Page Highlights: full length video, How Will We Love?
Notice that the title of this article is a question. I’m really asking for you to think about what you believe on how to make a marriage last.
This is a question that I often ask couples when they come for face to face premarital counseling in my home: what makes a relationship last?
I ask because I often learn from the couples answers. Other times, it at least gives me insight into the bride and groom’s mindsets and how I will try to help them.
Friendship
One frequent response is to say that friendship is the secret sauce for a lasting relationship. Many of these couples actually met through a dating service like match.com communicating by email and phone for a long time before meeting building a friendship before ever meeting.
Other times, couples were friends maybe for years before becoming romantically interested in each other.
Fun
Another closely related key for love that last I hear is having fun together. No doubt that’s what brings people together. And that’s the reason they decide to marry. The relationship is good and enjoyable so they want it for a lifetime.
Having fun is important to a relationship and is a one way of counterbalancing the effects marital stress.
Commitment
And then, a fairly common thing that is mentioned is commitment. Since marital commitment is the one at the top of my list, I am always glad to hear that one.
In a few days, my wife and I will be married 35 years. And though we have had fairly smooth sailing in our relationship, I would still say that for us commitment is the key.
Ironically, that comes partly from having seen much divorce in our extended families. We have seen firsthand the grief that broken families can bring, and are ourselves children of divorce.
From the get-go, whatever challenges we would face in life, we had in our minds that we would remain committed to our marriage.
We judge no one, because we know relationships are complex, and that many have ended marriages who never would have believed it would happen to them.
Yet, we believe that couples should enter into their marriage with a strong commitment to stay married just as they say in their wedding vows, “in good times and bad.”
If you do anything in premarital preparation, spend time talking about how you understand commitment in marriage.
How Will We Love
Below you will find a full-length film, the How Will We Love documentary secular version.
It offers perspectives from marriage experts as well as random people about marriage in modern culture.
Things have certainly changed in social mores and perspectives about what commitment in relationships means. Like the guy in the documentary who said, “I’d like to married five days week.” Wow, wouldn’t you want to know it if your partner felt that way?
Spend some time watching the documentary together. You’ll find different ideas presented and you won’t agree with it all. That’s not the point. Allow it to help you get into a serious discussion about your views of commitment in marriage, and how you will make your relationship last. And try not to laugh too hard at the couple where the husband complains that his wife wants to have sex too much!
