Is it Possible to Stay Married without Marriage Fatigue?

Marriage means living together in the same house. Spouses marry to establish a common life. As a natural consequence of this, they live under the same roof. We call marriage when two people decide to be 'one', to be 'us' and start sharing the same house together. The way of life established together in the institution of marriage is like a newborn baby at the beginning. I believe that a home should be established by two people by accepting from the very beginning that it will happen in marriage, just as the baby can have good days while growing up, there are days when it gets sick or cranky. Those who dream of a marriage are the types who are candidates to fail from the very beginning. I can say that it is better for such people not to get married at all.

Love, respect, trust, intimacy, privacy and sexuality are very important elements that keep the spouses together and keep the marriage going. Most people think that love is an emotion, but love is not an emotion, it is a way of being, a way for two people to leave their selves aside and become us together.

The fruit of a happy home is a baby. I believe that if the prospective parents who raise that baby born in the nest take care of their marital relationship as if they were caring for a baby, if they make efforts, that marital relationship will grow, develop and reach its mature stage in a healthy way. Married couples have to construct their marital relationship without forgetting that they are also individuals. Like every individual, married couples need to be on their own and breathe from time to time. Within the relationship, the parties are expected to give each other this individual time. What is important is not the relationship in which one covers the other, but the ability of the parties to maintain their relationship like two rings that hold on to each other but at the same time can move together. It is important to be together, but this togetherness should continue without forgetting that each of the couple is also an individual. If the parties only look at each other and see nothing else, this can cause problems over time. However, couples who have various hobbies that create private time for themselves, who can spend time with friends other than their spouse at special times (attention applies to both men and women) find the opportunity to feed from outside. They come by feeding from the outside and they can take the opportunity to enrich their relationship in this way. 

As the old saying goes, just as "There is no food without labour", a marriage without labour cannot work, of course. In marriage, if love cannot replace the love between the spouses at the beginning, if the couple cannot succeed in loving each other and living together, marital fatigue begins at the end of 2-3 years after marriage. This should not be allowed. Because, a relationship in which men and women accept the relationship and start to remain inactive, become sloppy, try to maintain it without bothering to explain themselves, without making an effort to understand the other person, starts to give danger signals after a while. Danger signals also manifest themselves as conflict in the relationship. If couples are not able to convey their troubles to each other in the right and attentive language, then the relationship either turns into a negative vicious circle or ends one day. 

The most important life format of a nation is the family. I witness that there are problems in the protection of the integrity of the family and in the relations between men and women, the two most important components of this, due to the fluctuations in today's lifestyle. I can see the turbulent conflicts that lead to the destruction of families even during a dinner I share with any couple. When I come across the negative attitudes and behaviours of couples towards each other, even though they try to hide it, I can't help but say that it can't work. I am sorry to say that what I fear usually happens to me. Two people I love, people who are very sweet as separate individuals, cannot come together and live together. When it doesn't work, unfortunately it doesn't work.

In unhappy marriages, it is a common phenomenon for spouses to close themselves to communication and build a wall between themselves and their spouse. In such marriages, when the spouses experience negativity or distress, one of the parties closes himself/herself. In the next stage of this, the tendency to blame the shutting down person instead of understanding him/her emerges. The relationship evolves from an unhappy marriage to a troubled marriage. Problematic couples usually consist of spouses who tend to blame and criticise each other. Here, the spouses focus entirely on the negative aspects of each other and thus it is more preferable to remain in a selective perception. Thus, the positive things that are happening in the relationship are pushed aside and the focus is on the negative things, and the couples begin to criticise each other destructively over these negative things. 

The most common phrase is: "You enjoy hurting me!" What does this mean? In problematic couples, spouses may also tend to make judgements, criticisms and generalisations about each other's personality traits instead of some specific behaviours. For example; "you don't understand anything". Even if a man or woman is a successful general manager of a company, if he or she is nothing in the eyes of his or her spouse, he or she is nothing. Even if he or she is a successful general manager of any company, if he or she is a nobody in the eyes of his or her spouse, he or she is now a nobody. Because the other person now sees him that way.

Sometimes this not valuing the other person can extend to the spouse's family. Families are also involved. However, they live only for two people. They have no family around them that they left behind. There are only two of them, but especially in our society, if the families do not take part in the arguments and fights between the couples, the fight is incomplete, almost tasteless. For example, to say "You can't do anything anyway, you take after your mum!", as they say, is not something you say even in a fight. But in our society, such things are said between fighting couples. Sometimes the spouses open all the old notebooks while fighting, they love to read each other the pages that hurt them the most or that they think are the most justified. For example, even though many years have passed, they say things like "I haven't forgotten what happened at the wedding" or "I've been telling you for 15 years, you're still doing the same things without getting tired of it". Of course, the aim here is to put oneself in a completely right position and one's spouse in a completely wrong position. One of the spouses always sees himself/herself as the "white spoon out of milk". For example, sentences such as "Throughout our entire marriage, no argument has ever started because of me!" are uttered. 

There is also a tendency for the spouses not to take responsibility for their own behaviour. For example, "You make me angry and mad. That's why I'm aggressive". Sometimes there are also expressions that make things worse. "You are making an effort now, but it is too late. You should have done this five years ago!" We can extend these deep fault lines as far as we can. 

Communication errors are the main reason for the arguments that lead to this tension between couples. A state of anger in a relationship manifests itself as either attacking or distancing and remaining silent. In this way, the relationship does not get better as the person who reacts is also angry. So how should the right way of communication be in marriages? In conflicts, if the aim is to be understood and to improve the situation, the most important thing to avoid making communication mistakes is to be able to speak with "I language". The most important feature of the I language is that it is related to the situation and it is the way of speaking in which the person expresses his/her own feelings. It recommends explaining our own feelings and experiences, not our evaluations and comments about others. For example, instead of saying "You enjoy hurting me", which makes us unable to speak and communicate with the other person, saying "It hurts me a lot to hear these things from you" serves to keep the lines of communication open. This type of expression emphasises conveying our own feelings to the other party instead of blaming the other party. When we say this, we show that we have a personality that tries to talk to the other person with an expression that does not make a generalisation, but only describes the situation and conveys feelings. It is undoubtedly more correct to say "I am very happy that you are doing these behaviours today, which you have not done for five years" instead of "You should have done these things five years ago". We use a form of expression that aims to win, not to lose the other person. 

When we have an argument with our spouse in marriage, if we find ourselves in an argument unintentionally, the only thing we need to ask ourselves is, "What do I want: Do I want this relationship to continue or do I want to end it?" Our sincerity towards ourselves requires us to behave sincerely towards our spouse, to express ourselves in the best way possible, to convey our feelings and thoughts to our spouse according to what we want, what we expect from this conversation. If we are not sincere with ourselves about what we want, we do not know where the discussion will lead and we do not want to see ourselves responsible for the outcome. However, the discussion is between two people, not one person. Both people are responsible for the outcome.

If the other person is somehow doing something good that they have never done or have not done for a long time, let's stop and think. If we want to end this relationship, we can say "this is not worth it". Then there is already no problem. Since we have no intention to understand and agree, the end of the relationship will not upset us. If your spouse has no intention to agree, he/she will immediately want to use your negative answer as a weapon against you. "Look, that's not why I was doing it" will immediately paste the answer. Thus, you will go to a deadlock together. However, if our aim is to bring the relationship to a better point, telling how happy we are creates a desire to repeat the same good things on the other side. 

Although these are sociological facts, they may vary depending on the environment and time. Marriage requires sacrifice, and I think the most important key to this is to be patient and to maintain mutual respect without ever lowering the level in communication. Where there is respect, the thing called love will never be lacking, and from time to time it can even give love sprouts.