Unhappy with your marriage? Have the same fight over and over again? Has romance become more of a dry business arrangement? It’s not your fault!
For centuries whether or not a marriage was “good” for both partners (meaning loving) was largely a matter of luck. If a marriage became “bad,” or either partner was unhappy, the only solutions were to stick it out or leave…and until no-fault divorce laws were passed, leaving was often impossible. AND the long-term fall-out from most divorces means that often that solution creates more problems than it solves.
It’s only been the last hundred years or so that our expectations for every marriage have included ongoing romance, sexual fulfillment and emotional connection.
Beginning in the early 1900’s, researchers began to study the difference between marriages that were happy, vs. those that weren’t. What elements are consistently found in happy marriages that are absent in unhappy ones? What methods of communicating are found in happy vs. unhappy marriages? How are problems resolved in each?
GOOD NEWS: The combined results of multiple research studies have found the same answers. Great marriages that last have certain consistent patterns of behavior. Marriages that fail or are unhappy also have consistent patterns of behavior.
And better yet, those who are unhappy with their quality of their marriage can learn to duplicate the behaviors found in great marriages in order to turn an inadequate or struggling marriage into a great one!
From my colleague, Diane Sollee (www.smartmarriages.com) “Marriage is skill-based. Like football. The way we have it set up now a couple gets married, and we send them out there to win based on love and commitment. That’s like asking a football team to win on team spirit, but not letting them learn any plays or signals. The basis for a smart marriage is exciting research that finds that what is different about marriages that make it—that go the distance and stay happy—are behaviors or skills. And even more exiting, they are simple skills that any fool can learn!”
But how were you to know this? Research studies are buried in university libraries. The classes that teach these winning skills, although good, are still not well known. Most therapists are not trained to teach couples these skills. There are only a few private coaches, like me, that specialize in training couples in the behaviors that will transform their marriage from mediocre or “bad” to great.
NO MORE SEARCHING FOR HELP! Soon you can learn how to duplicate the practices consistently found in great marriages from the privacy of your own home computer!
Watch for my next post… good news is coming!
Click on this link to accept my gift to you, “What Our Parents Didn’t Know,” a chapter from my book, How to Stay Married & Love It!
