January: the Month in Review

Do you ever feel like you get whiplash from all the well-intended research that comes your way? (Example: Coffee is good for you - no, wait, it's bad. Take more Vitamin D as it will probably prevent cancer - or wait, maybe not.)

Marriage research can be much the same way: never go to bed angry, or, sleep on it as life looks better in the morning?

So - to make things a little easier on the rest of you, I've pulled together my favorite marriage facts and findings as highlighted in the last month. Take the tips that seem sensible to you and put them to good use.

1) Fighting is Fine - It's How You Fight that Matters: New research published by the University of Michigan says divorce is more likely for couples where one partner tries to calmly and objectively analyze the situation, and the other partner withdraws. If you find this pattern in your own marriage, focus on turn-taking, listening, and fighting the urge to walk away. Professional counseling may help.

2) Wine Before Liquor May Mean Your Marriage is Sicker: Research confirms what logic already knew: alcoholism increases your odds of divorce. Moderation, moderation, moderation. Addictions are best conquered with the help of professionals: don't wait until it's too late to save our marriage.

3) Kids Can Make You Better Partners: If you haven't already, check out Melvin Udall's article on how kids can save your marriage. Parenthood may make feelings of romance a little tougher to find, but it's worth the search.

4) Follow Facebook with Some Healthy Skepticism: People put their best feet forward on Facebook and other social networking sites, giving the appearance of being happier than they really are. And, if all your friends seem happier than you are - this can lead to feelings of depression about your marriage or life in general. Shake it off by remembering your Facebook profile probably looks perfect too.

The Upside of Having Kids

"Kids kill a marriage."

"Our relationship fell apart after the kids were born."

"Nothing drains the romance from a relationship like a baby."

We've all heard - or perhaps thought - these things. Kids add an intense, constant, sleep-deprived strain to relationships. Any fractures that were already there will quickly become evident. New ones - at least a few - are sure to be created.

And yet people keep getting married, and having kids.

I've rarely heard people comment on how children have strengthened their relationships: perhaps it's easier to complain than compliment. But it is possible. We probably fight more, now that we are the parents of two, but our relationship is also stronger. I'm more aware of Cliff's playfulness and patience. I've been made aware of my own quick temper - and working on it has made me a better wife and mother.

Harvard Medical School psychologist Craig Malkin agrees, and offers a few tips for strengthening your marriage because of and through your children. Find them in his article "How Kids Can Save Your Marriage."

How Facebook Gets Marriage Wrong

Take a look at your friends Facebook photo albums: see any unhappy marriages there? Probably not.

Now think about what you know of their relationships, or, even more simply, the national divorce statistics.

Does Facebook present a realistic portrait of marriage and family? Of course not: on Facebook everyone looks good, standing next to your partner in a self-portrait taken with one of his arms around you and the other holding out the camera. Kids are at their cutest. Even pets seem idealized.

A friend's recent status update was, "My husband is the greatest." The status was followed by a long string of comments, most of which were along the lines of, "How sweet!" The final comment was from the owner of the status update: "Guess I shouldn't log into Facebook on my husband's computer." He had posted the update himself.

So if Facebook convinces us that every other marriage is constantly happy, how does it make us feel about our own? The marriage where I'm wearing the same saggy sweatpants I bought four years ago?

Researchers now say social media is making us sad.
"The human habit of overestimating other people's happiness is nothing new, of course. Jordan [Alex Jordan, Stanford researcher] points to a quote by Montesquieu: "If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are." But social networking may be making this tendency worse. Jordan's research doesn't look at Facebook explicitly, but if his conclusions are correct, it follows that the site would have a special power to make us sadder and lonelier. By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people's lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles' heel of human nature."

So should we stop using Facebook? Or post status updates that more accurately reflect reality: "Decided to watch Jon Stewart instead of having sex. Again."

Maybe. But probably not. The best antidote is to remember that Facebook profiles are likely to be a carefully crafted image of how people want to be seen - not as they really are. (Run your profile through the reality litmus test. Is your life as rosy as it appears?)

Marriage Crutches

When we were expecting our first child, Cliff and I agreed that we'd try not to use pacifiers. Like most expectant parents, we'd done a good deal of reading - and some of the most persuasive literature said that pacifiers were crutches. Teach your kid that they need the pacifier to sleep, and they'll be dependent on a little piece of plastic rather than learning how to soothe themselves to sleep.

Two nights into parenthood we begged the maternity ward nurses for a pacifier - any pacifier, used if necessary - too quiet our demanding, noisy little boy.

It was three years later before our son gave up his beloved paci (in exchange for a lollipop), but it was three years of sleep-filled nights for all.

Was the paci a crutch? Sure. But if the choice is between a crutch or no sleep, I'll take the crutch every time.

I've been thinking about crutches lately - those little things we need to get us through our days. A good crutch brings a big benefit with very little harm. Life is rosier because of its existence. Relationships are less strained.

Football season - which is now drawing to a close - necessitates my favorite crutch, the DVR. In our family's pre-DVR days, an interruption to change a dirty diaper or tickle a toddler's belly presented an unbearable choice for my Bears-loving husband. Not always understanding of his affection for da Bears, I let my withering looks and cold shoulders punish him when he wasn't eager to step away from the television. Now we just hit pause, take a play break with the kids, and catch up with the game when we can.

I'm not the only one who relies on a crutch. A friend of a friend mentioned her marriage's favorite recently: a cleaning service. Neither husband or wife could stand their filthy apartment - and regular bickering over who was pulling his or her weight with the cleaning, and who wasn't, spoiled otherwise nice days together. For this couple, marital happiness was worth more than the price of a twice monthly maid.

What crutches does your marriage rely on?

Or do you need a crutch you haven't yet found? To discover it, think about the areas of marital tension that always surface: interruptions during the football game, a house that seems dirty with no one to clean it, managing the after-school hours for the kids. It's unlikely that your partner will change his or her overall approach to these issues - so is there any other solution that might decrease tension?

Admittedly, most of the crutches I have in mind cost some money. These are middle class luxuries that not everyone can afford. But if you can, spend the money - sacrifice your custom cup of joe, tickets to a concert, or a few dinners out and make it happen. Like that pacifier we popped in our son's mouth, it may just stop some crying.

Does a Skinny Wife = a Happy Marriage?

A news article from over the weekend caught my attention - University of Tennessee researchers just released a study that shows marriages are more likely to be happy when the wife is skinnier than the husband.

Perhaps there's some evolutionary reason for this. Regardless, I find the shallowness of the finding to be disappointing. And yet, at some emotional level it makes sense to me.

I'm a short and average-built woman married to a tall and exceptionally skinny man. Despite the fact that Cliff is a foot taller than I am, he often only weighs 20 pounds more than I. I watch the scales for both of us, making certain that 20 pound gap doesn't shrink.

Toward the end of my first pregnancy my weight was only a few pounds shy of Cliff's. An unthinking friend asked me how much weight I had gained, and I replied honestly: about 30 pounds. She then turned to Cliff and said jokingly, "And how much do you weigh?"

Without hesitation, Cliff answered: 185. Only he and I knew this was 25 pounds over his actual weight. I love him dearly for lying on my behalf.

I'm not proud of the importance I put on watching the scales and staying smaller than my husband. It's a shallow part of myself I'd like to pretend did not exist.

Who knew it was contributing to my marital happiness?

Sustainable Marriage

In my day job, I think a lot about what makes business sustainable - in other words, how does a company set itself up for success not just in the short term, but over the long term as well. In business this means everything from reducing your environmental impact to charting steady (though not always aggressive) growth.

The phrase Sustainable Marriage is starting to circulate, thanks to NYT columnist Tara Parker- Pope. Borrowing from marriage researchers, Parker-Pope argues that marriages that last happily (that are sustainable) are marriages that - like business - chart steady growth.

What does that look like in a committed relationship? Well - it turns out that happy, lasting marriages are ones where the couples are continually growing as individuals. To quote Parker-Pope:

Dr. Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., a professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey, have studied how individuals use a relationship to accumulate knowledge and experiences, a process called “self-expansion.” Research shows that the more self-expansion people experience from their partner, the more committed and satisfied they are in the relationship.

You can take a quiz to test your own relationship's self-expansion value.

Never one to let a pop-science quiz pass me by, I grabbed a scrap of paper and quickly tallied my score: 60. I patted myself on the back a bit for this, "Good on us ... we've got a modestly self-expansive relationship." I thought. Not bad, especially for a couple whose daily interactions center most frequently on the kid's ear infections and bowel movements.

Then the panic set in: what if my husband's score was lower - significantly lower - than mine? What would it say about me as a person, or about our marriage? (Incidentally, a friend shared this article with me ... and she said she went through the same period of panic while waiting for her husband to take the test.)

Turns out (in both cases) that our husbands scored near-ish to our own scores. No cause for concern.

Though Parker-Pope's column didn't mention this, I suspect a relationship's capacity for self-expansion (at least in dramatic ways) is somewhat cyclical. Certain seasons of life make exceptional growth, grand acts of expansion, nearly impossible: when is there time for pursuing a wild new idea when it's always time to head out for the car pool?

One thing I notice in my husband, Cliff, is that even in the times when I'm least actively pursuing my long term goals, he still believes they are tangibly possible for me. It's what attracted me to him in the first place - I can clearly recall an early note from him where he said, "Your dreams are becoming my own." It may seem pie-in-the-sky, but I believe I'm more likely to reach my grandest goals because I have the daily support of someone who believes I'm worthy of them.

Marriage and business do have a lot in common: they share considerations of financial stability, long term projections for growth, and daily development of our products (in the case of our marriage, that would be our kids). Sustainable is what I'm going for ... and from now on, self-expansion will be one metric on my marriage dashboard.

This Flash Mob is My Love Letter to You

If you're not already a fan of Modern Family, this clip may convince you. I love it for its humor, but also for its true-to-life reflection of relationships. We show our love in the most unusual of ways, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

In this clip, buttoned-to-the-top Mitchell surprises his exuberant partner Cameron by being in a flash mob. Learning the dance is Mitchell's intentional attempt to surprise his partner by acting out of character. "This dance is my love letter to Cam," he says. It's joyous, and hilarious too: especially in the way Cameron responds.

What's your unlikely love letter?

Cliff, Claire & Klosterman, On Marriage:

"In the nineteenth century, teenagers merely aspired to have a marriage that would be better than that of their parents; personally, I would never be satisfied unless my marriage was as good as Cliff and Claire Huxtable's (or at least as enigmatic as Jack and Meg White's.)"
- Chuck Klosterman, from the essay This is Emo, in Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs

Enigmatic or not, Jack & Meg's marriage didn't survive. And Cliff & Claire aren't real, despite their permanent residence in the psyches of a generation. So what should we aspire to in marriage?

Perhaps that's a good question to ask your spouse. In advance of the conversation I plan to have with my husband, I've been trying to answer the question for myself. Here's the best I can come up with:

"I want, on every anniversary, to know that I'd still make the same choice."

Of course there's more to it than that - I want to make him laugh; I want above-average sex; I want to keep learning together; I want new adventures when we're 80; and I want to hold his hand to the very last minute. I want to know I don't have to change every dirty diaper. I promise I'll be able to participate intelligently in conversations about the Bears.

Essentially, I want an intimate friendship that lasts. That's what I aspire to. And why? Well,

I'll borrow an answer from the article by Rachel Combe, posted in the previous entry:

... "The point of marriage, I think, is to create meaning, with every happy and sad memory, every hardship overcome, every kind act, every moment of acceptance, every triumph (Gore will likely never get to have another wife watch him win a Nobel Prize), every child, grandchild, pet, and friend you accumulate ­together. The point of staying married until you die is to have a witness to your whole life, to the meaning you built. In the end, you can look at your spouse and say: Somebody knew me—and I knew them. Which isn’t to suggest you need to marry to have this kind of intimacy, but if you do marry and stay alive to that marriage (it’s possible to live your whole life with someone and never summon up the humanity to get to know them), you will get that reward."

I aspire to make it through marriage so that I know and am known this way. There's more to it than that, but I think that's a pretty good place to start. And if we can manage that ... then each anniversary I'll toast the good choice we made in September of 2001.

Everything I Needed to Know About Marriage, I learned from ELLE Magazine

Okay, that's an exaggeration. But this article is the best thing I've read about marriage in a long time. And the author provides a compelling, and secular, answer to the question, "Why marry, and why stay married?"

Till ­Whatever Do Us Part

Has America become too blasé about divorce? Rachael Combe considers the meaning of a lifetime commitment in an age when instant gratification trumps endurance

Enough with the Silly Love Songs

Around the time we got engaged, we attended a marriage enrichment course others had recommended. There were hundreds of couples in the room – some of whom and been married for decades, others who (like us) were just taking that step.

On the last night of the course, in what was clearly supposed to be the emotional climax of the event, the facilitators brought a man with a guitar to the stage. They gave us the instructions to face our partner, hold both hands, and look unblinkingly into our partner’s eyes while the man sang a lengthy (and, if I recall correctly, rather trite) love song.

Cliff and I were at the height of our relational giddiness. I’d never felt this sort of emotion for another human being, and I was certain of my love for him. But even so, this little exercise, set to the tune of a tired 80s love song, was just too much to bear.

By the end of the first verse we were snickering. By the chorus we were biting our lips to keep from laughing out loud. Somewhere in the middle of the second verse we began making faces at each other, batting our eyelashes and licking our lips suggestively. I think Cliff started whispering sweet nothings in my ear, using an exaggerated French accent. As the song entered its fourteenth verse, we gave up on even feigned participation and just began discussing the rest of our weekend. If this hadn’t happened before the era of smart phones, I’m pretty sure we would have been surfing Facebook on our iPhones. It’s a wonder we didn’t get kicked out.

Luckily for us, sappiness is not an accurate predictor of marital success.

We learned something about our relationship that night – though it probably wasn’t the lesson the course’s facilitator wanted us to learn. We discovered that emotional connections cannot be manufactured: it takes more than mood music and a command to stare into one another’s eyes. We also learned that we just don’t do sappy.

Fast forward a decade. We now have 10 years of marriage under our belt (and, to be honest, the belts are a little bigger these days than they were when we said “I do”); we balance two kids, dual careers, an old house with an endless list of DIY projects, and volunteer commitments to our church and community. Our marriage has weathered the demands of daily life well, but we know it needs some basic maintenance (much like our aging home) to keep it in good shape for the long run.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of places to turn for sap-free basic maintenance advice. It seems that when it comes to marriage resources, most things fall into two categories: cheesy and non-substantive, or problem-based, with the assumption that your marriage is broken and you’re teetering on the edges of divorce.

I’m looking for a third category: substantive and strengths-based. I’m open to recommendations, as long as they don’t come with an 80s soundtrack.

Mostly-Happily Ever After: About this Blog

Anyone who has been married more than a few months knows the truth: happily ever after is a myth. But mostly-happily ever after, well, that might be do-able. If only someone sensible could tell us how.

Neither of us is the sensible person you’re looking for. But we are on the hunt for all reasonable recommendations of how to last through the first years, or the second ten; how to make fresh what seems stale; how to make a good marriage great.

Think of this blog as a clearinghouse of ideas and commentary related to Mostly-Happily Ever After.

A friend once said that a good marriage is part method, part mystery. We hope what you find here will help you think through the methods of your own relationship, and create a positive environment where the mystery can occur.

Check out the blog and you’ll find two types of content:

Information (from articles, books, popular culture, etc.) and conversation about marriage-related topics: We hope the content will spark conversation and help you shape the methods of your own relationship.

Ideas and resources for the intentional development of your relationship: substantive conversation-starters, exercises, and activities that start with the assumption that your marriage is good and can be great. (I’m sure you’re skeptical about this, but give us a chance.)

Let’s be honest: we’re doing this for ourselves. After 10 years of marriage, we’ve yet to find any “marriage enrichment” resources that felt right for our relationship. (Check out the post, “Enough with the Silly Love Songs” for the story.) So we’re starting a dialogue of our own. And to hold us accountable, we’re sharing them with you.

Tell us what you think – we can take brutal honesty – and share your ideas too.