Marriage Problems, part 1

Problems

Marriage is when a man and woman become one;

the trouble is when they try to decide which one. Anonymous 

We have worked in the marriage field for over 20 years. We have been married for over 40 years. We have learned that all of us have problems!

Problems in marriage started with the first couple and continue to this day. Many younger people believe that marriage isn’t even relevant any more. 

Why get married?

Common Problems

Pew research found that 39% of Americans think that marriage has become obsolete. 

• Has the concept of marriage passed its usefulness? 
• Is marriage counseling appropriate in our disposable culture? 
• Are people willing or capable to do the work to make marriage last?

We could survey any married couple who is reading this page and ask them if they have had problems. We would get a 100% positive response. 

We have had our share of conflicts and differences in the last 40+ years. We still have disagreements. We still get frustrated with each other sometimes. And we are marriage counselors!

How are we still together?

We tell couples everyday that we don’t let our differences come between us. We are not going to give up and we are going to move forward.

We could ask every couple how they overcame the problems and we would get lots of different answers - with the common phrase, "we worked through it."

I am not sure if it’s selfishness, laziness, immaturity, or a lack of hope - but for many couples today, they chose to get out of a marriage rather than do the work to stay together.

I often wonder why we let our emotions rule our thoughts about marriage and what we do; we don’t do that in other parts of our lives. We go to work whether we feel like it or not. We are respectful and polite to friends, more than to our spouse. We do what we need to do, even if we don’t feel like it.

I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one.
The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant
when incompatibility becomes unquestionable.     G.K. Chesterton

Look for our next post on Solutions and future posts on dealing with specific problems.