Is Love Enough to Make a Good Marriage?
Question: I may be facing divorce. I had suggested that we contact you for relationship coaching, but my husband is totally against outside help. He feels that if a couple requires a mediator or an outside person to help save their marriage, then there is no use in continuing with the relationship. I think this is totally unreasonable and close-minded. I have a question, and hope that you will not mind answering it so that may be I can read it to him. The question is: Can you deeply love your partner and at the same time not trust them completely?
Benita A. Esposito’s response:
I feel your pain. Marriage is the most difficult yoga. Personally I believe that if a couple doesn’t get expert coaching, they will experience a lot of suffering unless there is miraculous grace on their relationship. All our unconscious stuff surfaces, and brews and boils in the context of marriage.
People can love each other deeply, but that does not mean they will have a healthy marriage. Distrust is a red flag that warns us there may be distortion either within ourselves or the marriage.
If we carry unresolved wounds from past relationships, it will be projected into the marriage. If there are lies, broken agreements, or a large difference between core values, mistrust will arise. If a couple is going to navigate through the turbulent waters, they must find and heal the roots of the mistrust. Love alone will not be enough to sustain a healthy marriage.
None of us are perfect. None of us loves perfectly. Hurt and pain will most likely occur in every marriage. The question is: Do you mutually have the skills to heal, forgive and reconcile after each conflict and restore your marriage to authentic relating? Or do with-holds build up over time, conflicts escalate, and the bricks get piled too high in the wall so you can’t climb over it any more? Unfortunately, that is the path of most marriages. Many people are not willing to get expert training at the very beginning of their marriage so conflicts build until the stress is so high it is difficult to turn around.
Some people expect that they should be able to succeed at marriage without professional training, yet they would never consider being able to advance their professional career without on-going training that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved. The Esposito Institute, Inc.
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Blog Entry December 3, 2008.