From Dr. Jane's Notebook

What Does It Take to Maintain A Happy Marriage These Days?

My personal quest over the past three and a half years has been my effort to earn my Ph.D. through UNC Greensboro’s Counseling and Educational Development. It turns out that UNCG has an internationally known program for Counselor Education. Counselor Education is the fine art and science of teaching counselors how to be counselors. While I had always intended to go back to school for my doctorate, I had decided to wait until my kids were older before taking the leap into graduate school. It turned out to be the perfect channel for my 40-year old mid-life crisis, and a new adventure in living.

Here are a few things I've learned along the way. . .

Marriage is an important goal for most people. Recent estimates suggest that 90% of Americans will choose to marry at some point in their lives. A good marriage provides individuals with a sense of meaning and self-identity in their lives, and a variety of studies have demonstrated that people are generally happier and healthier when they are married.

Yet, while marriage appears to be a highly desirable relationship, statistics indicate that marital satisfaction is not easily achieved. One has only to consider the chronically high rates of divorce in order to appreciate the magnitude of this problem. Statistics during the 1980's and 1990's have indicated that half to two-thirds of all first marriages are likely to end in divorce.

The decision to divorce does not mean that these individuals don't want to be married. Most people like to be married, and tend to be happier and healthier when they are married. So it is not surprising that within five years of divorce, 77% of women and 84% of men remarry. Recent evidence even suggests that the average waiting period between divorce and remarriage appears to be shrinking from five to three years. Unfortunately, of those who remarry, 60% are likely to divorce again, suggesting that even in their remarriages, people are unable to achieve sufficient marital satisfaction.
Marriage has been described as the most important and fundamental human relationship. Marriage provides the primary structure for establishing a family relationship and rearing the next generation. Today, young people continue to plan for marriage, and marriage continues to be an important institution despite the fact that sexual intercourse, cohabitation, and parenthood are no longer confined to the marital state. But while marriage remains an important goal to most people, little attention is given to the importance of preventing divorce, even though the high rate of divorce in the United States has resulted in high emotional, financial, and social costs to adults and children. Clearly, knowledge of how to achieve a successful marriage has lagged behind the popularity of this institution.
How do we explain the high divorce rate? A variety of explanations have been offered to account for the chronically high divorce rate. First, marriages have changed dramatically over the past few decades, both in terms of demographic trends and marital structure. Among these changes are the increased incidence of dual-income marriages. With both husband and wife working outside the home, spouses have had to reorganize their marital roles in order to share household responsibilities and childcare more equitably. Differences in degree of "traditionality" have led to problems between husbands and wives, especially when expectations for marital roles are not met.

A second explanation for the high rate of divorce suggests that some spouses may unconsciously subscribe to the myth of "the perfect family". According to this myth, perfect families don't have problems; so if problems do exist, they should be ignored or relationships should be discontinued. A related explanation is based upon the acceptability of divorce in one's family of origin, wherein children whose parents are divorced may be predisposed to consider the option of divorce more readily. In these scenarios, marital dissatisfaction often leads spouses to search for a "quick fix" through divorce and remarriage to someone else, only to find the same lack of marital satisfaction in subsequent marriages.

From a professional counseling perspective, many divorces are thought to result from a lack of marital skills, such as the ability to resolve conflicts, talk rationally, make decisions equitably, communicate accurately, express affection, and exercise problem-solving skills. For this reason, counseling sessions are somewhat educational, as couples develop skills to prevent or resolve marital problems as they arise. While the goal of counseling is not to help couples maintain an unhealthy marriage at all costs, counselors are concerned with the impact of marital choices on all members of the family.

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Last Updated February 27, 1999 by Gary M. Grandon, Ph.D.