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Why Marriage Is Worth It

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton

If you are in the throes of a difficult marital relationship, you likely have asked yourself, Is marriage worth it? Is all this unhappiness likely to lead to something better, or should you leave and avoid more pain? If you choose to stay, is there hope for a future with a best-friend kind of relationship? The uncertainty of what lies ahead seems to loom like a threatening storm.

Sure, married life has its benefits, but are they compelling enough to cause you to stick it out? Consider this: a study of unhappy marriages conducted by the Institute for American Values showed that there was no evidence unhappily married people who divorced were any better off than unhappily married people who stayed married. As a matter of fact, two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed together reported that their marriages were happy five years later.1

Marital researcher John Gottman notes the physical benefits of married life:

Numerous research projects show that happily married couples have a far lower rate for physical problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety, depression, psychosis, addictions, etc. and live four years longer than people who end their marriages.2

What’s more, according to a national study, more than three-fifths of divorced Americans say they wish they or their spouses had worked harder to save their marriages.3

Impressive findings. But do they answer the question of why your marriage might be worth the effort? Why should you invest your energy, emotions, and time in an endeavor that seems to be more depleting than enlivening? Why hang in there “for better or for worse”? Why should you choose to endure with no foreseeable promise of relief? It’s an important question that deserves serious reflection.

The reality is marriage is hard. There’s no play-by-play manual and there are no days off. At its worst it is the most challenging relationship you can have, and at its best it is the most profoundly gratifying experience of your life. It will expose your deepest wounds and demand your utmost selflessness. It will surface your protective defenses and invite you to reveal your most tender vulnerabilities. It is not equal or fair but an ever-shifting seesaw of give-and-take.

There is no scorecard to measure how you’re doing. There is no insurance you can buy to compensate you for the emotional capital you invest and no umbrella policy to protect you from losses. Marriage provides you and your spouse with the opportunity to see each other at your best and at your worst. And for that reason, it is the one relationship in life that gives you the greatest opportunity to grow into a person who loves well and is loved, warts and all.

One Sure Thing

Life is messy and unpredictable. Just when you think you have everything in hand, something happens: your spouse loses their job, a parent gets cancer, a longtime friend cuts off the relationship, a pet dies, your laptop crashes.

This generation has known its share of financial uncertainty. The Great Recession upended confidence that the “American Dream” was attainable. Many twenty- and thirtysomethings were stunned to discover that the economic opportunities available to college graduates in the two previous generations were not as available for them. On the contrary, unemployment soared, reaching its peak in the first decade of this century, leaving many unable to find work, buried in college debt, and financially dependent on their parents.

Many millennials have entered my office feeling lost and deceived. They had understood that these would be the best years of their lives but were struggling to find their place in the world. They had no idea what career to pursue, where they would live, or how long they would have to wait until they found a meaningful lifelong relationship. They felt uncertain about finding that special someone and even more unsure about the prospects of sustaining a fulfilling marriage. All this uncertainty translated to anxiety about the future.

Young adults are not alone in this. Our culture promotes a concept of success that includes material wealth, high achievement, and intense, passionate relationships. If you are not experiencing these, you can feel anxious—that you’re not measuring up, that you’re not “good enough.” According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders affect 18.1 percent of adults in the United States (approximately forty million people between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four). If estimates include those who don’t seek help, are misdiagnosed, or don’t know they have anxiety issues, the number is closer to 30 percent.4

Why this discussion about anxiety? Because indecision about the person to whom you are married creates anxiety.

I see this in my office daily. Couples who are committed to each other and seeking help, even if they are in high degrees of conflict when they come to me for therapy, progress much more rapidly and feel more relief than those who are entertaining the possibility of splitting up. Having settled the matter of permanency, they are free to invest their energy in repair, growth, and building a future together. When you are in a relationship for the long run, you have less anxiety and can bring your undivided self to work on the marriage.

When Jill and Steve entered my therapy office, they had hit a rough patch. She was feeling emotionally distant from him and reconsidering her commitment to him. Steve had been unemployed for ten months and felt somewhat depressed. He had a hard time motivating himself and he resented the pressure he sensed from her to pound the pavement and find work. He had begun to get angry with Jill and criticize how she handled the children.

Steve struggled with anxiety. He knew he needed to accelerate his job search but found Jill’s attitude crippling. His fear of her leaving left him immobilized and agitated. I asked Steve to describe how he felt physically when she talked about splitting up.

“I get tight in my chest, my stomach feels twisted, and my thoughts start racing,” he said.

I then asked him if those feelings reminded him of any similar physical experience from childhood.

“Oh, yeah! When my parents would leave me at my grandparents’ house for the weekend, I felt just like this. I tried sharing my fears with them, but they just dismissed my feelings and told me I’d have a great time. If I complained when we got home, my parents told me to grow up and get over it.”

Steve’s parents didn’t know how to help him with his anxious feelings. His dad worked long hours, and although his mom stayed home, she had difficulty recognizing her own feelings, much less Steve’s. When they left him with his grandparents, he felt abandoned.

After Steve recounted his story, Jill said, “I didn’t realize how often Steve’s parents left him. That would be hard on such a young boy.”

Jill then made the connection between her distancing herself from Steve and the sense of abandonment and resulting anxiety he’d experienced earlier in life. “I had no idea that my talk about leaving felt this way to Steve. I’ve just been so frustrated with his lack of effort, I guess I thought threatening to split up would motivate him to get a job.”

Steve leaned close to his wife. “When you first said you might leave, I thought I’d throw up. But I stuffed it. After that, I felt even more unable to make calls about jobs. And when you pushed me, I just got angry.”

Jill took his hand. “I’m sorry. I was just scared. I don’t know how we’re going to make it financially, and it seemed like you didn’t care.”

Over the next two sessions, Steve and Jill began to see how their responses to each other were exacerbating their difficulties. Steve became more aware of how their financial insecurity was affecting Jill, whose parents had suffered a bankruptcy. Jill became aware of how her responses were feeding Steve’s depression and anxiety.

The next session was pivotal.

After I summarized their growth from the previous two sessions, Jill turned to Steve. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I want you to know that I am not leaving. I love you and we’re going to work this out,” she said. Steve heaved a sigh of relief. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I will do whatever it takes to find a job so you don’t need to have those fears.”

Steve and Jill continued to work on their relationship, intercepting negative patterns and learning to support each other in new ways. What enabled them to reignite their marital journey and gave them energy for the road ahead? The security of knowing that, in each other at least, they had one sure thing.

Castles and Moats

When there is insecurity about the future of your marriage, it is impossible to experience the safety necessary to become truly intimate partners. To reveal yourself to another, to allow your mate into your most vulnerable places, requires the assurance you will be together for the long run.

It’s like we’re castles, surrounded by a moat of protection to ensure that we will not be overtaken by enemy forces. When we feel safe, we let down the drawbridge, spanning the moat and allowing other people access inside. From within, our loved ones can see our vulnerabilities, our special and secret places unknown to others. They can see our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

Without the promise of fidelity and the assurance that the other person will be with you and for you forever, the risk of such intimate openness is too great. Sensing that there are conditions to the relationship puts both parties on guard. Each knows they must perform to ensure ongoing relationship and protect what could be lost if the other were to leave. The security of a steadfast partnership is necessary for us to take the risk of allowing another human being to know us at these deeper levels.

Even within the safety of a committed relationship, we can wound our mate if we are careless with the knowledge they have entrusted to us. If a confidence shared in a moment of vulnerability is used later in an argument, our drawbridge pulls up to defend against further attack. In a committed relationship, you learn to forgive and extend trust again. If your drawbridge is well oiled, it can go up and down at will. As your marriage matures over time, your drawbridge can remain lowered for longer periods of time.

When your relationship is secure, and you are committed to each other for a lifetime, you and your spouse are free to share at deeply intimate levels. Even when skirmishes surface inside the walls of your castle, you have a deep and abiding sense that you will both be there for each other, no matter what. The exclusive bond you have created relieves you of the anxiety of having to constantly guard your castle. It creates the safety required to be truly known and to fully know each other.

Becoming Best Friends

When you got married, you likely hoped your spouse would be your best friend for life. The reasons you chose your particular mate reveal what you look for in a best friend: someone who will love you no matter what, someone who will help you become the best you can be, someone you can trust with your intimate thoughts, and someone who is devoted to your well-being. Perhaps your reasons were less specific: you just couldn’t imagine your life without that person or you felt an intense connection that told you, This is the one.

Whatever your reason for choosing your spouse, creating and sustaining a best-friend relationship requires a willingness to offer the other person room in the relationship to grow.

In every new marriage, there comes a time when both partners realize they have married someone who’s imperfect. The first disappointment may be small—they don’t squeeze the toothpaste right. Or it may be huge—they are addicted to pornography. Even small disappointments can lead some couples to consider calling it quits, particularly if they entered marriage with strong expectations of what their spouses needed to be for them.

The huge disappointments, particularly if they violate trust, can wreak havoc on a young marriage and cause a spouse to consider whether they married the “right” person. Whatever the severity of the infraction, whether you survive it and build a loving, lasting marriage or choose to end it depends on how willing each of you is to change and how much grace you offer each other as you both stumble toward growth.

As crazy as it may seem, we often think of ourselves as fully formed. We resist the suggestion that we have any growing to do. When a bad habit or an uncaring comment offends our spouse, we defend our behavior and blame them for being too sensitive. We don’t want to face our warts, so we try to diffuse complaints by being dismissive.

The truth is we all have a lot of growing to do, and marriage is the perfect place to do it. Why? Because you and your mate have promised to love each other for better or for worse. The safety created by that promise is the perfect soil in which to nurture new growth.

Each of us has a longing to be unconditionally loved—to have someone in this world who sees us for who we truly are and loves us still. In the presence of this person, we can be fully ourselves without pretending or performing. We know this individual loves us and we can put down our walls and defenses.

Although we desire this kind of love, we have a hard time giving it. If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t want to provide such love to another person. To love someone unconditionally, without requiring something in return, is beyond our human capacity. We do, however, want someone to be unconditionally committed to us. That’s because unconditional love is freeing. It is also comforting and transformational.

At best, our ability to love our mate unconditionally will be sporadic. In the safety of committed love, our capacity is enhanced. As we remain devoted to and accept our spouse, we offer them space to grow. We are like hosts, extending hospitality to the total person of our mate. Marriage then becomes an invitation to our spouse to grow by being receptive to who they are now and who they are becoming.5

Unconditional love is something we can experience in a spiritual sense. The Bible tells us that God’s love for us is unconditional.6 It is lavish, irrevocable, and complete.7 When we feel loved like that, we are free to be totally ourselves. We don’t have to measure up, be good, or toe the line. We don’t have to perform, prove ourselves, or hide. We are free to be real, to become who we truly are.

God’s unconditional love is always available.8 When we feel like we’re not enough, or our mate isn’t enough, we can rest in knowing that we are loved. His love can fill the tank when ours runs dry.

As we come to understand the depth of God’s unconditional love for us, we can learn to let go of our demands on our mate to be our sole source of love and value. As we release our grip on them, we are transformed into people who can love more unconditionally. And we free our spouse to become more fully themselves. We give them room to grow.

You may feel a bit threatened by your mate’s imperfections. More than simply being inconvenient, their faults might trigger a fear that you will not get your needs met. When you fear, you tend to constrict the space necessary for your spouse to grow.

James and Amy had difficulty giving each other this room. He sometimes felt trapped by her desire for time together, which caused him to pull away. When he did, Amy’s fear of being unloved caused her to pursue him more intensely. This triggered a fear in James that he was losing his independence, so he pulled further away. This pursuer-avoider pattern was driven by fear. Neither was hopeful the other could change in any significant way, which fueled their self-protective efforts.

One session highlighted this impasse.

“She’s so insecure,” James said. “I feel smothered by her need to spend every minute on the weekends together. I can’t even play golf with my buddies anymore.”

“That takes five hours!” Amy said. “That’s a quarter of our weekend.”

James shot a look my direction. “See? She counts the hours. I can’t live like this.”

“He doesn’t get it.” Amy’s gaze dropped. “He’ll never be able to give me what I need.”

“And I’ll never be enough for her.”

Neither James nor Amy believed that the other could change. They saw in their marriage a pattern of defeat, where their needs would never be understood or met. Their mutual fear constricted the relationship. Rather than creating an open space in which each could understand the other’s needs, James and Amy’s responses were confining each other.

Giving your mate time and space to grow isn’t easy. Offering a place where they can shed their mask and be real with you is especially difficult when your needs and desires are clamoring for attention.

Often, learning to give our mate space requires that we understand how our own wounds are getting triggered by their behavior. It also requires an awareness that our mate is not in control of our happiness. This awareness allows us to give up our demands that our mate make us happy. Eventually, if you are able to offer your spouse room to grow, space to truly be themselves, your marriage will be life-giving and you will lay the foundation for the two of you to become best friends for life.

The Stages of Married Life

If you are in a difficult season of your married life, let me assure you that, for most married couples who stick it out, life does get better! All relationships go through predictable developmental stages.9 If you can identify the characteristics of each stage, you can begin to invest your energy in purposeful efforts that will help you transition into the next stage.

When you and your spouse first met, you likely spent a good deal of time exploring each other’s interests, feelings, thoughts, and personalities. As the relationship moved forward, you missed each other when you were apart and looked forward to “us” time, when the two of you could be together. Your desire to remain independent was gradually eclipsed by your desire to be coupled.

In this romantic stage of the relationship, you enjoyed the experience of bonding to each other, the delight of giving to your partner and having them give to you. You saw the best in each other and experienced the joy of feeling unconditionally loved.

Looking back now, you may acknowledge that you deferred your own needs, wants, and even personality as you melded your individual lives into becoming a couple. Who you were together became more important than who you were individually.

As you entered marriage, the dream that you began to create together continued to drive your relationship. Conflict was, for the most part, avoided, as it was seen as disruptive to your shared life. Differences were downplayed and similarities were highlighted. Communication focused primarily on expectations that each of you brought to married life. These expectations directed the roles you played in your home life, work, and parenting. Expectations about how the other should be or behave were mostly silent and suggestive, not overt and directive. The dream you had for a life together gave you hope that your needs and wants would be satisfied.

The powerful connection of this early romantic stage is crucial, as it sets a foundation of trust and nurture that will be a necessary resource for future married life.10 The dream of this stage is, however, mostly an illusion. As the bliss of romance subsides, and the reality of a married life with two real individuals surfaces, a new opportunity presents itself.

In the second stage of married life, disillusionment, the individual identities, personalities, priorities, and expectations of each partner reemerge and the dream is threatened. Differences, so long suppressed, begin to surface. In an attempt to eliminate these, you and/or your mate may resort to criticism, shaming, coercing, avoiding, demanding, and other forms of manipulation.

Conflict often erupts in cycles of fighting and withdrawing. Arguments escalate quickly, and communication can be hurtful and disrespectful as the two of you compete for your needs to be addressed and met. Imperfections, which remained submerged or overlooked in the joint venture of courtship and early bonding, now come to light. These imperfections, along with the painful differences that surface, create anxiety, frustration, and disillusionment.

As a result, you and/or your spouse may seek to reestablish your identities by resuming the pursuit of your unique interests, whether with others or alone. The reemergence of both individuals, though inevitable and necessary for true intimacy to be experienced, can threaten the “us” of the relationship.

One of you may reassert your identity earlier than the other, which may initiate a pursuer-distancer pattern. If both of you pull away at the same time, you may end up feeling more like roommates than lovers. Although the disruption and potential death of the dream may feel scary, this is an important step in learning to embrace the reality of intimate life with another human being.

The third stage of marriage is rediscovery. In this stage you have each explored and clarified your identity and can speak for yourself without demanding your partner feel and think as you do. You can each accept the flaws and differences of each other and, consequently, you can bring your authentic selves to the relationship.

Disagreements still occur, but they are void of the negative reactivity and manipulative efforts of stage 2. You are more able to de-escalate a conflict and repair the damage quickly. Communications are more respectful and productive, characterized by the freedom to express your feelings and thoughts and a willingness to listen.

Because both of you are open to the needs and wants of the other, there is a more equal balancing of roles and a sense of shared responsibility for the demands of daily life. A new sense of “us” develops that honors the value and contribution of both partners, while you enjoy a togetherness that is organic and enlivening.

You and your mate support each other’s individual interests yet are mindful to balance these with ample couple time. A true interdependence emerges that allows you each to be fully yourself and fully together. In this stage, you are able to see your spouse as a person who, like yourself, is flawed and broken but in the process of becoming.11

Because of the growing sense of safety and warmth, sexual intimacy is reenergized. Qualitatively different from sex in stage 2, where intimate physical connection is at the mercy of conflicted emotional states, sex in stage 3 is affectionate and deeply satisfying, the reward of true friendship.

The fourth stage is characterized by a deep intimacy and friendship hewn out of the struggles and adjustments of married life. This season is characterized by a kind of synergy where the combined interactions of the couple have, over time, produced an effect that is greater than the sum of the individual contributions.12

In this stage, each of you becomes more giving and understanding. You take joy in each other’s differences and support each other’s development. Communication is open, genuine, and caring. Conflict is accepted as healthy, navigated without hostility, and used for growth. Roles are not an issue, as each of you contribute to benefit the whole.

As you encourage each other to become your authentic selves, your gifts and energy are released to contribute to the world and to those who come after you. In this stage you savor your shared history and enjoy the fruit of the work, love, and challenges of your married life.

Most couples make it through the first stage but get shaky during the second. In the heat of stage 2, couples typically go one of four ways:

1. They seek to reinstall the dream of stage 1, hiding and denying differences to avoid conflict.
2. They continue their escalating arguments, which become more hurtful and discouraging.
3. They exit the relationship.
4. They make room for each other’s uniqueness and the differences that are an inevitable part of their ongoing relationship.

If they choose number four, the couple will reevaluate their expectations of each other and their marriage, noticing that their often unconscious and rigid expectations have stifled rather than enlivened their marriage. This shift is only possible if one or both are willing to give up the illusion of the romantic stage, recognize the damage of the manipulative efforts of the second stage, and discover the reality of life together beyond the dream. In my experience, one mate typically initiates this step, usually followed by the partner when they notice the first spouse’s game-changing attitude.

Those who choose the path of divorce have difficulty imagining that their current pain and conflict can give way to something more satisfying. They are often caught in a cycle of mutual blame, struggling to extricate themselves from the overwhelming negativity. They imagine life would be better with someone else, or at least without their spouse.

The problem with this thinking is that couples who divorce rarely move to stage 3, rediscovery, when they remarry. Most regress to stage 1, the romantic stage, and start a new dream that will likely have its eventual demise. Remarrying couples typically move more rapidly into stage 2 than those in first marriages, as they often have added stresses such as stepfamily dynamics, an ex-spouse, alimony, and/or child support.

Even without these additional challenges, many who leave their first marriages do so blaming their spouses and do not address their own contributions to the marital problems. This puts the second marriage at risk. Though you may think you are leaving your problems behind, you take yourself with you into the next relationship. This may account for the 67 percent divorce rate for remarrying couples.

However, if you accept differences and do the hard work required for intimacy to grow in your current marriage, you can shift into stage 3 and enjoy the benefits of increased intimacy, more loving communication, and deeper levels of respect and reciprocity. With less energy focused on conflict and competition over needs, you are able to enjoy each other in new ways. As time passes you slip into stage 4, where the sweetness of what you have cocreated through the years bears its greatest reward.

If you are presently in stage 2, commitment may feel more like a trap than a path to the joys of a long-term relationship. You may be afraid to stay in a marriage that takes so much effort and has such painful conflict. You may find it difficult to imagine that the hard work can produce deep levels of intimacy and joy.

In my thirty years of marriage counseling, I have helped guide hundreds of couples from stage 2 (the stage at which most husbands and wives enter therapy) to stage 3, and I have yet to meet a couple who isn’t glad they put in the effort to work through their problems and enjoy the reconnection and growth that resulted.

Marriage Is Like the Stock Market

In the stock market, investors generally do best when they don’t react to the day-to-day swings in stock prices.13 Investors tend to do poorly when they look at the newspapers each morning to see if their chosen funds are doing as well as others and constantly change their investments. They move their money around so often that long-term growth is compromised, and they usually lose more money than those who keep investing whether the market is up or down.

Think of your marriage as a long-term investment. The ups and downs of satisfaction are inevitable and normal. In healthy marriages, satisfaction can be down for long periods of time only to rebound later to yield valuable dividends. If you get too focused on the down cycles, you may bail out too quickly and lose much of what you’ve invested. Successful couples keep investing, whether the relationship feels great or not. That’s why it takes commitment—a long-term view.

Are you hedging your bets? People with a short-term view of marriage scrutinize the costs and benefits of their relationship on a day-to-day basis. These people are likely to “move their investments around,” looking for other places to devote their energy—work, sports, volunteering, affairs, or whatever gives them a sense of being valued. Their investments become so diverted their marriages lose momentum.

Financial experts tell us to diversify. The healthy way to do that in marriage is to multiply the number of ways you invest in the relationship. It’s like having a mutual fund that includes a wide variety of stocks. In addition to sex and affection, for instance, you can develop new shared interests, volunteer together, nurture your spiritual connection, do one playful activity every week, attend a marriage retreat, and more. In all these ways, you are expanding your avenues of connection—within the marriage. At various times during your life, some of these avenues may not work as well as others. But by having spread your assets, you will stay connected. Regular diversified investment is the key to preventing erosion in your commitment.

Because investors with short-term views tend to get burned in the stock market, financial experts often advocate a strategy called dollar-cost averaging. In this approach, you choose a good mutual fund and stick with it. You contribute a set amount into the fund at regular intervals (e.g., $50 per month) whether the market is up or down. This strategy is very effective for beating inflation and saving something for the future.

Marriage works in much the same way. It is best if both partners are regularly investing in the relationship, whether their satisfaction level is currently up or down. You make deposits when you listen attentively, validate each other, forgive, put self-interest aside to do something that helps the other person, treat each other with kindness and respect, and so forth. Your portfolio strengthens and eventually you will enjoy the dividends of your wise investments.

Is it worth it to stay in your marriage? Is there any hope for a satisfying future with your spouse? In my experience, the answer is very probably. Every marriage has growing pains. But they also have incredible potential. Discovering the possibilities begins with reimagining what your marriage can be, staying the course, and opening yourself to new growth.

Discussion Questions: Chapter 3

Group and Couple Questions

1. Why might seeing your marriage as a sure thing create the conditions for growth in your marriage? Read John 10:11–15. How does Jesus’s commitment to love us give us security?
2. Read 1 Chronicles 16:34, John 3:16, and 1 John 3:1. What do these verses say about God’s love for us? How might knowing you are securely loved by God impact your ability to love in your marriage?
3. What are you doing to diversify your investments in your marriage? In what ways are you making regular deposits in your marital bank account? Exchange ideas.
4. In what stage of married life do you find yourself today—romance, disillusionment, rediscovery, or synergy? Read 2 Corinthians 3:18, 5:17, and Romans 12:2. How do these verses encourage you to know that God himself is at work helping you to grow toward more enjoyment of him and each other?

For Personal Reflection

1. Can you identify times when you have let your mate “inside your castle”? Can you identify times when you felt compelled to keep your drawbridge up, fearing your mate might see your vulnerabilities? What would need to happen to allow you to keep it lowered for more extended periods of time? Share this with your mate.
2. In what ways have you created space in your relationship for your mate to grow? In what ways have you made it unsafe for them to reveal their true self?
3. Neither James nor Amy believed that the other could change. They saw their marriage in a pattern of defeat, where their needs would never be understood or met. Can you relate to their struggle? Have you ever allowed your disbelief in your mate’s capacity to grow to confine your relationship?
4. What are you doing to diversify your investments in your marriage? In what ways are you making regular deposits in your marital bank account?
5. In what stage of married life do you find yourself today—romance, disillusionment, rediscovery, or synergy? What might you need to let go of to allow your marriage to progress to the next stage?