How Do You Know If Your Marriage Is Good Enough?
You don’t need NFL training to hurl a pizza across the kitchen. I found this out as I watched my bestie attempt to avoid her husband’s dinner (he didn’t fling it at her, he claims). “They folded the slices,” he bellowed. “Ruined.” She bit her tongue hard — but not, unfortunately, before “Is this a brodak moment ?” (he’s all about hangin with the guys) Big mistake. He went off like a car alarm, the honk-honk-beeeep-honk kind.
As I watched in horror, I was pining for the Single Me with full custody of the remote control. Single Me released from rancid pessimism. Single Me without pepperoni and extra sauce dripping down the newly painted white (of course) wall.
Airborne pizza has a way of speed-dialing every doubt you’ve had about your marriage. And I expected such moments when I signed up. What has thrown me, however, is the drag of compromise, the extra weight of two lives trying to trundle forward together but instead holding each other back. After five years of gradually easing off good behavior, we’re left with a nearly constant scrape of differences.
Freedom beckons intoxicatingly, but then I wonder if my expectations aren’t unrealistic — whether I’ve got the makings of a good marriage but am foolishly holding out for perfect. A 20-year study conducted on 2,000 subjects who started off married, says 55 to 60 percent of divorcing couples discard unions with real potential. Most of these people say they continue to love their betrothed but are bored with the relationship or feel it hasn’t lived up to their expectations.
So how do you know if you have one of those fixable marriages? And what is a good-enough marriage? Simply ask yourself, “Can I make my marriage good enough?” I’ve uncovered 10 questions you can ask yourself to help clarify whether or not your relationship, albeit imperfect, is worth a good go:
1. Are you exaggerating the negatives? For the next two months mark the good and bad days on your calendar for a reality check.
2. Have you already left the marriage by emotionally withdrawing? Or by giving up all attempts to make the relationship better? If so, can you find a way to re-engage?
3. Do you get so angry that you hit each other or throw things at least once a month? If the answer is yes, are you hanging on to a terrible relationship because you’re afraid of being alone? Or because you’re convinced it’s the best you can do?
4. If you’re frustrated because your husband won’t change (you’d like him to be more forceful or manly, for example), is it really necessary that he does? Is there anything in your family history that may be driving your need to transform him? (For example, perhaps your father never stood up for you when you needed him to do so.)
5. Have you been teaching your husband the wrong lessons by not challenging his hurtful behavior? (You don’t say anything when he criticizes you in public. He never washes the dishes, so you just do them, resentfully.)
6. Do you have fun together? Even when things are tough, do you make jokes about it? (A good sign.) If not, can you make time in your marriage for more play?
7. Are there conflicts that you’ve avoided in the relationship? What do you fear would happen if you confronted them?
8. Do you simply need more time alone? A weekend on your own every so often to make the heart grow fonder?
9. Has something occurred — a death, a big birthday, a job loss — that’s throwing off your relationship and needs to be addressed?
10. Have you done everything you possibly can to make this marriage work? Are you certain he has heard your complaints? Have you tried a marriage-education class or couples therapy? If he won’t go to counseling, have you gone yourself to see how you might save the relationship?
For me, the most clarity has come from thinking of marriage not as a noun, or a state of being, but as a verb, as in what “I do” (you say those two words for a reason), and therefore something I can do better. So rather than hang my marriage on the clearance rack, as I fear I’ve done, I vow to try to understand — even appreciate — his faults, err, growth opportunities. You know, I always wanted a red kitchen. Just think: pizza-proof.
