Creating a Culture of Maintenance for Marital Relationships

In "The Good Life" (by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz), which summarizes the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the conclusion of over 80 years of longitudinal research is stated as follows:

Happiness is not determined by wealth or status, but by the "quality" of our human relationships.
Based on this scientific fact, today I have thought about the most intimate human relationship: the marital relationship.

A society where one in three couples divorces

Divorce is no longer rare.
However, there is something I felt strongly only after experiencing a divorce crisis (currently ongoing) myself.

I do not intend to deny the act of divorce itself. Rather, I hope for a society where both divorce and reconciliation are respected as individual life choices. It is by no means a taboo. However, I feel that before that, there are quite a lot of "divorces that did not need to happen" in the world. If there had been an opportunity for dialogue, might the result have been different?

That is what I felt.

Marriage Life Cycle

When looking at a marital relationship as a life cycle, I think there are the following stages:

Of course, not all couples follow this flow.
There are couples who spend their time in stability, and there are relationships that stay close to each other until the end while going back and forth between stability and dissatisfaction.

However, if you cannot move toward reconciliation after the wear and tear period, the end result is either divorce or a "mask marriage" (living as strangers). You lose respect, words of gratitude disappear, and you become mere "roommates." And this period is very painful. Some people might stop feeling anything, but is that living their life honestly? Thoughts might cross your mind, such as what are you living for, or will you end your life enduring so much?

Parenting in this state will likely become even sadder and harsher. Conflicts between spouses seem to have intergenerational effects, such as on a child's emotional stability, school non-attendance, poverty, and gaps in experience. Isn't this no longer just a family problem, but a social issue?

There is support after it breaks, but

In Japan, there is plenty of support after a relationship breaks—that is, counseling and lawyers. It is almost enough to call it a divorce business. But I think that is all post-incident catastrophe support.

Since lawyers are experts in moving divorce forward smoothly, the result is almost decided the moment you consult them. It just proceeds calmly. In fact, aren't there many people who, after consulting a lawyer, ended up divorced before they knew it? That is fine in its own way, though.

Also, there are important roles as a safety net after a relationship has broken down, such as public support for single mothers. However, there is almost no "preventive" support before that, meaning efforts to "fix things before they break," and the current situation is that it is left to our own discretion.

Or perhaps, it is just a matter of taking relevant seminars out of necessity.

Small misunderstandings quietly pile up

The breakdown of a marriage does not happen due to a sudden incident, but rather through the accumulation of small, unresolved daily issues.

• “That one comment bothered me”

• “There was no word of thanks”

• “I actually wanted to talk, but I couldn't”

• “The other person is wrong, I am not”

If you leave such small feelings of discomfort unaddressed, they will eventually turn into 'endurance' or 'silence,' and finally into 'resignation' or 'anger.'

The problems are invisible from the outside, but the relationship is cold on the inside. And a relationship filled with nothing but complaints. Aren't there many couples like this around you?

On social media, information that fuels division from each side's perspective—such as '3 types of disappointing husbands' or 'characteristics of landmine wives'—is overflowing. I feel like a typical echo chamber is occurring, where time for self-reflection and the effort to understand the other person are being lost.

A culture of maintenance, not just repair

In medical terms, this is 'prevention.' It is healthier to organize your daily life than to cure a disease after it has occurred.

Human relationships are the same. Instead of fixing a relationship after it has broken, we should cultivate a culture of maintaining it in our daily lives.

• Understand your own emotions

• Imagine the other person's emotions

• Notice

• Express gratitude and discomfort in words

• Reflect

I believe that these habits of 'conscious adjustment' are the best prevention for protecting a relationship.

The family is the smallest unit of society

I believe that the stability of a family leads to the peace of mind of children and can also spread to human relationships in the workplace. In other words, 'adjusting relationships between people' is also about laying the foundation for society as a whole.

If these steps accumulate, I thought that homes, workplaces, and society could all become a little kinder, so I wrote this sentimental article.

The End