Poll: Most Marriages Are Happy

Curtis said the health of a marriagecan be evaluated based on the level of authenticity between the partners. Couples in strong marriages continue to learn more about their partners, and they still love and respect them, he said. 


PARTNERSHIP IN MARRIAGES

Strong communication skills should bring about another element of successful marriages: a true sense of partnership. Curtis said joint decision-making is the key. “If you are doing joint-decision-making, the likelihood of fighting is less because both people are now invested in he decision,” he said.       

Cohan and Burrell, both psychotherapists, said that fostering a partnership takes work. Cohan said a test of understanding the depth of the partnership is to analyze what happens when one partner is in need. How does the other person respond? True partners will rise to the occasion. “When committed to the partnership and the well-being of the relationship,” Cohan said, “that is what makes a successful relationship.” 

Burrell echoed Cohan’s perspective. She said that both partners must have faith that they are not alone in the relationship. They must not feel that they are carrying too much of the burden of housework or caring for the relationship. “The more that women feel they are not doing that alone,” Burrell said, “the more happy and secure they feel, and less resentful and angry.”       

People who hold resentments against their spouses will be unable to connect when the need arises, she said. The partnership can not be sustained in those conditions, she said. “The partner has got to know that you are going to be there if they need you. I think that if people do not have that feeling, then nothing can come of that.” Burrell said. “At a fundamental level, you have to believe that your partner is there for you. How can anything else be good if that’s not there?” 


SOLID PARTNERSHIPS BUILT ON TRUST

In healthy marriages, both partners have faith in the other that he or she will honor the relationship, said Dear. Dear said that when she teaches her Binghamton University students about building solid marriages, she tells them there has to be a trust between partners and an understanding that they are working toward a common goal together. “Basically, what makes a good relationship is love, honor, trust, good communication and a good intimate physical relationship,” Dear said. “And that has to be mutual.”       

And both partners have to be willing to put in effort to sustain their relationship, Cohan said. She thinks people are too flippant about relationships and are unwilling to invest the effort. “I think that people really do not want to do the work,” Cohan said. “I really don’t. I think they want to fall in love across a room and have 92 orgasms. But they don’t want to do the work.”
       
Working hard to make the survival of the marriage a priority is also necessary, Weston said. In his research into the sociology of marriages, Weston said, has found that commitment is the key to the resiliency of the relationship. “People who have permanent, unshakeable marriages,” Weston said, “they are not just committed to their partner, but they are committed to the idea of marriage itself.”


Michele Bush Kimball has a Ph.D. in mass communication with a specialization in media law. She has spent almost 15 years in the field of journalism.