Are You Psychologically Ready for Marriage?

From a philosophical and psychological perspective, Alain de Botton believes that our view of marriage must change to take new dimensions into account, with the aim of experiencing a happy marriage.

(The full text has been translated as written. In the section on marital infidelity, the author discusses the subject from a psychological perspective on human behavior, without framing it culturally or religiously.)

It once depended on achieving certain financial and social goals: owning a home in your name, obtaining a collection of certificates, and owning a few head of cattle and a plot of land.

Under the influence of romantic ideology, however, this kind of marriage came to be seen as greedy and materialistic, shifting the focus toward feelings. It became widely believed that having the right feeling was extremely important and the ideal sign of a good marriage. The right feelings included sensing that the other person was “the one,” that you understood each other perfectly, and that neither of you would ever consider being unfaithful with someone else.

Although compelling, this idea has proved a reliable recipe for the eventual breakdown of a marriage—and has devastated the emotional lives of millions of supposedly sensible and kind couples.

As an alternative to these two approaches, we propose below a completely different and more classical set of principles showing when two people can consider themselves truly ready for marriage.

We are ready for marriage...

1. When we give up idealism

We must not merely accept, in general, that the person we marry is far from perfect. We must understand the particular ways in which they fall short: how they will be irritating, difficult to deal with, sometimes irrational, and often unable to empathize with or understand us. Marriage vows should be rewritten to include this brief line: “I agree to marry this person even though they will continually drive me mad.”

Yet these flaws should not be interpreted as merely evidence of a problem unique to this person. No one else would be better. We are all just as bad. We are a flawed species. Whoever we are with will be profoundly imperfect in significant ways. We must abandon the idea that things could be perfect with any creature in this galaxy. There can only ever be a “good enough” marriage.

To understand this truth, it helps to have had some relationships before marriage—not for the chance to find “the one,” but for ample opportunity to discover firsthand, and in different circumstances, that everyone, even the most exciting prospect at first, will prove somewhat unsuitable as we grow closer to them.

2. When we give up hope of being understood

Love begins with the experience of being understood deeply and exceptionally. They understand those lonely parts of you; you do not have to explain why you found a particular joke funny; you hate the same people; and they also want to try a particular intimate scenario.

This will not last. Another marriage vow should be: “However well the other person understands me, there will always be vast areas of my soul that remain unintelligible to them, to anyone else, and even to me.”

We should therefore not accuse our partner of neglecting a duty when they fail to interpret and understand our inner world. It does not mean they are inept. They simply could not grasp our past and our needs—which is entirely normal. No one can properly understand or fully empathize with anyone else.

3. When we realize that we are mad

This is almost impossible to grasp. We seem like normal and mostly good people.

It is other people...

But maturity is built on a renewed awareness of one’s own foolishness. A person may be out of control for long periods, fail to move beyond their past, make futile plans, and worry constantly. They may, to put it mildly, be a fool.

If we are not regularly and deeply embarrassed by ourselves, it is only because we have a dangerously selective memory.

4. When we are more prepared to love than to be loved

We speak of “love” as if it were one thing, rather than distinguishing between two completely different experiences that share the same name: being loved and loving. We should marry when we are ready to do the latter and aware of our unnatural, immature desire for the former.

“Being loved” is the first kind of love we encounter. It then becomes—quite wrongly—the norm. To a child, it seems as though a parent is automatically ready to soothe, guide, entertain, feed, clean, and remain endlessly tender and cheerful. Parents do not reveal how often they have stopped themselves from speaking, fought back tears, or been too exhausted to change their clothes after a day of caring for children. The relationship is not reciprocal at all. Parents love, but they do not expect the favor to be returned in any meaningful way. A parent is not upset when the child fails to notice a new haircut, ask thoughtful questions about a work meeting, or suggest that they take a nap. Parent and child may both “love,” but each stands at a different end of the spectrum—an arrangement the child does not recognize.

So, in adulthood, when we say that we long for love, what we usually mean is that we want to be loved as a parent once loved us. We want to recreate in adulthood the feeling of being pampered. In a hidden part of our minds, we imagine someone who will understand our needs, give us what we want, be immensely patient and compassionate with us, act devotedly, and fix everything.

This is undoubtedly a disaster. For a marriage to succeed, we must decisively leave the child’s position and move into the parent’s position. We must become someone prepared to postpone their own demands and interests in favor of another person’s needs.

There is another lesson to learn. When a child tells a parent, “I hate you,” the parent does not automatically react in shock or threaten to leave home forever, because the parent knows that the child is not offering the conclusion of careful, considered research into the nature of their relationship. The reasons behind those words may be hunger, a missing piece from an important Lego set, having attended a party the previous night, not being allowed to play a video game, or an earache...

Parents become skilled at not listening to the literal words and hearing instead what the child means but does not yet know how to express: “I am lonely, frightened, or in pain.” It is a need for help emerging unfairly as an outburst against the safest, kindest, and most dependable presence in the child’s world: the parent.

We find it genuinely difficult to take this approach with our partners: listening to what they truly mean instead of responding angrily to what they say.

A third vow should be: “Whenever I have the strength, I will imitate those who loved me and care for my partner as they cared for me. The task is not unfair drudgery or an abandonment of the nature of love. It is the only kind of love worthy of that exalted word.”

5. When we are ready for the work of managing a household

The romantic person views marriage through the lens of feelings. But what a couple creates through their life together closely resembles the way a small business operates. They must prepare task lists, clean, drive, cook, repair, care for others, hire, fire, compromise, and budget.

None of these activities carries any magic or glamour, at least in society’s present form. Those compelled to perform them are most likely to resent them and feel that something has gone wrong in their lives to force them to become involved. Yet these tasks are genuinely the most “romantic,” in the sense that they “support and preserve love.” They should be understood as the cornerstone of a successful marriage and given all the honor and appreciation currently granted to other activities in society, such as mountain climbing or motorcycle racing.

A pivotal vow should be: “I accept the importance of housework.”

6. When we understand that sex and love both do and do not belong together

The romantic perspective expects love and sex to remain aligned. In reality, however, they will not remain so for more than a few months or, at most, a year or two. This is no one’s fault. Because marriage has other central concerns—friendship, management, and another generation—sex will suffer. We are ready for marriage when we accept a substantial degree of “resignation” and practice “sublimation,” meaning the redirection of instinctive energy toward work of social or cultural value.

Both parties must avoid making marriage “about sex.” From the outset, they must also plan for the challenge that, statistically, is most likely to arise: one of them may be unfaithful to the other. A person is ready for marriage when they are prepared to respond maturely to being unfaithful or being betrayed.

The immature view of infidelity is this: sex does not have to be part of love. It can be quick and meaningless, like playing tennis. Two people should not try to own each other’s bodies. It is only a little fun, so the partner should not mind.

But this stubbornly ignores indisputable fundamentals of human nature. No one can experience marital betrayal without feeling that they have been judged fundamentally inadequate and wounded at the core of their being. They will never simply get over it. Of course, this makes no sense, but that is beside the point. Many things about us make no sense—and yet they must be respected. The unfaithful partner must be prepared to respect and forgive their partner’s capacity for intense jealousy. They must also strongly resist the desire to sleep with other people and, if they do act on it, take every possible precaution to keep their partner from finding out. If the truth emerges, they must respond with immense kindness and patience. Above all, they should not try to convince their partner that they should not feel jealous, that jealousy is unnatural, or that it is “bad” and unhelpful.

On the other side of the equation, a person should prepare themselves for being betrayed. This means making an enormous effort to understand what might be going through a partner’s mind while that partner is being unfaithful with someone else. A person is likely to think that there can be no explanation for the betrayal other than a deliberate attempt to humiliate them and that all their partner’s love has evaporated. The more likely truth—that the partner simply wanted more, or something different—is as difficult to accept as learning Chinese or learning to play the flute, and it takes a great deal of practice.

A person is ready for marriage when two very difficult conditions are met: they are prepared to believe in their partner’s genuine capacity to separate love and sex, while also being prepared to believe in their partner’s complete inability to keep love and sex apart.

Both partners must be capable of mastering these two heroic tasks together because, over the course of their life together, they may be called upon to demonstrate both capacities. This—rather than a vow never to sleep with someone else—should be the most important test of marriage.

7. When we are happy to be taught and calm when teaching

We are ready for marriage when we accept that, in some areas, our partner will be wiser, more rational, and more mature than we are. We should want to learn from them. We should tolerate having things explained to us. In important matters, we should regard them as the teacher and ourselves as the student. At the same time, we should be prepared to teach them certain things and, like good teachers, not shout, lose our temper, or expect them simply to know. Marriage should be defined as a process of mutual education.

8. When we realize that we are not all that compatible

The romantic view of marriage insists that the “right” person is someone who generally shares our tastes, interests, and attitudes toward life. This may be true in the short term. In the long term, however, its importance fades considerably because differences inevitably emerge. The person truly suited to us is not someone who shares our tastes, but someone who can discuss differences in taste intelligently and wisely.

Rather than a theoretical idea of perfect complementarity, the ability to accept differences is the true sign of the “right” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it should not be a prerequisite for it.

Conclusion

We have accepted that attending certain training courses before having children is a very good idea. This is now standard practice among all educated people in all developed countries.

Yet there is still no widespread acceptance of the idea of attending training courses before marriage. The results are evident all around us.

It is time to abandon the intuitive, romantic view of marriage and learn to practice marriage as we learn to ski or play the violin—activities that are no more complex and no more deserving of systematic periods of instruction.

For now, while the structures for new vows and training courses are being developed, we all deserve extraordinary compassion for our struggles. We are trying to do something extremely difficult without even the minimum necessary support. It is no surprise that we repeatedly encounter problems.

Source: The Book of Life

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