What is the ultimate goal in marriage? This sounds like a broad question with a wide array of answers. To live happily ever after, to have a life partner, for companionship, to share responsibilities, to carry on the tradition, to meet expectations, to not be alone, to have an adventure buddy because you have a lot in common, for the excitement, to prove someone wrong, to have children, to contribute to society and of course because you love each other. It is human nature to seek love.
Love connects us, encourages us, comforts us, sees us, accepts us, and inspires us to be who we were created to be. In western society, we seek out that person, we date, develop a relationship and ultimately marry. In other words, marriage is finding that one person you are more in love with than anyone else and deciding to live your lives together as a family. The important thing for couples to remember in their relationship is that they both must make the “SAME CHOICE” which is to “COMMIT” to the marriage in order for things to work out. Happily ever after sounds really nice but in the real world, the COMMITMENT is struck and then the deep work starts.
If both people choose to COMMIT to working on the marriage, then they are also choosing to work on communication patterns, priorities, goals, trust, and other issues that may have gotten in the way of the relationship. They also must be willing to work through wounds that each has caused, personal wounds that occurred prior to marriage, self-awareness, authenticity, honesty, keeping short accounts, conflict resolution and intentionality – ALL important building blocks of a COMMITTED marriage.
Dr. John Gottman, a world-renowned expert on marriage and relationships says it is the small moments that build safety and trust in a relationship, it is how you show your COMMITMENT day in and day out. He articulated a theory called “bids for attention”. All-day long, people make little bids for attention from their mate: “Look at that house on the hill, isn’t it beautiful?” At that moment, the partner has a choice. They can turn away from the bid by ignoring it; they can turn against the bid by saying something like, “Our house is fine, I can’t imagine the mortgage on that thing”; or they can turn toward the bid by embracing the comment and responding to it: “that is a beautiful house! I bet the views are amazing from those windows.”
According to Dr. Gottman “Intimate partners unconsciously look to one another to validate and ‘grow’ the parts of themselves they could not acknowledge, experience, or express in their families of origin. The same qualities we adore and idealize in our partners at first become the most frustrating to deal with because they represent the shadow parts of our own minds that we don’t allow ourselves to feel, leading us to reject them in our partners, too.”
In the above example, the responding spouse may have spent years squelching their desire to dream stemming from deep-rooted fear most likely caused by real or perceived inadequacies and/or failures. We have to be either conscious of our tendencies when we miss the moment or be willing to accept input from our partner to bring into our awareness moments that damage our goal of COMMITMENT to the marriage.
Turning toward a bid follows rules similar to improv: Say ‘Yes’ and run with it. And it’s in those happily answered bids that good feelings are built. We all have to lean in and accept that we are works in progress and our marriages are meant to make us better if we are truly COMMITTED to the same goal of marriage. When things are missed, feelings are hurt or conflicts arise, it is an opportunity, NOT a failure. Dr. Gottman often shares that “conflict is there for a reason — so we can improve our understanding of our partner and ourselves.”
COMMITMENT to your marriage means staying connected, laughing with each other, teasing each other, finishing each other’s sentences, sharing time and space, touching each other affectionately, listening to each other respectfully, each owning their parts in the conflict, apologizing for hurting each other, and praising one another. These are all tools used in good, healthy, COMMITTED marriages. I pray you are choosing the same goal for your marriage. If not, and you want guidance, we are here to help. At Arise Counseling and Coaching, we are dedicated to helping you break free from the strongholds that limit your marriage, equip you to reach your marital goals, and thrive in the most intimate and important human relationship you have.
Tundi Jones, MA, LPC