MARRIAGE

 

In our culture, we have very realistic ideas about marriage. We may falsely believe that marriage will bring us great joy (true) all the time (not true). After a few years, marriage gives big thrills only rarely. If your marriage is good one, it gives mostly comfort, closeness, satisfaction with our lives, fun with our kids, and deep gratitude in quite moments for the companionship and life together, we falsely assume that marriage is maintenance-free, which is absolute non-sense. Marriage takes attention effort, and knowledge. We are not given an instruction manual nor the tools for maintenance and repair of loving relationships. When “things go wrong,” we don’t know what is wrong or what to say or who to talk to or how to change our or our partner’s feelings or behavior. Given our impossible expectations of marriage and the fact that we were never encouraged to face our naiveté and ignorance about it, is it any wonder that we walk away when the marriage starts to breaks down and our anger flares. – Dr. Clayton E. Tucker Ladd 1996