Making marriage work

We commend theatrical stars’ perseverance against all odds to reach center stage in the public eye. We adulate sports players’ endurance through their grueling hours of practice. We stand in awe of businessmen who stick it out through the thin, early years of selling a new idea.
Yet, little recognition falls on the men and women who sacrificially, follow through with their marriage vows.
Few recognize a spouse who sets aside personal preferences for the good of the family – as my son did last year when he turned down a glamorous job in Washington D.C. for a small company in an obscure town in Pennsylvania because it insured more time with his wife and children. Last week he took paternity leave to be a house-dad while his wife recuperated after the birth of their fourth child. His decision won’t make any headlines – except with his wife and children.
Our cultural emphasis on personal happiness results too often in lame excuses for leaving a marriage: “I am not happy.” “The fun has gone out of it.” “He just isn’t the person I married.”
When the going gets tough, we get going to an attorney and our state’s easy-out, no-fault divorce laws. Ironically, the Bible Belt region, has also garnered the dubious title of “the Divorce Belt,” according to a 2001 Barna Research Group study reviewed in last week’s Democrat Gazette. The South has 6.5 divorces per 1,000 people compared to 3.5 divorces per 1,000 in nine, less religious, Northeastern states.
A regional expectation of happily-ever-after may contribute to the statistics, said the Gazette. While we are not sympathetic when an athlete quits because he is tired of practicing in the rain, we commiserate when a spouse walks because “we just don’t love each other anymore.”
The reality is that, in marriage – as in sports – sticking it out pays. Linda Waite, a professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, surveyed 3,500 couples whose marriages were in trouble. Of people who rated their marriages in 1987 as very unhappy, yet did not divorce, 70 percent said five years later that their marriages were either “very” or “quite” happy.
Why write this on Valentine’s Day – the day we relate to boxes of sweet confection, flowers and romance? Because Valentine’s Day is also the peak day for infidelity and extramarital affairs, according to Ruth Houston, infidelity expert and author of “Is He Cheating on You – 829 Telltale Signs.” Like a marathon runner taking a shortcut to the end, cheaters seek the quick and easy way to superficial ‘love’.
Not everyone seeks that shortcut. Tonight in Little Rock, Governor and Mrs. Mike Huckabee will renew their marriage vows under the Covenant Marriage law where couples agree to give their marriage a commitment of
time – even when they are absolutely miserable together. They legally concur that they will get counseling to find a way out of their misery and, if they cannot find the way, they will not divorce for two years.
Every marriage was a Covenant Marriage, when my father emphasized to us, his teenaged children the endurance of real love, “You young pups don’t don’t know what love is until you have been married 15, 20 years or more.
We need more couples as dedicated to their marriages as an athlete is to his sport. We need men and women who will sacrifice immediate happiness and comfort to build up their marital muscles. On good days and bad, through sickness and in health, whether you have enough money for the best of everything in you’re gymnasium of togetherness or have to make do – persevere the grueling marathon, keep your eyes on the goal and keep on trying. Succeeding in marriage requires everything you have, every day – including today, happy Valentine’s Day.