Something to think about marriage…it’s a LOT OF WORK!!!! We all know that, but what does it really mean? I think it means that in order to create or sustain a WE, it cannot be about ME , much of the time. We are not really wired this way in our society. We are taught to look to ourselves to define much of what is important and consider how we FEEL as a major deciding factor in almost every aspect of our lives. And that very perspective causes us great pain when we need to blend it, especially if it doesn’t meet our vision of what we want or believe is correct or preferable, in any given scenario. It is easy to blend our will when it matches our desire, for example, we both want Chinese food tonight or agree that a purchase is warranted and can be afforded. It is much harder when we see a parenting situation differently or don’t agree on a purchase or lifestyle choice. That’s when the WORK aspect becomes necessary. And I just don’t see that many of us in this day and age are prepared or expect that we should have to compromise or communicate effectively with both send and receive aspects working equally. Yet, we will NEED to do just that, over and over again to sustain a successful marriage. We think that if we just pick the “right” person we can bypass this process. And it is true that the more compatible we are with our spouse the easier this will be. But there are no two people that are so compatible that we can bypass this entirely, so we would be well served to look at ourselves and take stock of how flexible we are, and how maybe we can learn ( and teach our children to be) to be more open to others, accommodating or accepting of compromise unless major boundaries are being violated.

Marci Wolff Ober, LMFT