Never Forget That Partners Are People, Too!

You may know some people who think that marriage is a quick and easy way to get the romantic, carefree life they’ve always wanted.

They think that marriage is a way to make life easier.

To a certain extent that’s true.

The alternative to marriage/relationship is remaining single. It’s not easy to be alone all the time.

However, as D. S. Coleman points out on HuffPost, marriage comes with its own significant costs. [Read more…]

I think that it’s impossible for two people to live with each other without coming into conflict.

Whether due to difficult circumstances that arise or personal baggage that hasn’t been resolved yet, issues come up.

But it’s how you deal with those issues that makes all the difference.

In a post from a few months ago, Crystal Paine at Money Saving Mom made some key suggestions for handling the storms that inevitably come in the course of a committed life. [Read more…]

Are you looking for love?

Many people spend many years looking for “the one.”

Some people have a very clear, very definite mental image of the perfect person for them.

Some people have a desire to feel loved in a certain way – even if they haven’t felt that way before – and “just know” they’ll have met “the one” when they feel that way.

Some people believe that stars and planets will guide them to their soulmate. [Read more…]

In a timeless post from over two years ago, Dr. Kelly Flanagan broke down marriage dynamics into three basic categories:

Fight to the death

Constant winner versus a constant loser

Race to see who can lose the most

It’s the last category, in which both partners try to lose instead of win, that Dr. Flanagan believes produces the best results.

Here is how he characterizes it:

The third kind of marriage is not perfect, not even close. But a decision has been made, and two people have decided to love each other to the limit, and to sacrifice the most important thing of all—themselves. In these marriages, losing becomes a way of life, a competition to see who can listen to, care for, serve, forgive, and accept the other the most. The marriage becomes a competition to see who can change in ways that are most healing to the other, to see who can give of themselves in ways that most increase the dignity and strength of the other.  These marriages form people who can be small and humble and merciful and loving and peaceful.

He also provides a superb example of this philosophy in action – as demonstrated by his son.

What do the rebellious marriages look like? Lately, when my blood is bubbling, when I just know I’ve been misunderstood and neglected, and I’m ready to do just about anything to convince and win what I deserve, I try to remember a phone call we recently received from my son’s second grade teacher. She called us one day after school to tell us there had been an incident in gym class. After a fierce athletic competition, in which the prize was the privilege to leave the gym first, my son’s team had lost. The losers were standing by, grumbling and complaining about second-grade-versions of injustice, as the victors filed past. And that’s when my son started to clap. He clapped for the winners as they passed, with a big dopey grin on his face and a smile stretched from one ear of his heart to the other.  His startled gym teacher quickly exhorted the rest of his team to follow suit. So, a bunch of second grade losers staged a rebellion, giving a rousing ovation for their victorious peers, and in doing so, embraced the fullness of what it can mean to be a loser. When I’m seething, I try to remember the heart of a boy, a heart that can lose graciously and reach out in affection to the victors.

That to me is the hidden benefit of such a marriage: you raise kids with grace and strength and dignity.

This is such an important lesson for parents. If you are going to fight over the family finances – where to invest, how much life insurance to buy, and so on – you are demonstrating a pattern of decision-making that your children will pick up.  You do not want them to think that insurance and investments are a “winner-takes-all” proposition between a husband and wife.

Rather they should realize that the most important thing is keeping the union intact.  Good decisions will follow.

Star singer, actress, and comedian Bette Midler married her husband in Vegas, after only having known him for six weeks. But unlike other Vegas weddings, Midler’s didn’t end with a hangover the next morning – this year Midler and her husband will be celebrating thirty years together. In the latest issue of PEOPLE Magazine, Midler shares her rules for a successful marriage – starting with “Give each other some space.”

I think she is sharing some wisdom and common sense with us. Here are some particularly practical tips:

“It’s best to pick your fights wisely and just meditate. Stay calm. Don’t go from zero to 60 in two seconds. Just stay calm and try to breathe,” she says. “Breathing is really important.” Most of all, “Don’t diminish each other. Don’t make each other less. Don’t try to make each other wrong all the time. Don’t blame. Stop assigning blame. The blaming, I think, is the worst part. It’s so [easy to do], because you don’t want to carry the burden yourself. You want to push it onto someone else,” she says.

I have many couples as clients who buy life insurance in their 60s and 70s. The kids are out of the house, the mortgage is paid, and they have no more business obligations. Yet, they buy it. In the words of one, “I love him and I want to make sure he’d be okay without me.” That is a sign of a good marriage.

Unfortunately, it’s very common for money issues to cause undue stress in a relationship. Disagreements over “wants” vs “needs” and unexpected expenses often bring out the worst in otherwise-loving partners.

After studying marriage for 32 years, Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz (married 48 years and counting) co-authored a book called “Building a Love that Lasts, The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriages.” In their book the Schmitzes offer seven rules for not letting money get the best of your marriage.

Here is a one I especially like:

Celebrate whenever you achieve a financial success. That could include paying off a credit card bill or mortgage or reaching a savings goal.

Believe it or not, I have seen couples go out for a celebratory dinner after they finalized their life insurance coverage. They appreciated the difficulties in meeting the challenges involved: doing the planning, going through underwriting, getting everything done on time… And, they gave themselves a good pat on the back for reaching a milestone in their family financial management.

Is yours a lasting marriage?

Unfortunately, many marriages end in divorce (although not 50%, as commonly reported). In order to figure out if there are any patterns among the blissful unions which go sour, researchers polled thousands of couples who were married and/or divorced within the past 7 years.

Some of the findings conform to popular wisdom and some are downright unexpected!

A summary of the research, along with visualizations of select findings, appears in Randalolson.com. Here are two conclusions that surprised me the most:

1. Couples who never go to church are 2x more likely to divorce than regular churchgoers.

2. The more you spend on your wedding, the more likely you’ll end up divorced.

Do any of the conclusions about what makes a lasting marriage surprise you?

I think it is important to remember that even if your marriage got off on the wrong foot, with the proper dedication you could certainly get it back on course.

A Lasting Marriage and Life Insurance

A strong marriage has a significant bearing on the purchase of life insurance. When a man and woman get married, they often purchase coverage because they become interdependent financially. Even if they each have a career and the means to be self-supporting, the life insurance benefit is used to buy the time needed to mourn, heal, and get life back on track.

If a divorce unfortunately takes place, life insurance often comes into play as well. Divorce decrees often call for the purchase of a policy for the benefit of the ex-spouse and the children.

Check out Tracy Moore’s post in Jezebel about “training men for marriage”. She reacts rather strongly to the comments President Obama recently made on the topic. Her essay mentions the remarks this way:

Obama recently joked to a newly married woman that it takes 10 years to train a man properly for marriage, and patience is required.

(Note: I happen to like Tracy’s point of view but I don’t appreciate the vulgarity. Please close one eye when you read her:)

Here is my reaction to her reaction:

1. Yes, men have to grow up on their own, as all people do. Nobody can make us mature. By the same token, one of the vital functions of marriage is for each partner to serve as a “helpmate-in-opposition” (Biblical reference) for the other. We need our spouse to give us the advice, counsel – and yes, criticism – that would benefit us.

2. Sharing household chores just for the sake of “equality” does not solve deeper martial problems. Men and women deserve equal treatment simply as human beings. If a husband takes advantage of his wife, or bullies her into doing work she does not want to do, then they have a relationship issue. The goal should be to resolve that – not to merely get him to mop the floor more often.

From a life insurance point of view, “stay at home” husbands and wives can definitely get coverage. A number of factors come into play, including: coverage on the working spouse; the duration for which the insured would be staying at home; and earning potential when the spouse returns to the workforce.

Some modern critics of religion are now criticizing parenting because they think it is a religion. As such, it is “destroying marriages.” To quote Quartz:

Sometime between when we were children and when we had children of our own, parenthood became a religion in America. As with many religions, complete unthinking devotion is required from its practitioners. Nothing in life is allowed to be more important than our children, and we must never speak a disloyal word about our relationships with our offspring. Children always come first. We accept this premise so reflexively today that we forget that it was not always so.

Hmmm. Here is a pretty solid refutation of this claim in Jezebel:

I think it’s misleading to suggest that kids destroy marriages when what they really do is reveal the fault lines. I would like to have happy, wonderful, passionate, engaged, mature couples with a proven ability to work through problems please tell me about how having a kid torpedoed their love like a paid marriage assassin. I’m going to guess with as much scientific backing as everyone else’s opinion on marriage that those couples are in the minority.

I personally agree that the stress and strain of having children does expose existing weaknesses in a relationship.

I can tell you that simply speaking about the purchase of life insurance exposes such weaknesses. Talking about the death of a spouse, and the prospect of being alone, is very intimidating.

If a couple has not upgraded their skills to deal with the tough issues, then the issues will overwhelm them. And the fact of the matter is that having children raises many tough issues. Couples need to ratchet up their game to handle them.

Make sense to you?