The Anatomy of a Healthy Marriage

If you're not already, please consider thinking about it this way

This is an image from the 1964 French film “Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Francois” originally named “Françoise ou La vie conjugale” and literally has nothing to do with this article. (Image/Roxie Theater)

As some of you know, I’m a relationship coach and also someone trying to grow into the best relationship partner I can be. That, combined with trying to raise a teenage son to not repeat the relational missteps of my past, results in me thinking often about human relationships.

One might say that the opposite of that is the biggest threat to marriages and romantic partnerships today—that people are so often not thinking about them. They are often treated as afterthoughts or programs running in the background while we intentionally do our jobs, or intentionally participate in our hobbies, or intentionally stay involved in our kids’ lives.

But not marriage or dating. That’s not the default setting or condition. Often, people put those on autopilot once they’ve entered a committed partnership. Then they focus on all of the other things in life—job, money, home, children, social activities, hobbies—and simply don’t notice the plethora of small ways we let each other down, and fail to recognize it, and fail to repair the damage on account of not noticing, and the shitty communication patterns we showcase anytime someone says something that feels inconvenient to us.

It's not great. Most committed partnerships fail. Out of all of the people who agree to be with one another for the long term sometime during their relationship journeys, many more end via breakup or divorce than the group of people who stay together for the rest of their lives.

While I’m maybe a little mathematically cynical about marriage and relationships, I’m hopeful and optimistic about any individual or couple willing to treat their relationship with the same level of mindful intentionality and care that they apply to other things in their lives like work and their favorite leisure activities.

We’ve got a bunch of people who can name every member of their favorite bands over multiple decades and have memorized all of the lyrics.

We’ve got a bunch of people who remember all of the secrets and strategies to beating their favorite video games growing up.

We’ve got people who have invested or borrowed tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of dollars in pursuit of a higher education degree in their preferred field of study, and regardless of educational degrees, have dedicated so much time, effort and attention toward honing their professional skills.

And these exact same people can’t accurately articulate why their partner is still upset about that night five, or 11 years, or 24 years ago when they had a really painful fight.

They seriously don’t understand it. And are maybe a little impatient and resentful about the other person “not getting over it.”

There’s a reason you’re better at your job or have sharpened your skills in your favorite activities over the years as you’ve practiced and dedicated yourself to improvement.

AND, there’s a reason your relationship conflicts are more or less exactly the same as they’ve always been, except possibly more painful as the years and incidents have stacked up without meaningful repair happening.

Maybe this is a new way for you to think about your marriage or committed partnership.

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Psst. Women. We need you in our weekly group meeting.

I started an online support group a few months ago. It’s at a really inconvenient time (90-minute meetings starting at 12 p.m. ET on Mondays for men and 12 p.m. ET on Fridays is a mixed group—women and men). I understand that it’s not an ideal time for many people. My sincere apologies.

Our women members provide so much value to these conversations (pretty much every guy in Group says so) and I’m hoping to find more of you to join us. We have important conversations about marriage, partnership, repairing trust, and everything else related to our home and family lives.

There are no long-term commitments or obligations. You can quit any time. And if you’re a woman and you join us between now and January 1, 2025, I will comp you your first month (I’ll refund you right away and eat the bank fees.) If you like it, maybe you’ll stick around. If you don’t, there will be no hard feelings. (Not that you should care!)

Everyone in Group is great, and we’d love to meet you. Learn more about Group with Matthew Fray here. - MF

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A Useful Way to Think About Your Marriage or Partnership

The anatomy of your relationship is comprised of three parts: You, Your Spouse/Partner, and The Marriage/Partnership, and then all of the corresponding bullet point items under each.

Please consider what you need to be the best individual and relationship partner; what your spouse/partner needs to be the best individual and relationship partner, and what the two of you together—the marital or relationship union itself—needs in order to be the best version of itself.

1. You

a. Your relationship knowledge and skills (your capacity for and reliability around mindful consideration of another person’s experience combined with your ability to communicate in a healthy, adult way whenever there are misunderstandings).

b. Your personality and habits (some facets will complement, and others will conflict with your partner).

c. Your trauma and baggage (all of the bad stuff that happened to you in the past which resulted in you being emotionally conditioned the way you are, plus all of the “baggage” such as your family dynamics, children and experiences from previous relationships, health, financial circumstances, etc. All of that massively affects the person who has promised to share their life journey with you.)

All of these things are YOUR responsibility. For a healthy partnership to exist, you must optimize as many of these things as possible to serve and support the other person. They have to be able to trust you to do that for them.

2. Your Partner

a. Their relational knowledge and skills.

b. Their personality and habits.

c. Their trauma and baggage.

All of these things are THEIR responsibility. For healthy partnership, they must optimize as many of these things as possible to serve and support you. You have to be able to trust them to do that.

3. The Marriage/Partnership

This is a third, separate entity. Your marriage/partnership is comprised of both of you. The two halves form a unit.

A healthy relationship is built from two healthy relationship partners who behave toward and speak to one another in healthy ways. A healthy, strong, positive relationship has a whole bunch of trust. Both people feel “safe” and secure as a member of the relationship.

a. Contains two healthy (emotionally and mentally – physical health is a nice, complementary factor when possible) partners.

b. While the partners operate independently to accept responsibility for whatever is theirs to own and care for individually, both partners can always trust one another to behave and speak in ways that communicate a perpetual and consistent awareness that what one person does will always have an impact on the other in the context of their marriage. This happens in big decisions (taking a new job in another city, or making a major purchase like buying a vehicle; as well as seemingly minor things like leaving a dish by the sink, or leaving a toilet seat up).

c. The mindset of both partners that when one person can’t give as much to the marriage/partnership for a certain amount of time (she just started a new, stressful job; or they have a new baby at home; or he’s been diagnosed with a life-altering illness) the other has to compensate on behalf of this third, independent entity from the two partners. If the marriage is a steam engine that needs coal to be shoveled in order to stay moving, one partner can always be trusted to bear down and shovel more coal when the other partner is unable to until the other person is back to full health or otherwise reengaged.

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We do a lot of blaming and finger-pointing in relationships. It feels to us like we’re living life the right way and minding our own business, and suddenly something feels painful or otherwise shitty, and it seems to us that we’re only experiencing that pain on account of the actions or inaction of the other person.

Now we’re sad, or angry, or anxious, or stressed, or afraid, or something sucks, and we don’t feel as if we’ve done anything to deserve it.

This experience is going to happen forever anytime two imperfect human beings are involved in an organization (the marriage/partnership and home/family).

And the people and couples who will emerge strong and victorious from the repeat cycle of these times over the years are going to be the people who meet the criteria listed above.

Not one, but TWO individuals always willing to take responsibility for how their present-day behavior and past histories affect the other partner.

And TWO individuals who recognize they are integral parts of a whole, and that if they fall short of contributing in a healthy way, this third thing—the marriage/partnership—will sputter and stall out.

These two people must always think and say: If something I’m doing is negatively affecting the other person, or the partnership as a whole—even if it’s not my fault—I must still take responsibility for how I’m affecting them.

If that means going to therapy to work out your childhood trauma and anger issues, fucking do it.

If that means considering new work hours, or relocating to another city, please have those difficult conversations.

But certainly—always—be someone who can be trusted to hear: “Hey, something about this doesn’t feel right to me,” and please WANT to make that situation better for the other person instead of acting personally attacked and inconvenienced by something that’s actually, potentially painfully, happening to someone you promised to love.

Because if we can’t be trusted to do that for one another, I’m honestly not sure why we’re bothering with relationships in the first place.

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Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.

P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF