Marriage, Reconsidered: One Size Does Not Fit All

The recent media attention on relationships and couples therapy, such as last month's New York Times magazine cover story "Can This Marriage Be Saved?", may be exactly what we need to meditate over the state the union. After all, Sex in the City helped us rethink women's sexuality, Six Feet Under the ways we deal with death and dying. Tell Me You Love Me, which premiered on HBO Sunday night, promises to instigate reconsideration of our truisms about marriage, intimacy and being a couple.

Over the last twenty years a new post-feminist notion of marriage based on egalitarianism and emotional intimacy has emerged as the prevailing model in the U.S. "Companionate marriages" as it is referred to by social scientists, indeed seems ideal, but unfortunately it does come with baggage. This particularly American model of marriage is supposed to be based on romantic love, ongoing emotional intimacy (no ebb and flow tolerated), hot sex, transparency, companionship, and a lot of togetherness wrapped in a commitment to monogamy that is unquestionable and sacred. As if these standards were not high enough, the self-help industry and therapeutic community have propagated ideas that our marriages should also heal the emotional wrongs from the past! In other words, marriage today is supposed to be a panacea, and should meet all our needs. No wonder according to the census data, half of all American marriages end up in divorce, and infidelity is on the rise for both men and women.

Maybe it is time to consider that when it comes to love and desire, one size will not fit all.

"Can This Marriage Be Saved?" asks if couples therapy is saving marriages and the answer is a vague "maybe not." The problem may be the question. It is possible that the institution of Marriage, as it prevails today--high-pressured and uniform--will not be saved, but if we entertain the possibility that in the future we will have a variety of possible arrangements for being a couple, the answer may be different. The question then will become: what structure works for each individual and each couple?

Some couples may do better living together, but remaining unmarried. Others may choose to have an intimate ongoing relationship, but live apart. Some individuals will have one marriage in their lifetime; others will have two or three according to their changing needs in the life cycle without having to feel that when they changed, they failed. Some couples will choose monogamy throughout, others may deal with sexuality in non-monogamous ways at different points. For some the glue will be emotional intimacy, for others it will be a more traditional arrangement where children and family come first, and for others it is sexuality.

Couples usually seek couples therapy when they find themselves caught up in reactive cycles and on their own they cannot escape. What a good couples therapist can do is to create a place and a time for reflection, help the partners put down their guards, and hopefully assist them in negotiating parameters for being together that will work for them. Although couples therapy focuses on the interiority of a couples relationship--feelings, needs, dynamics, patterns, resonances with the past, etc--it must also help the couple consider what arrangement will work for them.

I recently saw a couple that, after ten years of marriage, came in because the husband was having a heated affair with an old college friend. In the process of therapy they decided to get a divorce, but with one caveat: they wanted to remain a couple, but in a totally new way. Both felt that "marriage," as they had conceived it had failed them; it had encouraged them to be overly dependent on one another and lazy about their separate pursuits. Since their wedding they had stopped making new friends, the wife became lazy about her profession, and they never spent one night apart.

So now, as they opted to get a divorce they decided to continue living in the same house, but to have separate bedrooms so they could choose to be together or to be apart on an everyday basis. They separated their finances and made explicit how each one would contribute, and they established new rules about their comings and goings with a lot more allowance for separate vacations, dinners out with friends and a lot more privacy and individual time. Shortly after they reached this arrangement the husband let go of the affair and strangely, as they entered their new phase of "domestic partnership" as they called it, a renewed sexual passion sneaked up between them. Even though couples therapy did not save their marriage, the relationship is thriving.

Comments

[Potomacker]

Monogamous marriage is unfortunately the only state sanctioned union in most western countries. It is nor more a prerequisite for civilization than the seven day week. As to how the law affects the success of such an economic relationship or determines its function and actual practice in society is impossible to say with certainty. But I think it inevitably does stifle any open debate and clearly any private discussions. The law codifies and enforces the fantasy of romantic love and deters any serious questioning and personal expression before and even during a couple's contractual partnership.
I have believed for a long time that allowing polygamy to exist would mainly benefit those who choose monogamy for the simple reason that they would see it as a conscious choice, and not merely the path that they take because they are not allowed to consider any other.

[jeskiley]

Marriage, reconsidered...but your last example shows a relationship repairing itself back to monogamous love and respect. I'm glad there's a standard model, it's not so hard to live up to.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

I liked the last example too, but let's recognize it is quite likely the exception, not the rule, and hardly a prospective "standard model."

The example is incomplete without mentioning whether or not there are kids in the picture

Still, I'll run it past the spousal unit, just as soon as we both get home from work, feed the kids, pay the bills, run the vacuum, and watch ESPN and Oprah on separate TVs...

[OldKnute]

Oh now, is it really that hard to understand?

Two workers means, TWO taxpayers. No DUH!

If you factor for the TRUE “Maternal Sacrifice”, 7 to 9 years out of the workforce, lost job experience and career development, advancement path, the pay-scales are about equal.

I will tell you, women DO have it harder. Damned if you want a family, lost opportunities, lonely and partner-less, if you choose a career, overtime and job demands to stretch you this way and that.

Is it any wonder that Middle Management Maidens and women in the workplace have turned to a Hook-Up mentality for romance?

No DUH!

Oh, and what is a good man today? He works hard, plays with the kids, is willing to do side-jobs to make ends meet, he is often tired and sleeps all Saturday, always wants to be fed, never complains, never strays and is always ready to pull the plow even harder if properly motivated.

Sounds like a good MULE to me.

Oh! Don’t forget, we have Dr. James Dobson to tell you how to run your life and sue the MULE if he gets a bit cantankerous or uppity.

Then there is Oprah, she will tell you that all MULES SUCK, are hairy and smelly, love football more than you and if there is even a loud argument, you should call the cops.

LOOK, men are good at focusing on things, (Right Brain). This is why they make good engineers, scientists, mathematicians, designers and builders.

Women make good Managers, God love’um. They have this uncanny, innate ability to juggle about 20 different things all at once, keep on track and do them well. They see how the big picture works and all the parts fit.

Yes, I am generalizing here, but these things apply. Gender should NOT be a limitation, but reality is a good place to seek understanding. There is a balance. Who is best at what,,, and why.

Genderless divisions of labor.

Success? happiness?

You just need be about 10% smarter than the MULE!

All the best

Knute

[juangault]

Neccessity is the mother of all happy marriage.

Monogamous marriage is the mother of all civilizations.

Civilizations rise and fall as neccessity comes and goes.

War pushes the reset button, gives everyone a chance to restart and rebuild, but this nuclear business caused mutated fish to ride bicycles, for better or worse.

A hundred years is a blink, se habla espanol?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Perhaps the appearance of monogamous marriage...

Is there any correlation between the durability of a civilization and the level of infidelity?