Is Your Marriage ‘Good Enough’?
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I find myself thinking a lot about marriage these days. I think there are a few reasons for this. First, I am knee-deep in the drafting of my second book which deals, as Life After Yes did, with questions of commitment. Second, I have several friends and acquaintances who are experiencing, and exploring, tumult in their own unions. Third, it seems there has been much media attention focused lately on the question of marriage.
Fourth, I am married. I think I have a very good marriage. I want to keep it that way.
My best friend M – whom I have mentioned several times on this blog – sent me a text a few weeks ago about an article she had read in The Atlantic about the “marriage market.” Well, I finally got around to reading it just this week and I found it fascinating. If you have a little time, please click here and read this article by Kate Bolick entitled All the Single Ladies. It’s worth it. It will have you thinking for days. And then. Then there was a follow-up piece on the NYT Motherlode blog wherein Judith Warner played off the aforementioned Atlantic piece in her own musing called Is the ‘Good Enough’ Marriage Good Enough for the Kids?
Warner asks a host of important questions at the end of her post, questions that are hard to answer. But these are also questions that deserve our thought, I think. Her questions:
Is, indeed, the message that we should marry for love — passionate, soul-fulfilling love — and never settle for less now outdated? Is it the lesson we ought to pass on to our children? Do, in fact, most people compromise; do we, in the end, inevitably appear compromised to our kids, particularly by the time they’re teenagers? And can social factors really change the ways of the human heart?
I told you. These are biggies. Hard to answer. I could write dozens of posts on these questions and the topics they implicate. And you know what? Maybe I will. Because, clearly, as a married woman, as a modern woman, as a mother, as a writer, as a thinker, I am interested, and deeply, in these questions.
I imagine many of you are, too?
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What does ‘good enough’ mean when it comes to marriage? Did you read The Atlantic article? If so, what did you think? Do you think it is better for children to be the product of divorce or a deeply unhappy union? Are you interested, personally and intellectually, in questions about marriage in the modern world? Do you have a good marriage? A ‘good enough’ one?
I don’t think it’s good for children to have to endure a “deeply” unhappy union…although I divorced when my son was about ten and it was hard on him…and harder on me than I really took in at the time…every marriage…every relationship…takes work. I am a believer that we need to teach communication skills in school…so often we really aren’t communicating with our partners…we think we are but do we actually hear one another…mutual respect is the key to a marriage being “good enough”..if you don’t have respect…it will never be good enough…good luck with your book and thanks for being a thinking woman!!!
Sometimes I wonder that by being single, I think about marriage more than most married people.
I am at the stage in my life (late 20s) where a large majority of my friends are getting married and starting their coupled lives. I have not read the whole Atlantic article but am on my way over there later this morning. I do think that our generation is far more demanding than prior generations. We expect more, but I think we expect more to just be handed to us. People now seemed so shocked to learn marriage is WORK. That being said, I also believe in gut feelings. If you have a huge knot in your stomach on your way down the aisle (not the good kind) then you will most likely feel that way throughout your marriage. I would be purely panicked. I am finding though, as I evolve, my “type” of man is evolving as well. I am less concerned with profession and life track and more concerned with the person I am when I am with that man. Because I have been with wonderful, great, successful men and felt completely “un-Emily”. Wow – this was long. Great topic – I could obviously go on for too long!
I thought my marriage was far more than “good enough.” I thought it was bordering on sublime. Turns out, I was wrong.
Great, thought-provoking post, Aidan. Best wishes for a killer second book!
I think the kids are well served if they understand that marriage is never perfect. That you never love your spouse ever single second of the day. That you disagree and lose patience regularly. But that a wife and husband are together because they are determined to get through life together, and most of the time, that translates to love.
I haven’t read the article, except in some excerpts, but I do find it interesting. Perhaps because my undergrad degree was in sociology, and although we don’t really think about it, the concept of marriage is always evolving. In prior inceptions, you didn’t choose your own partner, women were treated as objects, domestic violence was ok, etc. We’ve come a long way to thinking about it in the terms we do today, of “soul-fulfilling” love. and in today’s instant gratification society, it’s no wonder that marriage so often fails to live up to that hype. I think that’s where the “good-enough” comes in. It is a union that would have been great, enviable even, under past standards, but we’ve set the bar to fairy-tale like levels when a happy marriage is concerned today.
Despite all that, I don’t want to sound jaded. In fact, I think I lucked into one of those enviable situations. Hubby and I genuinely enjoy spending time with each other. We run a business together that is fulfilling for both of us. I’m always the one my friends like to come to when they need relationship advice or just an ear to listen to about the mean/stupid/supremely aggravating thing their partner was up to, mostly I think because I don’t preach to them. And just the other day, one of my closest friends said how perfect my marriage must be because I never have similar stories to share back. It’s not perfect I assured her, it does take work, but I’m one lucky girl
You are absolutely right–just finished the article and it definitely will have me thinking for days to come.
At 38, I was single for most of my adult life–and can very much relate to the author of the Atlantic article. I never dreamed I would get married, first off because I didn’t think I would find anyone who would put up with my independent, career driven self. But more so because I had very few models of couple who weren’t selling out to be together…who secretly seemed miserable..who use manipulation and passive aggressiveness to communicate.
Fortunately my now husband (as of this past June) has proven me wrong on all counts. I believe we have a good marriage–and not just because we are newlyweds–but because we truly accept each other for who we are and we both want the other to be the best person they can be (not who we think they should be but who they want to be).
It is by no means a fairy tale and fortunately I didn’t expect that. I have been humbled and amazed by the amount of work, communication, sharing and giving being married takes. But it is worth all the work to share a life with my best friend and biggest fan. I am fortunately to be able to combine the independence and freedom of being single with the companionship and growth of being in a relationship.
Good enough is a pejorative term to some people. I don’t know that you can stay madly in love constantly and forever but I am not an advocate of sticking around in a marriage where you are not in love forever either.
I think what people who talk about this fairy-tale love forget is that love is not a properly a feeling, it’s a verb. You have to actively determine to love someone, day-in and day-out. And that’s true of all relationships, not just romantic ones. Real love is about willing the best for another person, and sacrificing to help them achieve that best. That’s the idea that I think the pop-culture definition of marriage is missing, and why people are often jaded about love. They expect it to be butterflies in the stomach – something that is, basically, a passive reaction. Instead, it’s so much more profound than that – it’s a deliberate action to put another person before yourself and to help each other be the best possible versions of yourself. It takes effort, certainly, but it’s the most beautiful effort imagineable.