Will the Perfect Marriage Partner Please Stand Up?

Published May 31, 1979. One of my students once observed that everyone looks for the perfect marriage partner, and while looking they get married. This phenomenon suggests that many may initially settle for less than perfection in a mate, but how many eventually demand perfection of themselves and a spouse in marriage?

You have undoubtedly heard the story of the minister who stood before his congregation and announced that his sermon that day was on perfection. He began by asking, “Is there anyone here who is perfect?” After some delay one man finally stood up. “Are you a perfect individual?” asked the minister. “No,” replied the man, “I’m standing to represent my wife’s first husband.”

Many people seem to hold the common belief that a person should or must be perfectly competent, adequate, talented, and intelligent in all possible respects and is utterly worthless if he or she is incompetent in any way. When married, these individuals tend to feel that, as mates, they should be utterly successful and achieving. The wife frequently berates herself because she is not a perfect wife and mother. The husband also often blames himself because he is not an excellent husband and father.

Because of their supposed inadequacies, both husband and wife compulsively demand perfection and spend most of their physical and emotional energy trying to attain their expectation. It is one thing to strive for improvement and still another to constantly demand perfection in a marriage.

Perhaps the answer to the problem lies in the findings of a study done in Great Britain a few years ago. There were several people who had been in institutions for mental disability and while there had met others with similar mental limitations. After being released from these institutions some of these people married each other and the question arose, “Is marriage a viable relationship for the mentally impaired?”

In her book “Marriage and Mental Handicap,” Janel Mattinson reported locating and interviewing 36 mentally handicapped couples who had been married anywhere from one to 15 years. Her findings are revealing.

Mattinson first found that 32 of the 36 (89 percent) were still together and had not separated or divorced. This is an impressive statistic when compared to the 66 percent of the “normal” couples who stay together in the United States at the present time. How could married couples with far less intelligence than average couples have a lower divorce rate?

In conjunction with the Department of Sociology in the University of Exeter, Mattinson interviewed the 32 couples still together and the following were among the findings:

1. Apparently the mentally subnormal couples were quickly able to recognize their need of each other. They also recognized their own and each others’ intellectual and other limitations.
2. The couples reported receiving a tremendous amount of satisfaction helping each other because of their acknowledged limitations. 
3. The individuals were very dependent on each other in numerous areas of their married life.  In many instances the active “fit” or complement made the whole greater than the sum of the two parts. While this is true in many marriages. It seemed to be a particularly striking characteristic of this group of mentally impaired people.

In summary Janet Mattinson observed, “The success of many of these marriages seemed to be related to the initial expectation not having been too high. That they had done so much better than most people had expected them to do gave them enormous satisfaction. Some fear was not distressful to them as it might have been to other people who aims were higher.”

After reading this study I really wonder what or who is normal? Who actually provides the best models for marriage? Certainly we who deem ourselves to be at least average in intelligence from these down-to-earth British couples.

Perhaps we should admit that both we and out spouse have limitations and deficiencies of various kinds. Subsequently we, too, could lessen our expectations of what our marriage partner should be, particularly if these expectations are excessive or unrealistic.

And it is possible that we could also be a little more cooperative in our marriages and thereby compensate for some of the weaknesses and inadequacies that are present in every marriage.