Statistics show that couples get a divorce on average 50% of the time in the first eight years. (It used to be five-so I guess this is good news) So, for the first eight years you have one in two chance of getting it right!
Almost 40% of all married couples get divorced in America. First marriages for the first two years are at high risk of divorce. The first five years is still dangerous ground, and as stated above it can go to the first eight years.
In other words, it takes that long for two people to learn to live together.
You are bringing two different people together, sharing one space, or one home. You also bring together two different personality types, with two sets of emotional experiences for many years of life, and two different ways of dealing with those personal experiences. Put them together in a one house, or apartment, and you have some negotiating to do for your personal space and on how to make things work as a team. ‘Team’, now there is a new concept for Americans, where everyone is out for their self.
Two strong willed animals will fight to the death. In all of nature there has to be a dominant leader and the others follow. Two humans will usually over time try to make compromises to appease both parties. 50% of couples are not able to do so.
It is interesting to note, that divorce rates shot skyward after the women rights movement took hold. Until then, my grandparents, and parents, both set the example that the man was the head of the household. The church sets the same example, with the wife submitting to the husband in all things.
This is not to be a dictatorship, but a unit of love and respect for both parties, with a knowledge that there is a ‘spiritual’ headship involved with God being the head of Christ, Christ being the head of the church, and the hiarchy of the angels. Employees are even encouraged to submit to their employers, as to Christ, to promote peace and harmony.
Most couples today practice some form of allowing each other to have their say over certain areas of the household, and then certain other areas need to be discussed and agreed upon together. Sometimes, there arises a situation where there is no agreement, and then the husband is commanded by Scripture to make those decisions as He seeks His Lord for guidance.
Each person brings their own personal self-will to the marriage. They also bring their own personal experiences, physical, emotional, mental, to the marriage. They bring their own personality and culture to the marriage. It becomes a challenge then to merge these two sets of personal experiences and traits into one cohesive ‘unit’ as husband and wife.
Marriage first of all is a relationship. The definition of the word relationship is,
1. connection: a significant connection or similarity between two or more things, or the state of being related to something else
2. behavior or feelings toward somebody else: the connection between two or more people or groups and their involvement with one another, especially as regards the way they behave toward and feel about one another
3. friendship: an emotionally close friendship, especially one involving sexual activity
Relationship is relating. We all have had those experiences, where we say, “I don’t relate to that person.”
The definition of the word ‘relate’ is,
1. have connection with something: to have a significant connection with or bearing on something
2. connect people or things: to find or show a connection between two or more people or things
3. be relevant specifically: to concern, involve, or apply to somebody or something specifically
In other words, in order to have a relationship, one has to be able to relate. Relate means connecting. There has to be a ‘connection’. To connect, two people have to have some things in common. Common goals, common ways of doing things, common ways of thinking about things, common ways of feeling about all of these, and a willingness to change and adapt as a couple to achieve those common goals, with common thoughts and feelings.
You have a connection to your boss, your job, your fellow workers, your friends, your house, your dog, your cat, your banker, your gas company, and other businesses, yourself, and to your girlfriend or your wife. This connection may be broken at any time by one or the other party.
Your boss is constantly on your case, and you say I’m leaving. Your fellow worker talks about you behind your back and the relationship is broken. Your bank keeps charging you unreasonable fees and has poor customer service, you say out of here and switch banks.
You connect to all of these in a different way, on many different levels.
The more something or someone is involved in your personal space, the stronger the connection has to be, for you to continue to share that space.
You throw some things away because they no longer have any use or meaning to you. You put other things in a safe place, because they have strong meaning for you. Other things you keep, but there are no strong feelings about them one way or another, but you do need them from time to time. Still other things, you learn to deal with, because you need it for your personal needs, like that dang car that keeps having issues! You would like to get rid of it, but you still need to get to work, and you don’t have the means to get a replacement!
This holds true for people. I believe certain people come into our lives for a reason, and then they, or we, move on. We no longer need what they brought to us, and they no longer need what we brought to them. Other people you deal with, such as co-workers, you know that you are going to leave them behind after work, and not see them till the next work day. Then there is the gas company, you pay their outrageous bill because you need the heat and hot water! You can have words with them about their high bills, but in the end you learn to play by their rules, knowing they have the power to turn your gas off, and thus your heat and hot water! (The same with your boss, usually, at least until you find a replacement job)Then there are neighbors, good and bad, and you avoid them, or are friendly to them, depending on their dealings with you.
Then there are the people that are very important to you, close friends, family and especially the wife, or the husband. You can’t just walk away from the spouse, so many times you have to bite your tongue, you have to leave the room, when they hurt you and treat you unfairly. At the same time you have to protect your personality and your own personal space. So things do get said, and feelings do get hurt.
At the same time, you have to remember what drew you both together, and if those traits and characteristics are still present, and if they are, you have to commit to working through the pain. This involves saying, “I’m sorry” and trying to forgive and move on. It also involves adjusting your desire to having your own way about this particular problem spot. Sometimes, there has to be compromise for the sake of each other’s feelings. Other times you have to just let sleeping dogs lie.
When a couple first meets, they know within a few minutes to a few hours, whether or not there is a connection. Not a sexual connection, but an emotional connection. There has to be something there that is of kindred spirit, something that draws you to one another, that can’t be put into words.
You can ignore this emotional connection, and just go for the looks and appearance and sexual energy and the surface display of character. You can still have a friendship, a relationship, a connection, but it will fall into one of the levels as mentioned above, business, casual, close, but not intimate.
What is needed is the emotional connection, and this has to be developed into a relationship that each of you can relate to and with.
Not easily done, because our hormones, and surface emotions, get in the way and cloud the waters of love or lust or like or attraction, whatever the case may be.
Once the honeymoon phase passes, which is usually within the first two years, then reality sets in and we begin to see the weak areas of the one who we have shared our personal space with. We usually do not like what we see.
This is the point where commitment has to kick in. This is when you have to remember the emotional connection, and what it was that drew you together in the first place.
If you forget to do this, and you only see the negative about each other, and your marriage will join the national statistic of one out two at the courthouse.
Love starts out as attraction. It ends up as a commitment.
What is love?
It is a strong affection arising out of kinship or personal ties, an attraction based on sexual desire, attraction and tenderness felt by lovers, affection based on common interests, or admiration, the object of attachment, devotion, unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, a person’s adoration of God.
So, love has many different meanings. Throw in two sets of personality traits and you come away with many different misunderstandings of what that word is meaning to the other party. To add to the confusion, this changes with every different set of circumstances!
There are four basic types of personalities, with subset groups to make this list grow to 16 to 24 or 32 depending on which psychologist is speaking.
Take any given personality and add some personal experiences of emotional trauma, pain, being done wrong, loneliness, being misunderstood, and being criticized. Then throw in some variants in our genetics from our parents, back to four generations. Then add the variances of all the chemicals and electrical currents flowing differently throughout two separate bodies. What do you get? Babel! Confusion!
It is no small miracle that anyone stays together for more than a few years…..
The whole problem lies within self. ‘Self’ demands to have its own way.
Adam and Eve lived in harmony and peace in beautiful surroundings with no guilt or shame or awareness of being unclothed. When Satan shows up it changes into a different story. He tempts Eve, and she ‘disobeys’ God’s instructions. She tempts Adam and he disobeys God’s instruction. Satan did not come to Adam first, he came to Eve first.
Woman has always been known as the weaker vessel, and in need of protection. Man has always been known as the stronger vessel and as the protector of his household. How many women lumberjacks do you see? I’m sure that there are a few, but overall, it is a man’s world. Felling gigantic trees is dangerous, difficult work, weeding out even the weaker men. There are not too many Mary Bunyan’s in the world.
Today we see women trying to be as strong as men in all fields of life. Many times, this is out of desperation to make a decent living. Our society has created this need for the woman to have to work. It takes two good incomes to have a piece of the American pie. Even then the slice becomes smaller as each year goes by. Women working in a man’s world, does create confusion and set the stage for conflict. Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus has been written about in several books. If you took Mars and Venus as planets and tried to merge their orbits, you would throw out the whole synchronization of the Universe! But we do it anyway. Lol
The Bible gives the Divine order of the household. God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of the husband. The husband is the head of the wife. The husband and wife is the head of the children.
When Christ was on earth, He did everything to please His Father. He did nothing of His own will. What I have heard my Father speak, that is what I say, were His words. He even prayed to the point of agony for His Father to permit that He not have to die on the cross, and then finally surrendered His will to the will of Father, saying ‘thy will be done’.
The ‘will’ of man is strong. The ‘will’ of a child is strong. The ‘will’ of a dog is strong. The ‘will’ of a horse is strong.
What do you do with a strong willed child, dog, or horse? You have to ‘break’ the ‘will’. If you want the dog or horse to trust you and not be afraid of you, then you have to approach this training with firmness and still let the dog or horse know that you love them. It takes time and repetition and commitment.
If you let the dog or horse or child have its own way, it will always get into trouble, and when an emergency arises, they will not obey your commands, and either get you into trouble or their selves into trouble.
We have all seen the strong willed child in the supermarket. Mom is arguing with the child and the child is arguing with the Mom, and nothing is being corrected about the situation, and it soon gets out of hand, with Mom grabbing the kid and dragging him/her out of the store. Not a pretty sight.
A horse has to be broken to touch, then to walking with you, then to having a blanket on its back, and then to having a saddle on its back, and then to allowing you to get on its back. It is a slow process, while all the time talking to the horse in a firm but loving tone of voice. If the horse never gets ‘broken’ or ‘trained’ then it usually ends up in a field by itself just for show, or it ends up at the glue factory.
Adults have brought their ‘wills’ to the marriage. The ‘will’ has been shaped by their parents and by their experiences with school, work, and society. Nurture and nature are battling for balance. What stage of growth is she in? What stage of growth is he in? Now to complicate things, they both have to ‘train’ each other as a couple sharing one space. Is it any wonder that in today’s world, many people just live together and never get married? Of course this has a direct effect on the divorce rate percentage. If this wasn’t going on, then divorces would probably be three out of four!
Relationship, relating, connecting, all have to do with learning how to play together without getting yelled at.
I remember in my first year of school, being scolded. The memory is still fresh in my mind, because I felt that it was done unjustly.
It was recess. We were outside playing on the playground. There was a small babbling brook running behind the playground and schoolhouse. I was standing by the brook, minding my own business.
This was my first year of school. I was an introvert. I did not have many past experiences with playing with other kids, outside of my little brother. I don’t remember ever playing with any neighbor kids, maybe a few cousins for a few hours, but very seldom. So I was the shy one just standing silently, watching the other kids run and play and laugh, while listening to the water speaking unintelligible sounds across the rocks of the creek bed.
Then behind me there was a boy chasing a girl. (Amazing, isn’t it? Come on, in the first grade?)
She had stopped by me, and firmly told this boy that she did not want to play. His response was to shove her, and she starting crying. My response was to shove the boy, and in doing so, he landed right in the creek. Then he started crying. Of course by this time the whole class was watching the scene. I thought that they thought I was pretty cool by the way of their cheering me on! But, when the teacher showed up, no one came to my rescue!
The teacher came out of the building, and not having seen what had taken place, but only seeing what she saw before her eyes, she immediately grabbed me by the arm and marched me into the classroom, scolding me along the way, in front of the rest of the class! She then made me stand in the corner during the rest of the class! Injustice, unfairness, mistreatment, and abuse, as a six year old!
This was my first real experience of playing with others in a group setting. It was also my first experience of being misjudged by a teacher! I thought that I should have been commended for saving the little girl, but I was scolded and then punished for shoving her attacker!
The point is when there is more than one person involved, there has to be some ground rules for being able to play nice together, and there has to be someone in authority to keep the rules enforced.
You know this from your work. You have learned how to relate to the boss. You have learned how to relate to the coworkers. There are certain ones that you avoid, while there are others that you like to hang out with at lunch and on breaks.
You also know that you can voice an opinion to your boss, but it has to be done in the right way. There are things that you would like to change about your work environment, but you know these things are decided by corporate boss figures, and all you can do is to suggest a change. Will you get the change, not likely, but at least you got to voice your opinion, if you did it in a nice polite way.
How do you approach the boss? You approach with respect for his/her position. You are polite and courteous. You may not like him/her as a person, but he holds the position of being your boss. You don’t storm into the office and demand anything, in a harsh voice. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. He controls your paycheck. He can fire you at will. He can make life miserable for you at work. He is your boss. You need him, so you learn to play by the rules. At least until you can find another job, before he/she fires you! Then you might say a few choice words to him/her, but even then it is dangerous. (Don’t burn any bridges behind you) You may need his good word for another job at another company someday.
In other words, no matter what the situation, from first grade, to your job, to the president running the country, there has to be some protocol and rules of behavior in place. People have to be able to play and work together, and to do that, they need a structure with rules. The bigger the group, the more rules that needs to be in place.
Two married people living together under one roof needs structure just like your boss needs structure at work, and the government needs structure to keep itself wealthy.
Some couples can exist with very little structure. Others need a lot of structure.
The word structure means the action of building. Something arranged in a definite pattern of organization. The organization of parts as dominated by the general character of the whole.
When we live alone, we set our own rules and build our own pattern of doing things. No one else is in the apartment, or house. You do not have to ask anyone about watching a particular show on television, or listening to a particular station on the radio, or about what to do about supper, or should I do the laundry tonight or tomorrow, or if the toilet seat is up or down. You just do it your way, and if you want to change your way tomorrow night, you just do that too! There is no one to scold you, no one to question your ways, and no one to tell you just did that wrong! No one to please but yourself. (Makes one wonder why anyone gets married?)
When there are two people coming home to the same space, then things change. Your structure has to be adapted to keep both parties content with the structure.
Now go back to work, to the person you avoid, to the one you are drawn to. What is it about the two people at work that makes them different?
Courtesy, politeness, respect, acceptance, lack of scolding, lack of questioning, lack of unjust treatment, lack of unfairness, kindness, gentleness, and common interests.
These are the very elements that most married couples fail to maintain from their initial courtship and honeymoon. The end result is that they avoid each other, and are not drawn to each other as they once were.
When we start out in our relationship, we go out of our way to impress the other party. We are so attentive, so polite, so courteous, so patient, so kind, and oh so loving. No harsh words, no upset tone of voice, no unjust treatment, always playing fair. Share and share alike, what is mine, is yours.
Then the lust and the puppy love wears off, usually by the end of two years, sometime sooner, sometimes later. We then begin to see each other’s faults and failings and weaknesses. These become our focus and how much they aggravate us. We forget about the two years of non-stop bragging that we did to everyone about this partner of ours. Instead we see the toilet seat left up, the fridge door left open, the light left on, the dirty clothes in the wrong place, the clean clothes folded incorrectly. She’s picky, he’s moody, and the list goes on and on and on.
We stop relating, we stop connecting, and we begin to play by our own rules, just like we do at work with those who treat us unfairly.
When we play by our own rules, then the structure begins to break down, feelings get hurt, grudges are held, and communication becomes less, and we allow the spark that became a full grown forest fire to dwindle to a faintly glowing ember.
The ember either dies out, or both work at reigniting that flame again.
Melancholics like their quiet time, alone time, and uncomplicated time. They like their world in order, but with some flexibility. They like doing things in different ways to learn how each differs from the other ones. Then they decide which one suits them best. They are more serious and less social than others. They process information more slowly than others, (not because they are not smart, but because their brains are trying to make detailed sense out of all that they are hearing, as well as feeling) and thus become overwhelmed more easily, and carry stress more internally.
They are very smart and intuitive to their own feelings and to others. Their world is a world of feeling, more than a world of thought. They are deep thinkers, but they feel what they think, so they are exhausted more readily than other personality types. They do not like doing things a particular way just because some else says this is the best way. It may not be the best way for them, as it just doesn’t feel right to them.
Melancholics are very sensitive and get their feelings hurt easily. They over analyze everything and then do it all over again. They worry a lot about security and safety, and thus need a plan of action in place to ensure that everything is going to be all right. They are friendly and easy going with most everyone, but they choose their close friends carefully. They think more than they ever speak. The river of their soul runs deep. They are usually more spiritual than other personality types since they are the ones who spend more time in reflection and searching for the unknown, and thus make contact with God more readily.
The Sanguine is very social and outgoing and can be a lot of fun to be around. They make friends easily and all who know them speak well of them. They like to keep things light, and not too serious. They live in the here and now, and only think about tomorrow in dreams, or when there is an emergency. They procrastinate normal day to day responsibilities, and usually important assignments.
They make promises that they have no intention of keeping, saying that they forgot. They say this in such a manner, that all is forgiven. They tend to stay away from rules and tight structures. They dislike schedules of any kind, as it interferes with their spontaneity. They like fun and lots of it. They are very smart and can talk about a lot of different topics intelligently. They have very strong opinions on certain topics, and are not afraid to state them, often hurting the feelings of others. They can get into trouble easily if things don’t go as they ‘hoped’, since they do not like to plan too far ahead. They see the world from where they are standing today, and fail to see that unseen circumstances can alter their view drastically, and leave them up the creek without a paddle.
Cholerics are leaders and doers and want things to happen quickly, working best under pressure. Phlegmatics are easy going and never get in a hurry to do today, what can be done tomorrow.
We all are different mixes of all the four basic temperaments, with one or two types more visible than the others. But, we are not taught these things in school, unless we take psychology classes. We learn how to read and write and understand the language, but not why each one is different and how to understand and accept those differences, without trying to make everyone to be like our self!
So the ‘battle of the wills’ rages onward, with couples vying for which one will be ‘top dog’.
People relate by the five senses and giving voice to those thoughts and feelings. What we take in through our senses is interpreted differently according to the mixture of personality traits. Unless we take time to learn what each other’s personality traits are, we will always be stepping on their toes, because we think, that if we like it, or if we think it is the best thing to do, than the other person will too. Sometimes they go along, only later to finally voice their true feelings, and we are so surprised, when we should have known all along, if we only studied a little about the other partner. Life!
Three good books for further study on this subject are: “Who Am I” by Steven Reiss, and “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, and “The Four Temperments” by Rev. Conrack Hock.