I’ve been married twice before and have now been happily married to Carlin for 35 years. Until recently I never really thought about the purpose of marriage. When I was in my 20s I married right out of college because we were “in love” and all our friends were getting married. It seemed like the thing to do. We had two wonderful children and life was good…until it wasn’t.
Following our divorce ten years later I got involved with a woman who slept with a gun under her pillow. My friends all told me to run like hell. For me the sex was out of this world and the excitement was over the top. We married, if I were honest, because we were both out of our minds. Lust trumped whatever rationality we might have had. It lasted less than two years.
Before marrying again I decided to make an honest assessment of my life and tried to understand the real purpose of getting married. I acknowledged that my mother had been married twice before meeting my father. Was I living out her marriage history? Getting married in my 20s was greatly influenced by societal expectations and the next marriage was more about defying expectations than developing a real partnership. For us, “third time” is definitely the charm, but we’ve also learned some important lessons that might be helpful to others:
Getting Married Doesn’t Mean You’re Successful and Getting Divorced Doesn’t Mean You’ve Failed
We should get rid of the notion “until death do we part” and recognize that we get married for many reasons. Few of the reasons are likely to help our marriages last. Most of us are drawn to another and many choose to marry, some multiple times. We all stay together for some time and all marriages end, some by death, most through divorce. It’s time we let go of the guilt and shame thinking we’ve failed if we get divorced.
Until You Are at Least 37 Years Old, All Marriages Are Trial Marriages
As a therapist and marriage and family counselor for more than 40 years I believe that age 37 is the first time we have an opportunity to be our own person, an adult who knows themselves well enough to consider a mature partnership. Until then we’re still learning, trying out riding with “training wheels.” It would be nice if all marriage licenses for those under 37 came with an expiration date.
Getting Married When We’re Still “Under-Aged” is a Great Way to Learn to Know Ourselves
Age 37 is the youngest age at which we become an adult. Most of us take longer. Until we reach an age of maturity, generally from my experience between the ages of 37 and 44, the purpose of marriage is to learn to know ourselves. We find out what we love, what we hate, what we’re willing to fight for and what we’re willing to die for. We learn about love and we learn about loss.
Mature Love is About the Power of Two, Not About Me and You
When Carlin and I got together, fell in love, and made the decision to get married, she told me she was committing to the relationship not to me. Her words unsettled me. Being committed to “us” felt good to me, but not being committed to “me” felt threatening. When we’ve been at our best during our 35 year marriage, it has been when we were focused on “us” and how we could nurture and support the relationship. When we’ve been most unhappy and in conflict occurred when we felt afraid, lost our focus on us, and cried out, “But what about me? Don’t my needs count?”
A Passionate, Creative Marriage Should Be Renewed, At Least, Every 15 Years
When I was young I thought marriage was about sex, love, intimacy and living happily ever after. Now I know it’s also about no-sex, fear, distance and about endings and new beginnings. It’s far more complex than I ever imagined and there are many more obstacles that can get in the way of real, lasting love. Carlin and I have dealt with medical challenges including breast cancer (hers) prostate enlargement (mine), atrial fibrillation (both of ours).
We’ve also changed through the years. We’ve raised children together and now it’s just the two of us. We bought a house on 22 acres in the hills of Mendocino where we’ve lived for 24 years, and now we’re selling our house and land and moving into town.
When we got married we had a purpose that included raising children and building a family life together. Fifteen years later when we re-evaluated our marriage and decided to get married again, we were focused on learning about how to have a functional relationship that could last a lifetime (unlike our parents and what we had experienced in our two previous marriages.)
Our second re-marriage ceremony took place in the Czech Republic where our youngest son had gotten married and was living with his life and their children. The focus of this, our third marriage to each other, is more focused on how to deepen our understanding of love and recognize and accept the challenges and joys of aging. Looking forward to our third re-marriage ceremony.
Life is truly a journey of creative growth and change. Marriage, I’ve found, is the graduate program of life. It teaches and challenges, demands and rewards. Please share your own experiences on this journey. We can all learn more about how to have real, lasting love.
My new book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to Come, will be out next year. Email me if you’d like to read an advanced copy.
I was exactly 37 when I met my wife of, now, 27 years! I had married at 30 and it lasted just 4 years. I guess my story is right in the sweet spot of what you’ve observed in your practice. I want to thank you profusely for your newsletters and blog articles. They often make me farklempt!
Brett, thanks for your comments. Feel free to share any insights you’ve gained about how to have a great relationship that lasts.
Are there any statistics showing that age 37 is being a sign of maturity? I know too many people who still have not achieve any kind of maturity particularly in higher levels of management who still don’t know how to lead people even when they are at age 37 and beyond that in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Makes you wonder how they ever stay married let alone or not fired from their jobs?
We should go back to the old days where in the military, you could not get married without getting permission from the commanding officer. In the Victorian British Army, you had to wait until you were 30 years old and achieve the rank of major. In the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), you had to wait seven years before you had ask permission to get married. When Clifford Walter Harvison become head of the RCMP, he got rid of that rule.
Personally, I don’t think anyone should get married until they have some kind of financial, healthcare, labor, and economic safeguards so when a person gets layoff, the family doesn’t have to worried about losing their house and paying their bills, not worried about medical care, paying for their kids’ education, losing their IRA and personal saving , etc.s. Without those safeguards, divorce rates goes up, suicide rate in the families goes up, domestic violent goes up, drug and alcoholism goes up.
Gunther,
I’ve found that age 37 is the first opportunity for maturity and becoming our own person. For many it takes longer. And of course, it takes a lifetime (or many) to achieve complete maturity. We learn as we go. We pretend that when you’re 18 or 21 you are mature enough to make a decision about marriage. In some cultures, these early bonding attempts are seen as provisional marriage, or trial marriage. Its like kids playing house when they are 5 or 6 years old. They can practice the skills without the responsibilities of having to engage a real marriage.
One option would be to make these trial marriages easy to get into and out of and require people to be on permanent birth control so they wouldn’t have children. After they had passed “their exams” that show they were mature enough to be a good marriage partner and parent, their birth control could be reversed and they could then have children as mature adults.
What think you, my friends?
Ironically the people agreeing with age 37 being the age of adulthood are all men. You can easily have children in your 40’s and 50’s compared to women that experience significantly decreasing fertility and increased risk of fetal abnormalities post 40. In addition if I have children late 30’s or at 40 they are only 20 when financially I need to be investing in my own financial future with retirement just around the corner and I am 60. As an educator and mother of two college age sons I can tell you there are few financially independent people their age. I am glad I am only 50 and not 60. Looking from my point of view I never regretted marrying at 23 and having children a few years later. Despite obstacles we have faced in our recent marriage years I believe there is no better time to begin a marriage than others, as life changes will always bring obstacles and opportunities, and how those are handled is true measure of maturity .
Divorce is a failure. To tell people that it’s not is doing a huge disservice. What you’re doing is you are teaching the younger generation that divorce is not a failure therefore it’s always an option. It’s comments like that; your irresponsible comments like that that have desensitized our youth. Desensitized them not only to lifelong covenant commitment, but in other areas of life as well. Things that are at the base of our society are being destroyed, like values, lifelong commitment of marriage, family unit, etc. Without the healthy family unit society will crumble. It is the basis for society. It crumbles, society crumbles.
Jill,
People get divorced for many reasons. I’ve found that, with help, most marriages can be saved. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life work to doing. However, some people have such wounded backgrounds that they make marriage a living hell for their partner. I’ve worked with a number of people who have been in highly abusive marriages. Their partner refused to get help and the abused partner had to get out in order to protect their life and the life of the children.
For that couple, divorce kept a disaster from happening.
I hope the more we can help people heal their wounds from the past, the healthier their lives will be, and the more successful their marriages will be.
Well said Jill. Thank you! My first marriage failed after seven years. It took me 5 years to rebuild emotionally but now, 35 years later I still haven’t rebuilt financially and I still carry the sadness and regret. I promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistakes but today I am with a man I deeply love who wants a divorce after 25 years of marriage. This is his first marriage and he feels his dreams have been compromised. He wants out to find the freedom to pursue new and exciting lifestyle changes. To me it is lazy and immature to give up. It means you’re not living life consciously and you aren’t seeing your own accountability in creating happiness. He’s in the disillusionment stage and doesn’t know it. He thinks I’m responsible for his misery. He has no idea what the other side will bring. Marriage counsellors should invest in keeping couples together and help them understand these stages, not help them find their true desires, whatever that means. Divorce only contributes to a broken civilization. We are all responsible for keeping our society healthy and secure. Imagine if we all did that. Imagine if our learning from a young age taught us to be healthy, happy, mindful and loving partners and to navigate with success the vicissitudes of life.
Hi Jed,
This article was eye opening for me.
I’m 28 now. Over the last 4 years, i’ve grown more than any other period of my life. People who haven’t seen me in a few years usually comment on how much i’ve changed. This makes me wonder about what’s going to happen over the next 10 years.
Why do you think it takes most of us so long to become an adult at age 37?
Ben,
Basically I’ve found that during our 20s the tasks are to get out in the world, establish ourselves, learn to relate with a partner, which often entails marriage and children. Between 28 and 33 there is often a transition. It can be an external one or the changes can be internal. Between 33 and 37 we put down roots and 37 is the first time many of us can get a glimpse of our true selves.
Of course, these are generalities. Everyone has their own paths, but these life-stages seem to be true for most people, though the exact timing will vary. You might like to keep a journal of events for you over the next 4 or 5 years and see what changes you observe in your inner world and in your outer world.
Please share anything about your journey that you’d like to share. It will benefit everyone.
Hi Jed,
Thanks for the great feedback! I love reading your take on this subject.
In regards to my journey…. It wasn’t until I turned 26 that I felt my brain really turn on. Previously I was living a weird haze of social conditioning, societal pressures, and was unclear about what I wanted to do with my life and what I wanted in a partner.
These last 2-3 years i’ve been reading, writing in journals, and tracking my progress each day. This has allowed me to observe changes to both my inner and outer world (just like you said). Keeping this practice allows me to continue refine and mold myself the person I want to be.
Also having strong mentors in my life has been a huge part of the growth. Each mentor has helped me refine and streamline the maturation process. They’ve helped me get through my success barriers and start working towards my big goals.
-Ben
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks Ben, Please share this with those you know. I’d like to hear more feedback from people in your age range.
Will do!
I’ll push this across my social channels.