Myths about Marriage!!

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, J. Gottman, 1999.

1.You can save your marriage by learning to communicate more sensitively! Even happily married couples can have screaming matches – loud arguments don’t necessarily harm a marriage…

2.Neuroses or personality problems ruin marriages! We all have our ‘crazy’ buttons…a happy marriage isn’t about having a ‘normal’ personality, but finding someone with whom you mesh…

3.Common interests keep you together! This depends on how you act while engaging in these activities…

4.You scratch my back and…[A quid pro quo arrangement] It is in the unhappy marriage where the partners feel they have to maintain a tally of what one does for the other…

5.Avoiding conflict will ruin your marriage. This is not necessarily true – what’s important is finding a style thatworks for both people…

6.Affairs are the root cause of divorce. In most cases it is the problems within the marriage that send one or both partners looking for an outside intimate connection. Affairs are usually not about sex but friendship, caring, attention, support and respect-things that the marriage is supposed to provide.

7.Men are not biologically built for marriage. The frequency of affairs does not depend on gender as much as opportunity…

8.Men and women are from different planets! Gender differences may contribute to problems but they don’t necessarily cause them…

More Myths about Marriage… Marriage Myths: Marital Myths Can Hurt Your Marriage, www.marriage.about.com