8 Marriage Myths That Aren’t True, According To A Relationship Coach
[Photo: Pexels]
Don’t go to bed angry, never keep secrets, wave goodbye to sex and hello to ‘the one’, and your marriage will be happy ever after, right? Wrong.
There are a lot of myths that muddy the marriage waters. We spoke to relationships coach Sam Owen to tackle them one by one.
Myth: A happy marriage has no secrets
Actually, sometimes it is better to keep quiet. Even in marriage, honesty isn’t the best policy. “We mustn’t confuse being honest and loyal to our spouse with being open about every little thing about ourselves and our lives,” says Sam.
“If someone has told you something in confidence, your spouse shouldn’t know about it. If there are things from your past that don’t impact your life with your spouse, they don’t need to know about it. Remember, sometimes, you don’t want to know everything about your spouse’s past, either.”
So think twice before you overshare.
Myth: Marriage must be 50/50 to work
Obviously a balanced partnership is the ideal, but there are situations where a different split can work too. “Marriage is about playing to your strengths and as human beings that split may be 60/40 or 70/30 and this will fluctuate over time based on life events,” explains Sam.
“What you want to be equal are the values you live by such as love, trust, respect, commitment and friendship, and they can be 50/50. Remember, marriage is about sticking it out through the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health, ‘til death parts you.”
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Myth: Marriage doesn’t change anything
After all, almost everyone cohabits before marriage these days, so surely nothing really changes after the party’s over and you’ve got your piece of paper.
Sam disagrees: “Marriage and cohabiting are entirely different. If you look at the stats, the satisfaction levels of those married versus cohabiting are significantly different, in that cohabiters experience lower satisfaction than they had expected from their relationship set-up.
“Committing to each other for life has massive psychological benefits, health benefits, boosts resilience and is a completely different mindset.”
Myth: Don’t take each other for granted
Let’s be realistic. The mundane reality of day to day life makes it hard to always be thankful. Sometimes it’s unavoidable to go through phases where we might have to take each other for granted because there simply isn’t the breathing space to do anything else. That may be so. But, warns Sam, “it is easy to confuse complacency with expectancy”.
“And we can expect our spouse to bring certain things into a relationship because we are a team and we got married on the proviso that we would remain a team for life.
“Complacency means lack of appreciation, and one of the biggest factors in a successful marriage is genuine, deep appreciation of one another.”
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Myth: Never go to bed angry
Even if it means arguing all night? “As much as this is sound advice in terms of starting the next day on a good note, sometimes we need to sleep on a problem to solve it”, Sam explains.
“Research suggests the brain problem solves whilst we sleep so sometimes going to bed angry may benefit your perspective, approach and resolution.”
Myth: Marriage will put an end to your sex life
Okay, so the chances are you’re not having as much sex five, 10 or 15 years into marriage as you were in the early days of your relationship. Familiarity is inevitable.
But it’s nonsense that marriage means the death knell for sex; intimacy is important.
“If your sex life is dwindling or non-existent, you allowed it to be so either by becoming complacent, failing to prioritise it or by becoming silent about the issue,” Sam states.
“You’re both in charge of mutual satisfaction in the marriage so if you want to fix something, do what you need to fix it, whether alone or with the help of a professional.
[Photo: Pexels]
Myth: Having kids brings you closer together
“Or can drive a further wedge if your relationship is already flailing,” Sam points out.
“Having kids can bring major changes to the relationship dynamic and bring challenges to health, finances, quality time together, alone time for the individual and more. So, if you already have problems, they may be exacerbated with the extra pressures upon you both.”
Myth: Marriage is easy when you’re with ‘the one’
Of course it is unlikely that ‘the one’ truly exists, in the sense that for each person there is a destined partner, out there somewhere and just waiting to be found.
However, as Sam points out, many people do feel that they are with ‘the one’. She suggests a better definition: “Someone who is the perfect complement to you and your life, which is likely what you are looking for”. Which sounds like a much more realistic, and a really rather lovely, way of thinking of it.
She adds: “Sometimes marriage is easy, sometimes it isn’t, but it is beautiful and amazing, regardless”.
Sam Owen is a relationships coach and psychologist and her new book, 500 Relationships and Life Quotes, is out now. Find out more at relationshipscoach.co.uk and @samowencoaching.
