What This Troubled Economy Means To Your Marriage

Lately, it’s hard to get away from all the impending recession talk that TV is so determined to sell us. It’s impossible to hide from news anchors reporting on bad facts, bad rumors and bad possibilities.

Not to worry though, I’m not a bad news merchant.

As you may (or may not know), I’m someone like you whose struggled to find happiness in my miserable marriage. But today, all that’s changed because after so many painful years, 27 to be exact, of trial and error, I finally discovered what it takes to turn around a marriage.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m still the same person I always was and my wife is still the same woman she was.

Neither of us needed to change. And neither do the two of you!

How can I say that when everyone and their uncle says you have to change? What we didn’t have was AWARENESS…awareness of what “made us tick”, what created our belief systems and what was REALLY causing so much conflict in our marriage.

Awareness is the reason that big dumb companies are having their day in court. Banks run by people who were not aware, made loans to people who could not pay them back. Instead of being aware of the long term, they were only aware of the short term. That’s how so many married people live. When you’re aware of the bigger picture, you do things differently for a better result.

So before you give up on your marriage, it’s important you don’t fall into the trap of believing that “you’re different than everybody else.” or that you (or your spouse has) “fallen out of love”.

I talk about this all the time. There are two kinds of love. There’s Temporary Love that happens to you without doing anything, and then there’s Working Love. Many people get married based on Temporary Love. Because of our mass ignorance about this subject, we believe Temporary Love should and will last forever. Even science proves that it won’t.

Look up the February 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine and read their big article on LOVE. The whole point of the research is that when people are infatuated, scientists proved there’s a chemical cocktail going on in the brain that creates a form of mental illness, hence the phrase, “madly in love”.

Anthropologist, Helen Fisher, studied the biochemical cocktail in the brains of people who claimed to be madly in love. She went so far as to run them through an MRI brain scan. The parts of their brains linked to reward and pleasure were lit up by the neurotransmitter called dopamine.

That’s the chemical responsible for intense energy, exhilaration, focused attention and motivation to win a reward. It’s the reason why those in love can stay up all night then run a race the very next day. Naturally, you can’t expect a “cocktail” to last for a lifetime.

In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that “falling out of love”, is something you can and must predict which brings us to the other kind of love: Working Love.

Today, we all want a quick fix. It’s our quick fix belief system that makes us see the wedding as the fun way in, and divorce, the easy way out.

We both know there’s nothing EASY about divorce. In fact, most people see divorce as the most emotionally and FINANCIALLY draining thing you’ll ever do.

With all the economic bad news day after day, you can be sure that YOUR divorce will inevitably DEVASTATE and DRAIN your family financially in a tough economy.

Everything is 10 times more difficult on you and your kids who have an endless appetite for financial assets…YOURS.

If you’re struggling financially as ONE household, how “set” will you be when you have TWO?

If this is your first marriage, your divorce will lock the message in your children’s brains: “If in marriage trouble, divorce is good.”

Pardon my opinion here, but I don’t see that as giving your kids something to grow on. On that subject, if you want to get a divorce to stop your pain, your kids will make sure that you pay for it. If you’re the wife (80% of wives file for divorce), whose making the divorce happen, and your husband has been a reasonable dad, your kids will hold the family destruction on your door step, and that’s something you can’t reverse.

But considering the alternative, divorce for many people seems to be the “lesser” of the two evils: Live miserable or get divorced.

But here’s the point I don’t want you to miss: THERE ARE NOT JUST 2 OPTIONS.

And by the way, I am NOT referring to marriage counseling as a “third option”. Marriage counseling in the vast majority of situations does more harm than good. You can read more about the failure of marriage counseling here.

But before I get into this little-known THIRD option, I think it’s important you first realize the TRUE benefits of marriage. You’re not just fighting to keep your family together.

Retooling your marriage is actually making sure that your family succeeds as a unit and as unique individuals, no matter what comes your way.

When looking at the “pros and cons” of staying married, the benefits vastly outweigh the negatives.

Don’t believe me? Here’s some solid proof that backs up what I’m saying…

One of the best resources on this topic is a book titled “The Case for Marriage” by Dr. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago and Maggie Gallagher, a syndicated columnist.

The media would never want to cover this GOOD news, but it’s jam-packed with 40 years of hard research proving conclusively that married people are HAPPIER, HEALTHIER and better off financially.

The book cites a multitude of facts and academic research that marriage is beneficial to your health, your money and your overall well being.

Gallagher and Waite have proved BEYOND ANY DOUBT that if a married couple can find a way to be happy together, the greatest rewards of life will belong to them.

The author’s research has shown that measurable increases in health, wealth and sexual fulfillment go to the happily married but not to single, divorced or cohabitating individuals.

Marriage Promotes Happiness:

The book cites a simple survey example that reports 40% of happily married people who say they are very happy with their life in general, compared to less than 25% of single or cohabitating individuals.

Marriage Promotes Financial Prosperity:

Happily married people as a group are savers and this behavior can be directly connected to the fact that marriage literally causes people to work for the long term and save for the future. Study participants who were happily married said they were able to specialize in one area while their spouse specialized in another which caused the team to succeed, vs. being alone.

When it comes to finances, wages rise more quickly after marriage for men who are driven to work for a cause greater than themselves.

Marriage Promotes Intimacy:

Research shows that the one thing connected most often to sexual satisfaction is not age, gender, occupation, or education…it’s the fact that these married people have traditional attitudes about sexual morality. Loyalty produces more sexual fulfillment, not less. A phenomenon observed most strongly in happily married people.

Now here’s something that may SURPRISE you…

Divorce Is BAD For Kids:

The research in this book proves that all those books and articles about divorce being liberating and good for kids is totally WRONG. Divorce has left generations of families struggling with finances, less healthy and with kids at far greater risk of being abused by boyfriends and men who are not their biological fathers.

Divorce Is Often Based On Impulse:

Some of the most shocking statistics reveal that of the 1,500,000 divorces every year, 1,005,000 of them were low conflict marriages. Over 80% of these were filed by wives who were sold on the idea that they can find happiness without any knowledge about HOW to be married.

Divorce Could Have Been Avoided:

In this same line of thought, the facts show that 86% of unhappily married couples, who stay together through tough times (true now more than ever), end up happier together just five years later.

That’s right, just five years later!

In this group of formerly unhappy couples close to 60% rated their marriages as “very happy” or “quite happy”.

There’s just no denying this is an amazing fact that proves if couples stick together during difficult times, they’ll come out on top in the end.

SO…the remaining question is…what’s the alternative? How is it possible to be happy in an unhappy marriage?

You can start by looking at one of the symptoms of a failing: unmet emotional needs.

Fulfilling each others’ needs is unfortunately NOT something that is intuitive, common sense, or easy to figure out. That love cocktail I call Temporary Love where your needs were met on auto pilot, was never going to last. If you want the benefits of the happily married, you’re going to need to learn about Working Love.

Working Love starts by deciding that you need to learn HOW to be married. A good place to start learning is discovering that men have two major needs and women have two very different needs. If you’re committed to reaching Working Love, you’ll start by learning how to FULFILL those 2 major needs.

So today, I’d like to share with you a way that both you and your spouse can begin to find real fulfillment when married to each other. I’m talking about a way for each of you to feel LOVED, accepted and understood by your spouse.

I’d like you BOTH to take a look at a very positive third option called Marriage 101. It’s more important now, than ever that you stay together as a family so you DO NOT go through these financially difficult times by creating a financially and emotionally messy divorce.

You CAN restore the compassionate, nurturing connection that IS Working Love. All you have to do is learn how. Temporary Love has many feelings that can be reproduced on purpose, by free will, with know-how and some care. What you learn in Marriage 101 can make your relationship non-threatening and even enjoyable.

Larry Bilotta

P.S. For a convincing argument on the benefits of marriage, backed by extensive research studies that shatter the belief that marriage is just a piece of paper, “The Case for Marriage” is a comprehensive book that all married couples can benefit from reading which you can find in the marriage resource section on the Fulfilled Couple website.