couple is cheating each other out of many good things, and are setting a bad example for their children and others around them.
Dr. Paul Amato, a sociologist at Penn State University, says that more than half of divorces happen “in low-conflict marriages”; marriages, which he says, are “good enough” to be saved. Pamela Haag, author of Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses, & Rebel Couples says that two-thirds of the divorces in the United States are among “so-so” couples. She says many of these couples actually choose “semi-happy” out of a desire to have safe and stable marriages. Unfortunately, that won’t make a marriage strong and a weak marriage is far more susceptible to divorce. Hagg also suggests that too much focus on the children is a big part of the problem in many of these marriages.
A common way this plays out, in my experience, is as follows. A couple gets married. She wants stability and she avoids things that would create passion and deep connection to focus on safety and stability. She’s not going for boring, but it’s the result. He finds other places to be connected and to feel needed, appreciated, and important. His work and hobbies become too much of his life, with his marriage being too little. He’s not thrilled, but it’s not his choice, and he makes the best of it. Then they have kids, which just intensifies all of the above. This is especially bad if mom invests too much in the kids. Eventually, the kids get old enough that the wife can no longer fill her entire day, every day, with them. Suddenly she is lonely and bored. She looks to her husband, but he has developed a pattern and isn’t really interested in change. She makes a few poor efforts to let him know what she wants and he misses it. So, she starts to look for other places to be connected and to feel needed, appreciated, and important. Somewhere along the line one of them, usually the wife says, “Why am I here? This is not a marriage and all it’s doing is holding me back.” At that point, the couple is years beyond fixing the problem. I’m not saying it can’t be fixed at that point, but it’s way late in the game for an easy fix, and odds are one has already left emotionally.
Okay guys, here’s what you need to know: Lukewarm, so-so, semi-happy marriages don’t cut it. Even if your wife has nudged, or pushed, for such a marriage, she will eventually grow tired of it. She may or may not leave the marriage, but her heart and mind will leave the marriage. If your marriage is semi-happy, you have a problem. You may not see the problem for years, but it’s there. By the time you do see it, it may be too late to do anything about it. Start fighting for a better marriage now, while there’s still time to change things. Be ready to push even if she does not want it, and be ready to sacrifice to move forward.
The good news is that you can have a much better marriage if you’re willing to work at it. If you’re not too far down the lukewarm marriage path, you can turn it around. Let your wife know you want a better marriage for both of you, and for your kids. Let her know you’re ready to fight and sacrifice to have a better marriage, and as lovingly as possible, don’t take no for an answer.
[This post first appeared Nov 29, 2011.]
A post worth reading:
Dr. Corey | Goodbye and hello ◄ Sometimes we hold on to bad things just because they are known and understood.
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The post Friday Flashback: Lukewarm Marriages appeared first on The Generous Husband.
