by desib77 88 Replies latest jw friends
Ask your self on a daily basis ..."What did I do to anger the G Hoover so much that I am to be punished like this?"Then reflect on your past and say "Oh, yeah ... it could have been any of a number of things."
LOL, Dan-O. That was my first marriage.
From personal experience, I can say that I believe that a marriage must first be based on respect, because I believe that love grows from respect. Without respect, one does not care if there is communication, does not care if there is intimacy, and does not care whether there is any real love. So, in my book, respect has to come first.
Example: Look at mail-order brides or people whose marriage was arranged by their parents and whose marriages are also successful. (I actually know a couple whose parents arranged their marriage). The love grew out of RESPECT for one another. So, without it, I do not think a marriage can survive.
growedup
P.S. Are there any respectable men out there?!!! LOL!
Are there any respectable men out there?!!!
Aren't those terms mutually exclusive???
Glad he didn't figure that our when we were kids. We would have gone to school hungry with empty lunch boxes.
There is no way I would have let that happen. I spent 30 sleep deprived years, getting up with kids, babies and husband. After they were grown, even Dave realized I deserved a break now.
My mother also had horrible insomnia, and I can't remember that she was ever awake in the mornings when I was growing up. I know I rarely ate breakfast and always bought my lunch, unless I packed it myself. I was determined my children would have a mother in the mornings.
Hmmm...thats a tough question....as 2 out of 3 first and 75% of 2nd marriages end in divorce so I don't think there are ever any guaranteed guidelines.
I guess the best chance you can have is to marry someone that you don't want to change.
I would never get annoyed about the little daily niggles... ..life's to short....I need any concerns I have to be taken seriously and answered.... if I feel i'm being placated or ignored, i'll switch off eventually......
and respect; when the respects gone, it's over...
Interesting article at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/05/10/hmarr10.xml
'Rules' for a happy marriage
(Filed: 10/05/2004)
So much for romance being at the heart of a good relationship. Researchers have found that couples who make a success of wedlock have spent the first few years in hard negotiation. Barbara Lantin reports
What is the recipe for a successful marriage? Like most of my friends who have recently celebrated silver weddings, I profess to believe that the secret of a long-lasting relationship is nothing less than female sainthood. However, a seminar on the subject held in London last week suggests that the truth is rather more complex.
| Band of gold: good marriages share common factors |
Happy, long-term relationships apparently depend less on romantic notions like "the perfect match" of personalities than something much more prosaic ? a common agenda quietly negotiated in those first few tricky years and then stuck to. Adversities, such as financial insecurity, ill-health and even infidelity, can rock a marriage, but they do not necessarily wreck it: sometimes, they actually leave it stronger.
With one marriage in four ending in divorce before the fifth wedding anniversary, the institution is undoubtedly under siege. Social change may be partly to blame, according to the 60 men and women ? all married for between five and 50 years ? who were interviewed by researchers at Loughborough University.
"Participants felt that marriage was not held in the same esteem as 30 years ago," says Liz Sutton, of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough. "They believed that a readiness to 'work at a relationship' and the desire to make it work even when it was under duress were essential to a lasting marriage, but that cultural changes meant people felt it was easier to walk away.
"Commitment was seen as crucial, although people found it hard to define what that was: for older people, it seemed to be about duties, but the younger ones saw it more as a personal expression of loyalty to each other. Love, emotional stability and support, a mutual recognition of the need to give and take and ? to a lesser extent ? financial security, were described as the key ingredients in a 'good' marriage."
Marriage ? or long-term cohabitation ? goes through three distinct stages, building and unfolding "like a Mexican wave", according to Dr Robin Gutteridge, senior lecturer in health psychology at the University of Central England in Birmingham, who conducted detailed interviews with 12 couples who had been together for an average of 44 years.
During the initial five-year "testing" phase, vital negotiations take place about issues such as the balance of power and the division of labour. "A lot of time is spent establishing a baseline that is right for each couple and to which they return in the future to check how the relationship is doing," says Dr Gutteridge. "The foundations for later success are laid early on."
In the second, "building" phase, running roughly to the silver wedding anniversary, the couple must initially defer gratification of their individual needs and invest heavily in their relationship and family. This period of consolidation is followed by the "maturing" phase. "As obligations lessen, the couple begin to see their marriage as a harmonious entity that gives them opportunities for themselves as individuals. The resources accumulated in the earlier years can be drawn on and used."
The concept of marriage as an investment dominated the seminar, which was organised by the National Family and Parenting Institute, the relationships research organisation One Plus One and the charity Care for the Family.
"Couples are aware that more energy is going into the relationship at certain transition periods, which are often more stressful for one partner than the other," says Dr Janet Reibstein, a psychology lecturer at Exeter University, who is writing a book on long-lasting couples. "But they view it as 'money in the bank' that they can draw on when the roles are reversed."
This deposit of goodwill can be cashed in during times of trouble. More than half the couples interviewed by Dr Gutteridge had survived infidelity, often thought to be fatal to a good marriage.
"Infidelity can be a force for problem recognition and problem solving. It makes couples aware that the marriage - like a radio - is not quite tuned in," says Dr Gutteridge. "One couple used it to evaluate their relationship and assess whether they wanted to continue. They did, but made some major changes."
Another myth exploded by Dr Gutteridge's research is that honesty is always the best policy.
"I came across a lot of collusion between husband and wife where both parties knew what was going on but had decided not to talk about it," she says. "This is not the same as lying, where one party is in ignorance. It was as if they were not sure they could cope with exposing the topic to public view."
There is no single formula for a successful relationship: each couple make their own concessions and compromises, which might seem intolerable to others. "One woman I interviewed could recall being angry with her husband only once," says Dr Reibstein, "whereas another couple regularly slept in separate bedrooms following arguments, but one always went to cuddle the other in the morning.
"The critical issue here is expectation. If, during the early stages of marriage, your expectation is that you are not supposed to feel so angry that you want to leave, you might give up on the relationship. But if you expect to encounter hard times, you will develop ways around them."
Dr Reibstein identified other common threads among the 150 successful couples she used as the basis for her research. They tended to have converging "stories" about their shared past and present - for example, the story of how they met.
"This contrasts with divorcing couples, where you get different stories about how they got to where they are. For example, the wife will say things went wrong after her husband had an affair and he will say that the turning point was when the children arrived."
Happy couples tend to have the same positive approach that other researchers have observed in employees who are satisfied in their work. This means not dwelling on a better past or future or what is missing from the mix, but on how they can adapt themselves to the constraints of the relationship.
"This approach works best when both partners actively contribute," says Dr Reibstein. Successful strategies identified by the Loughborough team included good communication, doing things together and separately, a sense of humour, effective conflict avoidance and resolution, and gestures of affection. Gutteridge agrees that it is vital for couples to identify the small things that make a difference to their partner - and to do this early in the relationship.
"If a husband brings his wife flowers - perhaps because that is what his father did for his mother - but that is not something she values, then they 'miss' each other. A cup of tea in bed or taking the children out on Saturday afternoons might mean more to her. The act can be practical, material or emotional, but it is something that each partner recognises as something done by one for the other.
"In the early 'testing' phase of the marriage, couples have to be honest enough to say what would mean most to them, and to do this gently and not in an attacking way. These small exchanges of affection give people confidence that they matter and that they are going to be treated kindly. Being kind to each other is very important."
I have finally found someone that I truly love and that truly loves me. He's also my best friend.
Desi,
That in my opinion is the secret, being best friends. My wife and I dearly love one another and are still attracted to one another very much, but what we always come back to is our friendship. We make each other laugh so much that when we are in a restaurant people will turn around in their seats to see who is causing the commotion. Mrs. exjdub is the funniest person I know and she has a heart of gold...how else could she put up with me for 23 years?
exjdub
No one has mentioned , deceit, money, and denial. All the examples of a good lasting marriage are either based on fantasy or a lack of experience. Good , lasting marriages of the kind described here are very , very rare and, in my opinion, most would fall apart in an open and honest psycho drama. Even Solomon would attest to this. I don't blame those who continue in the sham of a ' lovely " marriage after all, religion serves the same purpose, it is comfortable. My suggestion is to look at it honestly and respect and honor that life itself is not what we thought . Perhaps that realization could be the basis for continuing with respect. Otherwise we are marking time to the grave. Find new ways to see your partner. This business about toilet seats and bad habits is small minded decadence, absurd, the expression of complacent habit and neurotic tolerance, Your partner is infinitely interesting and within his or her mind is a fountain head of dynamic thoughts and emotions, ready to be expressed if he or she felt safe. It was this that you shared when you were infatuated in your youth. It has been covered over with "conditioned" ideas. Life has taken its toll. Open up, take the chance and see who it is you are really married to.
I have always felt deep down inside that in our lives you run into "your one and only" once in your life. The minute I met my wife I knew she was "the one".
However for those who don't beleive this our marraige has lasted because we both have our own lives and careers. You can't always be with each other somerithering one another or you will end up killing each other, yet it is important to play hooky from work once in a while and take a ride into the country or go shopping at a outlet mall, or just have a nice romactic candle lite dinner getting all dressed up a couple a times a year. Buy each other little gifts other than the usual anniversary, christmas, valetines crap fests. Work on projects together, split household chores, give and take a little.
Just my two cents on my succesful marriage of twelve years this June 20.
It may be a little of my JW upbringing but I was married in the Catholic Church and I do believe that marraige is a vow, so I would desperately would try not to get a divorce unless things really turned bad and it doesn't look that way.
LOL @ LT!!
Are there any respectable men out there?!!!Aren't those terms mutually exclusive???
Apparently, only when they wear kilts........!
growedup
