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Healthy Marriage/Relationship Building
Frequently Asked Questions on How to Have a Healthy Marriage

What is a “healthy” marriage? How is it defined?

Marriage scholars emphasize 10 elements of a healthy marriage:

• Commitment: Spouses have a long-term perspective and are willing to sacrifice personal needs for each other.
• Satisfaction: Overall, individuals are happy with the relationship.
• Communication: Couples interact in positive ways.
• Effective Conflict Resolution: How couples handle their disagreements can make the difference between a healthy and unhealthy relationship.
• Lack of Violence and Abuse: Conflict is normal, but aggression and violence indicate an unhealthy marriage.
• Fidelity: Spouses are sexually faithful to each other.
• Friendship: Spouses respect each other and enjoy being together.
• Intimacy: Couples are physically and emotionally intimate.
• Commitment to Children: The couple is committed to the well-being of all their children.
• Duration/Legal Status: Believing in the permanence of the relationship helps to sustain it. Marriage is not only a commitment to another person but also to society.
• Couples have healthy marriages to varying degrees; it’s not either/or. Also, the elements of healthy marriage vary among different groups (e.g., remarried couples, military couples).
  

Is choosing the “right” partner crucial to a healthy, successful marriage?

Many people are searching for a “soul mate” that will make marriage effortless. This is a myth;
marriage takes hard work. Still, there are many factors that will give you a better chance of
forming a healthy marriage:

• Age (marrying before early-20’s is a risk)
• Education and Income
• Emotional Health
• Similar attitudes, values, and beliefs, including religious beliefs
• Acquaintance: they have been together for more than a short time and know each other well
• Support from family and friends for the marriage (as opposed to thinking the marriage isn’t a good idea)
• Social and Interpersonal Skills: especially positive communication and problem-solving skills
• Those who have not lived together before marriage have more healthy and successful marriages.

What are some of the most important factors that help sustain a healthy marriage?

Three of the most important factors—the “3 C’s”— are:

• Companionship (or friendship): holding deep respect for each other, enjoying one another’s company, and sharing a vision of the relationship.
• Communication (and problem solving): avoiding criticism, contempt, are defensiveness; starting disagreements in a “soft” way, understanding that some problems can’t be solved immediately, knowing when to calm down, accepting differences, and being willing to forgive.
• Commitment: Most marriages go through hard times. But the majority of couples who stay together through these hard times find happiness again.

Can people learn how to have a healthy, successful marriage?

Yes. The knowledge and skills essential to having a healthy marriage can be learned. There are many
marriage education programs available and research suggests that these programs can help couples.

Also, more research is being conducted to see if these kinds of programs can be helpful to lower income and minority couples who face even more challenges to forming and sustaining healthy marriages.

Can marriage counseling or therapy help couples repair a relationship and have a healthy marriage?

Yes. However, couples should exercise caution in choosing a counselor or therapist. The following
guidelines can be helpful:

• Find a therapist who supports marriage and is procommitment.
• Find a therapist who has a history of working successfully with couples.
• Find a therapist who will challenge each of you about your contributions to the problems and will encourage each of you to make individual changes to resolve the problem.