Evolving Expectations and Changing Perspectives
Marriage is many things to many people. In the past, it was an economic alliance between families, for both nobility and commoners. Giving birth often resulted in the death of the mother, infant, or both and life expectancy, in general, was dramatically shorter, and so most marriages were shorter as well.
In today’s day and age, most of us are fortunate enough to marry for love, but in some countries, arranged marriages are still the norm. Ideally, a marriage based on love can survive 40 or 50 years — but let’s say the marriage lasted only 10 years — does that mean the relationship is a failure?
No, it does not. Here’s why.
Circumstances Change
There are an infinite number of factors that can change a marriage, the most common (and most dramatic) of which is having children. Other times people only find out how resilient their partner is when a hardship strikes them. These are both things that cannot be anticipated during the honeymoon phase of a relationship.
Every relationship teaches us something: Every relationship brings new kinds of satisfaction and learning experiences. At the very least, you can figure out what didn’t work. For example, it’s easy for some people to become enamored of people who share a lot of the same traits as their parents; it’s comfortable for them to be around people who act in ways that are familiar to them, but there may be a host of other needs that can’t be fulfilled for either partner.
A Wake-Up Call
Let’s say circumstances have changed in your relationship, but you really view divorce as the last option. That’s where relationship coaching comes into play.
Breaking the Cycle: How Coaching Can Transform Your Relationship Patterns
Having worked as a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst led me to appreciate that leaving someone is not so black and white. Many of the clients I’ve worked with would end up marrying an earlier version of their spouse without even understanding what went wrong…and they will probably produce the same thing over and over again without assessing what went wrong, and how it can be done differently so that it will work.
One advantage to coaching is that it’s possible to change the dynamics of the relationship once you become aware that it’s not working for you. Is coaching right for you?
