Don't Take Relationship Advice From People Whose Relationship You Don't Want

I’ve only first met a happily married couple when I was 20. They were both still in college which made them even more of an anomaly, none of my college friends seriously considered marriage at this time. They talked about each other with love and admiration, but also openly spoke about their disagreements and all the things they were doing to address them. They seemed both fully committed to working on the same team forever, and to always making their family function better and better.

Until I met them, all of the married couples I knew seemed either indifferent or hostile to each other. Complaining about spouses was common, and so were quiet days or shouting matches. When I mentioned this to the elders in my family, they said marriage wasn’t supposed to make you happy. Tough luck, I thought, guess I’ll just never get married then.

Years later, I was surprised to hear my friends say one of our coworkers was looking for a wife. I don’t think I’ve ever heard make such declarations before. Compared with all the guys who were looking for a date or girlfriend, looking for a wife sounded incredibly confident and earnest. I checked his website to find out more about who he was… and you know what happened next. We’ve been together for 7 years now and married for half of this time.

My husband says his parents were happily married. I never had a chance to meet his dad, he died of cancer many years earlier. I wish I could sometimes watch him and his wife together and see how they nourished their relationship. It’s so hard to figure it out without any role models to learn from.

Most relationship advice I’ve heard is about minimizing damage in a bad relationship rather than cultivating a good one. Make sure you always stay financially independent. Keep your receipts for everything. Don’t tell your husband about new clothes you’ve purchased. Split every chore equally. Keep a timetable if needed. It’s almost as if your spouse could screw you over at any possible time, and so you’d better always prepare for the worst.

Don’t get me wrong, some people really need to hear all these things. A mom I know is going through a messy divorce after her husband developed a habit of getting blackout drunk when taking care of their kids. If she didn’t have support or an independent source of income, pulling herself and their children out of this mess would be much harder than it is.

But planning for a divorce from the beginning sounds like a miserable way to live. If you can’t let your guard down in front of your spouse, why get married in the first place? Life is too challenging the way it is to share it with someone who’s mostly a source of troubles rather than support.

As far as I can tell, most people want to support each other, they just never learned how. For every marriage that’s irredeemable, there’s a few tired families that would definitely benefit from learning how to talk about their needs, dreams and desires, navigate emotionally charged areas, plan for their future together, and iterate on solutions. At least that’s what we’re doing, and so far we’re more aligned, more caring, and happier with each other with every passing year.

I don’t feel qualified to give relationship advice. I feel like my happy marriage is due to 99% luck and 1% not screwing it up when I had a chance. So for now I’ll just say: don’t take relationship advice from people whose relationship you wouldn’t want for yourself. Instead look for that one impossibly happy couple who completed all of your marriage goals, and watch them interact with each other, especially when things get rough.