Lean In or Lighten Up? In Defense of Good-Enough Marriages

By Alan J. Hawkins

Even though I’m a pretty optimistic person, there are some things I worry about in regard to the practice of couple and relationship education (CRE). 

For instance, CRE sends a strong meta-message – correctly – that relationships take work and that we need good skills to form and sustain healthy relationships and strong marriages. Soul mates are made, not found. And not many of us are relationship superheroes; we have a lot to learn and need time to do so. So, the dedicated relationship educator invites: “Take this 12-hour course; it will teach you all you need to learn about forming and sustaining healthy relationships and stronger marriages.” 

A corollary message is that relationship entropy is as real. We know that the physical world really is spinning apart, always headed towards disorder. The natural order of things is not order but disorder (as any kitchen or 13-year-old’s bedroom reveals). And a lot of energy is needed to counter entropic forces. This physical law applies to relationships too. Relationships spin apart unless we regularly invest energy in them. To fight this relationship entropy, we need regular, smart effort. “So,” the passionate relationship educator says, “listen to my weekly podcast, ‘Love Is Long, Hard Work!’ to keep your relationship going strong.” Granted, that’s not the most appealing title to draw people in, but at least it’s honest. 

In short, a meta-message of CRE is: if you want a great marriage you need to prioritize long and hard work. “Lean in,” to use a common phrase these days. No half-hearted effort here! 

True . . . but . . .

I worry that these messages – this way of presenting the ongoing need for and value of CRE – has unintended consequences. It can also make CRE less inviting and appealing. Does it hold people back from exploring relationship education because it feels too heavy and hard? And do some even end up thinking that healthy relationships are beyond their current capacity?  

And here’s a related worry . . . Sometimes the unintended meta-message from CRE is that relationships can – and should be – an 11 on a 10-point happiness scale, and that an 8 or 9 is, if not a failure, then falling short of where we can be. So many of our CRE marketing messages promise the stars – endless happiness, constant “hot” sex, all the solutions to your relationship problems. Can our messages actually discourage interest? Can they sound more like a marketing ploy than a sincere invitation to give our relationships attention? And – heaven forbid – are our recruiting messages for CRE actually making people doubt their relationships?  Do our curricula actually set up participants to feel like a good marriage isn’t good enough?

I hope not. And maybe I’m being too pessimistic here. But sometimes I think we need to recalibrate CRE meta-messages and our marketing and recruiting to lighten up a little. Is a “10” marriage really the goal, given people’s often stressful circumstances, their different personality parameters, and just the inherent nature of blending two lives into one in a time-constrained world that is indifferent to their love? Instead, I wonder if “a little better and a little stronger” should be the first goal of CRE. A one-time relationship renovation and inoculation is a hefty lift. Instead, let’s start with improvement and then invite our participants to come back regularly to sustain and grow their relationship some more. 

And let’s help couples acknowledge and accept relationship imperfections and limitations, not see them as evidence of a looming problem. This can seem like settling for something less, which seems downright un-American. But I don’t think it has to be against the basic code of relationship education. Let’s make a distinction between acceptance and settling. Is mind-blowing sex twice a week really a requirement for a satisfying marriage, or is regular, comfortable intimacy embedded in a rich friendship just as satisfying and perhaps even more growth-promoting? 

I think there are many seasons in the marital life course when a secure, comfortable, connected, functional, all-in relationship is good and plenty. Here’s to a good-enough marriage, one that is grounded and settled with hope for the future, even when there are still “issues” and irritations from human imperfections. I suspect that what Eli Finkel called a “summit marriage” is really just a season, not the epic endpoint. Let’s be a little more realistic about what we do for those we serve and help them to be more realistic too. 
These thoughts lead me to think about our work in relationship education in a different way. What do you think? Share your thoughts below. 

Alan J. Hawkins is Vice-chair of NARME. He is the Chair of the Utah Marriage Commission, and an affiliated scholar of the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. He retired from the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University after 33 years of teaching, research, and outreach, much of it focused on the effectiveness of relationship education.