What My Therapist Said About Marriage

I had an early morning appointment with my therapist yesterday. I see her once a month at this point and truth be told, it feels like an indulgence because there are no real crises at the moment (thank goodness) or fierce issues I'm trying to tackle. Overall, I feel like I'm moving and grooving along and my biggest complaint is that I often feel exhausted and overwhelmed by all that I'm trying to juggle. If that's my biggest complaint, I'll take it.

Anyway, we chatted and at the end of the session, I updated her on my Here Year and told her that this month I am exploring the topic of Marriage. Before leaving her office and heading out into what was a beautiful spring day, I asked her a single question.

In your opinion, what's the biggest challenge in modern marriage?

She thought about this for a moment or two and then gave a very clear-cut answer: "Different growth rates." She elaborated of course, saying that the issue is that two people who marry might grow at very different rates and have different arcs of maturation. I nodded and left and I've been thinking about it since. I think this is so true, right? We commit to someone we love but then time passes and we evolve as individuals and if we evolve differently, in different ways and at different rates, things might get tricky. I guess what she's saying is that the biggest challenge is to find a way to grow together and to keep growing together?

Anyway, I thought this was interesting and worth sharing.

What do you guys think? Do you think the ways in which we grow (or do not grow) within the frame of a marriage affects its health and happiness?