My grandparents have been married a long time. Over sixty years... I can't count that high. He hoards papers. She throws away said-papers every chances she gets. He agrees to take office in all sorts of lighthouse related organizations. She begrudgingly types newsletters for the lighthouse related organizations as his "secretary" and licks envelopes to send to readers across Florida. They bicker. She rolls her eyes. They are the cutest couple ever. I wonder if he ever sleeps with one eye open.
I hear stories of my mom and her siblings' childhood. Of my grandpa's working all the time. Of grandma raising five children. Of doing so much for them all while grandpa worked and provided. Even now well into retirement, when they could spend so much time together, she plays her Bridge with friends and he sings in the male chorus. Sometimes, you could convince me that they hate one another. Except. Except that truly. Truly, they are the best of friends.
As a counselor who works with married couples, I've come to understand that people enter marriage counseling for one of three reasons.... (1) they genuinely want to work on their marriage, (2) one person wants to work on the marriage while the other one is just along for the ride, or (3) they are both coming with no intention on staying married, but want to say that they at least "tried the counseling route" before filing papers.
In my experience, the biggest contributor of unhappiness (and resulting failure) in a marriage is a disconnect in activity. In togetherness. In shared interests. Perhaps it's that she consumes herself with the children. Maybe he's always with his golfing buddies. She's busy with PTA and volunteer meetings. He's coaching baseball and track. No matter what the activities are that keeps them separate, the lack of priority in one another prevents them from being able to nurture their relationship.
They seem to forget that they need one another to keep the relationship going. To stay in the same lane. To stay moving in the same direction. It's so easy to be distracted by other things (and other people) if you don't have your partner by your side working with you through the challenges of life. I always ask couples of identify when they started to pull away from one another... when they started walking in different lanes. They may not be able to identify exact dates, but generally they can ballpark a time when they stopped being one another's priorities.
Not that divorce didn't exist in my grandparents' age, because I know that it did, it just seems that it is so much more prevalent nowadays. It's easier to decide that we're unhappy where we currently are and instead of deciding to become happy again HERE, we decided to become happy THERE. We think that becoming happy THERE is going to be better. That becoming a priority THERE is going to be better. That moving on is easier than forgiving, or asking for forgiveness. That moving on is better than staying put and fixing problems, than redefining a relationship, than rediscovering the love that we have for our partners.
When it comes down to it, we just need friendships. For the most part, that's how it all started. A smile. A conversation. A laugh. A football game. A common interest. If you're at the point where you're starting to wander... get back to brass tacks. Remind yourself of what got you interested in the first place. Remind yourself of your friend.
Rekindle the friendship. Lick some envelopes for a newsletter to a lighthouse organization. :)
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