Person A: “Do you think therapy works for keeping marriages together?”
Person B: “Sometimes marriages just fail no matter what you do.”
This is my response:
I agree with your statement, Person B, but 50% of marriages??? It seems that it is not just sometimes. Something very wrong is happening. I don’t know what it is yet, but therapy sure has not improved the stats much, so maybe it is also time to look at it from a different angle. At what point in our lives do we need to start learning about healthy relationships? Right from the beginning, right? — at school of course, but at home first and foremost. Yet, how are we supposed to model for our kids what a healthy relationship looks like when so many of us have absolutely no idea what one looks like because we’ve never seen one (look around you and I would be surprised if you can count them on more than one hand.) No one taught us how to deal with conflict in a healthy way. No one taught us to argue in a healthy way. No one taught us about relationships. So, it is now up to us now. Once we decide what exactly healthy means, only then will we be able to have healthy relationships, be a model to our kids, and help them grow in their understanding of how to be in relationship with others.