Essay, Research Paper: Love And Marriage

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Love and Marriage:
A Relationship Made to Last
Marriage is the institution whereby a man and a woman are joined in a special social and legal relationship for making a home and raising a family as stated in the Webster New Ideal Dictionary. Human Minds stated the median age of first time bridegrooms was 26.7, and of first time brides, 24.5 years-a rise of three years since 1975 (United States Bureau of the Census, 1996a). Ninety percent of American women, but only seventy-five percent of African American women, eventually marry (Papalla & Olds, 1998). A mountain of data revealed that most people are happier attached than unattached. Compared to those single or widowed, and especially compared to those divorced or separated, married people report being happier and more satisfied with life (Papalla & Olds, 1998). Just how far that resemblance extends, however, has been a matter of some controversy. In many marriages, there come questions that come to mind.
1. When is a couple ready for marriage? What are the aspects to look for?
2. How do they determine if it is love or predilection?
3. What are the main causes of divorce?
The determination of marriage focuses on these three questions.
When is a couple ready for marriage? What are the aspects to look for? A model for loving relationships is the acronym, ACCEPT. It fits loving partnerships so well for two main reasons: it labels the six vital dimensions of an
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intimate pairing; and acceptance is such a critically important quality in any human relationship. The word ACCEPT stands for attraction, communication, commitment, enjoyment, purpose, and trust and this model offers a pattern which are the key features of virtually all intimate relationships (Emmons & Alberti, 1991).
What brought them together in the first place? How did they find each other? Attraction is the first dimension of the intimate organism. This is how the process begins; intimate partners begin their journey towards a relationship by being attracted to one another. Attraction in a relationship process has three stages: the early stage, middle stage, and the late stage. In the early stage, it deals with what catches a person's concentration at first are observable on the physical and emotional qualities. The early enticement qualities change over time but their essence is always there and keeps renewing their appeal for each other. The second stage, the middle stage consists of discovering new levels of magnetism within their perspectives. New areas of enchantment also unfold as they see their partner in various settings and doing different things. This stage can also be a dangerous stage for it becomes more in depth of experience with one another and may uncover problem areas that strain the intimacy and dim the attractiveness. In the late stage, the ingredients of their attractiveness profile maybe faltering a bit. Since age is a dominant factor, physical factors of attractiveness are obviously not, what they used to be.

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Communication is the second dimension that explains how to talk, listen, solve problems, fight, and still love each other. Emmons and Alberti believes that the six powerful tools to help the relationship build more effective communication are:
1. Positive attitudes toward communication.
2. Basic listening and speaking skills.
3. Intimacy-enhancing communication habits.
4. Constructive thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.
5. Problem solving skills.
6. Conflict resolution skills.
A positive attitude helps the relationship work better and helps them feel better. The three main components of a positive attitude in an intimate relationship are cooperation, rewarding, and patience. In cooperation, they must work together. They react to each other's input or at times lack the input. They can not be in a relationship by themselves, can not solve relationship problems by themselves, or can not expect to work only on themselves and expect to produce more intimacy. Some of their self-change will certainly help, but an intimate partnership is a mutual system. The relationship will show some significant growth only when they both realize that they are intimately entwined.
Basic listening and speaking skills are designed to facilitate communication. Whether they are the listener or the speaker, the use of good body language will
help them take the responsibility for their own feelings. "I don't feel appreciated
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for my work efforts" is a statement that speaks for themselves rather then their partner. "You" messages are usually pronouncements or accusations: "You never do what I Want" (Emmons and Alberti, 1991).
Many people eat too much, drink too much, stay up to late, exercise too little, or communicate too poorly. Breaking intimacy and inhibiting communication habits tend to appear when they are not wanted; they are bothersome and difficult to get rid of. However, if they truly want to and are willing to work hard, they can overcome them. Some examples of this communication tool habits are making the partner feel guilty, assuming what the partner is going to think or do, or giving the silent treatment, cold shoulder, pouting, or withdrawing. We do not know we are doing it when we are doing it and expect it to be okay to do it, when in reality it affects the communication gap in the relationship.
The fourth communication tool is the constructive thoughts, beliefs, and expectations. Thoughts can be helpful or hurtful, enhancing their communication or hurting it. Thoughts may appear to be personal, private, and silent, and therefore have no power. Beliefs about relationships usually come from early life experiences learned from our parents, church, school, or the mass media. They are to be global or general rather than specific. "A good husband should be strong and assertive." "A good wife should be demure and sensitive." "Disagreements between partners is destructive." "Men/Women are all alike" are

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just a few examples that society believes about relationships. Expectancies come from past experiences with their partner. They are guessing the probability that they will respond in a certain way in specific situations while casual attributions are the causes we assign to behavior of our partners. The type of thinking involved is usually all or nothing. "He's selfish" and "She was trying to make me mad" are a couple casual attributions that occur in the relationship. It is important to realize that these intimacy-inhibiting thoughts are unrealistic and irrational. They often are predicting notions about what "should" or "will" take place.
Learning problem solving skills is a communication tool that consists of solving minor and major problems in the relationship. The problems they are referring to be the areas of their life together that is not going right. These problems often have a negative emotional history to them and may involve repeated and unsuccessful attempts at resolution. Taking one problem at a time, starting with the easiest, and developing it into a short, specific statement. This solving skill involves developing a workable process. Working together and narrowing down to get to the essence of the problem. Asking each other questions, finding a solution to the problems, and compromising with one another. Always remember to talk to each other if this solving skill gets too intense and remember the purpose.
The last communication tool is the conflict resolution tool. Conflict is normal, and indeed essential in human relationships. It does not need to be
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destructive, and it certainly should not be violent, but ought not to be feared or avoided. When it involves strong angry feelings, many relationships fear bringing their feelings into the open. They probably have been told since early childhood that anger was bad. When recognizing the value of anger, allowing the natural feeling to be expressed in a calm way, and working toward a resolution of the problem will create the conditions necessary for a constructive conflict resolution, and a healthy, growing relationship.
A statement Lewis S. Smedes stated in Accepting Each Other, was that "our deepest relationships are held together by an invisible cord called commitment." A sense of unity that keeps couples together is the factors of friendship and commitment. This virtue comes in two forms: formal and process. Formal commitment deals with those we make when we take a vow, make promises, sign contracts, pledge ourselves while process commitments are made day by day, renewed constantly, offered because we are continually rededicating ourselves to the relationship. Commitment usually means that they will have to pay a price. They will have to sacrifice some of themselves. In other terms, they may not be able to achieve all their personal goals if they are committed to another person but will be able to achieve other goals which they could not manage alone. Yet surveys and explanations may fail to capture a further element that is essential to a couples' experience (Burnett, 1990). If a couple remains in love and sexually active, after all that they have shared they can come to feel as united as kin. They may also feel connected in a spiritual sense.
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There may be a religious dimension to this, but individuals without religious beliefs might equally recognize a depth of feeling for the other and sense of their special significance. For them, even the estrangement of rows, declining attraction, or changing values does not eradicate the connection.
The fourth virtue is the enjoyment virtue. "True intimacy is when two people delight each other and delight in each other," says psychology professor Peter Kalellis. Intimate partners need to enjoy their life together. Even if the couple is "holding on" out of social, physical, or economic necessity, each partner needs some pleasant experiences to make it all worthwhile.
Purpose is next on the list that associates with a motivating force, a principle that can help them define their goals and objective, for their intimate organism. Purpose, or lack of it, determines whether their intimate organism works or flounders. It defines the connections among themselves, their relationship, and their environment. The three aspects of purpose are life purposes, shared goals and direction, and the strength of their commitment.
The last virtue is the trust virtue. Predictability refers to being able to tell what their partner's behavior will be in specific situations. While dependability relates to whether they can count on their partner when the need arises, especially when they need to disclose personal feelings and reactions. Lastly, they know that their partner will always care for and be responsive to them pertains to faith. One major problem in the trust factor deals with jealously. Jealousy pertains to a fearful or suspicious of a rival or competitor (Webster's
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New Ideal Dictionary). Couples' firsts become aware of jealous feelings when they sense the possibility of losing someone or something to a rival. It most often occurs when someone we love seems unusually interested in another person, but there are many other situations where it also occurs. Some examples can be when an employer is impressed with a fellow employee, when a best friend begins spending time with another person, or when a parent gives more attention or privileges to a sibling. Most people do not consider jealousy to be a serious problem or a debilitating disease. Some believe and think of it as a positive emotion, something to encourage as a demonstration of love and not as an abnormality (Barker, 1987).
The most common question in every couple's mind is what is love? What does this word mean to their partner? Love has many meanings and complications. Liking, according to the Webster's Ideal Dictionary, deals with a "fondness" or "affection" for one another. Whereas love consists of a strong affection for or attachment or devotion to a person or persons or "a strong, usually passionate, affection for a person of the opposite sex."
How does liking become loving? How does loving sometimes fall back into liking? There are several schools of thought on this issue: reinforcement theory, social exchange theory, equity theory, and the cognitive-consistency theories (Sternberg, 1988).
Reinforcement theory often provides the simplest and most elegant explanation of what can go on in interpersonal relationships. The basic principles
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of reinforcement, while apparently obvious, actually have nonobvious implications. A person, for example, may have a low opinion of themselves will find reinforcing beliefs that concur with their own. Ironically, they maybe most reinforced when someone expresses a low rather than a high opinion of themselves because the low opinions correspond with them. Considering a second implication of reinforcement theory, we know that on the average, people react more strongly to negative comments than to the positive ones. In relationships, punishment can often carry more weight than do rewards. Then over time, their partner can come to have more ability to punish them than to reinforce them positively. Albert and Bernice Lott were two of the earliest reinforcement theorists. According to them, attraction is a positive attitude toward another; liking is a response in anticipation of a goal; and a like person is someone who acts as a secondary or indirect reinforcer. In other words, they can find attributes of the liked person to be the primary reinforcer; and because the liked person continuously possesses the character and that person becomes secondarily reinforcing. Lotts also stated that liking for a person will result when one experience rewards in the presence of that person. Conditioning can play a role in development of liking. An implication of this view is that they can come to like someone not because of who the person is, but they happen to experience positive reinforcements in their presence.
In the social exchange theory, people seek to maximize rewards and minimize punishment. People will be more attracted to those who provide more
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rewards and fewer punishments. There are several important implications for this theory. The first deals with people wanting more rewarded in the areas of insecurity. An extremely attractive person who forever being complimented on their looks. The person she is most likely to respond with is not the one who compliments on their appearance but the one who instead compliments on their professional work, an arena they are insecure about. What matter the most is not how good the person really is in objective sense, but how the person feels about them (Sterberg, 1988). The second implication of this theory is in a competitive situation, whether at work or in personal life, people tend to stress what they are good at doing.
The equity theory maybe understood in terms of four propositions. The first deals with individuals trying to maximize their outcomes. In other words, the rewards minus the punishment received. Secondly, a group of people can maximize their collective reward by developing an agreed upon system for fairly dispersal available rewards and costs among group members. Thirdly, when they find themselves in an equitable relationship, they can become distressed, the amount of distress being proportional to the inequity experienced. Finally, an attempt to eliminate that distress by restoring equity to the relationship: the greater the experienced in equity, the greater the effort to restore equity (Sternberg, 1988).
According to the cognitive-consistency theories, individuals strive to keep their cognitions psychologically consistent. When inconsistencies in cognition
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arise, people strive to restore consistency. An implication of this theory that is probably not a good idea explicitly and extrinsically is to reward someone every time that person does something.
Basically, what these theories are stating the different factors on determining are it is love or predilection. How a person begins to see the significant other in various situations and figuring out whether they feel they are in love or just another attraction.
When lack of communication continues throughout the marriage, the only hope couples seem to seek is divorce. "The failure to move beyond the early sexual and romantic intoxications of the courtship and honeymoon toward deeper satisfactions of marital fellowship leads to dissatisfaction and perhaps divorce" (Whitehead, 1996). A statistic in the Winter/Spring edition in Newsweek magazine stated: excluding the war, marriage rates have kept constant, while the divorce rates have almost tripled. Why do people divorce? Bitter quarrels,
insensitive remarks, lack of humor, watching too much television, inability to listen, drunkenness, sexual rejections are just some of the reasons the men or women give for why they must leave a marriage. According to Fisher, some common circumstances under which people around the globe chose abandon the relationship. Overt adultery heads the top of the list. In a study of 160 societies, anthropologist Laura Betzig established that blatant flirt, particularly by the wife, is the most commonly offered rationale for seeking to dissolve a marriage. Sterility and emptiness comes next. Cruelty, particularly by the
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husband, ranks third among worldwide reasons for divorce. Then comes array of charges about a spouse's personality and conduct. Bad temper, jealousy talkativeness, nagging, disrespect, laziness by the wife, nonsupport from the husband, sexual neglect, quarrelsomeness, absence, and running off with a lover are the among the many explanations (Fisher, 1992).
When lovers become angry, it is important that they tell each other, what they are angry about and why. The sooner the information is exchange, the better. This prevents distortion, exaggeration, confusion, and misunderstanding. Fighting is constructive when it is about issues and destructive when its goal is to put each other down. Optimism aids love's cause immensely. An outlook that invites the possibility of good things happening prevents our love-generating feelings from running down and rusting away (Rubin, 1990).
Determining when a person is ready to settle down and get married all depends on the individual. To believe to get married is to believe what is in the heart. In other words, if they know and believe in their goals for the future, then they will believe in their instinct when they are ready for marriage. Although people tend to marry for the wrong reasons, the people who lacks believe in them, are usually the ones that end up in divorce and/or possibly in bigger trouble than they started out with. Couples can takes up two months before they decide to get married, some may want to finish college before they settle down, but, whatever the short and long the period takes for them. Marriage should happen when the time is right. The love they shared should be
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the most happily in the world and not in the time of trouble or need to get out of a problem.