Chose to Save Your Marriage

       John M Gottman, in his book, The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work, stated “Too often a good marriage is taken for granted rather than given the nurturing and respect it deserves and desperately needs” (pg 5). In so many cases, I have watched people who are close to me, have their marriage crumble to pieces leaving themselves, their spouse, and children left in the rumble of a divorces, confused, hurt, and desperate for answers of why things go wrong. But why do things go so terribly wrong? Especially when things started off so great.
       The answers can lie in many different corners, we are all very different people. However, for a lot of marriages, like Gottman said it is when the marriage is taken for granted and not being nourished by love and respect. For a lot of couples, the dating before the marriage is based on courting, effort, dates, and so forth. When the two get married things change. Slowly the two start to take each other for granted, get frustrated at the little things, and stop trying to court the other. The thing with marriages is that it is not a 50-50 ordeal. Each have to give 100% and continue to work at their marriage.
       As we grow up, like I mentioned in the earlier post, we are told and watch fairy tales. We believe that once we find the person, we will ride off in the sun set into our happily ever after. That after we defeated the villain, it should be sweet and easy the rest of the way. But what the fairy tales didn’t tell you was that prince charming had weird hygiene routines, or that your newborn's would keep you awake at every hour of the day and you would fine baby food and random things is every inch of your house. The lack of information to the average person on how a real marriage should work is part of the problem. We go into a marriage based on false realities that we were taught, not the actual realities marriage is.
       Marriages can be an amazing thing and Gottman said that researchers have shown that married people live four to eight years longer, than those who are not married. There are so many benefits in a marriage. But to get to those benefits you have to be ready to fight, work, and put in the effort in your marriage every day. Not just for the first couple years.