A Superior Model for Long-Lasting Marriage
© 1998 Dick Wulf, MSW, LCSW
These days, marriage needs a foundation stronger than kids or common interests. Something is needed that is so valued that a husband and wife wouldn't even think of being unfaithful or divorcing. I have taught such a foundation to many people. This foundation has brought many seemingly hopeless marriages back from the brink. (How about the one with 12 years of unfaithfulness out of 16 years of marriage?)
The most powerful foundation for a marriage is this: a purpose for the marriage, the specific purpose of helping one another in significant ways. And we're not talking washing the dishes here!
Actually, I "borrowed" this purpose from the Bible's account of the creation of man and woman. God, we are told, created Adam so that he would need a helper. And the reverse is also true - Eve needed a helper too! Life is too big for people to go it alone. So, our friendships and families are vitally important. Particularly, marriage is where the wheels really hit the road.
Helpfulness is supposed to go deep in marriage. We are all quite different from one another, with both strengths and weaknesses. Husbands and wives need to learn to admit their weaknesses and help with their strengths. And life has beaten most of us up in the past, and (and here is where helping really provides glue to a marriage), husbands and wives can get better and better at helping overcome life's past hurts.
This is noble marriage - marriage worth doing. Such a marriage with the purpose of helping one another significantly reach healing and personal goals will be worth a lot. It will not easily be traded for a new relationship where the whole process of getting to know one another's needs and making the personal changes necessary to be an excellent helper must be started all over again.
And this kind of marriage forces husbands and wives to make healthy changes in their emotional health. They just simply become much better people! If you're going to spend the rest of your life with somebody, it ought to pay off with your own betterment and the satisfaction that comes from helping another deeply.
How valuable is such a marriage? One that gets down to the difficult task of being more than comfortably helpful? Very valuable. So valuable that previous problems, even infidelity, is well worth the cost if it produces such a marriage.
Often couples come to me and say, "We've fallen out of love." You can imagine their surprised look when I immediately answer, "Good." Am I nuts?! No. I know that what they had they merely called "love". It wasn't the real thing. It is good that they have thrown away whatever they had that didn't go the distance. They can start fresh. They can learn to do "love" right.
When I work with couples, I begin by helping them first tolerate and eventually admire and then finally cherish their differences. I use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as the basis of helping husband and wife get to know one another. This is a personality inventory that gives simple yet extremely helpful information on personality similarities and, especially, differences. By learning how they are different, husbands and wives can finally learn to communicate and get to know one another. Then they can know when they can step in and help merely out of the strengths of their personal preferences.
Then in the counseling session we go through each person's personal background, identifying areas where the spouse can be critically helpful. Sometimes a person's background, what that person has gone through, defines a need for special sensitivity on the part of the partner. At other times we can identify specific actions and strategies that can help the husband or wife to overcome lifelong problems and hindrances.
Why not sit down with your spouse and ask for him or her to consider redesigning your marriage to one that works hard at helping each other?
The most powerful foundation for a marriage is this: a purpose for the marriage, the specific purpose of helping one another in significant ways. And we're not talking washing the dishes here!
Actually, I "borrowed" this purpose from the Bible's account of the creation of man and woman. God, we are told, created Adam so that he would need a helper. And the reverse is also true - Eve needed a helper too! Life is too big for people to go it alone. So, our friendships and families are vitally important. Particularly, marriage is where the wheels really hit the road.
Helpfulness is supposed to go deep in marriage. We are all quite different from one another, with both strengths and weaknesses. Husbands and wives need to learn to admit their weaknesses and help with their strengths. And life has beaten most of us up in the past, and (and here is where helping really provides glue to a marriage), husbands and wives can get better and better at helping overcome life's past hurts.
This is noble marriage - marriage worth doing. Such a marriage with the purpose of helping one another significantly reach healing and personal goals will be worth a lot. It will not easily be traded for a new relationship where the whole process of getting to know one another's needs and making the personal changes necessary to be an excellent helper must be started all over again.
And this kind of marriage forces husbands and wives to make healthy changes in their emotional health. They just simply become much better people! If you're going to spend the rest of your life with somebody, it ought to pay off with your own betterment and the satisfaction that comes from helping another deeply.
How valuable is such a marriage? One that gets down to the difficult task of being more than comfortably helpful? Very valuable. So valuable that previous problems, even infidelity, is well worth the cost if it produces such a marriage.
Often couples come to me and say, "We've fallen out of love." You can imagine their surprised look when I immediately answer, "Good." Am I nuts?! No. I know that what they had they merely called "love". It wasn't the real thing. It is good that they have thrown away whatever they had that didn't go the distance. They can start fresh. They can learn to do "love" right.
When I work with couples, I begin by helping them first tolerate and eventually admire and then finally cherish their differences. I use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as the basis of helping husband and wife get to know one another. This is a personality inventory that gives simple yet extremely helpful information on personality similarities and, especially, differences. By learning how they are different, husbands and wives can finally learn to communicate and get to know one another. Then they can know when they can step in and help merely out of the strengths of their personal preferences.
Then in the counseling session we go through each person's personal background, identifying areas where the spouse can be critically helpful. Sometimes a person's background, what that person has gone through, defines a need for special sensitivity on the part of the partner. At other times we can identify specific actions and strategies that can help the husband or wife to overcome lifelong problems and hindrances.
Why not sit down with your spouse and ask for him or her to consider redesigning your marriage to one that works hard at helping each other?