When Will I Be Prepared For Marriage?
Psychotherapy: Relationships: Pre-Marital Counseling
Never. Marriage is a process. Life presents itself. You never know what is in store for you. Occasionally life gets overwhelming. Life will get overwhelming when you are married too. Nothing prepares you for marriage.
As I said before, marriage is an act of faith. Some things in life will simply be out of your control. When life becomes overwhelming for you in your marriage, you might become emotionally drained to the point of total emotional exhaustion. At that point, the only things that will keep your marriage going are the previous occasions when you demonstrated trust, respect and generosity to your spouse. If you and your spouse are certain that this will continue in the future, you will be able to overcome your adversity.
From the time you decide to get married, you and your spouse will be either storing up emotional resources or draining them. The emotional resources you will be storing up are good will, generosity, respect, trust, good humor and love. Each time you offer your spouse these things, you put “money in your emotional resource bank”. Each time you withdraw from your spouse emotionally or act disrespectfully, you withdraw money from your emotional resource bank. You will either build the account up together or go emotionally bankrupt together. There will be times when you or your spouse will incur emotional debts to each other. Sometimes both of you will be overdrawn. But if there has been sufficient history of good will, generosity, respect, trust, good humor and love, you will extend “credit” toward each other.
The relationship ends when one partner no longer cares. That’s when relationships get broken beyond repair.
Never. Marriage is a process. Life presents itself. You never know what is in store for you. Occasionally life gets overwhelming. Life will get overwhelming when you are married too. Nothing prepares you for marriage.
As I said before, marriage is an act of faith. Some things in life will simply be out of your control. When life becomes overwhelming for you in your marriage, you might become emotionally drained to the point of total emotional exhaustion. At that point, the only things that will keep your marriage going are the previous occasions when you demonstrated trust, respect and generosity to your spouse. If you and your spouse are certain that this will continue in the future, you will be able to overcome your adversity.
From the time you decide to get married, you and your spouse will be either storing up emotional resources or draining them. The emotional resources you will be storing up are good will, generosity, respect, trust, good humor and love. Each time you offer your spouse these things, you put “money in your emotional resource bank”. Each time you withdraw from your spouse emotionally or act disrespectfully, you withdraw money from your emotional resource bank. You will either build the account up together or go emotionally bankrupt together. There will be times when you or your spouse will incur emotional debts to each other. Sometimes both of you will be overdrawn. But if there has been sufficient history of good will, generosity, respect, trust, good humor and love, you will extend “credit” toward each other.
The relationship ends when one partner no longer cares. That’s when relationships get broken beyond repair.
posted by Jacob Spilman, LPC, LMFT at 10:58 AM
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