A Conversation with Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson on What Keeps a Marriage Going
Ellyn: Marriage has a future, I'm convinced of that, because few things push people to grow the way a marriage does. But survival and flourishing come down to building the kind of partnership we've been describing. The polished, romantic version of love isn't what carries a relationship over the long haul. The numbers back this up: divorce rates spike around the four-year mark, which happens to line up exactly with the stage where we watch couples wrestle with their differences and finally let the partner come down off the pedestal. So part of what we do is teach. We explain that early on, your brain hands you a chemical head start. People talk about falling in love flooding you with dopamine and epinephrine, plus a bit of serotonin, and all of that fades. Once it fades, you start hearing one partner say, 'I love you, but I'm not in love anymore.'
Peter: What they mean is the adrenaline rush is gone. The newness has run out.
Ellyn: And the moment the newness runs out is the same moment the differences come to the surface. When couples grasp that this is normal and entirely predictable, it changes things, because it's also precisely the point where they need real skills. How to stay curious rather than furious. How to ask better questions. How to borrow different approaches for making decisions and working through conflict.
Peter: There's a comparison I like here. Every so often we'll book a limo to the airport, usually one of those Lincoln Town Cars. I've gotten into the habit of asking the driver how many miles the car has on it. It's common to hear 400,000, 500,000, 600,000. Some of these cars hit a million, and nobody acts surprised. I'll say, 'A million miles? How on earth do you manage that?' The answer is always the same: regular, routine maintenance. Oil changed every three to five thousand miles. Vacuumed, washed, waxed. Spark plugs looked after, belts swapped out, the engine cared for. Keep that up and the car will give you a million miles. Now think about marriage and the obvious parallel. Do you run routine maintenance on your marriage? Most people assume, 'You pick the right person, you get married, and the work is finished.' That's the romantic fantasy, and it doesn't hold up and it doesn't work.