Marriage is Hard!

"Marriage is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature." - Katherine Anne Porter

In an article from Newsweek is from an interview with author Gary Neuman. He did a two-year study of 100 men who had sexual affairs and 100 men who were faithful. He shared his findings in the new book, “The Truth About Cheating: Why Men Stray and What You Can Do To Prevent It.

Here is an excerpt from the article.

What did you find was the No. 1 reason men cheat?

I think most people ascribe to the theory that men cheat for sex. Women are being told that unless they are unbelievable sexy and have a Ph.D. in prostitution education then the husband is going to cheat. But when the results came in [from my study] only 8 percent of cheaters said that sexual dissatisfaction was a primary contributor [in cheating] and only 12 percent said the mistress was better looking or in better shape than their wives. It really started to show a completely different pattern than what most expect. In fact, the majority—48 percent—said that the cheating was about an emotional disconnection.

He's right, sex isn't the thermostat (it doesn't regulate the relationship), rather it's the thermometer (it reflects the existing condition of the relationship). In other words, the sexual relationship reflects and is a symptom of the already existing, deeply rooted issues in the marriage.

"We must never be naive enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the Fall...The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall: marriage" - Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III

Here also is an interesting quote on why marriage may be harder today than it was 20 years ago.

Have the marital problems you’ve mentioned in your book always been this bad? Or is sustaining a marriage just more difficult now?

I think [marital problems] have gotten significantly worst because of technology. We had difficulty finding space to be with our spouses before and now in the age of text-messaging, BlackBerrys and e-mail it has become impossible for some to truly have their spouse’s focus for any extended period of time. Vacations are no longer about vacationing. At any moment you could have to respond to an e-mail and people make a mistake to say, “It’s only five minutes.” It’s five minutes, but it has disturbed the whole flow of the relationship. We are never going to be able to microwave a relationship. It’s something that requires time and energy. I don’t think we’re poorer communicators. I think it’s basic. It’s kindness and appreciation and gestures that really do mean a lot and that’s where we need to be putting our focus.

I guess that rebuffs the whole notion of that quality time is better than quantity time. Relationships take time, we can't microwave them!

It is a good interview. I recommend it for your counseling and teaching. You can read the whole thing here.

(ht: SmartPastor)