The 3 Biggest Marriage Myths

by Larry Bilotta, published Thursday, August 10th, 2006 at 12:52 pm

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As a little girl, most women dream about the biggest day of their lifetheir wedding day. They fantasize about finding the perfect man that will sweep them off their feet and love and honor them for the rest of their life.

Then after the honeymoon, it’s back to real life, but this timeas a married couple. It’s been proven that the first 2 years of marriage are the most difficult and have the highest divorce rate.

Why?



2 reasons:

1. When couples get married, they have a set of expectations that were never clearly discussed with their partner BEFORE they tied the knot.

2. Most women and men are convinced that these marriage myths are actually true. In fact, they’re so convinced that when they find out the real truth, couples give up hope, considering divorce as their only option.

Don’t fall into this trap. Believing in these myths will eventually destroy your marriage and result in terrible consequences everywhere you look. Build a stronger marriage by avoiding these common and very destructive beliefs about marriage

Myth #1 After we’re married I’ll change my spouse.

Wrong! In rare cases and with great persistence, some men and women succeed in changing their partner, but most people fight change at every turn.

Instead of attempting to change your partner, a far better strategy is to UNDERSTAND the person you married. You can start by understanding what Country your spouse is from.

http://www.marriage-success-secrets.com/recipe-for-a-happy-marriage.html

(Just click on the link above and scroll down to step 2 on that page to learn about the 4 countries. You’ll find a link that will allow you a free download of the 4 Country Card.)

Over the years, I’ve discovered that there are 4 different kinds of people in the world. I’ve created a PDF file for you to download so you can get a better understanding of each of the 4 countries and find out which of these is YOUR country and which is your SPOUSE’S.

I drew each of the characters in the 4 countries based on 15 years of researching these people. After you’ve learned what to look for, you’ll be identifying the countries of your family, friends and coworkers. It’s a quick and easy way to understand who your spouse really is.

Myth # 2- I’ve FALLEN OUT OF LOVE with My Partner.

Falling out of love is one of the most common reasons people have an affair or get a divorce. But what exactly IS love?

Most people think that love is a FEELING. Some might describe it as the butterflies in your stomach when that special someone approaches you. Others think that when you’re in love; you’ve found the perfect personyour soul mate.

You probably won’t see too many people saying what I’m about to tell you because they’re afraid of getting too much heat for it, but I’m going to be blunt on this one because I want this to come as a wake up call for you.

LOVE is something you DO. It’s NOT something you FEEL. Romance novels, movies and television programs lead you to believe that love is a feeling for one reason; they make money selling good feelings. Entertainment is not in the business of being truthful; they are in the feel-good business.

Now I’m not going to deny the fact that when you meet someone you really enjoy being around, you definitely feel SOMETHING. But that something is not what you think it is.

The feeling of love is actually a chemical that is released into your brain that makes you feel infatuated with this other person. This period of infatuation is the first stage in a relationship known as the Romance Phase.

It can last anywhere from a week to a year. Couples often marry during this phase but when it’s over, they’re faced with the next phase.Ultimate Expectations.

Since every couple goes into a relationship with expectations, failure to have these met can quickly end the Romance phase, leading people to believe they’ve fallen out of love with their partner.

But again, I want to stress that LOVE is something you DO. The vast majority of couples I help admit that if they do not feel good, they cannot DO good things. This romance-feeling obsession has affected us in a damaging way. We have come to believe that if we don’t feel loving, we can’t BE loving.

Love is what you do when the feeling just isn’t there. Do you hate washing dishes but your wife loves when you do it? Wash em! Can’t stand it when your husband forgets to take out the garbage again? Take it out yourself and don’t complain.

LOVE = SACRIFICE. Love is not a feeling.

Love can have feelings, but love is not a feeling. Make a sacrifice. Do something you don’t like to do that will please your spouse. Now you know what love is.

Putting the needs of your spouse ahead of your ownTHAT’S LOVE.

Myth # 3- We’re just too different. That’s why we need to divorce.

Have you ever wondered why arranged marriages have worked for centuries, yet today we can barely last past 1 year? Those people didn’t fall in love. They had no time for romance.

One day they’re complete strangers, the next they’re brought together by their parents and forced to be husband and wife whether they like it or not! These marriages were what their society was built on!

The last 40 years of experimenting with our social systems has proven to be a grand failure. One of those failures was getting people to focus on themselves; their own happiness and the idea that other people owe them something.

As a consequence, all of us are influenced by ideas like Our marriage is broken so we need a divorce. And We grew apart and We just fell out of love.

I’ve worked with marriages that most would consider to be a complete disaster. The reason they were a disaster was because the man was trying to get his wife to meet all HIS needs while his wife was trying to get him to meet all HER needs.

While they were busy trying to meet THEIR OWN NEEDS, they were attacking each other with critical comments as if to say I will beat you up until you love me.

How could marriage work under those conditions? Not only did they have no idea what was wrong in their marriage (other than they both were unhappy), but they didn’t even know where to BEGIN fixing it.

There is a great deal of research that proves when couples that stay together through the difficult times, they end up being much happier together five years later. A study from the Institute for American Values found that almost eight out of 10 couples who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

My own 31 year marriage is my best example. My wife Marsha and I could not be any more different. So why am I happy? I’ve come to enjoy our differences by looking at Marsha as a foreign exchange student from Zimbabwe, Africa.

In America, we treat our foreign exchange students with great patience, warm interest in their differences and we are supportive of them in every way. But one thing is sure. We DON’T try to change them.

My best advice to you? Treat your spouse like a foreign exchange student for the simple fact that it WORKS!

If you’re STILL determined to change your spouse or you feel you’re both too different or you’ve fallen out of love, no problem.

Get some help. If you want to keep it private, you can stay at home and participate in the Marriage Lifeline by telephone.

Do something about the state of your marriage TODAY…before it’s too late. You can start by getting FREE marriage advice at my Marriage Success Secrets website. Get your marriage back on track today with my totally positive alternative to marriage counseling



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