What being a good marriage partner looks like
Your fates (and the impact of your choices) are tied together-for better or for worse.
We’ve been married for nearly 30 years and just arrived home after several weeks of travel. Probably because I am noticing my own aging (I turn 52 next month), but I paid attention to a lot of older couples on our trip with varying degrees of apparent joy, health and happiness. It made me consider the impact of longevity in marriage or other long-term committed relationships. This is not marriage advice; this is just a perspective on how to consider how your ‘personal’ choices impact a long-term partnership and family community.
Because your fates are inexplicably linked. The choices you make impact your partner and the longer you are together, the more impact it has.
Like if you choose to have kids. Or choose not to.
If you have a career path that requires frequent relocation to climb the corporate ladder.
Or choose a career path with low pay. Or with a big community commitment. Or years of education. Or travel.
When you are in a long-term partnership, what you do (or don’t do) isn’t just a private choice you are making-you’re making it for two people.
Two people will bear the impact of what you decide. And/or a family of people.
I think about my 88-year-old father, who was exposed to very loud sounds much of his life in his favorite hobby of dirt track car racing. (Yeah, it’s a pretty badass hobby.)
But he didn’t like to wear ear protection for much of the time. So he didn’t. So he has been very hard of hearing for many years. He also doesn’t like wearing his hearing aids.
As a result of these choices, it’s pretty difficult for his family and any human he interacts with to communicate with him - at the grocery store, doctor’s office, or on phone calls. It can be frustrating he usually needs some intervention and help.
He doesn’t want to be a burden and knows it’s hard, but like the rest of us, he didn’t connect the impact on his partner, family and community when he made ‘personal’ choices. To that point, I have started to pay attention to my heart health since I inherited some of his genetics around this and I can extrapolate how the decisions I am making around food and exercise today will impact my husband and kids in the next 10-20 years.
I think about this a lot right now.
If I decide not to care for my health or imbibe in ‘bad habits’ (I see you late-night ice cream) my partner bears the impact of caring for me when I am ill or have a chronic condition for years. Or die early, leaving that gap in my family years ahead of its time.
Of course, there are some things you cannot control around your health or later in life infirmity, but there is an awful lot you can mitigate.
Decide not to build a career or have stable income? Our partners bear the financial burden of providing for two people, with no backup or reprieve.
If we choose to not be in relationship with family members, our partner also bears the brunt of being on the ‘outs’ with family and loses that part of your collective community.
The choices we are making for our own lives are not in a vacuum.
Watching the couples on our vacation, it is easy to see how at a certain point, you can grow weary of bearing the consequences of another person’s choices. Especially choices that you disagree with or don’t support. There were definitely varying degrees of hostility and annoyance between partners as I watched them navigate the world with the impact of their partner’s mindset, health or other practical struggles. (Like mobility issues or just plain being grumpy and disgruntled.)
I would like to imagine it has made me a more aware partner, both in what I am choosing and what I might be growing a teensy bit resentful about. And so I wonder; what can we do when our partners make a choice that we will bear the brunt of, for better or for worse? You cannot control another person’s behavior, so what’s left is controlling your own.
First, talk to them. Share your concern about how the choice they are making is going to impact you. Are they aware? Many times, we don’t see beyond ourselves and assume all is well and that our partner agrees with things since they aren’t saying anything. Just because we were in agreement when the decision was made months or years ago, doesn’t mean it is still working.
If you have a problem or concern (even one you’ve mentioned before), do they know how you feel and how it is impacting you now and in the future you imagine?
(And there’s something to be said for figuring out the line of where they bear some part of the consequences of their choices that you have historically born. For example, if you want to travel and they have become unable to do so, it doesn’t mean you don’t travel anymore—it means you find other people to travel with and they stay home. It might sound harsh, but certainly less so than living with years of resentment.)
Second, speak up if you had previously agreed to a decision that is no longer working. That might be the job promotion that has meant a lot of travel or a stay-at-home-parent who wants to return to work. Re-evaluate what not only works for you, but also what is working for your partner and the family. There are consequences for everything, the question is what consequences do you want to live with more than others?
Finally, check-in around decisions you have made for yourself that impacts your partner’s future (which are
probably a lot more decisions than you think). This includes health, finances, work/career, hobbies, relationships, etc.
The key is to be aware of how your own choices impact the ‘we’ and to communicate when things are no longer working for you before you become resentful of your partner’s choices. Or deaf, haha, and then everyone can be resentful of that.
As we heard on every train we took in the U.K. with all those fellow travelers, ‘See it. Say it. Sort it.’