What Makes a Marriage Work: Keys to Long-Term Success

Introduction: Redefining Marital Success

According to commonly cited statistics, at least half of all marriages end in divorce in the U.S., the average length of marriage is approximately seven to eight years, and sexual infidelity affects more marriages than not. Even if the definition of success in marriage is no more than duration and fidelity, more marriages are unsuccessful than successful.

Unfortunately, duration and fidelity are tremendously low standards for defining marital success, because statistics about divorce and infidelity rates fail to account for all of the additional marriages that last comparatively long and in which infidelity is not a problem, but in which one or both spouses is unhappy most of the time. By that standard, the truly successful marriage would be quite rare.

To a large degree, successful marriage depends on choosing appropriate candidates for romantic relationships in the first place, rather than someone whose primary draw lies in our own unresolved psychological issues. Successful marriage also depends on marrying for the right reasons — not because of family pressure, societal expectations, or ultimatum. Friendship is also crucial to successful marriage, but that requires an understanding of what being friends means in the context of marriage.

Parenthood is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding of all human experiences, but it is not necessarily right for every couple. Even when it is right and the marriage is generally successful, there are negative consequences to the marriage, at least temporarily. Having children for the wrong reasons, on the other hand, is likely to be fatal to marriages that are already struggling.

Continued sexual attraction in marriage is another element that contributes significantly to marital success, and sustaining it requires avoiding the fairly typical pattern in which spouses stop making the same kind of effort for each other that they once made to attract a partner. In many respects, however, the most important factor for marital success may simply be maintaining a realistic perspective on marriage — one developed long before we ever meet a prospective spouse.

Choosing an Appropriate Partner

In principle, choosing the right partner may be the single most important element of achieving a successful marriage, although it is no guarantee on its own (DeAngelis, 2001). In that regard, there are two primary measures of who the "right" person is for any particular individual. First, prospective partners should be physically attracted to one another and sexually compatible; second, they should be at least as compatible in every other respect as they are with their closest platonic friends (Branden, 2004).

Physical and sexual chemistry is important, but all too often people choose candidates for marital partners who are heavily weighted toward those factors while other crucial elements are missing. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes people choose a marital partner despite insufficient physical attraction and sexual chemistry because they believe — incorrectly — that it is "shallow" to consider those factors necessary in a potential partner (Branden, 2004).

Another way of characterizing the importance of both elements is to suggest that there is a minimum degree of physical and sexual attraction necessary for a happy long-term marriage, and that there is simultaneously an equally important requirement that a marital partner be someone we would genuinely like and choose to have closely in our lives even without any element of attraction. The ideal partner, in short, is someone who would be a cherished friend regardless of romance.

Avoiding the Repetition Compulsion

Most psychoanalytical theorists — and many other experts in human relationships — consider the so-called repetition compulsion to be a universal feature of human psychology (Hendrix, 2004). In principle, it describes the manner in which we tend to develop particular psychological issues or themes in our relationships with others based on how our foundational early experiences affected us. Human beings generally tend to recreate some of the circumstances that affected them negatively early in life, partly in an unconscious attempt to "fix" things in their psychological past, and partly because biological organisms tend to repeat whatever is familiar to them — even when it is negative (Branden, 2004; DeAngelis, 2001; Hendrix, 2004).

The fact that we may choose circumstances and people that recreate negative experiences is counterintuitive, because it makes little rational sense. If a child is neglected or verbally abused at home, one would expect that as an adult that person would never choose a neglectful or abusive partner. However, especially in the realm of romantic love, we have a powerful but completely unconscious urge to seek out individuals who exhibit the same behaviors as those we experienced in our formative years (Hendricks & Hendricks, 1999; Hendrix, 2004).

Therefore, one of the elements of successful marriage is selecting potential partners in a more conscious manner and learning to understand which aspects of our early experiences and family-of-origin relationships may be influencing our romantic impulses and choices (Hendricks & Hendricks, 1999).

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, maintaining a successful marriage is a substantial challenge, at least relative to general statistics of marital success. Selecting appropriate prospects for marital partners is the earliest opportunity to make good decisions conducive to marital success. Generally, that requires a conscious approach to mate selection rather than unconscious adherence to the repetition compulsion. It also requires a realistic appreciation of which aspects of a relationship are of crucial long-term importance and which are not. In that regard, the most important element of successful marriages is shared core values and a compatible worldview.

Once partners are well matched, there are still good and bad reasons to get married, as well as good and bad reasons to become parents. Neither decision should be a function of automatic assumptions, comparisons to friends and acquaintances, or the expectations of family. Even well-matched individuals face a much greater risk of marital failure when they make their most important joint decisions poorly. Marriage should not signal the end of either partner's desire to remain attractive to the other, because sexual intimacy is also an important feature of successful marriages.

Generally, the most important tools for increasing the chances of marital success are an open and conscious mind and a recognition that even people who love each other have differences. Ultimately, it is the way couples approach, respond to, and resolve their differences that determines the success of their marriage — more so than whether differences arise at all, because they always do.

Bradshaw, J. (2002). Creating love: The next great stage of growth. Bantam.

Branden, N. (2004). The psychology of romantic love. Bantam.

DeAngelis, B. (2001). Are you the one for me? Knowing who's right & avoiding who's wrong. Delacorte Press.

Hendricks, G., & Hendricks, K. (1999). Conscious loving: The journey to co-commitment. Bantam.

Hendrix, H. (2004). Getting the love you want: A guide for couples. Henry Holt & Co.