Saturday, September 7, 2013

Inquiring minds want to know

Today's post concerns  my observations of long married couples. I happen to be part of one and also know quite a few people who are currently in marriages that have lasted thirty years or more.
I have no advice on how that can happen for those who are thinking of getting married or who have been married for less time that that. What I want to discuss is how I have noticed that long time couples are still very different in temperament. We get to a point where we  finish each other's sentences and we  remember enough between us that we can tell one good story at a time. But essentially I notice that the basic temperaments that attracted us to each other are still the same. And I am noticing this in all my long married friends. We are told that opposites attract and I believe that is true of young people who marry for the first time. As we grow and change inside the marriage our basic temperaments remain opposite. He extroverted, she introverted, he big picture thinker, she down to earth etc. The individuals learn how to work with these opposites and create a balance that keeps the marriage from imploding.  We don't become more like the other we become more tolerant of the other. Loving someone in spite of how different they are from ourselves is how these marriages keep working.
Marriages that don't last break apart because the people in the relationship want a clone. Sometimes in second marriages the individuals think they have found someone more like them
but often they break up as well since they don't have the time to get to the point of realizing that the basic temperament we are attracted to is our opposite. I believe are put together to balance each other so that the energy we give out in the world is softer and kinder.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Mary,

    Interesting post. My parents were married for a little over 40 years when my mother died. They were complete opposites and I can remember a lot of unhappy years, but after my mother died my father kept saying (in his own way) that she was the love of his life and he never remarried.

    Having just gotten to 28 years I am sure of only two things: 1) he is going to make me crazy 2) I like crazy!

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  2. The photo on this page is of my parents and I love it since it seems to project delight in each other and for their future. Also a rocky relationship from my viewpoint as their child but mom was devastated when my father died and she also had no interest in marrying again. He was her "one" man.

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