Marriage: The Last Frontier

Marriage is the last frontier for us to conquest because it causes us to face ourselves. It confronts us with a view we have never seen before.

The writer of Genesis refers to marriage as "A man shall leave his family and cleave to his wife: And the two shall become one." Harville Hendrix refers to marriage as a love relationship whose purpose is to heal childhood wounds. Another popular author writes that marriage is for procreation and personal growth. What happened to the idea of romance? I thought we fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after. My revision of this is that we fall in love driven by unconscious forces, marry, most have children and then our personal issues incubate and grow like bacteria in the laboratory of life. Strange things, like dependency needs, feelings of abandonment, self-pity, loss of ourselves, anger over our needs not being met and fear begin to show up.

Marriage is the last frontier for us to conquest because it causes us to face ourselves. It confronts us with a view we have never seen before. It is a scary view we would rather not see. It’s the bird’s eye view of our partner who sees us as we are. We are presented with the chance to strengthen our personalities, much the same way that bones strengthen by use, jarring and jostling. And that is what life becomes – sessions of jarring and jostling. No fairy tale ended by saying "And they all lived jarring and jostling ever after." If peace and safety is your goal, then marriage isn’t for you. The motto is more likely to be "The Few, The Proud."

Creating a marriage is not for the faint of heart. Carl Jung has written, "There is no birth of consciousness without pain." We grow only as we face challenges and adjust to meet them. In facing these challenges, we learn more about ourselves than we ever could alone.

Judith Wallerstein, Ph.D. states in her book, The Good Marriages: How and Why Love Lasts, that she has found nine common qualities in "successful" marriages. They are:

1. Separate emotionally from the family of one’s childhood so as to invest fully in the marriage and redefine the lines of connection with both families of origin.

2. Build togetherness by shared intimacy and mutual identification with each other.

3. Establish a rich and pleasurable sexual relationship and protect it from the incursions of the workplace and family obligations.

4. Embrace together the daunting roles of parenthood and absorb the impact of a baby’s entrance into the marriage. The couple protects their own privacy.

5. Confront and master the inevitable crises of life together; i.e., loss of loved ones, security, etc.

6. Maintain the strength of the marital bond in the face of adversity.

7. Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective and to avoid boredom and isolation.

8. Nurture and comfort each other, satisfying each partner’s needs for dependency and offering continuing encouragement and support.

9. Keep alive the early romance; idealize images of falling in love, while facing the sober realities of the changes wrought by time.

Check for yourselves. The more of those qualities that are present in your marriage, the more likely you will be to succeed as a couple. But remember, marriage is a process, not an end in itself. When you get the girl, then what do you do with her all those years – ‘til death do us part? Successful marriage is not marriage without problems, but rather, facing those problems together.

To add interest to this picture, partners seek qualities, which they admire in others, but then spend the rest of their lives trying to live with those qualities or tear them down. Naturally the loose and casual individual is drawn to the tense and structured person. The passive person is drawn to the more active. The socially disconnected individual is drawn to the social butterfly. It is nearly correct to say that opposites attract. Our work becomes how to live with our partners, day in--day out, and view these differences positively.

Becoming aware of your partner and being realistic in your expectations becomes an essential ingredient. Learn how to evaluate the vital signs of your marriage and respond. The Bible refers to the act of sex as "to know." The most intimate connection is knowing your partner. Taking time to be with each other and sharing innermost thoughts and feelings becomes the cornerstone of intimacy. We become best friends as well as lovers. It is not a complete merging, but rather a joining together. We do not lose ourselves in each other, but become something together which we could not be alone.

Marriage is God-given and is used as an illustration of Christ’s relationship with His church. It represents the deepest closeness, which any of us can experience. At times our commitment to each other may only be based upon principle. To respond to God’s plan means to invest ourselves in this bravest of risks, to let our partner see us for whom we really are. And maybe we’ll learn some incredible truths about ourselves, which will call for change. Marriage is a call to action. Marriage is truly the real last frontier.

Craig Montgomery, Ph.D. (503) 661-7733
Northwest Counseling Services
333 S.E. 223rd Ave., Suite 204, Gresham, OR 97030
Specialty: Marriage and Family, Drug/Alcohol Recovery, Anger Management, Depression, Anxiety Disorders, Compulsive Behavior, Men’s Issues