Is it good or bad that, in the first year of dating, the couple has almost never had a fight (referring to just verbal fight, not a physical one here, as the physical fight is never good)?
Or, is it better that they pick up as much “verbal fight” experience as they can before the marriage so that they learn how to reconcile or compromise with each other in a conflict that surely would happen in a marriage occasionally?
In the first case, there are almost no or very few dramas (say one drama in 4 months), for whatever reason it may be.
In the second case (prone to have fights), there could often be “dramas” on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
Assume that “severity” of the drama is similar in both cases. And there is no “fatal” drama that is not reconcilable (e.g., an affair.)
As a therapist I always tell my newly in love clients that they need to have their first irritations and then a first fight before they will know if the relationship is a keeper.
Funny that even though I have given this sage wisdom I cannot remember H’s and my first argument. I can remember our last one though :-@
Has the couple ever been subjected to the stress of being in a situation outside their normal day-to-day routine? Often, traveling together is the make-or-break test of a relationship-- that and renovating an old house together…
Even though I already knew GMTspouse was “the one” from the terrific cooking, the marriage proposal occurred on a vacation in europe when the rental car engine died and we were stranded.
@GMTplus7, Not sure whether the couple has been under a very stressful situation.
As far as I know, they traveled, had the flight canceled (but both of them were quite experienced with handling this kind of bad-weather-related event, so it was not a big deal to them), visited a close relative on one side (for the first time for one of the couple) and lived in their house for several days (one of them had to crash on the sofa), be-friended with every member in that family. Not sure whether this constitutes as a “stressful” situation but it appears no conflicts among them (including two young kids who appear to adore these two visitors after one day – except that their little poodle would lick his face a little too early every morning to wake him up because that little pet wants its share of attention (just like the other two young kids), once it wakes up.
Only insofar as it means they don’t have the opportunity to observe and gauge how each of them handle and resolve conflicts and whether it’s eventually done in a mature(calm discussion) or not-so-mature manner (name calling, low blows, tossed pizza pies…).
A colleague and I actually had a discussion about this topic recently. His take: the most important thing is that the person himself/herself should have a “good heart” (whatever it means.) If this is the case, almost all other potential problems could be resolved eventually. This is his opinion.
He also believes that as long as it is not the case of an extreme mismatch of SES (we mostly talked about marrying up/down in the context of SES only), he prefers marrying up to marrying down.
His point is that the trouble, if any, mostly comes from the relatives (the worst offenders could be the inlaws.) If the relatives are relatively well-to-do, they would more likely give the young couple more free rein about their lives with less intrusion because they themselves may be busy in leading their own leisure life (while enjoying spending their own money.)
This is of course over-generalization and is definitely not valid for all (even most) cases. But do you think he has his point?
You’ve never encountered or heard of higher SES families who leverage their wealth to control children/younger relatives? So many examples of this that it’s a common theme in literature and motion pictures.
Wealth is just a mechanism for leverage and/or means for those with some inhibitions against acting in such a manner to let them go for the sake of perceived sense of power and control.
There is nothing worse than a bunch of low-income relatives who always need to be bailed out of some predicament or (worse) trying to borrow money from the “successful” members, to put a strain on a marriage. Always marry people whose families are at least solvent and functional unless you like constant drama. No one can use wealth to “control” anyone unless the people being controlled have their eye on the family cash. If that’s the case, then they deserve it.
I agree that a “good heart” is very important for the long haul.
@Joblue, Agree with you about the part; “Families are at least solvent…”
Of course, this is not true for every case. But assuming that there are X percents of odds of the family/relatives are “bad” (“bad” in the sense of giving you strains or at least annoyance on a otherwise good marriage), it could be advisable to prevent this from happening (or at least decrease the frequencies and/or severity of the dramas) in the first place. Marriage is not a charity.
I actually heard of many cases of dramas, starting from the wedding.
You should teach a course in journalism or economics someplace. Both those groups haven’t gotten around to undertanding that.
Channeling a little Ron White there.
This is an interesting discussion, though. I know someone who could have “married up” easily based on her personality and looks, and yet had two moderately unsuccessful marriages. Her friends believe that the reason for this is that she wanted to be the “higher” member of the union. I don’t understand the choices she made, although it may have been that she felt uncomfortable and ill at ease with more upwardly mobile or higher SES men.
DH works with a number of 30-40 something unmarried professionals that can’t seem to find the “perfect” mate…
I just keep telling my kids to find your spouse while you are in college and that no one is perfect.
We did not tell our kid to do that. We do not know if he tried in college, but we do know he did not have a luck even if he had tried in college.
To our relief, he finally made a progress in the past year. Hopefully a keeper. (My wife’s intuition tells her that it could be a “success” this time.)
I know people who married a high school sweetheart (but not immediately after high school) and it didn’t prevent them from going to grad school (newsflash, grad school isn’t required for a career) or having a career.
So glad I did not marry my high school sweetheart!!! Boy, would that have been a mistake. Definitely one of the most valuable things I learned in college.
On the subject of marrying w/in your socio economic class… my BIL (a humble engineer) married a gal from a billionaire’s family (yes, that’s a “b”, not an “m”).
Whenever they had a fight, she would storm out of the house & come home clutching handfuls of shopping bags from Armani. Marriage didn’t last.
And on the flipside, if one plans to marry into a family from a higher SES station, it is arguably more incumbent to make sure they’re reasonably down-to-earth and not inclined towards being control freaks or inclined towards snobbery such as lording one’s wealth over others or assuming those who are lower SES/less wealthy are lazy or otherwise ended up that way due to character flaws.
Sounds like the wife from the billionaire family hasn’t matured beyond the tween years…
This brings up another good point.
Just as important is to ensure your respective perspectives on finances are as similar as possible. For instance, a spouse who is inclined to be a wanton spendthrift is unlikely to get along well with a spouse who is more financially prudent or if more extreme…an extreme penny pincher.
Personally, I try to avoid associating with spendthrifts…especially wanton ones as much as possible even as friends unless they’re clear asking for loans is off the table with them.
I certainly wouldn’t want to date one and the idea of being married to one is the stuff of horrific nightmares IMO…
Only two HS classmates who married right around HS graduation or during our college years out of a couple of dozen are still married today. The rest divorced within 5-8 years after our college graduations.
Of the two exceptions…one classmate and his wife were both far more mature than their years and came from a highly conservative religious family and other was even by my friend and his wife’s own admission a combination of dumb luck and lots of hard work and struggles…some of which are ongoing.
