Let's keep it simple: Americans love the idea of marriage. They haven't the slightest idea or set of skills how to make it work. Statistically American marriages succeed or fail at the flip of a coin, or so it would seem statistically. On average 50% of American first marriages are dissolved.
Furthermore, we're pretty good at fooling each other and perhaps ourselves about what is a good marriage and whether not we have one. Al and Tipper Gore recently divorced, to the surprise of the American nation. What looked like a good marriage and one worth keeping in 2008 no longer exists in 2010. Most people, including professionals based upon what they saw on the outside of the marriage would have guessed wrong about the future of the Gore marriage. So be careful assuming you want a marriage like your neighbors or best friends just because it looks good on the outside.
Like the 2010 oil debacle in the Gulf of Mexico, when we don't know for sure how to do something like stop an oil leak, we do a lot of guessing. There's a lot of guessing about how to do marriage in America. My offering here is not based on guesswork but actual research and 20 some years of observing couples struggle to figure out how to make marriage sustainable in America.
Here's my formula: use the three "T's". Touch, Talk and Time to do the first two on a regular basis. Touch, talk and time. Sounds simple doesn't it. It's deceptively difficult. The touching part is perhaps the easiest. A nibble here on the ear, a kiss on the lips there and perhaps an occasional episode of intercourse. The hard part is to touch on a regular, scheduled basis. Just like you take your car in for scheduled maintenance, pay the mortgage on a scheduled basis or buy groceries every Monday night, the touch part cannot be left to spontaneity. It has to be regularly scheduled or it won't happen on a regular basis.
Likewise with talk. We're not talking about reporting or regurgitating news of the day. Were talking about vulnerable, intimate and significant conversation or dialogue between two people who can get emotionally naked with each other. This takes skill sets which can be learned but without using them this kind of intimate talk can lead to disaster. Learn the communication skills to make emotional closeness work and not backfire on you.
Time. When we finally find unscheduled time in our daily lives there is no time left. Busyness is the American Idol. Stay busy at all cost. Sleep, and do it all over again the next day. We cannot leave the maintenance of a marriage to this kind of random, at-the-end-of-the-day-when-we're-tired, catch as catch can timing. It must be scheduled or it will not happen on a sustained basis.
Of course, no formula for success works unless it's used. Talking or thinking about it doesn't count. Invite your partner to give it a try with you. Let me know what happens.
