A Good Marriage is "Built," Not "Found"

There were some dead-on truths found in this week's reading material, particularly relating to extended family differences and dynamics found in James M. Harper's and Susanne Frost Olsen's Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws and Extended Families, and the breakdown of family rules found in Bernard Poduska's What We Bring With Us.  After having just barely spent a full week with my husband's family I had to chuckle as some of these realities rang true during our time together.  There are some definite personality differences among Neil's siblings' spouses, though we've managed to keep things mellow and harmonious over the years.  Strangely I think part of that is due to what Bernard Poduska refers to as "implicit family rules," which are"[rules] taught through nonverbal communication and repeated throughout childhood."  These rules "tend to be just below conscious awareness, so we seldom realize we are following them until someone points it out to us."

My husband is not the best at resolving conflict and he never has been for as long as I've known him.  He is just as content acknowledging that there's a disagreement, only to do one of two things: 1) immediately {try to} fix it, or, 2) ignore it and let enough time pass by where it eventually fizzles out, or, in his view, resolves itself.  This is how he's handled many disagreements between us throughout our 15-year marriage, and it's driven me crazy because I'm the complete opposite.  I like to hash things out, feel heard, hear what he has to say, and come to a compromise or at the very least feel like we're understanding each other (even if we still disagree).

In observing his family and how they tend to approach conflict when it arises, I see these implicit family rules surfacing all around.  What it really boils down to is that Neil's family wants to maintain harmony, which is great, but sometimes it seems when there's a disagreement that could be resolved and possibly improve relationships - even if it may cause some temporary contention - his family instead chooses to just ignore or walk away from these issues.  Then in time, the disagreements are forgotten, mostly, yet no resolution has been made.  This seems to work okay for them, but it doesn't work well for me.

One example of this that comes to mind happened seven years ago with one of Neil's brothers.  He and his family were visiting from out of state along with Neil's mom.  My husband was actually not with us as he had started a new job out of state and I was simply staying behind to try and sell our home before joining him.  One day we decided to go out and take family pictures.  I had a special location I used frequently for clients and had gained prior permission with the owner of the property to use whenever I wanted so long as I contacted him in advance to notify him of my coming.  With this being such a spontaneous outing I ended up not contacting the owner this one time, especially since I knew we'd only be there a a few minutes.  When we pulled up to the property, the gate was closed, which wasn't normal.  I was already feeling uneasy, but my brother-in-law took the lead, parked the car he was driving right in front of the gate, ultimately blocking the path leading in.  I didn't feel right about entering the property since it was ultimately my name on the line, but he was determined so I gave in and followed him.  About five minutes into the pictures the owner suddenly appeared.  Our cars were completely blocking the entrance, preventing him - the very owner - from being able to get in.  Needless to say, he was not happy and I was beyond mortified.  What really made this awful, however, is that my brother-in-law took zero responsibility and didn't even give me a simple apology for taking charge.  We sheepishly headed back to the cars and then I went back and found the owner to apologize one last time.  Understandably, he was far from ready to forgive.  I was so angry that I'd allowed my brother-in-law to dictate what we did, not taking into consideration the possibility of the owner showing up.  What made matters even worse is when I got back into my car, my mother-in-law, who was sitting in the passenger's seat, upon my expression of frustration, responded with, "Well, no use crying over spilled milk!"  Are you kidding me, I thought?  I just lost access to a really great location all because of my brother-in-law's thoughtless move, and now he won't even own up to any of it!  And you, my mother-in-law are telling me to not cry over spilled milk?  Is there any accountability here?  Is there any acknowledgement of what could have been done to prevent this mess?  Is there any apology?  No to all of the above.  And to this day he has never spoken another word about it.  I was incredibly disappointed in the way my brother-in-law handled this as I felt like we had unfinished business to discuss.  Even if all we could have done at that point is talk it out, to me, that was better than ignoring it all together!  But when I heard my mother-in-law's response I thought, yep, they've learned this behavior - this avoidance of conflict - from their mother.  So it's no wonder my husband and I can have a disagreement, only for him to act completely normal the following morning.  

Despite these differences, at the end of the day, we have to make a choice as to whether or not we'll keep going/trying/being positive.  Harper and Olsen make the point that "the idea that good marriages are 'found' is too prevalent in society.  Rather, strong marriages are built by what couples choose to do once they are married and by what parents and siblings on both sides do to to help support them."  In other words, both Neil and I have made a conscious choice to keep plugging along even though our approaches to conflict differ.  Instead of focusing on the things that are wrong we can choose to focus on what's right, and work to improve ourselves and our partnership.  I think this is a good message to close with since it's a reality every marriage at one point or another faces.  Happiness does not fall into your lap.  You have to work for it every day, and some days it comes down to a conscious decision to be happy and let certain things go.