Making Marriage Work For Dummies

Steven Simring, Sue Klavans Simring, Gene Busnar

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780764551734
• eBook ISBN: 9781118069196
• Edition: 1

The inspiration for countless one-liners, witty sayings, stage farces and not a few murder mysteries, marriage is more than just a relationship between two people. It's one of life's biggest adventures and a healthy marriage can be one of life's greatest gifts. But weathering the stresses and strains of married life and maintaining healthy marital bonds over a span of decades takes work, and sometimes you need help from a friendly expert. Which is where Making Marriage Work For Dummies comes in.

Drawing on their experiences with thirty years of marriage, during which they raised three children, as well as decades of couples counseling, experts Steven and Sue Simring show you how to build a strong, happy and long-lasting marriage. They offer priceless tips on how to deal with most problems that come up between married couples, and they offer advice on how to:

• Make your relationship more romantic
• Work out big and small differences
• Argue in ways that strengthen you relationship
• Resolve disputes over money
• Cope with mid-life change
• Handle a spouse who cheats
• Deal with families and in-laws
• Reduce stress on your marriage
• Understand your partner's annoying habits and quirks
• Balance career and family goals
• Seek professional help when you need it

Illustrating their points with insightful, often amusing anecdotes from their own marriage and from the marriages of hundreds of couples they've counseled over the years, the Simrings explore such crucial topics as:

• Deciding if marriage is right for you
• Six common marriage myths
• Understanding the roots of marital problems
• Communicating with your partner
• The do's and don'ts of fair marital fighting
• Making marriage sexy
• Examining the marriage life cycle
• Ideas for resolving money differences
• Succeeding with remarriage

Filled with ideas you can use now to keep your marriage as strong as the day you took your vows, this is a survival guide for everyone committed to making marriage work.

Part I

What It Means To Say “I Do!”

In this part . . .

Whether you’re already married or considering tying the knot, reading this part gives you an eye-opening look at the realities of marriage, and separates these realities from all of the myths and unrealistic expectations that people take for granted. In Chapter 1, you have a chance to compare what you gain to what you give up when you marry. You find out why the fear of being “stuck in a relationship for life” can turn out to be one of the real pluses of choosing marriage over living together or remaining single.

Chapter 2 explores the building blocks of a successful marriage. We describe productive ways in which couples deal with differences and disappointments that erode loving feelings. We show you why no marriage can deliver absolute happiness, and help you assess whether your marriage is good enough to meet you and your partner’s emotional needs.

Chapter 1

Taking a Candid Look at Marriage

In This Chapter

Understanding the difference between living together and marriage

Recognizing why marriage isn’t for everyone

Understanding marriage pluses and minuses

Looking at what each partner gives up

Deflating six common marriage myths

I n this chapter, we talk about the key differences between marriage and other kinds of relationships. We look at some of the tradeoffs women and men face when they decide to marry, and help you take an objective look at the pluses and minuses of your marriage. Don’t worry — we don’t expect perfection.

We’ve been counseling married couples and navigating the twists and turns of our own marriage for three decades, so we know better than to expect perfection. Anyone who claims to have a perfect marriage is either clueless or overly attached to the myths that we deflate in this chapter — myths that would have you believe that happy couples should do everything together or that they never argue.

Whether you’ve been married for decades or are considering tying the knot, we help you take an honest look at your relationship and start pinpointing areas that can use improvement. A successful marriage isn’t rocket science. Mostly, it’s a matter of commitment to each other, love, mutual respect, and trying to have fun as you work at making it better.

To Marry or Not to Marry?

Many people consider living together to be just like marriage, except without the certificate. In fact, marriage differs from all other forms of pairing (including living together) in one very important way which has nothing to do with a piece of paper.

Living together means that you are free to leave at any time, without going through the hassle and expense of a divorce. Marriage entails a commitment to your partner, a promise that says that you won’t just get up and walk out at a moment’s notice. When all is said and done, that legal, social, and emotional commitment is the most important difference between marriage and living together. Which, by the way, is the whole point of dragging your families and the rest of the community into the process: To declare to the world that you are making a lifetime pledge to another human being.

After living together for a time, many couples find it difficult to agree on the importance of marriage. Very often, the lack of agreement stems from one or both individuals not wanting to make the commitment that marriage entails.

If you and your partner are debating whether to get married, following these steps may help you come to a decision:

1. Sit down and have an honest discussion about the way each of you feels about the advantages and disadvantages of marriage.

The next section in this chapter, “Understanding Marriage Pluses and Minuses,” can prepare you for this discussion.

Couples marrying for the first time need to recognize that cohabitation doesn’t provide the same dedication to each other as does marriage. Researchers have found that married couples who lived together before marriage are twice as likely to divorce as other couples. One explanation for this may be that living together fosters an atmosphere of noncommitment. Couples considering marriage need to recognize that marriage involves the loss of certain freedoms, and that this is part of the tradeoff when you commit to a lifelong bond.

When people marry for the first time, they cast their lots together for the common good. Even when one spouse has more money than the other, there is a feeling that separate bank accounts or prenuptial agreements may undermine the relationship. The situation is often different for older or previously married couples. People in this position may want companionship, but they find it advantageous to keep finances separate. This makes sense when one or both partners have children and property from an earlier marriage, and don’t want to risk jeopardizing them.

If, after an honest, ongoing discussion, one of you has serious doubts about making a commitment and the other is set on marriage, the two of you have to decide whether you can bridge this difference in the foreseeable future.

2. Set a timeframe for working out your differences regarding marriage.

You can agree to suspend making a decision for a set period of time — say six months or a year. If, at that point, you both still can’t decide between living together and marriage, you may want to consider whether your long-term goals will ever be compatible.

If you want a committed lifetime relationship, living together is no substitute for marriage. Sharing an apartment, having sex, and keeping your options open may be fine for a while, but ultimately, most people want to take that next step, into marriage, at least once.

Understanding Marriage Pluses and Minuses

If you and your partner are in the process of deciding whether you should get married, taking a look at the advantages and disadvantages of marriage may help you make your decision. If you’re already married, reading this section may remind you of some of the reasons you decided to get married in the first place!

Marriage pluses

We once attended a civil wedding ceremon...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : What It Means To Say “I Do!”
• Chapter 1: Taking a Candid Look at Marriage
• Chapter 2: The Five Building Blocks of a Working Marriage
• Part II : Can We Talk?
• Chapter 3: Understanding the Roots of Marital Problems
• Chapter 4: Communicating with Your Partner
• Chapter 5: Fighting the Fair Way
• Part III : Making Marriage Sexy
• Chapter 6: Developing a Great Sex Life
• Chapter 7: When Sex Falters
• Part IV : Examining the Marriage Life Cycle
• Chapter 8: The First Years of Marriage
• Chapter 9: The Growing Family
• Chapter 10: Women and Men at Midlife
• Chapter 11: Making the Most of Marriage at Midlife
• Chapter 12: Remarriage and Stepfamilies
• Part V : Maintaining a Healthy Marriage
• Chapter 13: Reducing the Stress on Your Marriage
• Chapter 14: Exploring the Role of Money in Marriage
• Chapter 15: Examining Extramarital Affairs — and Knowing What to Do about Them
• Chapter 16: Getting Outside Help
• Chapter 17: Understanding Divorce and Its Alternatives
• Part VI : The Part of Tens
• Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Make Your Marriage More Romantic
• Chapter 19: Ten Things You Should Never Say to Your Partner
• Chapter 20: Ten Ways To Have a Fair Fight
• Chapter 21: Ten Signs That Your Marriage Is in Trouble
• Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Have a More Exciting Sex Life
• Appendix A: References
• Appendix B: Resources