State of Committment
Americans value marriage more than people do in any other culture, and it holds a central place in our dreams. Over 90 percent of young adults aspire to marriage—although fewer are actually choosing it, many opting instead for cohabitation. But no matter how you count it, Americans have the highest rate of romantic breakup in the world, says Andrew J. Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins.
"By age 35, 10 percent of American women have lived with three or more husbands or domestic partners,"
Cherlin reports,
"Children of married parents in America face a higher risk of seeing them break up than children born of unmarried parents in Sweden."
With general affluence comes many choices, including constant choices about our personal and family life. Even marriage itself is now a choice.
The heightened focus on options creates a heightened sensitivity to problems that arise in intimate relationships. And negative emotions get priority processing in our brains.
Cherlins says,
"We're carrying over into our personal lives the fast pace of decisions and actions we have everywhere else, and that may not be for the best."
Most of the discontent we now encounter in close relationships is culturally inflicted, although we rarely see it that way. Culture, the pressure to constantly monitor our happiness, the speed of everyday life always climbs into bed with us. The accumulation of forces has made the cultural climate hostile to long-term relationships.
Attuned to disappointment and confused about its source, we wind up discarding perfectly good relationships.
Our mind-set has further shifted over the past few decades, experts suggest.
We revert to a stingier self that has been programmed into us by the consumer culture. This accelerating consumer mind-set is a major portal through which destructive forces gain entry and undermine conjoint life.
If there's one thing that most explicitly detracts from the enjoyment of relationships today, it's an abundance of choice. Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls it an excess of choice, the tyranny of abundance. We see it as a measure of our autonomy and we firmly believe that freedom of choice will lead to fulfillment. Our antennae are always up for better opportunities.
Just as only the best pair of jeans will do, so will only the best partner. This is not the road to successful long-term relationships. It does not stop with marriage. It undermines commitment by encouraging people to keep their options open.
If perfection is what you expect, you will always be disappointed, says Schwartz. We become picky and unhappy. The cruel joke our psychology plays on us, of course, is that we are terrible at knowing what will satisfy us or at knowing how any experience will make us feel.
The heightened sensitivity to relationship problems that follows from constantly appraising our happiness encourages couples to turn disappointment into tragedy.
Through the alchemy of desire, wants become needs, and unfulfilled needs become personal tragedies.
We take the everyday disappointments of relationships and treat them as intolerable, see them as demeaning, the equivalent of alcoholism, say, or abuse.
"People work their way into 'I'm a tragic figure' around the ordinary problems of marriage."
But in the churn of daily life, we tend to give short shrift to creating positive experiences. Over time, we typically become more oriented to dampening threats and insecurities, to resolving conflict, to eliminating jealousy, to banishing problems. But the brain is wired with both a positive and negative motivational system, and the demand for satisfaction and desire keep the brain's positive system well-stoked.
Commitment is a key predictor of relationship durability. It creates the perception, the illusion, that even the most attractive alternative partners are unappealing. Attention to them gets turned off, one of the many cognitive gymnastics we engage in to ward off doubts.
The question is not how you want your partner to change but what kind of partner and person you want to be. In the best relationships, not only are you thinking about who you want to be, but your partner is willing to help you get there. Psychologist Caryl E. Rusbult calls it the Michelangelo effect. Just as Michelangelo felt the figures he created were already in the stones, slumbering within the actual self is an ideal form, explains Eli Finkel. Your partner becomes an ally in sculpting your ideal self, in bringing out the person you dream of becoming, leading you to a deep form of personal growth as well as long-term satisfaction with life and with the relationship.
The Michelangelo phenomenon gives the lie to the soul mate search. You can't find the perfect person, there is no such thing. And even if you think you could, the person he or she is today is, hopefully, not quite the person he or she wants to be 10 years down the road. You and your partner help each other become a more perfect person according to your own inner ideals.
Psychology Today
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