If you’re like me, you either say or hear someone say, “marriage is hard” on a frequent basis. This belief permeates the culture and therefore is often taken as truth; however, I have not found much truth to it. In general, there are two primary reasons marriage troubles begin and often lead to an ending. Troubles may arise due to incompatibility in too many key areas; or, more commonly, troubles begin when either or both individuals have not reached the requisite state of psychological maturity to support the relationship.
Marriage is business for adults, and many people have not yet reached the psychological state of adulthood, making it nearly impossible to maintain without severe tension and distress becoming commonplace. Among the more misunderstood and overlooked aspects of the human experience is that we assume that along with physical maturation comes psychological maturation, but that is not the case. When psychological needs go unmet, and/or there are developmental traumas or poor modeling from prior generations, without the necessary healing and growth opportunities in close proximity, a person’s psychological development arrests. Today, among our aging populations, we find few elders; that is, those who are not only old in terms of biological age but have reached a state of psychological maturity that matches or even exceeds their biological age (i.e. when we say someone is “wise beyond their years”).
Elements of psychological maturity include the ability and willingness to engage in honest self-reflection. Within this ability should come the capacity to accept responsibility for our mistakes and/or poor and hurtful behavior. And we should be willing and able to communicate that in the following manner, regardless of what our partner does or doesn’t do: “I was wrong; I am sorry, and here’s what I’m planning to do to address that behavior within myself.” And while the list of mature qualities is certainly much longer, perhaps the most necessary of skills and abilities is the capacity to be vulnerable with our feelings and their sources when necessary.
To illustrate, my wife and I are well into our 13th year of marriage. We have certainly encountered challenges during that time, but I have yet to find one where I could blame “marriage” itself. For me (and most of the challenged relationships I’ve observed), the hard parts have almost universally been related to vulnerability. As mentioned, taking responsibility and apologizing when I make a mistake, and even more so, admitting when I am scared, sad, hurt, and afraid of failure, are examples of what I’ve found to be the hardest, especially when the origins of those feelings are sourced in my developmental years (and are only being reactivated in the present/marriage), which is the case most of the time.
When insecurities or vulnerabilities push toward the surface, everyone would rather hold them in, push them down, and attempt to distract from them, hoping they will disappear on their own. But even when these sorts of attempts are relatively “successful,” a distance between the partners is formed by way of these isolating practices, which is also destructive to the relationship because it begins to dissolve the connection necessary for a healthy and fulfilling one. In nearly every case, when tensions show up in my marriage, with some intentional and honest self-reflection, I can pinpoint the origins to experiences and feelings in my childhood. Thankfully, this has gotten easier over time with practice, but never once has it been easy to openly admit to.
A few weeks back, I was feeling very scared, and I could identify without too much trouble (at this stage) that this fear was that of a helpless child. After the many thousands of dollars spent and years of deeply painful therapeutic work, I also felt a lot of embarrassment accompanied by feelings of failure to go along with my child-based fear. I recall thinking: “I can’t believe this is still coming up for me after all that hard work!” It was hard to admit these feelings to myself, and it was even harder to turn to my wife and say, “I’m feeling really scared right now! I don’t like it, and I’m really embarrassed!” And then, with that confession, came the physical rush corresponding to the naturally expressive states of the emotion underneath: heavy sobbing. It was hard—very hard—to not resort to avoidance and isolation and instead allow the sobbing to continue until the feelings resolved on their own (which they will do if we can learn to tolerate the discomfort, surrender, and give control over to the body).
While this is certainly easier now than it was decades ago, it is still hard to give the younger parts of me who still hold some of these feelings permission to vocalize and share them, but I do it because I know it’s what needs to happen—an aspect of the maturity and wisdom gained from past therapeutic work. Firstly, as I have described extensively elsewhere, suppressing feelings is both physically and psychologically unhealthy, which the literature demonstrates as well, especially when we’re in a safe environment and there is no need for suppression beyond the desire for egoic safety. Secondly, I also know that vulnerability is the price tag for deeper intimacy, and that is something I am not willing to trade away: the other side is too good! Yes, it is true that we can be deeply hurt in our vulnerability if it is misunderstood, or worse yet, used against us later; however, no healthy individual would do that, which is why it is important to select a mature partner to be in relationship with as well (note: this is nearly impossible without becoming sufficiently healthy individually first).
Tragically, we have been socialized to believe that it is a sign of weakness to be vulnerable, but if we take an honest look, we will find the obvious error in that belief. More courage and strength are required for things that are harder to do, and it is far more difficult to admit to and show our true feelings than it is to try and suppress and outrun them. As an aside, this is also how confidence is built. Most of us don’t realize that it is doing the hard things and surviving them that builds confidence; whereas many people wait for confidence to come before they attempt the hard things in front of them. And it just so happens that this type of courage and strength is necessary in order to build and sustain a healthy, fulfilling relationship or marriage.
My trauma and abuse history are extensive, much more so than my wife’s, so I’ve had to do an unequal amount of personal work in order to maintain the health of our marriage. I am grateful that some things from my past are fairly resolved at this stage and don’t require regular work and constant attention, but perhaps even more so, I am grateful because it is also this ability that has led to a continued evolutionary and deepening process within the marriage itself. Where there has been honest vulnerability (instead of suppression, scapegoating and blame, for example), the relationship has strengthened and deepened, and we enjoy our time together every bit if not more than when the relationship began, which is something else that—tragically—many people believe naturally fades with time. That only happens when we go into psychological hiding vs. engaging in increased vulnerability and emotional risk-taking.
Many people who have been around my wife and I comment on our relationship and a few people have told me privately how lucky I am to have found my wife. They are not entirely wrong; there was a bit of luck involved, but most of what we have has very little to do with luck, which is why I share this. Instead, it has to do with radical self-reflection and honesty, and tons of extremely difficult work on my core wounds, both prior to and since meeting my wife.
And finally, there is one more point that is important to mention. Perhaps the hardest part of being in a healthy marriage is being able to walk with grief, and that’s a skill that can only be gained through our own individual work. In a previous post, Grief & Love… I discuss this in more depth, but what’s important to reiterate here is this: your capacity for intimacy; that is, the depth of connection, will be mediated by your capacity for sorrow. When I proposed to my wife, I was extremely shocked by how much I was shaking. I pictured the end when we were at the beginning. I knew that we would go the distance; I had no doubts. And I knew that most of my previous work was to develop the capacity for the ultimate challenge to come: the goodbye!
I often present people with two scenarios: 1) you can have a 60-year marriage where you barely know each other, and you share little in common (my paternal grandparents’ marriage is what comes to mind for me), or 2) you can have a 60-year marriage where the depth and connection has increased year-by-year, as you allow yourself to become more and more known through the vulnerability I am advocating for. It is not cliché: you are best friends! In both scenarios, the fact is: the end is coming! Which one do you choose? Without hesitation, everyone picks the second scenario. And then I ask, “Which one is going to hurt more to lose?” Once more, without hesitation, people say, “The second one.” And that’s the rub: maturity also means learning to walk with grief and keeping the heart open, which is necessary to have any of the really great stuff that is possible, and that takes tremendous courage and skill: that is the hardest part of all!
Marriage will almost certainly flesh out each other’s unresolved developmental wounds, particularly those originating with one’s parents, but again, those wounds won’t be sourced in the marriage and thus are not a problem with marriage itself. And with that knowledge and awareness, and a lot of extremely hard, interpersonal work, a healthy and extremely fulfilling marriage can be the result.