subject: Do They Want To Save This Marriage? [print this page] People who look back on the years, days or hours of their marriage and think it may have been a bad idea from the start often ask if what can be done to save this marriage? Maybe they should be asking if anything should be done.
The idea of saving often implies saving from something. What does this marriage need to be saved from? Are other men or women intruding and creating strife? Is the marriage starving for lack of emotional or financial investment? Are the partners bored and looking for novelty outside the marriage instead of bringing excitement in?
Saving a marriage usually means an effort to prevent it from ending. But what is it about the marriage they don't want to end? Are their efforts keeping it alive or prolonging its dying?
What do couples want to save their marriage for? Do they want their marriage to create a home and safe haven for children and pets and visiting relatives? Do they want it to provide a model of domestic bliss their friends will envy? Do they want to have someone they can always be themselves with, even if their real self is a jerk? It's a good idea for couples to know and agree on what they think their marriage can accomplish.
A marriage might be one that is worth saving when two people realize that each contributes something to the relationship that adds to the quality of both of their lives.
A marriage worth saving is one in which the partners feel safe to make future plans, confident that in two three or ten years both partners will still be committed to each other if not to their original plans. Partners who are committed to each other can develop new plans agreeable to both as interests and situations change.
When people can see that they have grown and in some way become better than they were before they were married they might have a marriage that is worth putting some effort into saving.
Many murder mystery stories have plots that involve people marrying for money. Sometimes a young person is required to marry in order to inherit a fortune and sometimes a fortune hunter will marry an heir or heiress. Marrying for money and ignoring other questions of compatibility is not a good idea. That's why these stories turn out to be murder mysteries.
