How to Survive a Marriage 'Til Death Do You Part

My grandparents, both sets, were married for more than 60 years until both grandfathers passed away, as were my husband's grandparents. My parents have been married for over 40 years. I have been married for almost 20 years. My brother has been married for almost 10 years. My kid sister has been dating the same guy for about 5 years - by her choice, as she feels she is too young to be married. For her, monogamy is just fine, thank you.

Am I bragging? Probably a little bit, and it is because it is a rarity to find that in this day and age a marriage will last more than the few years it does. This is a sad testament to how much we in this country value marriage, and worse, how much we value one another. Here at home we find it easy to place blame, easy to refuse to claim our own responsibility, but hard to own up to certain things about ourselves that we just find too ugly to face. The hardest truths to accept are our own, especially when those truths pertain to those things about us that we know are there but refuse to acknowledge.

Marriage is not easy, but what is harder than getting through the 7- year itch thing is realizing that we are not perfect and neither are our spouses.Learning to accept these facts are probably the hardest of all. So, your first bit of advice is ...

Get over yourself.

You are not a perfect person. My guesses are that you eat, sleep and take a dump the same way that the rest of us do. You are just as prone to screwing up things as anyone else is, including your spouse. You were not born the person who you are, and they were not born the person who they are. It was a series of events that made you both the people who you have become. You are not perfect. Your spouse is not perfect. By knowing this much, then you can probably see the reasoning I have for you next, and that reasoning holds that you are just as capable of saying, doing and thinking the wrong thing as the other person in the marriage is, and no matter what you say or do, this one fact is unavoidable and unchangable. You cannot undo or unsay what stupid things you have said and done. YOU ARE NOT PERFECT, so quit with the the idea that you never do anything wrong to them, whether on purpose or without realizing it.

And falling into the "Get over yourself" category is the idea that you are the victim. You are not a victim unless you have been beaten. The only person who victimizes you is YOU, so quit feelng sorry for yourself already. Put yourself in your spouse's shoes for a minute and try to think about him or her and how badly they feel about the guilt trip you have laid onto them. Would you like to be in their shoes? And please - do not even get me started with the whole thing about winning an argument by guilting the other person into you being right, even when...no, especially when you know that you are guilting them into losing and you are the person who is wrong! You evil, vile little toad, you. Doing this will set you up for nothing more than having to face reality later, and in facing reality later you end up having to deal with not only the idea that you have put guilt onto someone who didn't deserve it, but also have years and years of this other person KNOWING that you were wrong, and you knew you were wrong, and now has come the time to pay for your sins. We gals are especially adept at this one. We know that we are wrong when we start the guilt-him-into-it process, and we know that she who bleeds monthly is ultimately she who will win. Just like it isn't hard to make a pregnant woman cry, it is also not hard to make a good spouse into a very bad one. The thinking in this is that you have already accused them of something that you know they would never do (cheating is usually the biggest thing that we are ready to blame each other for), so if they are already guilty, why miss out on the fun, right? Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. How would you feel if you were accused all the time of doing what you knew you would never do? Kind of puts it all into a different perspective now, doesn't it?

And speaking of cheating...

Looking at other attractive people by married people is NOT a sin, no matter what you may think, believe, have been told. Human beings are mammals. We are biological creatures. Human beings are attracted to attractive people. This is called biology. It is our ability to reason, to feel empathy and to understand the emotions of others that keep us from acting on our biological impulses. This is the beautiful part that seperates us from the rest of the wild kingdom. We have the ability to reason, and because we possess this sort of ability, we also have the ability to feel bad when we are caught doing something we know we should not be doing.

Let me tell you something right now that you have got to do in order to survive your own craziness. You have got to get used to the idea that you may be the most wonderful person in the world to your spouse, and you might even be the most beautiful person that they have ever seen, but the fact of the matter is that your spouse is still as human and biologically inclined as you are. They are still going to look at other attractive people, no matter how much it bothers you, no matter how badly you get your feelings hurt because of it. Your spouse is a human being, a biological creature, as are you. Expecting them not to look because you happen to married to them is not only impossible, it is improbable. Human beings are meant to be drawn to other biological human beings, all human beings, including you. So give yourself and them a break. You will drive yourself crazy if you expect them to stop looking. We never stop looking. It is our biological nature to look, to appreciate things and people of beauty. You can stop many things and many events, but the one thing that you cannot stop is biology and human nature. Quit trying to be all you think you have to be to this other person that is not pertinent to the machinations of the marriage itself. Do not let the idea that your spouse looks at other beautiful people make you nuttier than you are already being. Accept that they are as human as you are. I promise that things are just fine, even if they are checking out other attractive people. You, doll, are not the last most beautiful woman on the planet, not even to your spouse. And you, sir, are certainly not the only ideal man to walk the face of the earth. As soon as you accept the fact that your spouse is a human biological creature, and as soon as you take into account that even you look and you do not care to be accused of things you know you would not do, this is when it all begins to get a little bit easier on you both.

Jealousy has no bounds. It also has no place in marriage.

Jealousy will be the thing which kills your marriage the quickest. Not all people will go out and cheat because they have been accused of cheating. However, there are still those who think that they are already being accused of it, so why not go for it. The worst that can happen is that they will no longer be attached to this other person who is crazy enough to think that they were not lovable or important enough to stay faithful to. Is this you? I mean, do you really want to be seen as crazy, unreasonable, totally out of your mind with jealousy, enough to ruin your marriage? I didn't think so.

Being a jealous person starts early in life, and we learn it from our parents. Think back to when you were a kid and you heard your mom or dad say things like "I just know they are out catting around! Oh WAIT til I catch them!" Remember how that made you feel. Look at yourself now. Do you hear yourself saying silly things like this, things that you know deeply are not happening? The best thing to do is to not lose your mind, because what will happen then is that you will lose your mind, and eventually you will literally worry yourself sick. Physically sick. I had an aunt (note that I wrote "had" and not "have") who worried herself sick over her spouse's love for looking at other attractive women. Aunty was so jealous of this man that she even went so far as to accuse him of making porn movies with other women! She showed my mother the pics in a world-famous adult magazine of a Japanese man and a white woman having sex. Mom thought this was crazy. "Sistah, that is not (his name here)," but that was not enough for my long-departed aunt. She actually went home and showed her friends, my grandmother, my mom's sister, and eventually my uncle, who thought she was as nutty as the rest of us did. She died young, and I firmly believe that it was all due to her lack of trust for this man. Though he might have been the most beautiful man on earth to her, this does not mean that he was the beautiful person on the earth to everyone still alive.

When we are irrational, anything impossible suddenly becomes the thing which we focus all our energies on. Soon our emotions are so wrecked that we begin to truly believe that what we are imagining is what is really happening. Think about what you are doing to your spouse, and more, think about what you are doing to your own self. Ask yourself if you are so bad a person, so terribly unattractive, so insane, so...whatever...that the person who chose to share their lives with you would do something as horrible as cheat. There are women and men who spend thousands of dollars hiring people to catch them in situations that no spouse wants to catch their beloved in. And these are the only ones we ever hear about. Tell you what, folks- it is time to turn off the reality television shows, turn off the gangsta rap, forget about reading articles in womens magazines that serve only to fortify readership. Go within your self and ask yourself if you really believe that you are so unlovable that the person to whom you have dedicated the rest of your breathing days to would really go through all the trouble it takes to not get caught.

There are times that have happened in the history of humankind that people have been caught cheating. I say that in these times the best thing to do is to think about how the person was BEFORE you married them. No one is that good to be able to cheat and get away with it forever. Eventually they slip up and get caught. If this is the person you married, then you have good reason to worry. The signs were all there when you were not married, and it is not like a cheetah can change its spots overnight. Some people should just not be married, and maybe it is that you thought you could change their cheatin' ways. You can't. .You cannot change anyone. And this leads me to my next point.

You cannot change anyone

The sentence says it all. Who are you to think that you are so perfect that in order for the feeling of perfection to stay perfect hinges on one thing - you changing your spouse into what you want them to be like? That ain't gonna happen. Change happens to people because they want it to change for themselves, not for anyone else, and yes, this includes their spouses. The statement "You knew I was like this when I met you," does not apply to things such as quitting smoking, changing jobs, thinking differently. It applies to changing things such as demeanor and how you are loved and your place on the heirarchy in terms of importance to your spouse. People do not suddenly become ogres when they are married, and if your spouse has become a monster seemingly overnight it means one of two things - you have either married a phenomenal actor, or you married them too, too fast. So fast, in fact, that you did not allow time to get to know them as a person when they are not being wonderful. If a person is going to be abusive, signs will be there long before you marry them, and if you marry them anyway, then the onus is on you, not them. "But I can change them!" No, sweetie, you can't, and for you to think that you can is not only wrong it is also very damaging to the both of you. It places too much expectation on them, and gets your hopes us too high. Stop trying to change them and work on yourself. If you need them to change for you, then this tells you that there is something that you actually need to change about yourself. This is a very self-serving way of feeling, and it will only serve to bring resentful feelings to the both of you. You expecting them to change for you tells them that they are not all that you said they were to you, and also shows them that you are not willing to make room for their little foibles, but that you want them to take you for yours. This is selfish and self-centered. Be an adult about things and realize and accept that the world does not revolve around you, that truly the sun does not rise or set on you and this alone will make things way easier than trying to make a person who was wonderful at one time and is now not so back into that person you loved and not your puppet.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Way more than just a really cool song by one of the world's most loved performers, respect is a big, fat deal in any partnership, but especially in marriage. This falls back on to the change thing. Respecting others is something that we are taught young in life, and not only by parents who tell us to respect others, but parents who are capable of showing respect. Disrespect runs rampant in marriage, and this is because we expect too much that is too hard for any one person to do right away. Living together before marriage is not the same as being married, and it is because a marriage certificate is far more important than a lease on an apartment. A marriage certificate makes everything legal, and makes you both liable for everything that you each do in many more ways than one.

Respecting one another is not the same as playing 'You're not the bossa me." Being married is no joke. It is easier to marry than to divorce. And a lot cheaper, too.

If your spouse loses a job, it is not your job to hound them until they find a job that suits you. It is your job to encourage and your job to make sure that they try hard not to give up, and if they give up it is not your job to remind them that they are useless, worthless, anything-less than what they really are - simply jobless.
It is your job to help them, and if they do not want your help, it is then your job to do what you must to keep the bills paid until they decide what it is that they want to do with their lives. If they cannot decide for themselves, it is then your job to support them and give them ideas as to what they can and are capable of doing. If after you have supported and advised and thought and helped, and if after all of this you still are unable to get through to them ,and they seem mto be liking too much the idea of not working, it is at this point that I would remind you that you knew this person well enough to marry them and therefore you knew that somewhere inside them was this overwhelming sense of laziness which would win out over your pleadings. In short - your bad.

On the other hand, it is not so bad being on the other side of support. Being the one with the job gives you eyes to what it is that they have been complaining about . You find out for real what it is that bothers them so much about other people, and you find out why it is that the hour they spend alone when they walk through the door is important not only to their sanity, but to your's, too. You end up with something that you did not have before you had to trade places with them.
You gain a healthy respect for what was once their position in life.

...and these are just the things that you gotta know before you trade your freedom to roam in for the security of a lifetime...

Rarely do we hear about marriages working. We only hear about Hollywood's famous changing spouses as quickly as we change our minds about what yo order in a drive-thru. If what the world is bases marital failure rate on what Hollywood gives us as examples, then what are we to see as being the successes?
Stop looking at what the rich and famous are doing. You are probably not rich and famous. You are probably like the rest of us - trying hard to stay married in a world which glorifies one-upmanship, even in areas of life where one-upmanship is not part of the deal. Marriage is not a contest to see who can be right and who gets to have the last word, but surely with all the failures we are shown this is what the newly married must believe it is based on instead of love, trust, respect and care.

Put into practice the things written here, and you will be ahead of the game before you even begin to play!