I'm Not Sure You Heard What I Meant

The first in a series on lessons learned about promoting healthy marriage and healthy relationships over the last ten years.

My husband, Paul, wears hearing aids. While these have improved our communication immeasurably over the last 3-4 years, we still struggle from time to time. Recently, I thought we were talking about filling the bird feeder, while he was wondering if we needed to include a special seat at the table for our infant granddaughter. He occasionally accuses me of talking to him from another room and expecting him to hear (which I will confess to sometimes doing). I fault him with being distracted by his iPad, the television or some other activity. Usually, these exchanges are quite humorous; at other times, they are very frustrating. In some ways they mirror the conversations I’ve had with people over the years about the importance of healthy marriage.

Misunderstandings

“So, do you think everyone would be better off married?”
“Are you saying that people should stay in bad marriages?”
 “So I should just get married and that will solve all my problems?”

These are the kinds of questions I’ve gotten from well-meaning, or sometimes irritated, people over the last decade. Ten years ago I hadn’t given much thought to the possibility that the topic of marriage might be a controversial one. Today I know better. When it comes to the “M” word, there’s lots of sensitivity. There’s the continued battle over who should be allowed to marry. There’s also the question about the necessity of marriage at all. Others consider marriage to be an optional choice or a religious issue, but not really that relevant to the social concerns of poverty and child abuse and neglect. Through the Operation Us Project, we’ve managed to create some clarity on this, but just to be clear I’d like to begin this series by shedding light on this fundamental point.

That’s Not Our Focus

We don’t believe that everyone should marry. We don’t believe that getting married will solve all your problems. We don’t believe that everyone who wants to marry will be able to find a suitable partner. We know that some marriages are dangerous and should be avoided.

We do believe that one of the best ways to improve outcomes for children is to impact the environment in which they are raised by helping their parents form and maintain healthy marriages. Many community efforts for children’s charities emphasize addressing the physical needs of children (e.g., food, clothing and shelter). Unless we focus on helping the parents of those children make better relationship choices and attain the knowledge, skills and attitudes to sustain a safe and stable home, we are likely to see the number of children needing these services increase rather than decrease. Then the limited resources will have to serve even more children. To achieve a different outcome, we need to do something different. We believe that relationship education for teens, single adults, and couples (married and unmarried) is one of the most cost effective ways to provide a safe environment in the home.