What Is Marriage For?

What is marriage for? The traditional answer is for procreation and the continuation of the species.  Marriage can also offer a stable supportive environment for children and helps provide a stabilizing foundation for society.  All true.   However, recent research supports another compelling reason for marriage: emotional connection (duh!).

Emotional connection is a basic human need.  The opposite of connection--emotional isolation--is in fact the most traumatic force for all human beings.  There are many levels/kinds of connection: friends, relatives, children, associates, religious faith...all of which are important in helping to meet the human need for attachment.  But based on recent neuroscience research, the most powerful level of connection--the need to be close and connected, to be known, to feel loved--can be through committed marital relationships.  Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight writes that "in fact the issues that most couples struggle with are not the real issues. They are in fact only symptoms of a weakening emotional connection."

Interestingly, recent research in the field of social neuroscience has highlighted how the lack of emotional connection affects our nervous system.  In one study, measured by an MRI,  it was observed that when threatened with a mildly painful electric shock to the ankles, married women in healthy marriages had decreased brain response to the threat when holding their husband's hand versus a stranger's or no hand at all.  In other words, when they held no one's hand or the hand of a stranger, the electric shock was registered as painful, but not so, when her beloved husband held her hand.  But when the same electrical experiment was later applied to women in distressed marriages, these women reacted just as the women in the original study did when they were holding the hand of a stranger or no hand! (I assume the same would be true of men.)

In another study, women in cohabiting relationships also experienced a more painful response to the electrical shock than married women. I find that quite surprising, actually.

So compared to all others, with the presence of a mate with whom they felt more securely bonded, the women were not just able to cope differently with the pain, they registered even the threat of being shocked differently.

What couples (and therapists) often do not see is that most fights are really protests over emotional disconnection.

As Sue Johnson writes: Underneath all of the distress, partners are really asking each other: "Can I count of you?  Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you?"  The anger and criticism are really cries to their lovers to draw their mates back in emotionally and establish a sense of safe connection, which is what marriage is for! Marriage will not keep us safe from the sorrows and pain of life and no marriage is without its disappointments and imperfections. But a good marriage can help provide the faith and strength we need in the face of life's challenges.  Otherwise, marriage will cease to be a warm shelter to anyone. And the shock of disconnection will continue, until sometimes, unfortunately, without help, it may become too late to restore the connection and save the marriage.

Conscious Uncoupling

You may have read or heard about the actress Gwyneth Paltrow's recent announcement about her "conscious uncoupling" with her husband. It's usually called divorce of course, but Paltrow decided to give it a more positive spin based on a program called "conscious uncoupling."  This program is designed to "release the trauma of a breakup, reclaim your power and reinvent your life." Now doesn't that sound better?  But is it?  What do you think? Here is a response from Michelle Weiner-Davis, the well known marriage counselor and author of Divorce Busting:

Give me a break.  I know some marriages will end in divorce and that said, they should be as collaborative as possible, especially when children are involved. But how many couples do you know who have "good divorces?"  Even those with the best of intentions often find themselves struggling as time passes.

Divorce is not an easy process, no matter how you slice it.

Plus, here's the biggest fallacy of all.  Most of the divorces that happen in our country are based on unilateral decisions--one person wants it and the other desperately does not.  It's hard to imagine a heartbroken person being a willing participant in a consciousness building program that both honors the marriage and destroys it at the same time.

Impossible.

Furthermore, even if people participate in a program that offers them insight about their marriage and years past, how exactly does that benefit children who will end up being shuffled around from one enlightened home to another?   Not at all....

Research indicates that even when parents do better as a result of divorce, there doesn't seem to be a trickle down effect for children as one would hope.  Except in extremely dysfunctional marriages (where there is violence, chronic infidelity and substance abuse), research also tells us that kids do better when their parents work out their differences and stay together.

The developer of the program "Conscious Uncoupling" suggests that marriage should be about personal growth, and when that no longer happens, the couples' work together is done.

Hello? What planet am I from?   Marriage isn't about personal growth, although you will hopefully learn and grow while you're in it.  It's about a lot of things.  One of the primary things marriage is about is learning RELATIONSHIP SKILLS, how to have a loving, harmonious, lasting marriage.

You can evolve personally on a mountainside, alone.  But to be in a marriage, you have to learn how to share, give, love and collaborate.

Oh yes, and one final thing......Here's a quote from Gwyneth Paltrow as she announced her decision to divorce:

"We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been."

No, Gwyneth, you will not always be a family.  Divorce ends marriages and dissolves families.  And if you're closer than you've ever been, for God's sake, why not get some good help and make your marriage work and keep your sweet family together?

Just a thought.   

( So what do you think now about "conscious uncoupling?" I think I am more in favor of " real conscious coupling" first...then maybe, if that doesn't work, conscious "uncoupling." But it's still divorce.)
Jim Covington