What are successful marriages really like? (dating, wife, how to, marriage)
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It’s common for people to not know what a successful relationship looks like. They may have few role models to look to. This makes it difficult to figure out how to be a good partner.
TBH if you find the right person it's not too hard.
About myself i'm married for 3 years, 1 daughter and my wife called me out the other day for something silly. She said she was cold while we were standing in line at costco. She was wearing a sweater and i was wearing a t-shirt and a light coat. not wanting to feel cold myself i didn't do the chivalrous thing by giving her my jacket. instead i said the car is close do you want to get your jacket? she replied no and i thought that was that. later while we were talking about something else that came up and she says imagine if we were dating and i said that..
it may be death by a thousand cuts and i'm perfectly aware of how easy it would be lose trust in a relationship. but i think what keeps the engine running is the trying to better ourselves.
You are correct about the modeling being needed. Problem solving is a skill that needs to be developed and it begins when we are young children.
One characteristic of a good marriage is to have a pathway back from disappointment.
All my life, my mistakes were pointed out to me (really, they weren't mistakes, just not the preferred way of doing things.) I constantly felt like I "dropped the ball." I took it personally each and very time, which is the bane of any relationship. When I realized what was happening, my thinking was that at least I caught the darn ball (because it looked like nobody else bothered with that person). But the other person didn't see it that way. Even saying "at least I tried" was not enough. This bred a lot of insecurity in me which had lasting effects on me. I became a people pleaser. Then I ended marrying a person who was exactly as my family.
Now that I am a parent, I am careful to teach this lesson explicitly to my daughter. It is a lesson I never received and so mistakes were inevitable. I gave my daughter the opportunity to use the phrase "drop the ball", to rephrase it for those who didn't understand, or to decide if the time or place warranted such a comment. My husband watched this and wondered about it. Asked what was going on. So we explained.
So we used the phrase on him when he got upset over something that wasn't done to his exact preference (that only a mind reader could know outside of him). Sometimes it made him more upset, sometimes he turned the negative situation around. Once I told him, "take your ball home. The ball will fit through the door but your head may not." And my daughter and husband burst out laughing. Later, my daughter told me, you know, I always wanted my family to have inside jokes. I am glad I made my daughter's wish come true.
I've had an early bad marriage and I have been in a good one now for almost 30 years niw.
A couple of things:
There is no one size fits all. I'm sure the relationship that my DH and I have would not suit a diehard romantic or a traditionalist for example.
It helps that we are well matched in that we are both independent, a bit standoffish, self contained, low maintenance, with very similar values.
We SEE each other and are witnesses and co-journeymen in each other's lives.
We try to fight fair when it's necessary and never say anything designed to wound, as words can never be taken back and will eat away at the foundation of love and friendship if they are used as poisonous arrows.
Expertise leads. We have a balanced set of knowledge and skills. The person with the skillset leads in any particular arena.
We both have and maintain our own money but make decisions jointly about large purchases and direction of our investments and expenditures.
We share both labor and fun.
We decided to not be parents for multiple reasons which turned out to be a very good decision for us.
We are each other's best friend.
Works for us. I would expect that there are successful marriages out there that are workable for the partners that I would find unacceptable. The temperamental match is one of the most important qualities IMO.
There's a LOT that can be said here. But to be as brief as possible, you want a partner/spouse who is:
- you feel like this is YOUR PERSON...like God meant for this person to be your lifelong partner
- in your corner 200%
- loving
- respectable
- fun to be with
- sensible
- a good head on their shoulder
- being able compromise
- you two can enjoy the simplest things in life & enjoy each other's company...life isn't always like Disneyland
- can be serious, silly, or calm & mellow, etc. when the situations are appropriate for them
- when something hurts your partner, it genuinely hurts you too
- you have a true friendship as well as passion
- you can disagree or argue in a healthy way. It shouldn't be anything destructive, name-calling, degrading, tearing up property, etc.
- if you have kids, agree to be a united front & have the same ideologies on how to raise kids
There should NOT be any of the following in a successful marriage:
- emotional, verbal, physical abuse of any kind
- alcoholism
- drug abuse
- womanizing/cheating/affairs
- gambling excessively
- lying
- negative obsessions
- hiding about important issues: Money, bills, etc.
- control issues
- Spending habits out of control
- immature behaviors/not acting like adults
- making the other feel odd, uncomfortable, insecure, etc.
- narcissism - nothing's good about any of those traits so if you have a narc partner, it's never going to be good
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that's off the top of my head.
It’s common for people to not know what a successful relationship looks like. They may have few role models to look to. This makes it difficult to figure out how to be a good partner.
It’s common for people to not know what a successful relationship looks like. They may have few role models to look to. This makes it difficult to figure out how to be a good partner.
This may sound cold to some, but they always seem to involve one thing - a modicum of financial security. Please note that I did not say that all successful marriages involve wealthy people.
What I said is marriages involving people who are financially insecure are seldom successful.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Forever Blue
There's a LOT that can be said here. But to be as brief as possible, you want a partner/spouse who is:
- you feel like this is YOUR PERSON...like God meant for this person to be your lifelong partner
- in your corner 200%
- loving
- respectable
- fun to be with
- sensible
- a good head on their shoulder
- being able compromise
- you two can enjoy the simplest things in life & enjoy each other's company...life isn't always like Disneyland
- can be serious, silly, or calm & mellow, etc. when the situations are appropriate for them
- when something hurts your partner, it genuinely hurts you too
- you have a true friendship as well as passion
- you can disagree or argue in a healthy way. It shouldn't be anything destructive, name-calling, degrading, tearing up property, etc.
- if you have kids, agree to be a united front & have the same ideologies on how to raise kids
There should NOT be any of the following in a successful marriage:
- emotional, verbal, physical abuse of any kind
- alcoholism
- drug abuse
- womanizing/cheating/affairs
- gambling excessively
- lying
- negative obsessions
- hiding about important issues: Money, bills, etc.
- control issues
- Spending habits out of control
- immature behaviors/not acting like adults
- making the other feel odd, uncomfortable, insecure, etc.
- narcissism - nothing's good about any of those traits so if you have a narc partner, it's never going to be good
I'm sure I'm missing something, but that's off the top of my head.
TBH if you find the right person it's not too hard.
About myself i'm married for 3 years, 1 daughter and my wife called me out the other day for something silly. She said she was cold while we were standing in line at costco. She was wearing a sweater and i was wearing a t-shirt and a light coat. not wanting to feel cold myself i didn't do the chivalrous thing by giving her my jacket. instead i said the car is close do you want to get your jacket? she replied no and i thought that was that. later while we were talking about something else that came up and she says imagine if we were dating and i said that..
it may be death by a thousand cuts and i'm perfectly aware of how easy it would be lose trust in a relationship. but i think what keeps the engine running is the trying to better ourselves.
I agree, that situation was silly. You could have offered to get her jacket from the car. She couldn't possibly. have objected to that, and instead required you to offer your coat. You both had outerwear. She'd chosen not to bring hers into the store. All either of you had. to do, was go get her jacket. Mountain/molehill, much? Even if dating, there's no rule that says you must offer your coat, when your date already has one, but it's in the car.
Sheesh. Expectations!
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