Getting cold feet about your wedding? Don’t feel bad, it’s very common. Maybe you are getting some negative input from those around you. Everybody says that marriage is hard work.
And there’s a reason we married people say that. We don’t want people going into marriage with unrealistic expectations. To think that marriage is going to solve all problems. That this person is their one true soul-mate, and there’s never been another person in the world they could have been happy with. I’ve used the inventories in premarital counseling, like FOCCUS and Prepare Enrich. If the inventories come back from scoring and you’ve got issues in the area of expectations, those are major red flags that you have to address.
But to just make a blanket statement that marriage is hard work. I’m just wondering if people hear that from everyone and begin to wonder if they really need more work to do. I work all day and come home and I’ve got to work on my marriage? Some people need to be talked out of marriage, at least until they ready, but we don’t need to talk everybody out of marriage. To make marriage sound so difficult that no one in their right mind would get married.
Marriage is hard work? Ok, life is hard. The first words of the book The Road Less Traveled are “Life is difficult.” The author Scott Peck goes on to say that until a person accepts that truth they can’t make the adjustments that are necessary along the way to keep from going nuts. Marriage is hard? Ok, single life can be pretty hard too. A lot of single people would like to be married.
There is strength in being connected with others in life. Certainly this true in marriage.
It’s really helpful to be able to share life’s tasks, the bills, the challenges, the headaches, all the hard stuff about life.
I’d like to turn our thoughts another way here. Even the hard part about marriage is good news. What do I mean? Does marriage require making adjustments? Does it require learning to be unselfish? Does it require learning how to love another imperfect human being? Tell me what’s bad about that?
If we understand what marriage is really about, we see that we weren’t given marriage not just so that our needs would be met. We were given marriage to be brought into the most intimate of human connections to meet the deepest needs of another human being. And in doing that we learn what it really means to be a human being. And that by giving to another we find greater joy and purpose in life.
If you still want to think about marriage as hard work, then think about it as a job you really like. It’s work, but you enjoy doing it. You like the people you work with. And there are mutual benefits when you work together for common goals. You have problems at work, there are setbacks and challenges, but you don’t think a moment about quitting. You find your work fulfilling and it’s too much fun along the way.
Some would have you to believe that most marriages are unhappy. Not according to a new national poll reported in Parade Magazine (September 21, 2008). 88% of the couples rated their marriage as happy or at least reasonably content. The majority had been faithful to their spouse. The majority said they would marry the same person if they had it to do over again.
And did you know that even most bad marriages improve over time. Permanent unhappiness is rare. One study found that 86% of couples who stayed together despite having marital problems reported being much happier 5 years later.
How do married couples get through their marital conflicts? Often, they need to reach outside themselves to find a licensed marriage counselor. Today, there is even good marriage counselor resources online.
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