Why Do Marriages Fail?

Questions like this often plague me as an unmarried woman looking to fall in love and be with that person forever, but here goes reality again, ever after often has an end date nowadays. I would like to think couples do mean it when they make that vow that promises till death do us apart, but as life goes on, somewhere along the line, they begin to lose faith in those words. Staying apart for some reason seems like a better alternative to being together. We begin to hear such words as “irreconcilable differences”. What this simply means is that their love has died.

Yes love can die and do die because love unlike our natural appetites, does not come naturally. Attraction comes naturally, the feelings comes naturally, the emotions comes naturally, they are all chemical reactions stimulated by what our senses find appealing. But love is none of those things. It can be expressed through those feelings we get due to proximity with the other person, either you see them, you think about them, you touch them, or you speak to them, you get those reactions, but that is not love.

What then is love? Love is not complicated at all, it’s quite simple, as simple as making a decision, because that’s exactly what love is, a decision, a choice. Therefore love is subjected to our whims. We can choose to love and we can also choose not to love.

Why do marriages fail? Marriages fail because the parties involved have chosen to stop loving! I’m imagining voices telling me it’s not that simple. Yes, there may be a number of complicated reasons behind that decision, but it does boil down to this at the end of the day, they have chosen to stop loving.

How do you choose to stop loving? To understand this question, I’ll use love as a metaphor for a plant, exercise and school. Love is like a plant, it needs water to grow. Buy a plant and never water it, it’s going to die. I’ve noticed how couples before marriage and during the early days of marriage are so wrapped up in each other, they can’t get enough, can’t stay away, they date, date and date, but as time goes on, they don’t put as much effort into it! If only guys would put the same effort they used in getting the gal into keeping her after marriage and if only women would put the same effort they do in attracting the guy in keeping his attention after marriage, more marriages will work. People stop working at love, but it’s not going to naturally sustain itself without the right environment and ingredients. You have to continue to spice it up!

Love is like an exercise. If you set a goal to lose weight for example, and you begin your exercise regimen, you’ll certainly see the difference, but if you stop exercising, your body would go back to the state it was in and it would be as if you never exercised. It’s the same thing with love, you’ve got to keep on practicing it. Love is active, it’s a verb, keep on doing the things that makes the other person happy, the things that puts a smile on their face, that makes them want to kiss you like crazy! You know those things that drives the other person crazy with love, but if you don’t, learn it! Which brings me to my third metaphor. Love is like school, you have to study to pass, know yourself and know the other person. Some of us don’t even know ourselves enough and we want to be in a selfless relationship with another person, how’s that supposed to work?

Take the time to learn about and to know yourself. Know your own feelings and emotions, your limits, your faults, your vices and virtues. Learn about you first before attempting to learn about the other person. Marriage is for matured people and it’s going to take you on a spin and toss you up and down if you are not prepared for it. You have to know what you can give and what you can take! And you have to know this same things about your partner. So therefore, when you’ve made the decision to marry that person, I advise you to start dating seriously. Some refer to it as courtship, I like to think of it as intense dating. Develop the mindset of a student going to school and take it seriously, and after you get married, you still have to keep that same mindset and mentality, that’s the only way this marriage thing will work. People get lazy and they stop putting in the work required, so they flunk.

You want your love to last forever and for your marriage to work? Both of you have to put in the work, and it has to be %100!