The One Thing That Breaks Any Marriage
Why should you bother to keep the spark alive?
4 min read
There are many things you can do in a long-term committed relationship to “keep the spark alive,” to “not lose the magic,” and to “keep the mystery going”. But why should you bother?
What advice such as “get a nanny for the kids and keep having date nights,” “go on a romantic getaway,” and “make time for each other” really mean is: make sure your spouse knows that they and your relationship are your number one priority, always. That’s it.
There are two main reasons marriages end. One, the couple was incompatible to begin with and should never have gotten together. Two, they had everything to make it work, but they failed at putting the marriage first. Need proof?
“It ended because they cheated.”
— Translation: didn’t put the marriage first.
“They gambled away all our money.”
— Translation: didn’t put the marriage first.
“They focused on the kids / their career to the point of obsession. I felt lonely.”
— Translation: didn’t put the marriage first.
And so on.
Getting married is a beautiful thing. It locks you in a partnership for life and makes you feel secure.
The problem starts when a spouse (or both) feels so secure they start to take the other for granted. And that’s when knowing how to give the relationship priority makes all the difference.
Sure, life gets hard.
Your parents might get sick, you might get laid off, you might need to make a push for your career and work late every day for three months; your best friend might be in crisis and have to sleep a few nights on your couch… Any number of things can happen, and you won’t be able to predict them. That’s life. That’s why marriage is so great, it provides you with a partner to help you weather all this stuff.
The problem starts when anything and everything life throws at you becomes bigger and more important than your marriage.
If each of you decides that pursuing your careers, helping your friends out, or even dedicating yourselves exclusively to your kids is the most important thing in the world, you start to drift off towards your separate goals, and when you stop to look around, you’re not a team anymore. You don’t need each other anymore.
Where did the marriage go? Out the window, and you didn’t even notice.
Your spouse is supposed to support you in difficult times. They’re supposed to cheer you on in your pursuits and be there for you when things are not going right. You should, however, always take a step back from whatever the issue is at the moment and appreciate your spouse. That’s when those “make time for each other” and “keep having date nights” advice comes in.
It goes even deeper than date nights, though.
You should never allow the pursuit of your career, a problem with your family, or anything else to shape your life. Why? Because you’re married now. It’s not just your life. It’s yours and your spouse’s combined into one unit, even if you’re still two people.
Your marriage should shape your life.
Should you move cities for your job? Should you go spend six months taking care of your aging parents? Should you give up your career to stay home with the kids? You can’t make those decisions on your own when you’re married. Or at least, you shouldn’t.
When you’re married, any major decision should be made as a couple. If you cultivate your relationship the right way, if you both feel that the relationship is the priority, you’ll get all of the support you need when deciding to move across the country, to stay away from home for a bit, to create the best environment for your children.
Not only that, but if you successfully put your relationship first, once it’s all over — you’re retired, your parents are gone, the kids have lives of their own — you’ll still have each other.
And you’ll be together in happy companionship.
If the relationship doesn’t come first, one day you’ll realize that you’ve lived together for thirty years like roommates, with each doing their thing, and now that all the “things” are over, you can barely recognize the person sitting next to you. No wonder, you haven’t actually looked at them for years.
Once you get married, everything else comes second. That’s why marriage is such a big step. You’re choosing your life partner, the person who’s going to be there for you no matter what.
But you’re not choosing a cheerleader, who’s going to be busy not only cheering for you, but doing their own routine on the sidelines as you pursue your goals on the field.
No, you’re choosing a co-pilot. Someone who’s going to be locked in that cockpit with you, guiding the plane that’s your marriage for thirty, forty years or more.
It will take the two of you to make sure that that plane keeps flying and, eventually, lands safely. You’ll need to build a hell of a good relationship to tolerate each other for so long in that cockpit. If one of you steps out to check on the passengers for too long, the other won’t be able to keep the plane on course by themselves. It will crash.
So don’t check on the passengers for too long. Don’t get distracted by life and leave your co-pilot alone in the cockpit. Remember, they can hold the plane by themselves, but only for so long.
Put your marriage first, and everything else you have to tackle in life will get a lot easier.
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