The End of the Honeymoon - an Opportunity for Marital Happiness and Self-Growth
April 30th, 2009
By Gary Toub, Ph.D.
Click here to contact Gary and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile
It is not uncommon for couples to encounter serious problems after marriage. It starts out positively enough. The excitement of initial romantic attraction is powerful. There are hopes and dreams of having a lifelong partner or soul mate, someone who embodies everything we have yearned for: happiness, fulfillment, completion. Someone who loves us and for us to love. A friend, companion, soul mate, and lover. Someone with whom to raise a family. Someone with whom to share experiences. Someone to give our life stability, direction, and meaning. Someone for whom we can care and who will likewise care for us. These are just some of the powerful desires that compel us toward marriage.
So what happens? Commonly we discover aspects of our partner that we cannot tolerate. Our communication worsens and may completely break down. Our sex life diminishes. The excitement and romance we had eludes us. We no longer find our partner interesting or appealing. We fight. We hurt each other. We don’t talk. We get attracted to other people. We have affairs. We feel like giving up.
These are common marriage problems that can lead to divorce. However, they do not need to be a death knell for your marriage. These darker aspects of marriage are inevitable, for no matter how much you thought you understood yourself and your partner, there is much you couldn’t know. Since we start off idealizing our partner, we must confront the disillusionment and problems that follow. While painful, this is not something bad. It is an opportunity to learn important things about yourself and your partner. It is a chance to grow and mature as an individual and as a couple.
A marriage in trouble is not necessarily dead. In fact, it may be just the opposite. Conflict in your partnership indicates that something isn’t right, that you need something better. With guided probing, you can often identify the deeper questions and concerns that have erupted in your relationship: Who am I? How do I communicate? How do I seek to be loved? What are my expectations and projections? What unconscious factors are determining my unhappiness? These are just a few of the questions you can ask. I also recommend asking another sort of question: What is trying to emerge through my marriage problem? What undeveloped parts of myself are making themselves known? What would have to transform, mature, grow, or heal to not only make my marriage work, but for it to be truly alive?
©Copyright 2009 by Gary Toub, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Gary and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile
20 comments so far
I think it is a very good idea to ask questions to ourselves why our marriage is going downhill, but we have to stop being negative about ourselves and really open up and really find the true reason. I loved how you put how the honeymoon starts then ends… it seems we see a lot of this.
Hannah, thanks for your comment. To me, seeking the real reasons for the problems we encounter in our relationships is essential. In my experience, having a trained, experienced therapist can really help focus on the deeper issues.
What happens? I think that for too many people they get too caught up in a fantasy wedding and never give one thought as to how to make a marriage work. I will admit to watching trashy TV sometimes and I see this all the time on that show Bridezillas. These women are so concerned about having their perfect day but never give one ounce of thought as to the reality that marriage is after the wedding day is over. Sometimes I have to keep myself from screaming at their idiocy because most of them have no idea all of the hard work that it takes every day to keep a marriage going. I did not really know that either when I first got married but it does not take too terribly long to figure out that without a lot of work, communication, and compromise, the honeymoon will definitely be over a lot sooner than you may have anticipated!
Amy, I would certainly agree with your point. The fantasies around getting married and having a wedding can be powerful and really lift someone into the clouds, so to speak. It can lead to quite a crash when the reality of living day-to-day hits home. As you suggest, good communication involves conscious effort.
I think we need to remember that we are not perfect and we can’t expect our spouses or loved ones to be perfect either. It goes both ways. We may want that honeymoon feeling and the sparks and all that, and I think we blame it on the other person, but we need to step back and look at ourselves as well and figure out what we can do to make it better.
I had the fairy tale day and guess what? That was about the length of the marriage! I can laugh about it now as it was a great learning experience for me, but at the time I had no idea what a mistake I was making. But going through all of that helped to me to later in life find my real soul mate, and we just had a quicky ceremony at the courthouse. That marriage has lasted 20 years and counting and I have not once regretted the decision to try it all over again. Too many couples think that a marriage is a done deal- once the papers are signed that is it. But what they have no idea about is that this is only just the beginning. Hard times are sure to come and you and your partner have to be strong enough to weather those storms together or things are bound to work out in a bad way. There have been incredible happy times in my second marriage as well as extreme lows, but somehow we have made it work. Others can do that too but you have to let go of being selfish and find a way to work on solutions that work best for you as a couple and for the entire family. You do give up a part of yourself when you get married but you have to be ok with that. Look at the wonderful things that you can get in return!
Thanks Asia. It is common for people to project blame on others, but I’ve come to believe self-knowledge is the real key to solving things. I like your comment about perfection. Carl Jung said the goal of life is wholeness, not perfection. This has always appealed to me.
Pauline,
Thanks for sharing your story. It demonstrates a mature view of marriage that includes sacrifice, compromise, and a willingness to go through the hard times as well as the good times.
Gary
It would be nice to stay in that fairy tale story as Pauline puts it or continue on with the honeymoon state, but I find all too often that doesn’t happen. I think it is rare to be in this state throughout your whole marriage when you have kids, bills, work and stress. But it helps when you have a partner who is understanding, always there for you and no matter how hard it gets, you both work it out, that’s how it’s suppose to be instead of giving up.
My brother and his wife are living the reality of a marriage gome wrong right now but they have a two year old and want to try to make things right for her. I have tried to reason with them that maybe she would be better not being around the fighting all of the time but they are set against divorce. Maybe a good dose of marriage counseling could help here too. How could I try to reapproach this situation?
Having a relative or someone close to you in a troubled marriage can be challenging emotionally. In my experience, compassionate support is almost always a great help. A recommendation for marriage counseling might be appropriate as well.
I’m sure some marriages or relationships seem to stay in that honeymoon stage somewhat, but from what i have seen and people i’ve known, that honeymoon state seems to wear off within several years if not earlier. It would be nice to know simple “tricks” in keeping at least some of this in a releationship
Darlene, I have seen several reasonably good books that offer “tricks,” as you say, for rekindling marital romance. They might be of some help to some people. My perspective, based on Jungian psychology, is that the trick that might work best in the long term is to deepen one’s capacity to know and love oneself and thereby lift the blinders to appreciating and loving one’s partner.
I think one of the biggest problems in today’s society is the fact that people still get married very quickly and they do not know each other well enough.
People meet, fall in love, move in together and then get married. One of the reasons that some times the relationship goes rocky after the honeymoon is the fact that traveling with a person can be very difficult and it is when people’s true colors come out! People need to get to know each other a lot better and be living like a married couple prior to tying the knot. That was you are assured a happy marriage.
I agree with Clare. We fall in love and that person at the time is who we want to be with. We have the butterflies and can’t sleep because we’re always thinking of that person. Reality check is, if we live with the person before getting married (i’m sure this goes against some) or give it a year or more before getting married, maybe we will have the more grounded feeling of how it really is.
Clare and Barb, you both bring up an excellent point. The slower we take things and the more time we spend with a potential partner, the more we get to know who they really are and what the relationship will be like. The less we know the person, more more we will project on them–both positive and negative projections. Real life experience bursts the bubble of fantasy and grounds the relationship in reality.
I am really comfortable in my marriage and I wonder if that is bad or good. Sometime I feel as if I take things for granted. Of course, that honeymoon feeling is gone when all things are new, but I can honestly say, I am 95% happy with the way things are.
Madison, if you feel happy in your marriage, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that. Of course, there are two in the marriage, so you might check out how your spouse is feeling. And it would be advisable to keep tabs on that little 5%–it can get sneaky and grow behind your back, causing a bigger problem at some later date.
My husband and I have been married going on 17 years and although we are no longer in that dreamy state of mind or honeymoon stage, we still love to be together, hold hands while out in public, and give comments to each other.
I liked so much my honeymoon vacations :). I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.