They say love conquers all, but that’s not true. What conquers us all is emotional immaturity and not being our best selves. We must learn to be an adult in relationships, or marriage won’t work. Adobe Stock: Rudall30

A lot of people plan to marry one day, and if you’re like I was, you have a fantasy of finally having a best friend, and great, lasting, devoted romantic love, and a happy ending. And then, when the day finally comes, and the years pass, it doesn’t go like you thought it would. A lifetime with another person is very long, and people seem surprised at how hard it is.

Accurate statistics aren’t available on how many married men and women are happy in their relationships, though I’ve read anything from 12 to 85 percent. My wild-ass guess (WAG) is that the lower number is closer to accurate. Why? I have lived long enough, had enough experiences, seen enough clients, and talked to and known enough people to see how terribly ill-prepared, half-assed, and emotionally damaged so many are. Not only as individuals but also in relationships.

The divorce rate says absolutely nothing about who is happily married or how many are in a bad marriage. This is another statistic that can’t be nailed down because not all 50 states report their divorce numbers in any given year, but it is estimated at 40 percent. My parents stayed in an unhappy marriage for 62 years. They should have divorced, and a lot of couples are like my parents. Unhappily intertwined for life, just trying to get through it, elderly couples heading toward life’s finish line filled with bitterness and resentment. What a way to live.

People don’t leave for a variety of reasons, from money to children, to what people will think, religious beliefs, fear of being a single mom or dad or how the children will fare, lack of courage, the strident belief that marriage really is for better or worse, or death do us part (I couldn’t disagree more), the fear of failure, lack of certainty, fear, being alone, and more.

People have the desire to be married, our brains are wired to make us want to, but almost no one has any idea what we’re signing up for or how much effort it takes. From my perspective, a lot of the time, when people get married, it’s like having a person who has had no flying lessons get in an airplane and then expect them to fly the thing. You can imagine the disaster that will ensue, and that is what I see with marriages day after day.

Having a healthy relationship cannot happen through instinct. It is a learned skill. What I find talking to couples in trouble is that many use benchmarks like, I need to avoid being an asshole, I need to be a good and reliable provider, and that’s about it. People, there is so much more to keeping a romantic partnership stoked and alive throughout your entire life; surely, it is not surprising to learn this.

Here is what I wish most people understood before making such a huge decision … these are the qualities that set you up for marital success …

1. Marriage is for people who are emotionally stable, mature, and self-aware. What does that mean?

• Emotionally stable. Your mood is mostly solid and calm. All of us have bad days, but they should be rare. You practice self-care and know how to bring your best self to you and your relationship because that will keep you content and the partnership alive.
• Mature. Have you noticed the two types of adults? Girls and boys versus men and women? A lot of my clients are paired up with emotional children. Emotionally immature people might have any or all of the following qualities: irresponsible, dependent, childish, pout, throw tantrums, talkers (not doers), shut down, refuse to talk, defensive, secretive, boundaryless, controlling, jealous, stubborn, prideful, and lack self-control. There are more, but you get the idea.
• Self-aware. You have learned to pay attention to yourself and can feel when you need or want something, advocate for yourself, and adjust accordingly.
• Low maintenance. If you have dated more than ten people in your life, you know well that some people are very demanding in relationships, and others are like a Toyota Camry, reliable, solid, and requiring infrequent time in the shop. When selecting a mate, one type will wear you out, and the other is like a soothing balm. Choose wisely.
• Capable of adult-level communication. Your partner says something to you, and you have a negative reaction and verbally punch them right back in the nose, run away, or shut down. Adults can stay calm and present in the conversation and respond with respect. Let me break it down for you …

Example: Husband, sounding upset:

“Good God, Marianne, do you know how many Amazon packages arrived at our house last month?” (The way he phrased this is aggressive, and his wife’s brain will go on alert immediately because of the tone and stance — rather than adult to adult, he is standing over her, like an angry parent to a child.) This never works.

Wife with childish response:

“You’re such an ass. Do you know how much time it saves me to order stuff like toothpaste instead of shopping at the store? You think I’d buy whatever and destroy us financially. Glad to see how much you trust me, dickhead.” (Because her brain told her she was under threat, it ignited her snarky 14-year-old self to respond). This never works.

The pattern that destroys.

This is the pattern that almost every couple I see is engaged in.

1. The speaker makes a comment perceived negatively by the listener.

2. The listener’s brain feels a threat, and they go from a state of calmness to a red alert, signaling that their nervous system has been activated. Their heart rate increases, and they go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode (FFFF). The problem is that the part of us that responds while in FFFF is a snarky 14-year-old teenager who damages the relationship with their words or actions.

3. Now, the listener’s nervous system fires up into threat mode, and their own 14-year-old responds.

4. The argument escalates, the damage is done, and neither partner feels understood.

After a few go-rounds like this, one or both of them will conclude, “I can’t talk to them,” so they don’t. Anger builds, each person seethes in resentment because they can’t get their partner to understand them and their concerns, and if they can’t understand, there won’t be hope for change. In the end, the stock of the marriage plummets.

Here is how it could have gone …

Husband: Wisely and thoughtfully, he has waited for a calm and pleasant moment to bring up a difficult subject. His wife is in a pleasant, soft mood. He approaches her slowly and in a non-threatening way, making certain his tone is soft and kind. He speaks: “Hon, you know, I find myself feeling anxious every time an Amazon box arrives, as if each box represents doom or something. I know it doesn’t make sense, and I know and trust you know what you’re doing, but I can’t seem to shake my anxiety. Even though it sounds kind of off the wall, would you mind reassuring me that I don’t have any reason to worry about it?” (Notice that he is talking about his feelings and his problem. In no part of this conversation is he pointing a finger at his wife.).

Wife: (Laughs) “Of course not,” she says. “If each box represented big ticket items, we’d both be in trouble,” she laughs. “But it just saves me so much time to buy the little things from them, even stupid stuff like toothpaste and toilet paper. If it makes you feel better, you Might look at the Amazon card statement once in a while and see what I’m spending; I sure don’t want you to worry.”

Success! The same conversation happened but was done in a healthy way. This is the difference between an immature couple communicating and a mature one. Mature adults are thoughtful, edit themselves, and choose the right times to bring things up.

2. A good relationship or successful marriage takes a lot of time, focus, awareness, and continual communication.

It helps to think of it as having another job. When you think of priorities in life, marriage should be number two, after your own self-care. The most important thing to remember is to make sure your spouses’ needs are met and topped off; then, you can spend time doing other things without fear of criticism.

• A spouse has to check in with their partner’s needs and wants regularly. Ask, “How am I doing? Are you happy? Is there anything I could do to improve your life or our lives?” Note: If your spouse will not do this, you do it. Ask them how you are doing and if they are happy or need anything.
• Most couples know about Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages. Reading and applying what it says should be mandatory for every marriage because it clearly outlines the work of marriage.

The number one cause of divorce, from my perspective, is emotional immaturity. Better put, that 14-year-old teenager who lives within us, always ready to pounce, kills respect and goodwill. A lot of people think that the snarky teen is helpful because it won’t tolerate bull or baloney from anyone, and while that may be true, people hate dealing with it so much that eventually, they won’t even try. That’s not conducive to a relationship.

There is no problem or situation that cannot be more effectively dealt with by the mature adult part of ourselves. In marriage counseling, we seek to retire the 14-year-old, thanking it for its loyal service but telling it at the same time we can now take over the wheel of our personality. Do this and change the whole dynamic of your life and relationships.

I still hear the voice of the 14-year-old occasionally, but in almost every case, I don’t allow it to speak for me. She sits back, in reserve, for the rare cases when only her nastiness will do. That happens after every attempt at setting a boundary using my healthy adult voice has been implemented unsuccessfully, and the problem has not been resolved. Unfortunately, there are some people who will only stop causing harm when you blast them with a verbal AK-47, but luckily, most people aren’t that way. In these cases, I choose to be immature in that specific situation.

Think US, as opposed to ME.

Recently, I was working with a couple, and the wife was begging the husband to stop correcting her and others if they were the slightest bit inaccurate with what they said. “Why can’t you just let things slide? she said. “It’s the only thing I ask. It’s so friggin’ irritating when you correct everyone; we all hate it!”

Her husband’s brow dropped, and he said, “I can do whatever I want when I want!”

“Yes, you can,” I said, sensing an opportunity. “But you will also have to accept whatever consequences come with doing what you want without regard for other people’s feelings. In marriage, you need to consider what is in the highest good of all, not just yourself. If you want to stay married, that is.”

And therein lies the rub. Do you want to be right and do things your way with little or no thought of others, or do you want to be married long term? I hope that’s an easy choice. My mentor, Terry Real, who recorded the amazing audiobook Fierce Intimacy, says a person should want to do what their spouse asks to get what they want in return. In other words, if you accommodate your partner, they’re more likely to accommodate you. That’s why Real calls his method of therapy for couples the Relational Life Theory (RLT). He literally teaches couples what I am teaching you now: the dynamics that help us become relational-minded instead of me-oriented.

Therapists trained in RLT are counselors and therapists who teach each individual how to do the give, take, and compromise a relationship takes. Understand that we all enter adulthood with residue from childhood developmental trauma, and quite a few of us are emotionally disabled in ways that have to be addressed and healed so we can have healthy, flowing relationships with others.

For instance, if you are full of self-loathing, we have to work with you to change that so you can be healthy in a relationship. If not, your toxic relationship with yourself will trickle down into everything you say, the actions you take, and how you perceive what others say. It will poison your relationships and make them untenable.

​Come out of fantasyland and be realistic about what marriage entails.

When I decided to marry again after being single for a long time, I reminded myself that it meant losing my freedom to do whatever I wanted in exchange for a best friend and life companion. I was ready and willing to do the giving and sacrifice that a good marriage requires. If you come into a new marriage for yourself or for what you can get out of it, you probably should have stayed single. At the end of the day, healthy relationships require not always having your way.

I dream that one day, the kinds of skills I know and teach will be taught in schools across America so that small children will learn early how healthy and loving relationships with ourselves and others look. We could save so much damage that will inevitably happen later if we just educated young students and gave them a healthy compass to shoot for. It’d be a great first step in preparing children and young adults for healthy relationships.

There will never be such a thing as a perfect couple, but we can all be good enough couples. Romantic relationships are the best thing in the world when they work the way they were meant to. You must take time to understand and heal yourself, grow yourself up, and learn to be a respectful adult.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the Call Your Mother Relationship Show on YouTube and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

The idea of being successful, and whether one is a success or failure, messes a lot of people up. It doesn’t have to be that way. Rethink what success is, create a flexible and flowing definition for yourself, change it as you need to, and never beat yourself up. Adobe stock: Photocreo Bednarek

Occasionally, I have conversations with my clients about what their definitions of success are. It usually comes up when they shame or beat themselves up about something they did or did not do.

“I failed at that job/marriage/situation.”

“I wasted my time in that relationship.”

“That was such a stupid decision I made.”

“I hate myself for doing that.”

“I’ve ruined my life.”

“If only I had …”

“I guess now it’s too late.”

“I had planned for X, but X didn’t happen.”​

“I didn’t meet anyone’s expectations, even my own.”

As pained as they are by these ideas, it pains me also to hear them, and I consider when someone beats themselves up, it’s a 911 mental and emotional health emergency.

The voices in our head.

In my mind’s eye, I visualize each one of us as two people. There is the part of us that is living life, making decisions, and doing different things in whatever ways, and the part of us that is watching and speaking to ourselves about it, like a narrator. We might have several personality parts that speak to us at any given time, but the primary two are the voice of negativity and criticism and the positive, compassionate, caring voice. To me, when a person beats themself up with a negative voice, the other part of us winces and cringes in pain as if we are beating our own child, which, in a way, we are. I honestly believe this destroys human beings at the cellular level. Part of the art of life, and a great first step to getting healthy, is learning to quiet the negative chatter in your head.

The first order of business is to quiet that dark, critical voice in your head. Adobe stock: By Oleksandr Pokusai

The author of Power of Now, Eckhardt Tolle, a respected mind and spirit guru, explains how to quiet the negative voice, and I can attest to it being effective. He says, (1) Our thinking mind is primarily concerned with our past and future, and the way to overcome it is to 1. Recognize that it is self-talk in your head, and it is not you talking to yourself. 2. Become aware when the negative voice seeks your attention and call it out as the liar and joy-killer it is, and 3. Realize that you are causing suffering for yourself and those who care about you, all because of negative self-talk and stories you tell yourself in your head. 4. Ask yourself, am I the negative thoughts in my head, or am I the being that is observing the negative thoughts?

When humans become aware of that voice and those self-sabotaging thoughts and can recognize that the voice is just that, a voice trying to cause us suffering, we become aware, and over time, the voice shows up less often. It was Tolle’s book that taught me this concept long ago, and I began practicing it immediately. I now rarely hear the voice; it knows I’m on to it. New skills such as these are life-changing, and for most of my clients, it’s imperative that they learn them.

Broadening your perspective.

After a client and I talk about success and define what they believe it to be (their version may be challenged if it sets them up for future suffering), we will dissect the efficacy of the many ugly stories they tell about themselves to see if those negative judgments still hold true when we’re finished. It’s the only way to get them to see the bigger picture, that life is not black-and-white, and that conclusions or judgments made after going in whatever direction you choose are not just limited to two: I succeeded or I failed. To thrive in life, we must broaden our perspectives. Humans tell their stories, but that same story can be told in different ways with more positive meanings. If my client tells a story with them starring as the village idiot who has failed at almost every turn, I show them how to retell it factually where they were resilient, a survivor, a hero, or all of these and others. Try it — take a negative story you tell about yourself, try to see the good in it, and tell it in a way that casts you in a more positive light. I describe one of mine here …

Although I have been married four times and divorced three, after much weaving and bobbling over what it meant, I rested on the conclusion that I don’t consider those three marriages as failures. They were a crash course in learning about myself and what I value and believe in, and they helped me know what people and experiences are a fit for who I am. It has given me perspective: how can one appreciate the good without having experienced the bad? All of this deeper processing helps us eliminate suffering and brings peace, and that’s what we’re all looking for in the end, aren’t we? To me, if you learn about and accept yourself as you are and who you have been, then tweak your life to fit the present you on an ongoing basis, then that is another form of my own definition of success. Once you know more about yourself and what you enjoy, you get to reap the reward — designing a life that works for you.

If you beat yourself up …

… you are not on a healthy track …

… with yourself.

Younger selves may not be the best planners and rule-makers for our future older selves.

Think of it this way: people learn through experience, so we are green and untried when we start out life, and the idea that we can create a definitive plan to achieve long-term success for ourselves and hold to it, ensuring a certain outcome, based on all we still don’t know in life is ridiculous. Plus, who you are at 18, 25, 35, or 40 won’t be remotely who you are later in life. Trust me on this. We have to be flexible in our viewpoint and be able to do that bobbling and weaving to accommodate all the selves we will be throughout our lives. Sometimes, I picture the different selves I’ve had throughout life as racers in a track meet who pass the baton forward to the next … 25-year-old Becky had the baton until she handed it off to 32-year-old Becky, and on and on. It excites me when I realize I’ve finished one era in my life and am now going to pass the baton on to the next version of me. I’m in one of those moments now. I trust myself enough to know that as I move into this version of life, I can figure anything out and make adjustments along the way to keep myself healthy and content. I get to do life on my own terms; that is another version of success for me.

Every time we do anything, we are learning more about who we are. That’s why I always stop clients when they want to give me a list of their mistakes. “Mistakes?” I say. “There are no mistakes, only lessons learned.” Example: If I took guitar lessons because I thought I might like it and ended up hating it, that was not a mistake or a failure; it was information I needed to learn that guitar was not for me. At least, I will never regret having given it a shot. That is a healthy perspective and a success story. To beat me up for buying a guitar and taking lessons for three months, then dropping it, is not the positive mindset I want any of us to deploy. It is also why we should allow our children to try all the new things and different things that pique their interests; it’s how they will come to know who they are and what they love and don’t love.

So, life is like a classroom, and experiences are our teachers. If we set long-term goals early in life, that’s fine, but it’s a good idea to be flexible with ourselves over the years and allow ourselves to grow and shift courses as we mature and learn more and more. If you have ever used the voice navigation in your vehicle, then you know that when you miss a turn or just want to go somewhere else, the voice guiding you doesn’t flip out, scold you, or tell you you’re an idiot, it just says “rerouting,” and finds you another way of getting back on the path. A healthy emotional life is the same way; we must be aware that things will happen along the way that can’t possibly be predicted and allow space to go with the flow of that without expending negative energy on the shifts and redirects that will inevitably happen. Your job is to pay attention and learn from your personal experience, then weed out what doesn’t work for you, add the things that do, and keep learning and moving to the next step of your life.

Though people may try to hold themselves to ridiculously strict guidelines and timeframes, what control freak or perfectionist doesn’t, it is not a winning plan for emotional health. In doing that, we set ourselves up for self-abuse, which is never okay. To reach an ultimate goal, whatever that is for you, there will be bends and turns; other people will figure into the equation and influence you, and you may want to change and adjust what that goal is along the way. That is not failure; that is smart.

Although Webster’s Dictionary defines the idea of success as a favorable outcome, I like to think the idea of success means different things to different people. There is a shallow version that includes vanity and ego-based things, like materialism, social status, physical beauty, a fat bank account, and the appearance of success, which is somewhat like building a house on sand, and there are other more solid things like having peace, freedom, options, contentment, and being with people who love you and whom you love. For me, my measure of success has been forming a healthy relationship with myself, having the confidence to try or go for anything I choose, and having the freedom to be myself authentically, regardless of other’s opinions. I also want to make a difference. It took decades of work to achieve that, and it’s my greatest success primarily because it has brought me peace of mind.

In all of this, I’m not saying we should not strive for financial stability or want to be a financial success. If your well-being or sense of self depends on having a certain amount of money or career success, though, then that’s a problem. In 1929, people whose identity was based on how much money they had jumped out of skyscrapers when the stock market crashed. Is it not obvious that that is an unhealthy stance? If they could have gotten back on the path, figured out how to survive, and be okay with the new version of themself that had little or no money, then I would have considered that a success.

People’s relationship with money is a subject for a whole different blog, but the one good thing money does for us is that it gives us options and provides freedom to make choices for ourselves. I like that.

How being flexible with yourself works in real-time.

It might be helpful to relook at whatever stories you tell about yourself with zero judgment. Mute the narrator in your head for a moment, and if it’s safe for you emotionally, watch yourself experiencing some of the negative things you tell about yourself. Sit quietly and tell yourself, “These things happened. It was educational; I learned and grew. And the things I learned about myself are 1, 2, and 3.” Then, send yourself some love and kindness, turn the movie off, and think of something else.

Too many people get mired in the ego-based ideas that success is related to performance, achievement, income, appearance, education, and meeting their personal goals at the very landmarks they had planned for themselves … married by 30, $150,000 a year by 35 … you mean you aren’t a millionaire at age 40 like you promised yourself when you were 17? Shame! What a failure. No, you are not.

People find endless ways of making themselves miserable when it comes to the subject of success or, really, anything else. Using the negative voice, they compare themselves to friends the same age who are further down that track or have similar training and education, and the critical voice in their heads leans in and steals their attention. The nasty, shaming judge we all know so well speaks with venom as it assesses effort and judges where we are in our attempts to live our best life. That voice only sees where we fall short in its view and lacks any compassion, understanding, or intelligence about how to process our life experiences.

Ralph was 54 and told a story about himself, saying that he was the one child in his family who failed to meet his father’s expectations. “I guess I’m the black sheep of the family,” he said, looking down at the floor.

“My dad wanted us to all become farmers like he was; the end goal was he was going to leave us his land one day, and we could carry on the family legacy,” he said. “But I was stubborn and wanted to make my own way. I really didn’t enjoy all the things involved in farming, anyway, all that hard work in the extreme weather, day after day. My two brothers stayed in our small town and began working alongside Dad like he wanted. I wanted to go to college, and I did. I eventually became a dentist and moved to another part of the country when I found the right opportunity. I needed to be away from there, where I wasn’t my dad’s son, where I could be me, but Dad just said I was ashamed of them like I was too good for them. Like, ‘What kind of son would do that,’ he said. My dad couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to stay and why I’d take a different career path, and I guess I really disappointed him. The family distanced themselves from me after that, and it’s like I didn’t fit in anymore.”

Ralph’s story about following his own passion instead of meeting his family’s expectations is a story of great success, at least in my view, although the way he tells it is full of self-blame. It took courage to step outside the family’s expectations and create a life where he was independent and was able to do what he loved. I told him so and also told him I’d had many a client who had chosen a path similar to his brothers, going along with their family’s plan, even though it wasn’t really what they wanted to do, and they were miserable, felt controlled, and trapped.

Anytime we aren’t true to ourselves when we throw ourselves under the bus so others can be happy, we will suffer. I wanted Ralph to know that it was he who made the healthy choice and that it was his family who were out of bounds, giving him a hard time with their harsh opinions about him finding his own way. The most successful people and families mentally and emotionally allow their children the space to figure out who they are and honor their choices and decisions.

What is success to you?

After considering all of this, what is true success to you? I hope you will scan your life where you are today, see all the successes in your personal life that got you to where you are, and learn to rewrite the negative stories you tell about yourself to reveal a courageous, motivated person who takes precious care of themselves and has made some positive impact in this life; however, that may be. Leaving the world better than you found it is a great starting point for success.

I asked my son once why he had joined the United States Marines. I have been a pacifist my whole life; no one in my family had ever served in the military, and it was difficult for me to understand. He said, “If I serve in the Marines, I can know that no matter what else happens in my life, I will have made a difference.” That was how my precious boy defined success. He was killed in 2011 at age 24 in Afghanistan, breaking many hearts, but those words comfort me today. And so, what is your definition of success?

(1) https://youtu.be/-HffrwmOT6c?si=Q9BjKvEC9dryMSwl

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the Call Your Mother Relationship Show on YouTube and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.