Marital Stress |
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For many people, despite the high divorce rate, marriage is still the most significantly supportive and confiding relationship, one which provides the kind of framework that makes it possible to overcome all kinds of difficulties, and negotiate all sorts of changes elsewhere in life.
Yet causes for conflict in marriage are seemingly infinite, ranging as they do from the very obvious to the seemingly totally trivial. Expectations placed on marriage may be unrealistic, or they may not coincide.
Possibly one of the most fundamental sources of stress between married couples (like many other forms of stress) is connected to change. People change, and when there are two of you, it may not always be in the same direction. Expectations of life and of each other, aspirations, the priorities and shared interests which formed the common ground on which the marriage was built in the first place, may diverge gradually over a period of time, perhaps almost imperceptibly, until differences finally emerge into the open and uncertainty, another major stressor, takes over.
To be aware of the possibility of such a pattern developing in your marriage, and to take preventive steps in time, can save you a lot of stress in your life. Any form of isolation can be stressful, and feeling isolated within marriage must rate especially high on the stress scale. Making time for each other, especially in the face of taxing demands from work and children, can often be one of the soundest premises for a stress-free marriage. And so, on the other hand, can a certain degree of independence - realizing, for instance, that just because you are married you may not necessarily always enjoy identical interests or share exactly the same friends.
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