International Nesties
dulcemariamar1
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
A Good Enough Marriage
Yesterday, I was reading an article that said that we should accept a good enough marriage and that we should consider it an accomplishment. How would you define a "good enough marriage?" Is that when you become roomates? I just thought that idea sounded kind of sad. I understand everyone goes through rough patches but I wouldnt want to aim for a good enough marriage.
Maybe, I shouldnt talk until I have been married for like 10+ years. Maybe, it is a natural process?
Re: A Good Enough Marriage
That sounds rather sad to me too. I would think a "good enough" marriage would be one where you have settled for less than the person you truly feel is your partner just so you can be married.
No marriage is perfect but I do feel a good marriage (as opposed to a good enough marriage) is worth waiting for and working for.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to settle for a "good enough marriage." That being said, it would have to be a HUGE problem for me to leave DH at this point. But if we had problems, I would push hard that we both worked on the problem to make a change.
In a way though, "good enough," may also be the result of a lot of ideas of marriage that never worked out. I think some people, and please don't flame me for this, because I am NOT saying all people who have marriage problems fall into this category, idealize marriage, and they feel like they are settling for "a good enough," when the marriage does not work out the way they had planned it to.
I don't know, I'd really need to understand how the author defines "good enough". If s/he meant "roommates", I agree that's sad.
Alternatively, if s/he means good enough in the sense that there's always ups and downs-- there's no "perfect" relationship/life. I'm more on board.
While I personally wouldn't use the phrase "good enough" to describe our marriage, I would say that the relationship takes work and compromise. I think it's a good marriage, but we certainly have struggles/challenges. I'd never say it's "Fairy Tale" or "breathless romantic" or whatever. I'd say 98% of the time I'm "happy", another 1+% I'm "content" and some small fraction of remaining time I'm "annoyed" or "irritated". I think H is probably about the same. So while there are negative moments, the good/happy times far outweigh the bad. And while we work to reduce the bad, I don't think we'll ever be entirely rid of all bad/negative/annoyed moments. And that's ok. I guess some would call that "settling", but to me, it's just accepting that H and I have different personalities and we're bound to clash every now and again-- just a product of free will
! In that sense, things are good enough!
Yeah, I think some people just imagine that you find someone and that's it, everything's perfect. Not the case at all. DH and I fight a lot and we get annoyed with each other a lot. Maybe it's just the first year of marriage adjustment or maybe we're just passionate people (read, Italian). But the one thing that remains constant is that I love him, even when I hate him
I agree. I would also need to read the article, but I think some people go into it thinking marriage will be rainbows and butterlies at all times, and that's just not the case.
But, I wouldn't want to settle for a roommate type of situation.
H's parents have been married for over 30 years and I think their relationship is so sweet. His dad tells notoriously bad jokes and his mom gives a genuine, hearty belly laugh at every single one. Seriously, the woman has heard these jokes for 30 years and still finds him hilarious. It's fantastic.
Do you have a link to the article? Along with other posters, I feel I can't really comment until I see what 'good enough' means.
I guess part of me things that every marriage has to be 'good enough' for both people in it. I am not thinking of 'good enough' as analogous to 'settling,' but more along the lines of marriage as a covenant, or the idea that each of us at every moment can choose marriage or not.
I attended a wedding ceremony last year that was very profound and open that way, acknowledging that marriage today is about choosing to be together (or not) and that it's not about forcing someone to stay with you.
I suppose when I was little, I viewed divorce as a 'bad' thing. I thought that if my parents had only worked harder, they would have made it. Now, I think divorce is very often a good thing, although sad, a solution to a problem that is better than the alternative. It's not that I don't want to work through the hard times in my own marriage, but I guess I went into it realizing that although marriage has a modicum of security in it, there's no guarantees. And DH is well aware that there are some things he could do that would mean I would not want to stay with him. It's not a laundry list, but there are things (like abuse) that are just not happening (been there, done that). Maybe that makes me a cynic, or a relativist to some. But I feel it's pragmatic--not that anyone else (except DH) really needs to be on board with the idea.
Like Kelly, I've also read 'Committed' and found it interesting. Another good one is 'Couples' by Kate Figes, which features her conclusions after interviewing loads of people. As you might expect, it's sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking.
Like pps, I would want to know if it means settling or just toning down your idealizations of marriage.
FWIW, the only example of a "good enough marriage" by my own definition that I can think of is my sister's relationship with her 2nd husband. She was in her early 30s and lonely and raising her daughter by herself, and her daughter's best friend was being raised by a single dad. The dad and my sister got along fabulously, the girls got along fabulously, so they married thinking things would be great. A year or two into it, my sister realized she wasn't attracted to this guy anymore and that she felt like it wasn't fair to either of them to be kept from meeting someone else by remaining married for all the "right" yet wrong reasons. They were both definitely encouraged to stick it out, but it really wasn't a case that they were ever madly in love and then something happened. What happened was that they convinced themselves from the beginning that they should be madly in love, even though they never were. I think a lot of other people may have tried to keep working on the relationship out of fear of being alone or self-doubts that they were expecting too much, but personally, I think it's awesome my sister recognized they needed more than a few shared interests and daughters who wanted to be sisters to stay together long-term. Now that my niece is all grown up and out of the house, I can't imagine my sister would have been happy she had stayed with this guy. Especially since she has met and stayed with someone else in the meantime.
I echo what Kelly says. I read "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" and it had a similar tone. Pretty much, we think everything is going to be perfect and it won't so we need to realize when what we have is "good enough". If that means "settling" for someone who is bald, leaves the toilet seat up, has kids from a previous relationship, doesn't make as much money as we wish, etc. then so be it. As long as the settled upon things aren't deal breakers, if you have a great relationship, then it's worth it.