#30 What’s Killing Marriages/Relationships These Days?
There's a simple answer and a complex one, so I'll go with the simple one first. All marriages/relationships (Healthy ones) are the product of individuals deciding to engage in them. We choose our life partner. We choose our friends. We choose those whom we consider our "tribe." The dissolving of those relationships is simply a choice from either one or both parties for it to be dissolved. Someone decides, "You know what....I don't want to do this anymore." and they decide to no longer engage or feed into the relationship. Typically, anything that's not fed will eventually die.
Here's where the complexity lies...why do they dissolve? I think we underestimate the cost of giving our all to someone. There are many who believe that communication is the key to a healthy marriage, which I believe is true. However, there's an inherent assumption that the surrounding environment is not in chaos, thus making communication a much simpler matter. Communication can seem to be easier until you have to tell your spouse something that may crush them. Communication can seem to be easier until the bills can't be paid due to terrible spending habits. Communication can seem to be easier until someone has a breakdown and mentally/emotionally retreats, becoming unable to have a conversation. Communication can seem to be easier until your attempts at showing love are met with rejection. Communication can seem to be easier until neither of you has slept in days because the baby won't stop crying. Communication can seem to be easier until job loss/health problems pose to drive a rift between partners. Getting up every day and choosing to go "all in" on this thing called "relationship" can be both scary and exhilarating all at the same time. The ebbs and flows of life have a way of changing our desire to engage in this daily practice. And it's here where I believe the other answer falls.
Our underestimation keeps us from showing up to practice loving someone from moment to moment. We've been trained to expect it to always be easy, fun, and full of laughter. Our society places a beacon on the highlights of relationships but nobody talks about the low points; the patience it takes to cultivate this desire to be all in with someone. There's a line in traditional marriage vows that goes "I promise to love and cherish you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and forsaking all others, keep myself only unto you, for as long as we both shall live." Sometimes, the "forsaking all others" is us forsaking our own desires. We have to forsake our desire to pursue others. We have to forsake our desire to lash out in anger. We have to forsake our desire, and sometimes right, to stand angry and bitter. We have to forsake our desire to think it would always be easy.
Getting to know someone can be easy. Consistently deciding to stick with them, even when we don't want to, is where relationships get extremely difficult. Especially because it's very easy to find what we "want" at a moment's notice. We live in a society where people have become preferences or, better yet, prizes. They are either a physical portrayal of everything we have ever wanted or their presence fulfills inner desires that we haven’t been able to quell. We can get whatever we want at a moment's notice, so why stay in something that no longer serves our happiness? This relentless pursuit of happiness can cause us to lose sight or, more regrettably, completely forsake what we already have. That is where I think many fall short.
