Happy Marriages, Do They Exist? Part 3

The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts
by Judith S. Wallerstein, Sandra Blakeslee

(Page 3 of 3)

Many therapists seem to think that the people in a faltering marriage are made of real flesh and blood, struggling with tangible problems, while those in a good marriage are something like Balinese shadow puppets. But the people who describe the inner workings of their marriages in this book are fully dimensional human beings.

It's important to stress that I am not writing about lasting marriages per se. People can be held together for decades by lethargy, fear, mutual helplessness, or economic dependency, in marriages that are, to my mind, empty shells. This is a book about marriages in which both husband and wife agree that the relationship is satisfying. With justification, these men and women consider their marriages to be personal triumphs.

I should also say that this is not a how-to book. It will not tell you how to fight with your husband so that you can strengthen your marriage, how to have a better sex life with new techniques, or what to do if a guy at the office keeps telling you that his wife doesn't understand him. It will not give you ten easy steps to happiness or a vaccine against family strife. I believe in my heart not only that these approaches do not help but that they trivialize and demean the central relationship of adult life. Instead, what I have tried to write is a book about the intimate interiors of some successful marriages. To my mind this book offers an opportunity to look behind closed doors, to see in detail how people struggle with the central journey of adulthood. By getting to know these couples, by sharing their disappointments and triumphs, the reader will be able to use the insights they provide. I hope every part of this book will be helpful to young people contemplating marriage, to convey the enormous pleasures that await them and to tell them where the mines are hidden. I especially want them to learn that romance does not have to end when the honeymoon is over.

Early in this century Carl Jung told us that marriage is the most complex of human relationships. Today marriage is more fragile than ever. But I am committed to the view that if a man and woman begin their marriage with a healthy respect for its complexity, they stand a much greater chance of success. If they can grasp the richly nuanced, subtle needs that people bring from their childhood experiences and can understand how the past connects with the present, they can build mutual understanding and love based on true intimacy. If they can see how each domain of marriage connects with every other-especially how their sex life affects every aspect of their relationship-and if they can acknowledge the central conflicts in all marriages and the importance of friendship and nurturance in muting those conflicts, they will be well on their way toward building an enduring relationship. Finally, if they can appreciate the myriad ways that people grow and change through the years and realize that a happy, lasting marriage is challenged and rebuilt every day, then they will have acquired the only map there is for a successful lifetime journey together.

Many conservatives say we should go back to the days of that ideal couple, Ozzie and Harriet; but in fact, the children raised in the days of that television show grew up to become pioneers in the new landscape of marriage. Only five of the hundred spouses I interviewed wanted a marriage like their parents' even though many genuinely loved (or at least felt compassion for) their parents. The men consciously rejected the role models provided by their fathers. The women said that they could never be happy living as their mothers did. Clearly, few people really do want to turn back the clock.

Some therapists advocate teaching people to reduce their expectations of marriage, so that disappointment will not ensue-as if divorce occurs because of a gap between people's high expectations and the realities they confront after marriage. But what kind of response would you get if you told your son or daughter not to expect very much from marriage? Would cynicism and lower expectations make for better marriages and happier families? For better or worse, Americans have high expectations of marriage and show no signs of backing down from the pursuit of individual happiness.

I am convinced that the kind of society we have in the future will depend on how we address relationships within the family. As the external forces keeping modern marriages together weaken, the forces holding them together from within grow ever more important. To understand these forces, we need a whole new body of knowledge. We need guidelines that will enable men and women to fulfill their deep longings for love and friendship. We know a great deal about marriages that fail, for many couples seek counseling when their relationships are unable to weather the inevitable crises of life. But while studies of marital problems and divorce now overflow many library shelves, the entire body of research on happy marriage would fill less than half a shelf.

It has always been easier to identify the dark forces that spell misery than to understand what contributes to happiness. Illness and anger are more easily explored than health and love. Research on happy marriage is in its infancy. Considering the importance of the subject, it's astonishing how little work has been done. I found only a handful of studies-and only one that relied on individual interviews with happily married couples. Beyond this one study, which involved only twelve families from a religious community, I could find no other qualitative studies, which are fundamental to understanding complex social issues and human behavior. The case-study method, which is central to clinical work in medicine, psychology, psychoanalysis, and ethnology, is a major tool in qualitative research. It is the method of choice in building psychological theory.

Reviewing the recent quantitative research-studies in which large data sets are analyzed statistically-on the general subject of marriage, the distinguished sociologist Norval Glenn expressed disappointment. He noted that for several decades researchers have tended to test simple propositions that don't advance our understanding of marriage. He concluded that we need more qualitative research to generate new ideas.

To glean insights about human feelings, motivations, and emotions, the researcher must meet people face to face. Telephone surveys or mailed questionnaires do not penetrate to the subtleties and nuances of life. A survey asking “How often do you see your father?” will not reveal how a woman feels about her father. The question “How often have you been unfaithful?” doesn't touch the emotional impact of infidelity. A researcher can ask for a yes-or-no response to “Have you ever considered divorce?” but a questionnaire cannot provide an adequate answer to the potent question “What would break your marriage?” During a face-to-face interview expressions often tell more than any words could-as when a mature man breaks into tears when asked “What would happen if you lost your wife?” or when a woman crosses her legs and smiles like the Cheshire cat when asked “How faithful have you been?” Experimental psychologists say that in predicting divorce a husbands body language is more useful than his words. And what people don't say can be more important than what they do say.

To study the visceral questions of life, one needs to do case studies, working with individuals or small groups in intimate settings, asking open-ended questions and listening carefully to the answers that flow spontaneously, giving each person time to describe his or her feelings in words and gestures. In my studies I have tried to get to know each individual as intimately as possible. I listen to and absorb not just people's life stories but the sequence in which they tell them, as well as their casual remarks, smiles and tears, dreams and fantasies. They open their hearts to me and, in a figurative sense, the very doors to their bedrooms.

While designing my own study of good marriages, I did come across a few interesting recent studies by others. John Gottman and his colleagues have researched different styles of marital conflict and their physiological concomitants in men and women. They distinguish the kind of conflict that can destroy a marriage from conflict that occurs within its bounds. They also propose that a good marriage is best maintained by striking a balance between positive and negative interactions They suggest that the “magic number” of five positive interactions will undo the impact of one negative interaction. Gottman has also worked on the prediction of divorce according to patterns of detachment observed in men experiencing conflict with their wives.

In 1981 Arlene Skolnick examined marriages selected from a large longitudinal study of adult lives. Comparing data from two interviews ten years apart, without any observations about the couple's interactions, she concluded that marital relationships have a high potential for change and do not necessarily decline over the years. She proposed that situational factors such as money, health, and career success were of major importance in marital contentment or unhappiness.

Two recent studies of long-lasting marriages, by Robert and Jeanette Lauer in 1987 and Florence Kaslow and Helga Hammerschmidt in 1992, were based largely on data from mailed questionnaires. Both studies reported the importance of friendship, commitment, and shared values, and both found many long-lasting marriages that were unhappy.

Plans are under way for replicating the Kaslow and Hammerschmidt study in other countries and different cultures.

I could find only one study of healthy families. Jerry M. Lewis and his colleagues, in 1976, assessed twelve families who belonged to a Protestant church in Texas and who were selected by church staff, from a group of volunteers, as functioning well. The researchers concluded that there was “no single thread” to healthy family functioning. These families were characterized by mutual affection and trust in one another and in the community, respect for individual differences in perception and feelings, the ability to communicate, the ability to accept loss, and clear-cut boundaries between parents and children. Although the study was small, it has been influential in family therapy. It provides one of the few examples of good family functioning that therapists can use to compare with the troubled families in their care.

I could find no research in which happy marriage, as subjectively defined by both partners, was the specific focus of an in-depth inquiry.

After completing the first round of interviews with the men and women in my study, I spent some time thinking about why these couples had stepped forward. Some clearly felt that what they had achieved together was a triumph. Others were intrigued by the notion of examining their marriage. Still others were flattered to be included in a “happy” sample. But I think the main reason for their participation was that I gave them an opportunity to tell their story. Marriage in America is a private affair. When people divorce, they may broadcast their difficulties to the world, but those who are quietly and happily married don't discuss it openly-not even with their children or dose friends. It isn't dinner table conversation, nor is it grist for the television talk shows or movie scripts.

And this is precisely why we have so much to learn from these quiet successes. The erotic excitement and voyeurism of the television shows do not prepare us for life because they don't teach us how to solve real problems.

This book, then, is an attempt to map new territory: the internal life of good marriages in a culture of divorce. Like other early cartographers, I have probably missed major oceans or inadvertently combined continents. Undoubtedly there are more kinds of happy marriages than are reported in these pages. But this is an exploration, a pilot effort, with all the caveats and strengths of such a study. I hope that many other studies will follow.

Copyright © 1995 by Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee.