First Comes Loves, Then Comes Marriage...

 

"First Comes Loves,

Then Comes Marriage,

Then Comes Baby in a Baby Carriage."

Woah, did that bring back memories of us running around on the playground or what? We all begin to plan for the whole marriage thing (or not, that's okay too) from a young age. We understood then that you marry the person you love. Two individuals find each other and make it work long enough to seal the deal. Ta da!

Well, not quite. Errm, marriage actually takes work. The before and the during all require work from both ends; only then will true marital satisfaction occur. Transitioning into marriage is not something to be taken lightly. Dating differs from courting. Courting differs from engagement and engagement differs from marriage. Each stage requires times and this is where the Relationship Attachment Model (RAM) makes play. Remember: know, trust, rely, commit, and touch. You cannot proceed to the other without increasing the previous. 

A quite popular topic is if marrying sooner or later matters or proves to show much difference. An article by Deseret News share that "Americans are marrying later. In 1970, the median age at first marriage was 21 for women and 23 for men. In 2021, the ages were 28 and 30, respectively, the new report says" (Collins, 2022). So a good handful of Americans are getting married a couple years later, but is there much difference getting married at 30 than at 20? According to the National Marriage Project study: 2022 State of Our Unions, there is no significant results demonstrating that age is an indicator to marital satisfaction. 

However, marrying younger (early 20s) is not for everyone. Director Brad Wilcox of the National Marriage Project, explains that marrying young “requires an extra measure of maturity and intentionality. But, surprisingly, this report finds that those who marry in their early twenties are somewhat more likely to report that they are happy and sexually satisfied compared to those who marry later” (State of Our Unions, 2022). There you have it. You found someone while in college and hit it off, you start dating and very soon you are exclusive, courting if you may. After about a year or so, you get engaged and start planning for the wedding and to unite your lives. 

You see, we can break down the life stages of a young adult into three: 

• Stage 1: Single Adult Life
• Furthering Education
• Finding a Career
• Becoming Financially Stable
• Self-Exploration
• Dating
• Stage 2: Marriage
• Adjusting to sharing life with spouse
• Developing & Implementing communication skills
• Setting Patterns & Boundaries
• Bond building
• Building Marital satisfaction 
• Stage 3: Adding to the Family
• Start having children
• Decrease in marital satisfaction
• Introducing new roles & responsibilities

In stage two, roles and responsibilities can be negotiated and flexible. Setting patterns in regards to communicating with your spouse will set the rhythm for the remainder of your marriage. Not only that but setting up boundaries will depict how involved you allow others to be in your family. Again, we learned this from Salvador Minuchin. Minuchin describes three types of boundaries: diffuse (enmeshed), rigid (disengaged), and clear. Reiterating the importance of what patterns established in your first year of marriage will follow for the years after. 

Entering stage three, be cautious as marital satisfaction begins to decrease. This should not take away the importance and beauty of creating life and having children in the family. With the birth of each child, marital satisfaction decreases. Attention between the couple goes to the child(ren), which is common. However, we usually see the mother more involved but there are ways to involve the spouse so they do not feel excluded. This is why setting healthy boundaries from others allows the couple to work together through everything. Mothers, that means involving your spouse in the pregnancy and birth. Fathers, be patient and considerate.  Nonetheless, as more children are born the decrease continues until it plateaus after the last child is born. The process afterwards is that marital satisfaction may increase until it's an empty nest (Figure A) or marital satisfaction may never really increase (Figure B); leading to risk of divorce.

So really marriage is not as easy as the children's rhyme goes. It takes work and a lot of communication to make sure that regardless how old you are when you get married, marital satisfaction is positive. 

“Marriage, in its truest sense, is a partnership of equals, with neither exercising dominion over the other, but, rather, with each encouraging and assisting the other in whatever responsibilities and aspirations he or she might have.”

—Gordon B. Hinckley

References

Collins, L. M. (2022, February 9). Is marrying later really better? Deseret News. Retrieved February 19, 2022, from https://www.deseret.com/2022/2/9/22924011/is-marrying-later-always-better-study-family-marriage-byu-virginia-brad-wilcox?_hsmi=203457730&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_YbZ37eCPma6BJRjFa45ooJqFC1oLWdqsI8W0BoLaCkKh_otPAVSFj5OAIH7xD1BLscIO0NkjKy53yy34qJ9yN1_oeFGu3Xh4iwVYnk26RwGK-eyw 

2022 state of our unions: National marriage project. The National Marriage Project. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2022, from http://nationalmarriageproject.org/blog/resources/2022-state-of-our-unions/