fwiw
i am hardly an expert on marriage, however i am pretty much an expert on what
not to do when it comes to such.
basically through a process of trial and error i have concluded what not to do pretty well.
aside for the religion aspect, the best advice i ever got, and what i would pass along to any guy that will listen is to get a good shrink!
now before you laugh it off, here is my reasoning
we go to the doctor when we have a broken bone, or a cut that needs stitches and we don't think a thing about it, we spend all sorts of money on hobbies, toys, and other things of more or less questionable value, but
we as men generally will never ask for help working on the old bean, hell we generally won't even ask directions!
does that seem reasonable?
i too was skeptical, however i am now "the" poster child for men getting a good shrink, or counselor if you will. it is my opinion it is the best money a guy can ever spend on himself.
one of the most interesting things i got from my sessions was finally getting my head around the idea that we have been lied to when it comes to marriage, we have been told that marriage is a lot of work... that is a huge lie! not a white lie but a black lie on the first order! a good marriage is not a lot of work, quite the contrary a good marriage is something that should never be seen as work at all.
the second thing i found interesting was finding out that it is not my job, or for that matter any spouses job to "make" the other spouse happy! its not anyone's job to make another person happy period!
this is not to say that doing things to make someone happy is a bad thing, but it is a bad thing to expect another to provide for your happiness, and that works both ways.
this is also not to say that one should go through life oblivious to their partners happiness or, doing things that make them unhappy either.
providing happiness to another is akin to being a drug pusher, it starts innocently enough, you buy flowers or do something that make her happy this week, and then when next friday rolls around and you have not bought more flowers ? hmmm ...
this is when the cycle can start, depending on the type of person she/he might be.
if she/he then expects flowers again, you start on a death spiral of having to not only buy flowers every friday, so that they can be happy, but... soon that becomes normal and it takes more to make them happy,, more "happy" drug, so you end up buying either more flowers or looking for other things to make them happy. at some point you cannot afford a truck load of flowers every week and even it you could they have lost their cool factor and she/he tosses them aside and looks to you for "what are you going to do to make me happy now" i was the grand master of being a "happy" pusher for better than 20 years, only to find out that there really is no way to continue this sort of charade. once i stopped trying, is when i got served with divorce papers!
yes i thought my life had ended, when the reality was my life was just starting.
my exwife and i fought at least once a day, every day for 20 years of marriage, and in reality every time we were together prior to marriage after about the second date.
i have been happily remarried now for going on 7 years, (plus 2 years before we were married), to date we have never fought about anything! nada, zip, nuttin...
this is not to say that we don't have disagreements, just that we can discuss them and if necessary agree to disagree, and we both realize that it is not either persons responsibility to make the other one happy! whats most interesting, is when it is not
expected of you, it is much easier to want to do nice things.
if one is not happy within their own skin, no other person and no amount of "things" is going to make them happy.
anyway, if i can pass along nothing more than the idea that it is not your responsibility to provide for another's happiness, and the value of a good shrink, then
i feel i have done the most good i know how to do.
bob g