The work of building a healthy marriage begins long before you say "I do."
Building a healthy marriage involves a lot of discontinuing unhealthy cultural norms (beliefs, values, and behaviors) from past relationships (family, friends, and romantic partners) and models of relationships, and committing to healthier ways of relating to one another. Is this difficult to do? For many, yes.
The hard work is having norms that you’ve always accepted and operated in be challenged and deemed as unacceptable.
Oftentimes, challenging one’s family of origin’s culture is difficult for one to process. Does this mean I am wrong? Did I actually grow up in a “loving family” like I once believed? Is my family wrong? Or is it that the cultural norms that have been accepted and practiced by those who I love and trust the most have it all wrong? The sea of questions that can flow from challenging past relationships' cultural norms often feels like a personal attack on your identity, the integrity of your character, and those you love (e.g., family of origin).
The criticism isn’t toward any one person or one's family, but toward harmful cultural norms that we have become desensitized to, because they have been accepted and practiced in the way we do relationships for so long.
Unlearning, relearning, creating, and putting healthier relationship cultural norms into practice can be very difficult, but doable. The bottom line is that if we want better relationship qualities and outcomes, we have to become better and we have to treat the people we love better, otherwise we risk forfeiting the existence of the relationship altogether.
When people say “marriage is hard work,” this is an example of said work. Co-existing (merging lives) with another person whose history, worldview, and practices are different from yours can feel like an impossible task. It often produces relationship conflict and division. Couples who choose to take on the challenge to overcome this division do the work of taking inventory of what cultural norms they are bringing into the marriage, and collectively decide what norms to keep or ditch, with the hopes and intentions of creating a new healthier way of relating that will grow and get stronger over the course of the marriage, equipping it to last a lifetime. It is through this kind of work that new family cultures are born. My challenge to you is to give yourself permission to face the ugly realities of the cultures you grew up in and do the work to become better for ourselves and those we say we love the most.
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