What does marriage mean to me as a Humanist

I am a happily married Humanist and I occasionally get asked about how I approach marriage as a humanist.

To me - marriage is a commitment people make to each other. To help support each other and to try and get through this thing called life.  In short, it's a partnership.  A partnership that has legal ramifications.

How do I approach my partner in life?  As my partner. In equal dignity and responsibility.

My marriage is a source of stability for me. Regardless of what else is happening, I have a firm foundation from which to explore the world. If I get battered and tattered, I know I can come home to my family and be supported, loved and protected. It's a good feeling.

How do I maintain my marriage as a Humanist? By supporting and loving my husband.  I don't take him for granted. He helps me and I appreciate his help and I try to help him and support him and make sure he feels as loved and secure as I do.

My mother told me marriages work when both parties, put the well being of their partner above theirs. The key is that both partners have to do this. If only one does - it's abusive. But if both do it - it's great.

What about sex?  We love sex. It's about sharing our affection and helping the other person feel good. Again - we have sex - not in a selfish - I need this for myself sort of way - but as a way to help the other person to feel wonderful. Helping each other feel wonderful - feels wonderful.

The core of my humanist marriage is dignity. We are both people with dignity and we treat each other with dignity, love and compassion.  When we encounter problems we work together as a team to solve them. And it's easy to do - because - supporting each other is an act of love.

For people looking to get married, my advice is similar to my mom's.  Find someone who treats you with dignity and compassion.  Someone who is responsible to the responsibilities required of a partnership. And find someone with compatible problem solving skills.

Humanist Marriage

Respect and Problem Solving inside marriage

I am obviously a Humanist. My husband identifies as a Humanist too. We have been married for 17 years now. Still happily married. What is the secret to our success. Respect and problem solving.

I truly respect my husband. He is a wonderful person. Creative, caring, compassionate, responsible, kind, intelligent, interesting and supportive.   It is very easy to forget all that when we are problem solving though.

Marriage is a partnership. The two people work together to secure food and housing and health care and if they have kids, to help raise and take care of and support the individuals in their family unit – however that is defined and however extended that family unit is.

This is a long winded way of saying – marriages require a lot of problem solving. All the time.  Sometimes, we have disagreements on how best to solve our problems. Sometimes those disagreements are minor – like what color to paint the walls. Other times they are more pressing, like who is going to take out the trash or make sure the kid is picked up from whatever activity they are at.

Respect for the other person as a fully functional intelligent human being, helps us navigate those disagreements so that we engage in cooperative problem solving and don’t devolve into arguments.  People are often astonished that my husband and I rarely argue.  It happens every once in a while. But mostly, we just enter problem solving mode and respect each other’s ideas and suggestions. I guess that’s what comes with being married for 17+ years.

What I am sure of is that IF I didn’t respect him enough to value his opinion, he would have lost respect for me ages ago. Respect and problem solving – lead to a happy marriage. In my case anyway.

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The science of a happy marriage

Turns out – being kind to one another – IS the secret to a happy marriage.

Humanism encourages us to see other people through the lens of compassion.  Other humans are real, they feel joy and pain just like we do. So, Humanism teaches us to think of them as real and fragile and deserving of our respect and compassion.

Which is all well and good, but not everyone is nice and not everyone respects us back.  And when they don’t, we feel stressed and ill at ease and always on our guard.

It turns out that whether or not you feel safe and secure is a huge predictor of marital success. (see this article on the topic: http://www.businessinsider.com/lasting-relationships-rely-on-2-traits-2014-11)

So – what should you look for?  Someone who doesn’t make you feel nervous - obviously. According the article – they could predict marital disaster based on physiological response to the proximity to a partner.

The other big predictor is apparently how often you turn towards your partner. When your partner asks you for attention, do you give it? Happily – or not.  

Meeting your partner’s emotional needs for connectedness means – accepting their bids for attention and giving them your attention, most of the time.

So, if you have a pretty good marriage but want to make sure it works – realize it takes two and you have to do your part.  Meet your partner half way. Look for the positive things they do. Pay attention to them when they reach out for your attention in small ways and most of all – be kind to them.

If they are incapable of reciprocating your kindness, that tells you whether they are worth your continued attention or not.

The Science of Happy Marriages

5 tips for a good marriage

I got this from Parade Magazine under a headline – the science of happy marriages. Which means, there was probably some research cited for these tips – but since I no longer have the magazine and failed to write down what the research was – I’m going to ask you to trust me, that these tips have apparently been vetted by actual scientists somewhere.

With that caveat out of the way – here is the list.

1) Remember  you are on a team. This isn't about you – it’s about you all. Work together and help each other out. You will get through life easier if you do.

2) Try a little tenderness ( even when arguing). Your affect matters. Don’t be physically intimidating. Try a soft body posture. Perhaps even cuddle when discussing things. Soften your tone and try to argue nicely.

3) Soften conflict with humor – I do this a ton

4) Support – but don’t smother – this is apparently the #1 predictor of marital happiness – basically if you don’t know what kind of support your partner needs – ask them. You can tell the support you are providing is wrong if they get upset.  Also – when asking your spouse for help – help them out by telling them what they can do to help that would be helpful. Don’t make them guess.

5) Celebrate each other. Remember to express gratitude that the other person is in your life and helping you out. And when something cool happens, be excited for them.

What is your tip for a successful marriage?

Things they don’t tell you before getting married.

To be happily married, you really need to be ok around farts, pissing and burps.

Marriage is a lot of things. It’s a partnership. It’s a legal arrangement. It’s hard work. It’s a blessing.  Marriage is also about sharing living space. And the basics of living involve eating, drinking, breathing, pooping and pissing. Everything else is optional.

Most married couples live together. And this is great, because it means, you can have sex, in your own bed and not have to drive home afterward.  It also means you have to share your closet. And decorating your shared living space means compromise.

It also means, you are probably going to share a toilet and bathroom and shower.  And this is where we carry out our most basic functions of living.  Sure, eating and drinking – those are fun and social. They are done in the shared living spaces, like the kitchen and dining room. No problem there.  But pooping and peeing?  Yeah – those we tend to want to do alone, in the bathroom. Alone!

I don’t know about you – but performance anxiety has withheld many a bladder. And – do I really want my man to be in the next room when I poop? Not really.

Humans are gross in many ways. When you live with someone, you live with their farts and burps and poops and pisses too. And if you aren’t OK with that, you should maybe consider not getting married. Because that’s part of the package.

I’ve been married over a decade now and I am still happily in love. And I have a child. Which means, privacy in the bathroom?  Yeah – it’s a luxury.  Do I mind?  Not really. I’m ok with it.  I love my husband and son and I’m not under any illusions that they don’t poop or pee. They do. It’s a basic function of life.  I do too.

Being comfortable around the farts and burps means we can relax and don’t have to pretend that we don’t.  And that’s wonderful.

Happily Married – What’s My Secret?

If you want to learn how to have a happy marriage, get your advice from someone who is happily married.

I have been happily married for over 10 years now. I don't think of marriage as a job. I think of it as an investment of my time. Time I gladly give to it because of the benefits I get from it. We've been through rough patches. What gets us through is respect for each other as individuals and a commitment to stay together even though things have been tough.

At this point, given what all we have been through - I feel REALLY secure in the relationship and I've extremely happy - despite the difficulties of our current financial situation - which can tear relationships apart - I feel like we've only gotten stronger.

Anyway - In order to have him there for me - I have to nurture him and be there for him. It's a reciprocity thing. Yeah - it's harder to do when a kid is taking up your time, but I still try to make sure I tell him regularly how much I appreciate the fact he is in my life. I don't do that for him. I do it for myself to remind myself how lucky I actually am to have him in my life so that I don't take him for granted. I don't need or expect him to reciprocate, though he usually does.

Anyway - because it's something I do for me, it doesn't feel like work. It makes me happy to remember why I married him. It makes me happy to think of how lucky I am he is in my life. It isn't work, but it is something I have to remind myself to do regularly to make it a habit.

I also take an operant conditioning approach and actively reward my hubby with good boy rewards (not sex - verbal rewards - literally - thank you for helping me) to encourage him to pay attention to and appreciate me as well. It works and no - I don't feel like I am manipulating him. It's the use of behavioral science to ensure we are both happy in the relationship.

How do you keep your marriage healthy and happy? 

Marriage Anniversary

Today I married my best friend.

That sounds so trite – but it’s true. There is literally no one else I enjoy hanging out with as much as I do my husband, with the exception of our son.  I suppose this means I’m happily married.  And I feel happily married, so there you go.

My husband is the only person I seriously considered marrying. Both my parents had given me instructions to get him to ask me to marry him. By the time I was getting this advice, he was apparently already planning to ask me. So yay!

As to what makes our relationship work?  That’s a good question.  I think mostly it’s because I respect him and he seems to respect me. We are different, and we have complementary skills sets. What I am good at, he is bad at and vice versa. So together, we can solve more problems than we can as individuals.  Understanding that I think helps us to not get frustrated by the differences.

Compassion carries us a long way too. When I get frustrated with him, I get frustrated with myself.  He’s a human being too. He needs space to be nurtured and supported and carried when he needs help. He isn’t perfect and I don’t expect him to be. I’m in this marriage for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. He supports me when I need it. My job is to support him when he needs it. We are a team.

And I think that’s really the key. Yeah – I like him. Yeah, I love having sex with him, but ultimately, he is my partner on this journey through life. And life is difficult. It’s hard. You have to secure food and shelter and transportation and make sure your child (if you have one) is thriving and survives to adulthood. It’s a lot of work.  By approaching my marriage not just as a romantic relationship, but as a life partnership, I think I get the best of both.

What do you think is the secret to a happy marriage?

Being Reasonable About Love

Being realistic and rational about love doesn’t diminish the intense emotional experience that it love. It simply enhances it and makes it better. Unless of course, you love a complete jerk, in which case being rational will help you find someone better. 

Valentine’s Day is this week. This is a rather stressful holiday for many people. It shouldn’t be like that. Love is supposed to be a wonderfully blissful emotion. Except that it isn’t. It’s intense and it can come with all sorts of other emotions that may or may not make for a blissful happy life.

I am a Humanist so I take a rational and realistic approach to love and I am better for it. I am currently in a wonderful relationship (marriage) with a wonderful man. To get here, I had to be rational about love.  I realize this may seem counter intuitive, because most people want to be swept away by love.

Let me explain WHY being rational helped me to find the happiness of love and avoid the heartaches. At one point in my life I fell in love with a very sick man. The relationship was incredibly toxic to me. It was only by being rational (and seeking some professional assistance in the form of a therapist and a restraining order) that I was able to exit that relationship and find another that was healthier for me.

If you want a good relationship which will contribute to your overall wellbeing, you need to find someone who you can not only love, but who will be good for you as well. To do that you need to be rational and realistic about what constitutes a good relationship. Relationships aren’t just about emotions, though those are important. They are also practical partnerships and you need someone who is willing and able to be responsible for their part of the partnership.

Love is the emotion that makes me want to be responsible to my relationships. My reason and rationality is what helps me to actually be responsible. Reason and rationality also helped me choose the right person to commit to so that I had a good partner I can trust. This allows me to enjoy all the blessings of the amazing emotion that is love without the heartache that so often accompanies it.

I don’t see love and reason as incompatible. I see them as combining to enhance what is good in my life. Do you have a story about love and reason? Please share!