Poll: Most Marriages Are Happy

RELATIONSHIP EXPECTATIONS

Evaluating why past relationships went off track is just one of the many things Cohan, in her work as a psychotherapist, recommends to her clients. She said that most people have no idea what goes into a successful relationship, so they have no idea what to look for in a partner. She has spent part of her career working with inncer-city teens and wealthy adults. “You know what’s interesting?”  she asked. “There are no differences at all in knowledge.”       

She recommends that people spend as much time as possible learning about a partner before committing to a relationship. “People are marrying people they don’t know,” she said. Find out a partner’s background, psychological history. Find out if the potential mate has a history of addictive behavior. Figure out what kinds of goals the person has – do they intend on having children, practicing a religion, making money, moving to a new city. “Evaluating all of that information takes time and can’t be rushed,” she said.        

She estimates that it takes one year to truly understand a person and to know what that person wants out of a relationship. Only then can one understand if that person is a right fit, Cohan said. “...it forces people to look at the reality of their relationships," she said.   

Understanding expectations will deepen the commitment between partners, according to John Curtis, Ph.D., a former marriage and family counselor and author of "The Business of Love." Curtis said there are two kinds of conflicts in relationships: need conflicts and value conflicts. Need conflicts don’t have as much emotional baggage. An example would be a clean bathroom or managing the checkbook, etc. “Those things, we can flip a coin, we can alternate, we can outsource it,”  Curtis said. 

The value conflicts are the ones that can be more difficult – religious beliefs, political beliefs, he said. Understanding these issues can be a way to deepen a relationship, he said. Knowing partner’s beliefs and intentions in a relationship can put one on the path to a successful relationship. Debra Burrell, a licensed psychotherapist and relationship expert from New York City, believes that people are entering into marriage with the wrong intentions. “I think people get married now for emotional fulfillment,”  she said, “and that is very, very tricky.” 


FAIR FIGHTING

Learning about individuals’ intentions in a relationship naturally leads into positive communications skills. Burrell said the successfully married have something in common: they can discuss their feelings. Their communication is a give and take. “All happy and successful couples know how to repair from a fight. They know how to recover from it,” Burrell said.
 
Couples must be able to talk about the good things and the bad things, she said. That connection will help the couple move through the negativity left from an argument, she said. “If you are able to express, and the person is able to soothe you, then you will be able to repair that injury,”  Burrell said. 

Being able to resolve conflicts is more effective when partners are able to listen effectively, Curtis said. He recommends that partners talk to each other in a way that makes the partner want to listen. And, if need be, attempt to make an argument for the other side. Take the opposite position to try to understand why the other person feels that way. “That is kind of what good listening is all about,”  Curtis said.