For Christmas this year, I gave Martha a diamond ring. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for quite sometime. Forty years to be exact. You see I never gave Martha a diamond engagement ring. In fact, at the time, Martha didn’t want me to buy her a ring.

It was October 1972 when I asked Martha to marry me.  She was visiting me in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I was in my first year of graduate work. My proposal was quite impulsive, and honestly, not well thought out. I knew I loved her and wanted to spend my life with her. Martha didn’t answer me right away; in fact, it was not until a year later that she asked me to marry her.

Looking for a diamond ring with Martha at the jewelry store got me thinking about the meaning of a diamond ring. Today, a man typically gives a diamond ring to his betrothed to symbolize their commitment to each other in marriage. I grew up with the image of the man kneeling down on one knee and holding up a diamond ring up to his sweetheart while asking, “Will you marry me?” Martha definitely didn’t want that.

I had thought that the whole idea of diamond engagement rings had been around for centuries. I did a little research recently that surprised me. The purchase of diamond engagement rings came into vogue after diamond mines were discovered in Africa in the late 1800s. In the early twentieth century, one diamond company, DeBeers, which had seen their diamond sales lag, started a national advertising campaign to promote the sale of diamonds. By the end of the 1930s, diamond sales were up by 55% (O’Rourke, 2007). From that time, until the middle of the 1960s, the sale of diamonds rose steadily. The widespread practice of giving a diamond engagement ring to one’s fiancée was the result of a well-thought out and carefully orchestrated marketing plan! Martha didn’t like hearing that.

As it turns out, something else also accounted for the increase in the sale of diamond engagement rings (O’Rourke, 2007). Women used to be able to sue their prospective husbands for financial damages if they reneged on their promise to marry under a law called the “Breach of Promise to Marry” law (O’Brien, 2013). Men couldn’t just seduce a woman with a proposal of marriage, get them into bed and then abandon them without the threat of some legal action. In the 1930s, many of these laws were struck down and, as a result, diamond engagement rings became a hedge against future husbands simply walking out on their brides-to-be. Sales of diamond engagement rings increased in response to the expectation that a man should provide a symbol of financial commitment for his future wife (O’Rourke, 2007). Martha didn’t like that that either.

In this era today, when men and women want more equitable and egalitarian marriages, the diamond engagement ring on the left hand of a newly engaged woman publicly signals the couple’s private commitment to get married. In Scandinavian countries, where children grow up in cultures that value equality between the sexes, many men and women wear engagement bands (O’Rourke, 2007). Two weeks before this Christmas, when Martha and I went into the jewelry store, we picked out the diamond ring for her together. For the both of us, her ring meant, “I love you.” Martha liked that. And she loves her ring!

 References

O’Brien, M. (2013).  The strange (and formerly sexist) economic of engagement rings.  The Atlantic.  The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/the-strange-and-formerly-sexist-economics-of-engagement-rings/255434.

O’Rourke, M. (2007). Diamonds are a girl’s worst friend.  Slate Magazine.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/weddings/2007/06/diamonds_are_a_girls_worst_friend.html

In the past half century, there has been a dramatic increase in acceptance of alternative lifestyles to marriage for individuals living in the United States, including cohabitation, single parent families, gay and lesbian marriage, divorce and remarriage and step-families. According to a New York Times article by Meg Jay published in April 2012, cohabitating couples have increased from 450,000 in 1960 to 7.5 million today. Currently, most young adults cohabitate with a partner at least once before they turn 30 years of age and half of all married couples will live together before they tie the knot.

In a comprehensive research review on cohabitation, Popenoe and Whitehead (2002) at the National Marriage Project found most couples say they live together to see if their live-in partner will be a good match if they choose to get married later on. Couples tend to view living together as a way to test their relationship so as to avoid the likelihood of divorce after marriage. While this may sound like a sensible idea, particularly in light of the high divorce rate in this country, many people are unaware of the downside to cohabitation:

• Couples tend to be less satisfied with their marriages later on;
• Couples are more likely to get a divorce;
• Couples have more negative and abusive interactions;
• Couples are at greater risk for domestic violence and sexual infidelity.

Scott Stanley (2005), a renowned marriage expert, describes the commitment level of couples who live together without any plans for getting married as like that of a dating couple. Meg Jay (2012) in her recent New York Time article writes that many young couples ‘slide’ into living together either out of convenience or economic expediency without much deliberation or thought as to what living together will mean for one’s relationship long-term. The bigger problem is that, while it may be easy to move in together, it may be much more difficult to move out later on.

Jay (2012) suggests that couples who live together find themselves living a private ‘maybe we will do’ life rather than a ‘we do’ shared life, one that has been publicly sanctioned by their families and friends through marriage. Interestingly, women tend to see living together as one step toward marriage, while men view cohabitation as a way to determine if their relationship will work out or to put off considering marriage at all. Typically, both men and women view living together as a relatively short-term arrangement.  The average cohabitation lasts about two years.

Here are several questions to ask yourselves if you and your partner are considering living together prior to marriage:

• What is your motivation for living together?
• What is your commitment to the quality of your relationship?
• What are the potential risks and benefits of living together?
• Do you have plans to talk regularly about your future together and whether cohabitation still makes sense one year, three years or five years down the road?

References

Jay, M. (April 12, 2012). The downside of cohabitating before marriage. New York Times. New York, New York.

Popenoe, D. & Whitehead, B.D. (2002). Should we live together? The National Marriage Project. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Stanley, S. M. (2005). The power of commitment: A guide to lifelong love. San Francisco, California: Josey-Bass.

Waite, L.J. & Gallagher, M. (2000). The case for marriage. New York: Broadway Books.

I don’t know anyone who is married or in a long-term relationship who hasn’t thought at one time or another that they would be happier if their partner changed. If you haven’t had that thought, you’re a saint! “If my wife would only be on time more often, I’d be happy.” “If my husband would just do more of the housework, I’d be happy.” There is a big problem with this pattern of thinking. It can lead to much unhappiness.

If you think that you’d be happier if your spouse changed in some way, you are putting the responsibility for your happiness outside yourself. You know you can’t change your partner and by making them responsible for your happiness, you end up feeling powerless.  This message also sends the signal to your partner that they’re not OK the way they are. What is more, if you persist with this thinking, your partner will likely feel hurt, angry and unloved.

By accepting your partner, the way that he or she is and for the way he or she is not, you send a message of unconditional love. Your spouse doesn’t have to change to fulfill your happiness. In fact, it is in that moment of your acceptance that you will experience a profound love for your spouse.

In my relationship with Martha, this pattern of thinking was more prevalent early in our marriage. When I thought that she needed to change something about herself, she felt resentful and hurt. There were also things that she wanted me to change. The more we expected the other person to change, the more nothing changed and our relationship suffered.

Over time, we both learned that thinking “I’d be happy if you changed” wasn’t going to work in our relationship. When I want Martha to change, I am powerless and unhappy. When I accept Martha for exactly who she is, I experience my love for her. Nothing is wrong. Nothing needs to be changed. When you and your partner create that nothing is wrong with each other or your relationship, you will experience being in a state of wholeness. It is in that experience of love and wholeness that fulfills you and makes you both happy.

Early in our marriage, Martha and I would find ourselves going along just fine and then, all of sudden, we’d be in the middle of an argument about money, housework or home repairs that weren’t getting done. We’d get lost in the argument and attempt to solve the issue then and there and, as a result, whatever we were doing at the time got swallowed up into the heat of the moment. Whatever we had been doing or had planned for the day got derailed.

Over time, we learned to stop and say to each other, “Let’s talk about that tonight” or “Let’s put that on the agenda for Sunday morning.” We could plan to do that because we had set aside a time during the week when we would discuss issues or problems that needed our joint focus, free of daily distraction. We knew now was not the time. We’d talk about the problem on Sunday.

It is important for you and your spouse to learn to build the time and the space in your lives when you can resolve some of the bigger issues that arise during the day. First, find a mutually agreeable location that will support your discussion. The bedroom is often not the best place to talk about difficult issues. The living room where you both can be relaxed or the kitchen table may be better places for you to come together to resolve issues that have flared up during the week. If you have children, you obviously want to find a place away from the kids or other members of the family. As our kids grew up, we taught them not to interrupt us. We’d let them know that Mommy and Daddy were having a meeting.

It is good to have a consistent and agreed-upon time in your week that you have set aside for such discussions. If an issue is pressing and needs more immediate attention, pull out your calendars and find a time sooner than later.

Here are some questions to ask yourselves about setting up an agreed upon time to discuss problems:

• When can you both meet that is free from other commitments and distractions, (e.g., after the kids go to bed)?
• Where in your home can you work effectively on the issue or conflict? You want a location that promotes connection between the two of you.
• What ground rules are important for you to be able to have a productive discussion?’ For instance, you might agree to disagree.

When you meet, turn off your cell phones, step away from your computer, do not answer your home phone and organize your time in a way that leaves you free to focus on the issue at hand. Clarify the issue you are discussing. If other issues arise during your discussion, agree to discuss those issues at another time. That will help to focus your discussion and keep you on track. Be clear of your intention to resolve the issue so that you achieve mutual satisfaction and a resolution you both can support. Martha and I found that a half an hour was usually an amount of time that worked in our busy lives.

Having this kind of time routinely built into our lives to take care of issues and problems as they arose during the week was a great way stay connected, to keep problems from overwhelming us and to stay on the same page with respect to what was important to us. We recognized that having conflicts and arguments came with being married. Being in partnership around how we go about tackling our problems has made all the difference in the world.

Prior to the eighteenth century in Western Europe and elsewhere around the globe, marriage between a man and a woman had little to do with lifelong loving companionship. What is more, a betrothed couple had little to say in the matter; it was often not even their choice to get married! In her research on the history of marriage, Coontz (2005) writes that, over many generations, most societies held marriage as an important political and economic institution that ensured that nobility could acquire vast wealth and/or political power through making alliances with other families. Also, for people of less means, marriage allowed families to pool resources, such as land and an adequate labor force, to support a family business. It wasn’t the two people getting married who made the choice to marry; it was their parents, community elders, clergy or politicians. That two people can choose to get married on the basis of their love for each other has only been around for a little over two hundred years.

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century influenced relations between men and women in radical ways. Societal ideals such as individual liberty, freedom of speech and the equality of men began to challenge older conceptions of marriage. In Western Europe and America, the freedom to choose whom you could marry was an utterly new idea. It ushered in a new realm of personal responsibility for one’s marriage. One could argue that without the fundamental opportunity to choose, a person or a couple had no real sense of responsibility for the quality of one’s marriage. Prior to this time, two people could live in a state of matrimony and pay little attention to the quality of their relationship. For thousands of years, societal norms allowed husbands to wield great power in marriage. Husbands owned all the property in the family, including his wife’s possessions, made family decisions, often unilaterally, and punished his wife if she disobeyed him. There was little equality between the sexes, no real freedom of speech or any real focus on the quality of one’s marriage. All this began to transform during The Enlightenment.

Coontz (2005) writes that with the rise of the market economy during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, men were freed from their families to earn a living and husbands were now seen as the person in the family who was responsible for being the the main economic provider. A wife’s role was to set the standards for moral behavior and to attend to the emotional needs of family members. Married couples began to set up their own households and their homes became places of refuge from one’s work and community responsibilities. The emotional climate in the home began to be an important factor in the health and well-being of one’s marriage.

With men and women being able to choose whom they could marry, couples began to marry for one simple little reason: They loved each other. Now men and women had a dual task in their marital life: How to keep their experience love alive and stay committed to each other over a lifetime. This was squarely their job now.

Reference

Coontz, S. (2005) Marriage, a history: How love conquered marriage. New York, New York: Penguin Books.

Sometime after our third child was born in 1991, Martha and I sat down and created 50-year vision of our future. We imagined our three children going to college and each of them pursing their interests and work that they love. We envisioned traveling overseas and even talked about living in a foreign country at some point. We thought about what is would be like for our children to get married and for us to be grandparents one day. We discussed having our own businesses and even doing work together. We even imagined being at our 90th birthday parties!

Twenty years later much of what we saw for our lives that day has come to fruition. And much has yet to happen. Scott M. Stanley (2005) who has studied the power of commitment in marriage says that a couple who shares and nurtures a vision for their life together lives with a greater sense of fulfillment and prosperity. He even says that a vision is necessary for a strong and healthy marriage. He cites research evidence that suggests that happier couples talk regularly about their future, whereas unhappy couples do not.

It begs the question, why is vision so important for a healthy and vibrant marriage? A vision helps a couple to view their lives in the long arc of time, shared meaningful experiences, necessary life transitions and individual and joint accomplishments. Stanley (2005) suggests that a vision provides a couple with a ‘long view.’ The vision that Martha and I created years ago has helped us to shape the life that we have shared to date and will continue to give meaning to our marriage for years to come.

Here are specific benefits of taking the long view in your marriage (Stanley, 2005):

• A couple views their relationship as being able to weather life’s difficult times.
• A couple is better able to gain a healthy perspective when problems arise.
• A couple feels secure enough with their relationship that they are able to take risks that they know will challenge them.
• A couple knows that they can trust each other and not lose faith when things don’t work out for the best.
• A couple invests time and energy in the growth of their relationship and the quality of their marriage.
• A couple participates in important family traditions which bring continuity to their lives.

Here are great questions to ask yourselves:

• What future are you building together?
• What are your dreams? (Examples are traveling, playing with grandchildren, writing a book, learning a musical instrument, getting involved in politics, creating a business, etc.)
• What are your goals (financial, marital, family, recreational, educational, career, etc.) individually and jointly?
• What support do you request from your partner and also need from others?

It is an important investment of time and energy to set aside an occasion to talk about the future you are building together, to share your dreams and to create plans of action to make your vision come true. Get out your calendars and schedule time to build your future!

Reference

Stanley, S. M. (2005) The power of commitment: A guide to lifelong love. San Francisco, California: Josey-Bass.

In his research with over 2000 couples, John Gottman (1994) studied the patterns of interaction and the emotional ‘ecology’ of marital relationships. He discovered that, in stable and healthy marriages, couples engaged in approximately five positive interactions to every one negative interaction. He called this finding the ‘magic ratio’ and found it to be predictive of marital relationships that were characterized by love and respect. These couples tended to show concern and caring for each other, affection toward one another, and interest in what each other was doing.

He also found that conflict was not necessarily harmful to a marriage as long as couples could engage in ‘repair mechanisms’ where they could restore their loving connection with each other. Anger and disagreement were found to be healthy for one’s marriage if the couple had sound ways to resolve issues and solve problems as they arose.

Couples who were unable to maintain that healthy magic ratio tended to have interactions that were characterized by greater negativity in the form of criticism, defensiveness, contemptuousness and withdrawal. He was able to document that such negativity expressed over a period of time has very deleterious effects on the stability and health of a marriage.

One of the most interesting findings was that couples who could focus on how they were interacting with each other when they were in conflict had much better success in resolving their issues without hurting their relationship. Right in the middle of their argument, one person might request to be heard or be able to finish what they were saying without being interrupted. Also, one partner might stop to comment on what was happening in their interaction or let their partner know that they were still listening.

Couples with a healthy emotional ecology in their marriage were able to stay focused both on the conversation at hand and manage the emotional sphere between them when they were in conflict. They were able to successfully manage the temperature of their argument. They simultaneously attended to the content and the process of their interactions.

Reference

Gottman, J. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail: And how you can make yours last. New York: Simon and Schuster.

This is an exercise that will help you and your partner to create a very succinct statement about what is important to your relationship. This exercise was adapted from the work of Harrold (2001).

Step 1: In this part of the exercise, consider the following questions together. Simply have a conversation as you consider the four questions below. Take notes if you wish as you engage in the conversation.

• Question 1: What do you want most out of your lives together? What is most important to you in your lives? What is it that lights you both up? What engages you in life? What gives you pleasure? What means more to you than anything else in the world?
• Question 2: How will having the above make you feel in your relationship? As you consider this question, envision that you have what you want and are doing what you want in partnership. Conjure up that vision. What is it like for you to have all that you desire? What are you feeling?
• Question 3: What makes your relationship special? What do you say are the most valuable qualities and strengths of your relationship?
• Question 4: What are you both committed to focusing on right now to achieve that which is most important to you with respect to what you discovered in question 1?

Step 2. Next, together you create the Vision Statement for your relationship in the following format:

“We will (add the answer(s) to question 4) using our (add the answer(s) to question 3) to accomplish/to have (add the answer(s) to question 2) and in so doing achieve (add the answer(s) to question 1) in our life together.”

An example might be: “We will have exploratory conversations using our creativity, planning and partnership to design a project to travel to five continents over the next three years and in so doing be self-expressed, joyful and world travelers.”

Spend ten or fifteen minutes sharing with each other. What are you experiencing as you share your Vision Statement with each other?  With whom in your lives are you going to share your Vision Statement?

Reference

Harrold, F. (2001). Be your own life coach: How to take control of your own life and achieve your wildest dreams. London, England: Hodder and Stoughton.

This blog could also be entitled “Why My Wife Never Sees the Trash.”  Let me explain. One of the choices I made almost thirty-five years ago in my relationship with my wife, Martha, was that I would be responsible for taking out the trash. I like to take out the trash. I do it regularly every Thursday morning, every week. When I walk into a room, I often notice how much trash there is in the wastebasket. If I notice that a wastebasket is full, I automatically, without thinking about it, empty the trash into the bigger trash basket in the kitchen. When I see that the kitchen basket is full, I tie up the plastic trash bag and I put it in the large bin outside. I do this all the time. I do it gladly.

Some time ago, however, I became curious: Why is it that Martha rarely does this activity spontaneously? In other words, why does it seem that she never ‘sees’ the trash? Routinely, she (and my grown children when they are home) walks right past a full wastebasket and rarely empties it. Sometimes, members of my family will attempt to put something else in an already overflowing and bursting kitchen basket. It appears that they don’t see that the basket is full or what needs to be done.  Why don’t they just tie it up and take it outside to the large trash container?

It occurred to me that no one else empties the trash because they don’t see the trash in the same way I do. When I see a full trash basket, I am ‘called’ into action to empty it. I see the trash because I ‘am’ a commitment to emptying the trash, a choice I made many years ago. When I made that choice, I became The-Person-Who-Takes-Care-Of-The-Trash. As a result, the trash occurs for me differently than for Martha. Knowing this allowed me to let go of any resentment or irritation I’ve had about being the only person who takes out the trash.  Martha will actually tell you that one of my favorite moments of the week is when the garbage trucks arrive to haul away the garbage that I have put on the curbside that morning!

For Martha, the analogous situation is doing the laundry. In the early stages of our marriage, Martha committed to take care of washing and drying the clothes. She has completed this task regularly and responsibly for years. In our relationship, she is The-Person-Who-Takes-Care-Of-The-Laundry. From time to time, she asks me to do it and I do it happily. On a regular basis, though, I never ‘see’ the laundry in the same way that she does.  I am rarely called into action to do it. I rarely see doing the laundry as something that I need to do. Why? I never chose to do it. Martha, my partner, did.

Turvey and Olson (2006) build the case that corporate executives have consistently underestimated importance of marriage and family wellness in affecting the financial success of their businesses. Their research shows that employees with healthy marriages can increase the long-term profitability of a company and that employees with failing marriages can do just the reverse. Their research implies that there is an interdependence between the health of business and the health of marriages and families.

Turvey and Olson (2007) review research to suggest that employee marital problems and divorce can impact American business results significantly:

• Marital problems often cause decreased productivity, increased stress and absenteeism
• Divorce can disrupt the productivity of an individual worker for up to three years
• Divorcing employees often have serious health concerns and concomitant rising health insurance costs
• $6 million dollars is lost because of such decreased productivity because of marital problems at home
• And more generally, stress-related family problems cost corporations in America as much as $300 billion per year

These authors write that companies and businesses that invest in family well-ness programs, marital education and relationship coaching for their employees positively impact their profitability.

• Companies with a focus on family and marital well-ness have lower turnover rates and lower rates of absenteeism.
• Happily married employees are healthier and more stable in their jobs
• Happily married couples increase company profits

Companies are well advised to pay greater attention to families and martial relationships by offering educational wellness programs, relationship coaching, marital and family therapy and family friendly employee practices. Turvey and Olson (2007) conclude that relationship issues in the workplace cannot be ignored. To impact productivity, work effectiveness, and their financial success positively, corporate and business executives are wise to make healthy marriage their priority.

References

Turvey, M.D. & Olson, D.H. (2006) Marriage and Family Wellness: Corporate America’s Business? Life Innovations, Inc.