Meridian Magazine:: LDS Marriage Network: Choosing the Same Partner Over and Over Again: Commitment in a Healthy Marriage

By H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, for the LDS Marriage Network

Editor’s note: This is the third article in the LDS Newlywed Smart Start Kit. For the first article, click here.

Preparing for the Marital Choice

As we grow up, we are trained to think about finding the right person to marry. We spend years thinking about, assessing, evaluating, and comparing various dating partners. Then we marry. For many people, the old way of thinking doesn’t go away completely. It may be most active in times of relationship stress.

For example, at some point in the first few years of marriage there is either a big fight or a serious misunderstanding. At such a time, most people ask themselves about the relationship and might think, “Maybe I married the wrong person.”

If the stresses and misunderstandings continue to accumulate, the time may come when we will ask ourselves, “I wonder if I need to leave this relationship.”

We may also find ourselves attracted to a person at work, at church, or in the neighborhood — and we ask ourselves, “I wonder if this is the person I should have married?”

The “Natural Man” and Natural Thinking

It is true that the natural man is an enemy to marriage. It is also true that the natural way of thinking is an enemy of marital happiness. We need a change of heart and a change of thinking if we are to navigate the channels of marriage successfully.

More than thirty years ago, Nancy and I married in the Salt Lake City temple. Boy! Was I dumb! I had very little preparation for the demands of marriage — even with a saintly woman. To make things worse, I didn’t realize how dumb I was.

I believe that I made covenants to Heaven and Nancy that I did not even glimpse as we knelt at that altar many years ago. I think I promised: “Father, I now covenant with you that from this time forward I will always see, cherish, and celebrate Nancy’s best qualities. I will remember at all times and in all places that she is a queen, daughter of a King.”

Compare this commitment to the view that is common in our society. “Relationships are like shopping: just pick what is best for you. And if you find a better alternative somewhere along the line, return the original and move on to the better choice.” It is no wonder that discontent and divorce are so widespread today.

How to Assess Commitment

For those who are considering a relationship, there are sensible ways of assessing the potential partner’s willingness to make and keep commitments. Has that person shown commitment to family, organizations, and purposes over time? Naturally, we do not want stubbornness in potential partners; but we do value the kind of commitment that enables a person to honor core values and promises.

Thinking about Commitment

But how do we cultivate and maintain commitment in an existing relationship? One important way is to have a fitting metaphor for marriage. Most dating is much like a day in an amusement park. It is usually not good for assessing or preparing for marriage. Marriage is much more like cultivating a garden.

Marriage and gardening require time and patience. In any garden there are problems with weeds, storms, insects, and poor soil. There are also surprises such as not enough sun for the hollyhocks while the sunflowers are flourishing! In any marriage there are problems — plenty of them. If a person works wisely, patiently, lovingly, and faithfully, that person is likely to find many rewards in the garden of marriage.

Bill Doherty, professor and therapist, has used the seasons as a metaphor for marriage. He writes:

I think of long-term marriage like I think about living in Minnesota. You move into marriage in the springtime of hope, but eventually arrive at the Minnesota winter with its cold and darkness. Many of us are tempted to give up and move south at this point. We go to a therapist for help. Some therapists don’t know how to help us cope with winter, and we get frostbite in their care. Other therapists tell us that we are being personally victimized by winter, that we deserve better, that winter will never end, and that if we are true to ourselves we will leave our marriage and head south. The problem of course is that our next marriage will enter its own winter at some point. Do we just keep moving on, or do we make our stand now — with this person, in this season? That’s the moral, existential question. A good therapist, a brave therapist, will help us to cling together as a couple, warming each other against the cold of winter, and to seek out whatever sunlight is still available while we wrestle with our pain and disillusionment. A good therapist, a brave therapist will be the last one in the room to give up on our marriage, not the first one, knowing that the next springtime in Minnesota is all the more glorious for the winter that we endured together. (William J. Doherty, “How Therapy Can Be Hazardous to Your Marital Health.” CMFCE Conference, July 3, 1999).

Commitment means not selling off the garden because it needs fertilizer or quitting a relationship because of a snowstorm. It means a willingness to invest and to see beyond the bad times.

Setting Boundaries in Marriage

Marriage entails a willingness to set boundaries on intrusions to the relationship. For example, Shirley Glass (2003) recommends that marriage partners keep a window open between each other, while building a wall between themselves as a couple and those who threaten the relationship. “Innocent” flirtations and intrusive relatives, even well-meaning parents or siblings, can come between marriage partners. Partners in a relationship should only seek counsel from those who are friends of the marriage — those who want it to succeed. Even then, some very personal things about a relationship should only be shared with professionals or appropriate ecclesiastical leaders who can counsel with wisdom and experience.

For committed couples, marriage means that neither partner flirts with others. It means that neither partner considers himself or herself on the market. (You may admire someone else’s garden, but you do not steal the flowers!)

Those who have experienced years of “serial” dating, and who have lived in a quick-fix culture that romanticizes relationships, may find commitment to be a rare commodity. Long-term marriage tends to be more about enjoying spring flowers than riding a roller coaster. Those who are looking for constant thrills may find commitment to be very difficult, yet it is such commitment that leads to true joy and happiness in marriage.

Commitment and Thinking

Commitment also involves the way partners think about each other. John Gottman (1994), the world’s premier marriage researcher, has written that “nothing foretells a marriage's future as accurately as how a couple retells their past. The crucial factor is not necessarily the reality of a marriage’s early days, but how husband and wife currently view their joint history... Rewriting history may begin well before you become aware that your marriage is in serious danger” (p.127).

If we think a lot about bad times in a relationship, that becomes the “reality” of our marriages. We may forget and become blind to the positive things about a spouse or the shared positive memories in the marriage. If we keep a focus on the good times and strengths in our marriages, they become the reality that fills our minds and hearts. What we rehearse in our minds is what we tend to remember and consider real.

Humility plays a vital role in godly thinking. Insightful scholars have observed about stressed couple relationships:

“Your antenna is tuned to the criticism frequency, and you can pick up even the weakest signal... Every editor chooses a different beginning and a different ending. We usually start the film with our partners doing something to us and end it with our justifiable reaction. We are good; they are bad. As we listen to ourselves making repeated arguments in favor of our own views, we become more and more convinced of the correctness of those views. Why can’t we see the error of our ways? Sometimes our ways of coping are so habitual and reflexive that we’re not conscious of what we’re doing.” (Christensen & Jacobsen, 2000, excerpts from pp. 86, 116, and 105)

Commitment, a process that is rooted in our thinking and emotions, can be strengthened by remembering and cherishing the good. “Find the glory in your marital story,” is Gottman’s counsel (1994, p. 224). Partners in a relationship commitment can monitor and modify their way of thinking about their relationship. Difficult times can be interpreted as temporary or as an opportunity for new growth. Good times can be seen as central and typical.

Commitment and Actions

One key to a healthy relationship is making time to do things together. The embers of your relationship can only be fanned into flames if there is some heat there. And the best way to keep some heat in the relationship is probably by regular, pleasant times together. This does not mean expensive trips to exotic places. It could be something as simple as having quiet conversation and breakfast together every morning, or taking time to sit and re-connect at the end of the day.

Another key to maintaining commitment is strengthening the relationship through learning. There are many books with unwise and untested counsel. There are also books that draw on good research and good sense. A list of my recommended books appears at the end of this article.

A surprising discovery in marriage research is that a high percentage of people who reported that their relationships were distressed — but stayed together anyway — reported five years later that their relationship was healthy. Sometimes we must just outlast the storms of marriage.

Of course, a relationship that involves physical or emotional violence needs help. A person in such a relationship should seek counseling immediately and may need to end the relationship.

If we ever want to have the garden that we dreamed of for our own marriage, we must be prepared to invest years of patient work. Just as a determined gardener consults experienced neighbors and the county agriculture agent for solutions to garden problems, so a determined marriage partner seeks counsel of wise neighbors, authors, and leaders who can be trusted. Doing so can help you to cherish and honor the commitments you make to a marriage partner.

Summary of Key Points

To strengthen and maintain commitment in marriage, then, involves a daily and continuing choice in which we choose the same marriage partner over and over again. Commitment is a strong foundation for a healthy marriage. To review, some of the key points you should consider:

In times of relationship stress, be patient and reaffirm the commitment that you have made to a marriage partner.
Avoid the “natural thinking” that leads a person to consider alternatives to a spouse we have committed to, and instead focus on trying to see, cherish, and celebrate a partner’s best qualities. After all, would you like to always be judged by your worst moments or most challenging qualities?
Learn about a partner’s commitment to family, organizations, and purposes over time. Together, value the kind of commitment that enables a person to honor core values and promises.
Understand that cultivating a marriage is like cultivating a garden, and gardening requires time and patience. In any garden there are problems with weeds, storms, insects, and poor soil. In any marriage there are problems — plenty of them. If a person works wisely, patiently, lovingly, and faithfully, that person is likely to find many rewards in the garden of marriage.
Keep a window open between each other as marriage partners. Stay connected with your partner. Build a wall between yourselves (as a couple) and those who threaten the relationship. “Innocent” flirtations and intrusive relatives, even well-meaning parents or siblings, can come between marriage partners. Partners in a relationship should only seek counsel from those who are friends of the marriage — those who want it to succeed.
For committed couples, marriage means that neither partner flirts with others. It means that neither partner considers himself or herself on the market.
Commitment, a process that is rooted in our thinking and emotions, can be strengthened by remembering and cherishing the good. “Find the glory in your marital story.” Focus on the good times and strengths in our marriages from the past, and let them become the reality that fills our minds and hearts. What we rehearse in our minds is what we tend to remember and consider real.
Partners in a relationship commitment can monitor and modify their way of thinking about their relationship. Difficult times can be interpreted as temporary or as an opportunity for new growth. Good times can be seen as central and typical.
Make time to do things together, which could be something as simple as having quiet conversation and breakfast together every morning, or taking time to sit and re-connect at the end of the day.
Strengthening the relationship through learning. A list of my recommended books appears at the end of this article.

References and Recommended Reading

Christensen, A., & Jacobson, N. S. (2000). Reconcilable differences. New York: Guilford. These insightful authors suggest that acceptance of your partner and his or her ways may be very important in a strong relationship.

Doherty, W. J. (2001), Take back your marriage: Sticking together in a world that pulls us apart. New York: Guilford. Doherty suggests that people build rituals that will keep them connected with each other.

Fowers, B. J. (2000). Beyond the myth of marital happiness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Fowers warns that happiness is not the only measure of marriage. Strong marriages should be based on solid values and should help people grow and serve.

Glass, S. P. (2003). Not “just friends.” New York: Free Press. Glass provides a lengthy exploration of the effects of flirting and affairs. The dishonesty inevitably strains the relationship. But affairs can be survived.

Gottman, J. M. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail and how you can make yours last. New York: Simon & Schuster. In this classic book, Gottman talks about three kinds of relationships — volatile, avoidant, and validating — and tells about the strengths and challenges of each type.

Gottman, J. M. (1999b). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Crown. Gottman describes seven principles that make big differences in the quality of marriage relationships.

(This is an article in the LDS Newlywed Smart Start Kit series sponsored by the LDS Marriage Network and Meridian Magazine. H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, works as Extension Family Life Specialist for the University of Arkansas, and is a popular presenter on family and gospel topics. He is the co-chair of the LDS Marriage Network.

To respond to this article or share comments with the author, send your feedback to brotherson@meridianmagazine.com — we look forward to hearing from you. For further information about the LDS Marriage Network, send to the same email address.)