Stages of Married Life

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Professor Ana Maria Navarro,

Universidad de Ciencias de la Educacion

Universidad De Navarra

Marriage changes over time

The idea that marriage is an end in itself, that the wedding day is a moment before which there was expectation and after which everything is fulfillment, has existed for some time. Specialists, who have studied what really happens in married life, have come to the conclusion that life within marriage changes with time and circumstances. To these external factors, which often condition the judgment of observers, -we should add, as an essential element, the changes within the spouses themselves and the quality of their relationship. Both factors should be considered in the light of a greater or a lesser agreement about the ends of marriage and the development of matrimonial love. We are going to study this last aspect from a dynamic point of view -that is, how it changes in each stage of married life so as to reach some positive suggestions on what guidelines can be followed in its development.

Guitton, in his book Human Love, presents a description of the different stages of love. Without intending to imitate him, we are going to analyze love as a moving from “a me to a you,” from “a you to an us” and from the “us to the them,” in a process, which is also the process of emotional maturity.

If we limit ourselves to the family, this “me to them” process can be experienced in the following manner: moving from the concept of individual to that of spouse, from spouse to that of parent, from parent to one's home open to others. The important points here would be, then, on the one hand, the giving of oneself and the reception of the gift of the other. But this does not only refer to what one has, but to what one is. Here lies the great importance of the being and not just the doing. Here lies the importance of being a whole and coherent human being, something often forgotten.

Love is Fruitful

Another characteristic of love is fruitfulness. Guitton says that when there are two, there are three; or, better yet, when the two are as one a third factor comes into play. With this, the self-giving, which, in principle, is mutual, can only be real if it is directed towards a third. In a family this is the child.

Love, however, which cannot detach itself from deeds and grows with them, continues to be a mystery. And it survives and deepens, not in spite of the crises and accidents of life, but precisely through them and because of them, if these are overcome well. The difficulties, seen in this light, can therefore be highly integrating and educational 1. This is because love changes and matures, but does not grow old. Even at the end of one's life, a person can still be young and fruitful, prepared to improve. Nothing is lost, everything is recreated.

For a complete presentation of the essential vision of marriage check out

Christian Married Life

But love is not just a blind force that drags one alone. It is something that can be channeled, fostered or killed off, because it is essentially an act of the will: a decision to love, with the sentiments or without them. Love is in the head, although also in the heart.

What usually occurs is that, with the years, in head begins to invade the realm of love, following the heart. In a clear parallel to this, we can also situate the physical manifestations of love. At first, they are urgent but then gradually become less important as there develops a deeper communication between two hearts and wills. Mature love is found in mutual help, respect and acceptance of the parties, in making each other better people through being together.

Three stages in the emotional development of person:

Now we can clearly distinguish three stages in the emotional development of the persons. The boundaries, which for clarity have here been delineated chronologically, refer more to a subjective time, ruled by the individual maturity.

First Stage

Infantile: Narcissistic, egocentric.

Second Stage

Youth: Romantic, that is, alert and idealistic, individualistic and egocentric. Due to immaturity, the person is susceptible to desires of possession and jealousy.

With respect to this, Guitton says the society of love suffers the most profound metamorphosis compared to any other. Friendship itself is less modified; when your friend grows old he still gives you the same help. But an old woman and a young one don't give the same kind of love.

Third Stage:

Adult: After overcoming the above: realistic, giving, and fruitful, one comes to the acceptance of the other and acceptance of oneself as one is, not as one would like to be. There comes a giving of one, not so as to discover oneself with the other but in a third.

In relation to married life, we can establish a certain comparison with the evolution of the emotions.

First Stage:

The Young Couple: Until the children begin school. This tends to last 5-7 years.

Second Stage:

The Adult Couple: From the children's school age until the independence of the older children. This stage lasts 10-15 years.

Third Stage:

The Senior Couple: When the family becomes smaller, because the children have left home, until the couple is once more on their own, as at the beginning.

The Young Couple

This stage tends to be dominated by the idea of being a couple, of the relationship between the two. It involves the discovery of the other and oneself in relation to the other, through the process of living together.

The main points are, on the one hand, the survival of young love -interdependence- and on the other, the widening of roles, in the family and in one's profession. The keynote is the dynamism brought about by the creation of a home and the rapid transformation of life, which is now filled with new things. This phenomenon is more or less what we observe in children up to the age of three, wherein we find the greatest qualitative and quantitative changes of the entire human life.

Conflicts can be found here regarding the couple's relationship or with one of the spouses, depending on their personalities, plans, education, individual ambitions or the environment. However, the couple must strive to combine the more personal things with their exterior activity. The predominance of one or the other extremes can cause dissatisfaction and, as a consequence, conflicts. There exists, for example, the typical jealousy on the pan of the wife for the time that her husband's profession occupies him. There is also the famous two-year crisis, brought about by an absorbing maternity, which dictates the wife's duties. This is, definitely, as we have pointed out above, the moment to learn how to bring one's dreams down to earth, to grow in love, learning to move on from idealism to realism, from understanding to doing, from egocentrism to fruitfulness. One must not, therefore, fear tensions, if these are proportional to the causes. These must be taken advantage of and, in the case of the counselor, he must not be carried away by the emotional pain of the marital difficulties, but instead help the couple learn the lesson: not stopping its process but moving forward, knowing there is a long road ahead.

The Adult Couple

The dominating idea here is that of the family as a group and that of one's profession. With regards to the former, the idea of the couple that predominated earlier has begun to give way to that of pa rents, whose greatest worries are in the education of their children, both in human virtues and academic excellence. The latter, the profession, is a continuation of a stage tentatively initiated earlier, but now with its corresponding requirements: a chain of responsibilities, the demands of a particular socio-economic situation, and care of material needs.

The marital roles have become complicated and there are greater possibilities for diversification: the family and maybe a profession for the wife and the profession for the husband. This, which is logical in work, can be dangerous (one must not forget that the family is a society of love), because parallel lives may develop in which communication is made each day more difficult by the demands of time and dedication to the couple's respective roles.

This could be the main problem -due to a lack of equilibrium between the emotions and reflection- of adult love.

The difficulties must be overcome once more. This can be accomplished through normal means- dialogue, being interested in the other's work or through special measures- like the healthy selfishness of a trip or some activity together. The idea behind this is not to return to the first stage of love, because this has already been outgrown, but to save the profound communication within marriage, which will renew the love. By learning to see love in deeds, uniting their visions towards a third common to both: the children, often a source of worries but also a means of learning and unity.

Although apparently less explosive, the conflicts that can occur at this stage can be momentarily ignored, and therefore, be harder to resolve later. They can be manifested in behavior -reproaches, complaints, or develop within each person. Previous attitudes, inherited or learned, may be put into doubt by the reality of one's life. This can be related to one's own personal standpoints. For instance, on how many children to have or living with other relatives, or even those brought about by the generation gap.

Three things should be pointed out about this stage of married life, a very decisive one, because of its length and complexity. First, one must avoid making judgments based on mere appearances.

These errors are often psychological or stem from one's education; although accompanied by good will, they are not susceptible to moral judgments. There should be no fear of talking or revealing with simplicity one's way of thinking and working with correct intentions. Many times the need to rectify will arise and one will have to learn overcome immature notions. And, of course it is important not to get carried away into doing as others do, but to form one's own personal criteria.

At other times, our own personal criteria will prevail. Dialogue, the revealer of attitudes or ways of thinking, IS always fundamental, but above all at this stage when it appears that one's duties are more important than one's emotions, and it is too easy to justify this attention to duty because one recognizes the importance of the family.

There is a difference between the passive silence of a couple which does not have anything to say to each other because the pleasure of their mutual company has died from lack of encouragement and the active silence of two people who don't find it necessary to speak because they can always communicate by looking at each other. In this case, the gestures, demonstrations of affections, etc., may be more eloquent than words. Exaggerating it a little, we believe that silence is more encouraging than screaming, although virtue is the golden mean: one must know when to speak and when to remain silent.

The difficulty at this stage consists not only in agreeing -as in the young couple- but also in knowing how to introduce love for others into the relationship. In other words, it is a question of becoming a parent, without abandoning the role of spouse. The solution, which should be prepared beforehand, consists in being alert to the possible deviations of what may be an excessive attention to what is superficial and avoid these things in order to save the essential. The couple must find occasions to be together in order to learn by loving each other, what mutual help and respect really are, although the topics of conversation deal with the particular interests of each one or better, with subjects of mutual interest relating to things such as children, friends, etc. Love in this manner is fruitful, realistic and self-giving, that is mature.

Precaution should also be advised in the behavior of the couples. Between forty and fifty, is another moment to reflect on the past, but above all to look into the future, which will sooner or later, lead one to one's own death. With this realistic outlook, one could easily decide to make good use of time in order to do things well and leave good deeds behind through love, sowing happiness for others.

The passing of life is not a pessimistic outlook of the ultimate stages but an occasion to be happy because one still has the opportunity to rectify and improve. With this attitude, husband and wife, parents and children will find themselves motivated to polish their rough sides, lesson conflicts, find occasions to serve each other, and enjoy things together. Things should not be treated with a hedonistic point of view but instead with the vision of the future because the memory of ones' love will leave a lasting mark on their children. Adelita, in the comedy, The Dance, by Edgar Neville, tells an old couple Thank you for your love. Let the same thing be said of a spouse when he or she is gone.

This second stage is long and there is a risk of creating routine. If at the start of marriage one had to struggle against excessive dynamism (a new element), here one has to fear being accustomed to old attitudes and behavior. One has to be dynamic and this means to being up to date and seeking occasions for communication.

The Senior Years

The last stage of life has an indefinite time limit, contrary to the two previous stages. Three phases in this stage can be observed:

The first is the gradual independence of the children who leave their paternal homes to form their own families. The second stage consists of interrelationships between the paternal home and the children's own families. And the third is the reencounter of the couple, finding themselves alone once again.

This stage brings with it the last lesson of love: to move from us to them, in short, to learn to pass unnoticed. The final stage should be preceded by preparation, which is best done by not making oneself indispensable. Everything requires precaution. Attitudes and behavior are never improvised. Neither should they be carried away by events nor superficial feelings.

In love, keeping something is easy but detaching oneself from it is difficult. That's why an important difficulty during this stage comes from the parents' over possessiveness of their children and their difficulty to set them free.

One has to understand that continued family life creates the habit of mutual dependence between parents and children, although with different motives. That's why sometimes one has to go against the tide, against what is comfortable. The children will be thankful and will love their parents more if these have prepared them for life. We insist that fostering the independence of the children is not a lesser love. On the contrary, it is a love free from self-interest because it loves the children for themselves and not for oneself.

More conflicts arise during the second phase than in the first, because the young couples have conflicting interests with their parents. The initial independence of the children as a result of studies, work or marriage is enriching for the parents. This is more so when there are young children who can promote the homely atmosphere and occupy the place of the older brothers and sisters. But problems arise.

Permanent or temporary living together is usually the immediate cause of problems among young couples and their parents. These tensions are more common between parents and their children than grandparents and their grandchildren, and more with one's in-laws than with one's own parents. The most prominent one's being between mother and daughter-in-law, although literature has spoken about antagonism between son and mother-in-law. The reasons are easy to understand: competition for the affection of the same man -son and husband at the same time united to the feminine psychology and frequent occasions of friction in the house.

It is worthwhile taking a look at the root-cause of these problems. “Why don't people who love each other get along?”

Once again, love takes the blame. It's easy to define the children's desire for independence as lack of love; it's easy to feel guilty of ingratitude when one feels the desire to leave one's parents' home. It's easy to grieve over the children's selfishness, after having given them so much.

Parents normally have had to do more for their children than vice-versa: giving them economic help, the children’s upbringing, taking them in to their home when they get married, etc. All these important things can be convened into an instrument for getting-at the children so that they finish up is earning for freedom to go on vacations by themselves, for taking their own decisions for selecting their own friends, for seeking privacy in their marriage, etc. The initial gratitude, an essential element of life, starts to become a burden; it brings about fear then guilt, interior reproaches and lastly, war (conflict).

The war, which is sometimes unpredictable, has unforeseeable results. For example: the children become victims of their parents' moods or become the object of their grandparents' over protectiveness as compensation. It is what is called in psychology displacement mechanisms.

Other times, it will be the spouse, at the same time son-in-law who will suffer the consequences of the lack of support from his wife through inhibition or shameful denial of her duties. From here, the problems or married life increase and in extreme cases, it can provoke broken marriages.

On occasions, it will be the grandparents who will aggravate the problems, making their need for their children seem greater that it really is, acting as though they were children of their own children.

Here there's another psychological mechanism called regression.

The grandparents should seriously reflect on their role in relation to their children. Concerning their grandchildren, we believe that they gain the right to behave as they please, -spoiling them, playing with them, enjoying without limit. It's the first time they can live with children without being responsible for their education, although they should not get offended if the grandchildren's parents, who carry the responsibility- don't let them get carried away too much.

Meanwhile, with regards to their children, the grandparents should reflect and learn. One can still change during these last years. One's love will be manifested in being prepared o help out and trying not to meddle.

It is rather a question of sincere and natural dialogue without trying to please them or impose oneself on them. The grandparents can give suggestions and give their opinion but make sure that they let their children decide freely, with responsibility; they can show their gratitude and respect the demonstrations of their children's affection without calculating or comparing.

Also they can learn how to pass unnoticed -which is a way of self-giving. They can watch over the independence of the children, for example, living in separated houses but close enough so as to provide the pleasure of mutual company to both parties; or living in independent areas within the same house. More than anything else, they help through striving to foster independence.

This is one of the most unknown aspects. There are many parents who have lived only for their children and when these settle on their own, they feel empty. They, instinctively, tend to meddle in the affairs of their children’s lives to fill their own. One has to guard against initial good intentions, which may lead to problematic endings. Once again, rectitude of intention and precaution must be stressed.

It will be beneficial for grandparents to carry out some kind of activity -work or hobby- and this will also free their children from emotional coercion to a good degree because the grandparents have their own personal interests but it is not a matter of excluding them from their children's families. Time is irreversible but these seniors can be of great service to their families.

By fuliIl1ing his or her role, this personal and irreplaceable service is none other than representing before the world a mature person, a philosopher of experience. The calm acceptance of the deterioration of one's physical and mental faculties will be the best lesson of detachment which the senior citizens can bequeath to society, together with the profound conviction that love transcends all limits of temporal life.

Universidad de Ciencias de la Educacion

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