How To Make A Successful Marriage
Every year around this time, I get in the mood for listening to old standards – Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and the like. It’s kind of a sentimental thing, because that was the music my husband and I used to listen to back in the early days of our courtship, which in our case began in November of 2004. I was a first-year doctoral student at Cornell, and he was in the final stages of that same program. Exactly one year later he flew back from his teaching post at the University of Tennessee to propose to me, so we have many pleasant November memories (As it happens, our first child was also born in November). Most people associate young love with springtime, but for me the strongest associations are more of the “let it snow” variety.
Obviously, there are Ricochetti who have been happily married for many more years than we; nevertheless, the Lus are hardly newlyweds. Interestingly though, I remain the only one of my parents’ five offspring to have either a spouse or children. I don’t believe that any of my siblings are commitment-shy or anti-family. It’s just that romance has become quite complicated nowadays. We don’t have many agreed-upon courtship rituals anymore, and conflicting educational and professional plans can make for some agonizing decisions. The path to established family life isn’t so clearly marked as it used to be.
In a way it’s hard for me to enter sympathetically into my siblings’ reflections on these subjects, because I, if anything, had the opposite problem to theirs; I found the person I wanted to marry at a time when I wouldn’t have minded staying single for just a bit longer. But I also hesitate to give advice on these matters just because I realize that, like most people, I may tend to make too much of my own experience. Not everybody is like me. Not everybody should be. There seem to be multiple counterexamples to almost every “rule” one generates about finding happiness in marriage.
Still, it’s an important subject, so I thought it might be interesting to open it here. What criteria ought a person to consider when looking for prospective spouses? Among these, which are essential and which are more secondary?
In some ways, I think the possible criteria can be broken fairly neatly into two categories, which I might label “personal compatibility” and “long-term compatibility”. Our immediate attraction to a person tends to reflect the first, so young people are often (properly) advised to take things slow and think about the future. Among those who are late to marry, however, I find that the second can sometimes become something of an obsession, even to the point where they half-ignore personal compatibility issues for the sake of finding an “appropriate” life companion. I think it’s clear that both things are important, but striking the right balance is obviously a challenge.
The category that I label “personal compatibility” can really be further broken into two basic issues. First of all, do you like being around the person? Do you enjoy their conversation and look forward to spending time together? It may seem obvious, but I find some people surprisingly oblivious to this point. If you marry a person, you will be around him or her quite a lot. Try to find someone whose company will in general be pleasant to you. Secondly, though, it’s best to find someone whose general lifestyle preferences are moderately compatible with yours. If one of you is an obsessive neatnik and the other is a slob, that will probably be a source of tension. If one is addicted to pop tarts and cheeseburgers and the other is a strict vegan, that might be hard. Obviously, there’s a lot of give and take in any marriage, and children will radically upset your lifestyle preferences whether or not they are shared. It’s still worth thinking about these things.
Long-term compatibility relates to things like faith and family plans, but also to plans for education and career. Politics may or may not factor large in your thinking, depending on how much you care about it. Now, my feeling as a young woman was that faith and family are absolutely central to a good marriage, while professional plans are the sort of thing that may need to be adjusted and changed. I still stand by that. I don’t think I would ever have married a non-Catholic, but it’s especially unwise to marry a person who doesn’t respect and support your religious commitments. Equally important, marrying a person whose wishes concerning children are quite different from yours is an obvious recipe for unhappiness. And don’t be too confident, when you’re in your mid-twenties, that you “never want children.” That tends to change.
If you can find a person who is eligible in all the above respects, I would advise you to count yourself lucky and find a way to make the other stuff work. Mind you, I don’t pretend that the professional obstacles are trivial. Professional choices can be agonizing for any number of reasons. In the first place, it obviously makes sense to consider your joint financial prospects. How much debt do you have, and how much earning potential? Financial insolvency is hard on any marriage and very hard on children. Another factor is time. Academic careers are in some ways extremely good for marriage and family, because they allow for very flexible hours and lots of time at home (On the downside, academics are fairly constrained when it comes to choosing a city or region of the country). Other careers are far less amenable to family life. I, for example, would have been reluctant to marry a man who was active in the military. As much as I respect the military, I wouldn’t want my husband to be away from home all the time. I also wouldn’t want him to die! Careers affect families in multiple ways.
At the end of the day, though, I think a good marriage needs to transcend professional goals. If your family matters less to you than your career, you probably won’t be a very good spouse or parent. In the end, life is long, and job prospects can change. Faith and family will hopefully endure. That is why I recommend flexibility concerning career plans.
Often women are faulted for wanting too much in this regard. I must say that, mentally surveying all of my old friends and acquaintances, I think the men (both liberal and conservative, but especially conservative) are somewhat more liable to hold their careers sacrosanct, where women tend to assume that flexibility and sacrifice are necessary components of family life. There are many exceptions, certainly, but that seems to me to be the trend. Women may have educational or professional ambitions, or they may prefer a more domestically-oriented existence, but either way they tend to assume that there will be some give and take. By contrast, I have known quite a number of unmarried men (especially conservative ones) who think it perfectly reasonable to demand that their prospective wives’ primary desire and ambition should be to keep their house and raise their children while supporting their chosen careers. I don’t regard this as especially reasonable, but, more importantly, I don’t think it’s terribly healthy for men to think that way. Quite often couples do find a traditional breadwinner/caretaker division of labor to be mutually agreeable, and it’s not an unreasonable thing to want. But it’s hard to count on anything in these uncertain economic times, and it’s not good for marriage in general if one spouse feels entitled to more than the other. That, at any rate, is my perspective, but I’ve little doubt that some here will disagree!
In any case, I would summarize my best advice as follows: find someone you genuinely like to marry. Make sure that your larger life goals and commitments are roughly compatible. But don’t obsess over finding someone whose immediate plans and interests are nicely harmonious with yours. Even if they are today, they probably won’t be tomorrow. The most important thing is for both of you to understand that family matters more.
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Comments:
Nov '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Don’t marry someone for the person he or she will be after you have succeeded in changing him or her. By the time they are old enough to marry, they are pretty much the way they’re going to be.
P.S., It's wonderful that you found a "fit," Rachel.
Edited on November 26, 2012 at 8:22pmDec '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
From the guy's perspective. Find a girl you like, who is nice to you, with bad habits you can tolerate, marry her, and then win at hypergamy until you die thereafter. Always be the best (straight) guy around with whom she has reasonable mating opportunities. Be slightly and selectively dominate, there is a man card, and it should be played; No amount of rhetoric squares the mammal circle.
And never ever complain about having dinner made for you.
My mom really stressed the bad habits you can tolerate thing to me. Vitally important that.
Edited on November 26, 2012 at 8:32pmOct '12
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
My husband (of 23 years) and I have benefited from vast quantities of good advice. So here's my two cents:
1. Reassess and Re-evaluate - what works in one season of life will need adjustment in the next
2. Try to think in terms of preferences/desires, not expectations
3. Do not argue when either of you really needs a nap or a snack
4. Realize if you had married someone else, it would just be a different set of arguments-not perfection
5. Being loved is fantastic, being loved and respected for who you are is the best!
6. Know that whatever you love about your mate will at some point make you crazy
7. Figure out a way to talk about money without fighting or crying
8. Premarital counseling doesn't prevent all problems, but it's an excellent investment in your marriage
9. Do not make your spouse your sole source of emotional support
10. Many tense times look funny later
11. Ask for help-we spoke with our minister after our first child was born and it was invaluable!
12. Do not hold a grudge
13. Be willing to re-assess and re-evaluate : )
Dec '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
and what she said.
Mar '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
From my perspective, the most important question was "Will she go out with me?"
The second most important question was "Will she go out with me again?"
As soon as I got a "Yes" to that second question I clubbed her in the head and dragged her back to my cave.
Feb '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Rachel, are you saying you and your husband don't just follow the Rules?
Just kidding.
What works for me and Papa Toad is that he is my best friend. As Evelyn Waugh noted, his friendship is valuable not in that he makes me laugh (he does!), but more importantly, that I make him laugh. He thinks I am funny! Hooray!
The other thing is that we try to remember that the other person is acting out of the best possible intentions, even when we don't really believe that. And that, before the children came along, we were still a family. It is about him and me. Not about the children vs. us, or me and the children vs. him, or him and the children vs. me. They are here because we are a family, and our relationship is the central one to the family.
Beautiful post, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Mar '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Mama Toad:
What works for me and Papa Toad is that he is my best friend. As Evelyn Waugh noted, his friendship is valuable not in that he makes me laugh (he does!), but more importantly, that I make him laugh. He thinks I am funny! Hooray!
My wife does not think I'm funny.
I even told her I once got over 40 Likes but she still doesn't think I'm funny.
Sep '10
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Low Expectations.
Hey, it works for my wife . . .
May '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
After 17 years of marriage, I went back for training in a second residency and worked with other residents who were 10 to 12 years younger than I. One afternoon over drinks at Friday afternoon happy hour, I mentioned that I had been married 17 years and another resident looked at me and said "Wow, I can't imagine what 7 years would be like, much less 17." I said, "Barry, at seven years they call it an ithch, at seventeen it has turned into gangrene."As you can see my wife married me for something other than my sense of humor.I don't know why she married me, but a big part of the attraction to her I felt was her vulnerability. It was if she knew I could easily hurt her feelings if I chose to do so but she trusted me not to. In 43 years, neither of us have ever openly ridiculed the other in public.
Apr '12
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
My daughter's friends used to love to ask her eldest son, when he was five, "What kind of girl are you going to marry. "One my Mommy likes!" was the answer that used to have them rolling on the floor laughing.
But, hey, there is a lot of sense in that. :-)
Jun '10
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Rachel: Superb essay, and true.
I can't find anything to disagree with. I would only add three observations:
1. Toss the "soul-mate" idea (the belief that there is one, and only one, person who was meant just for you). In fact, there are many potential mates to whom a person can be attracted physically and with whom a friendship can be created that will serve as the solid foundation for a marriage (think of friendship the rock upon which a marriage is built). A great marriage is what creates soul-mates.
2. Guys: ask a woman out on a formal date and act like a gentleman. If you can't think of interesting things to talk about, ask her about herself (it's something she'll feel flattered about, and she knows the subject). Have some fun. In other words, create your own courtship ritual. Just because others don't do it, doesn't mean you can't.
3. This one is for Rachel. Your marriage will be strengthened by a mutual love for the Notre Dame football team this year. Sorry everyone else.
Edited on November 27, 2012 at 12:13amJun '10
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Casey
Mama Toad:
What works for me and Papa Toad is that he is my best friend. As Evelyn Waugh noted, his friendship is valuable not in that he makes me laugh (he does!), but more importantly, that I make him laugh. He thinks I am funny! Hooray!
My wife does not think I'm funny.
I even told her I once got over 40 Likes but she stilldoesn't think I'm funny. · 1 hour ago
My wife mostly doesn't get my sophisticated sense of humor (at least that's how I characterize it). She would likely say that we've forged a great marriage despite my juvenile sense of humor.
We do find quite a bit to laugh about (just not me), and we've made it forty years.
Moral: if your spouse won't laugh at your jokes find something else that both of you can laugh about.
Nov '10
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Love together.
Worship together.
Dream together.
Travel together.
Journey to hell together.
And back together.
Parent together.
Sleep together.
Sleep in together.
Dream of growing old together.
Live your own lives...together.
Just always love being, more than anything else in the whole wide world...together.
Feb '12
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Great essay, Rachel. I agree with most every point. I'd add only:
Be for "us". Everything in this world should rank 2nd. If it doesn't, you run the very real risk of divorce. And, give your spouse the benefit of the doubt and assume they're for "us", too. In the light of this marital commitment, arguments become disagreements that are resolvable and aspirations (career or otherwise) can be reached for.
Nov '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Change the word "demand" to "expect" or "want" and you will have labeled unreasonable and unhealthy about 95% of American men who married before 1965 . . . around the same time divorce rates skyrocketted.
One does so tire of the prejudged way of discussing these things:
-- Why use the word "demand" to describe what men "want"? Men "demand." In the same paragraph, women "need," "want," or, at the very most, "assume" (with assumptions likely to be dashed). Unmarried women apparently make no "demands."
--Equally tiresome is how you deploy the word "their" three times in succession: "to keep their house and raise their children while supporting their chosen careers," as if someone has asserted all three as separate male interests, as if a wife cannot have complementary interests and benefits in all three.
Why such divisive language?
Dec '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
If a guy wants a traditionalist arrangement, that is his perfectly reasonable desire. Men are people too, and they can want things from a relationship as well.
This post reinforces my opinion that marriage is fundamentally broken, because the men's side of the ledger is all red ink.
Dec '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
My advice after 20 years? Opposites do not attract!
Feb '11
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Red Feline: My daughter's friends used to love to ask her eldest son, when he was five, "What kind of girl are you going to marry. "One my Mommy likes!" was the answer that used to have them rolling on the floor laughing.
But, hey, there is a lot of sense in that. :-) · 1 hour ago
My six year old is convinced that I am the girl for him...
Apr '12
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Thanks to everyone for all that lovely advice. Tabula, I may indeed say that football has been a very good part of our marriage. An unexpected "bonus" for me in marriage was finding a man who cooks very, very well. An unexpected bonus for him was finding a woman who shares his love of sport (and especially football), truly madly and deeply. :)
May '10
Re: How To Make A Successful Marriage
Rachel L.:
What criteria ought a person to consider when looking for prospective spouses? ....
In some ways, I think the possible criteria can be broken fairly neatly into two categories, which I might label “personal compatibility” and “long-term compatibility”.
If I didn't know better, I'd say you had been reading my Facebook page. From yesterday:
Of course, liking that film address the "personal compatibility" concern and understanding it addresses the "long-term" concern. ;)
But she doesn't have to share my appreciation of The Ghost and The Darkness.