The Ingredients of a Successful Marriage

Published July 17, 1986. If you had to define what success is in marriage, what would you say?

Many would suggest that a successful marriage is one where a husband and wife live together with children. They own, or are in the process of buying a home. They have a car or two and perhaps a camper or boat. If they can afford it, they may even own shares in a resort condominium. They often attend church and church-related activities. The children do reasonably well in school and participate in a few community activities such as Girl Scouts or Little League Baseball. Maybe one of the parents is a leader or coach. The husband has a steady job and the wife today may also be working either part- or full-time.

The husband periodically takes his wife out to dinner and perhaps a movie. And on birthdays, anniversaries, or other appropriate occasions they give gifts to one another. They have an annual vacation of one or two weeks, a few picnics throughout the year, and occasionally Dad takes the kids fishing.

Is this a successful marriage? Many would say “yes.” It appears to be right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Yet many marriages like the one described are ending in divorce in record numbers.

In the United States, we often defined “successful” marriages as those that have stability – or the absence of divorce. If couples stay together, they have in the past been thought of as succeeding. And there is some degree of truth in that reasoning. But marriage counselors and educators today are adding one more dimension to the definition of a successful marriage. In addition to stability, we now add satisfaction.

The reality is that many married couples who do stay together are not really satisfied with their relationship. But they remain married for a variety of reasons. They may be going through the motions of “success” previously noted; the house, the cars, children, dinner out, vacations. . . everything mentioned. While there may be stability, there may also be an intense lack of fulfillment or satisfaction.

Some may argue that satisfaction in marriage is a recent invention and really should not matter. In the past, that may have been true. People in this country often married and stayed married regardless of the love, caring, and concern that did or did not exist. Many wives in particular had no choice. They were economically and, to some degree, socially dependent of their husbands.

The reality in today’s marriage is that relatively few will stay in a marital relationship if a reasonable amount of fulfillment is not attained. Satisfaction ultimately influences stability.

I could ask you how satisfied you are with your marriage. But I won’t. All too often we focus on ourselves with marital myopia or shortsightedness. But I will ask these two questions (1) How satisfied is your husband or wife at the present time with your marriage? (2) What could you do to contribute to his or her marital satisfaction?

If you are uncertain, then ask. Maybe husbands need to be more creative than the dinner/movie routine. Similarly, perhaps wives should think of ways in addition to love notes in lunch boxes to help husbands attain more satisfaction in their marriage. If you can’t think of anything, then once again ask your marriage partner. Chances are he or she might ask you the same.

Successful marriages today are based on (1) stability and (2) satisfaction. Just remember, you can have the first without the second. And the second will eventually have an impact on the first.

Think about it.