Dr. David Raque

© Susan Todd-Raque

I will be 74 years old in December of 2019. I married my first wife at 23, my second wife at age 31 and my current wife, Susan, at 47. I guess one could say the 3rd time is charm or it took me a longer time to mature in order to find my soul mate with whom I knew I would be spending the rest of my life with.

Undoubtedly for me it was in the beginning of my life that the lack of self-awareness, my own narcissism, and the struggles with my early childhood trauma, that I finally began to accept and understand how my issues were interfering in finding and keeping the love I found with Susan. We continue to have our issues but the tools we have found to bridge our differences, we would like to help other couples identify and use these tools to keep their marriage alive and thrive as life changes.

As a psychologist who has worked with hundreds of married couples throughout my 45 years of practice the factor I think is the best predictor of a healthy marriage is the degree to which each person knows who they are as individuals before choosing the person to marry. Self-awareness is the primary seed to knowing who you are, accompanied with the wisdom to know who will suit you best through the best and worst of times. A major part of this self-awareness includes knowing the influences of your family growing up and what influences, both positive and negative, that helped create who you are, your uniqueness. There is not a high school or college class taught on how to make a relationship work or how to raise children. If we don’t receive good modeling on either, we are left to “on the job training.” While most social scientists acknowledge one’s basic personality is set at an early age, social scientists accept the notion personality does evolve over time. This allows for each person as they mature to know what’s most important to them allowing them to choose a mate who fulfills their template. Obviously, no relationship really begins without a physical attraction but if passion is the only attraction it makes for a long wick on a short candle.

Compromise is viewed by some people as a derogatory idea. However, the second best predictor in a healthy marriage is the ability to resolve conflict which so often necessitates compromise. Regardless of the initial physical attraction and sexual compatibility, we all know as years pass issues causing conflict arise. Actually, all marriages can be thought of as going through three stages.

That initial attraction, along with likable personality characteristics, is the “honeymoon stage”. This is the “love is blind” stage of a marriage when each person simple overlooks any faults their partner may have and think “love conquers all”. This stage, obviously depending upon how long the couple has been together before getting married, eventually leads into the “fault finding” stage. Neil Simon’s play, The Seven Year Itch, was a comedy that portrays this “fault finding” stage in a marriage in a satirical manner. What happens in real life is no matter how well you know someone, or how well you get along, there are going to be individual differences leading to conflict. These conflicts can be minor annoyances to each other or they can grow, if ignored, to become malignant to a marriage. In his book, Marriage. Dead or Alive, by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig, he posits that the perfect marriage is a romantic mythology promulgated by the Western contemporary culture. In fact, he goes on to suggests every marriage reaches a point during the fault-finding stage that reaches a “symbolic divorce”. This is a critical juncture when each partner needs to realize their responsibility to change and sacrifice to the other to hold the marriage together. This is when the couple needs to turn towards each other, not away from one another, by openly discussing compromise. The author goes on to state that during the life of the marriage actually each partner influences one another to become more like the other. Guggenthal-Craig even refers this process of each person becoming more like the other to the salvation of the marriage.

The third stage of the marriage, or what Guggenheim-Craig would call the salvation of the marriage, is when each individual reaches a deeper level of understanding of each other’s individuation and total acceptance. The importance of sexuality diminishes but continues to be mutual in its expression and importance. Each partner may have their own individual interests that is not necessarily shared but they have established rituals and what the Gottman’s refer to as love maps that tether each together without feeling bound.

In contemporary marriage the concepts of knowing oneself, the necessity to resolve conflict and the ability to forge compromise has not changed. What has changed are the economic and environmental factors. What has changed are the number and intensity of outside stressors on the marriages of today. Most couples I see in their 40’s or 50’s have dual careers and children. Some of the time the couple would prefer to have one parent home watching the children and working as the traditional mother and housewife, but today’s economics make this option virtually impossible to accomplish; so in most marriages both individuals are working. Clearly, the idea of the traditional marriage has changed as the result of the women’s movement toward equality of opportunity. In fact, now there are more women in the workplace than men. This movement has also forced men to change their perceptions. There are also a growing number of couples whereby the woman’s salary in her career becomes the primary bread winner and the husband is the stay at home parent assuming the role of child care, cooking and other household duties. These changes in contemporary marriages are creating new stressors, necessitating more open dialogue. I can’t say enough about how these economic factors have added stress to the marriages of today.

The unexpected environmental interference in the lives of couples is digital technology and its influences upon commitment, relationships, and being parents. Acknowledging the interferences we believe is the first step, along with creating a plan on how to put the couple relationship first.

I have seen a significant number of couples that have had little to no conversations about these issues prior to getting married. When asked why these issues have not been discussed it appears both individuals were thinking the initial “honeymoon” glaze would magically resolve these issues. This is why Susan and I also want to work with couples doing pre-marital counseling to help couples address these issues.

In summary, the basic factors to build a successful marriage have not really changed. These include knowledge of self, awareness of how your family background has influenced your model of what a marriage and parenting should look like, tools to address conflict and realizing compromise is essential. The onslaught of economic and environmental changes, recognition of women’s equality, and the culture of narcissism all have impacted the contemporary marriage and childrearing.

Whether contemplating solidifying a commitment, moving to another relationship phase, or simply anticipating or recognizing an underlying problem, Susan and I want to help couples see the positive. It is important to not see issues as unsurmountable but require special attention. As therapists, we want to work with our clients to help their relationship grow towards the positive as their lives change.