When developing some tips and suggestions for a great marriage, Mike Woods (2001) posed the analogy that marriages are a lot like sailboats: as long as they are afloat, no one thinks twice of boarding and sailing away. However, this creates a problem. Woods says that upon closer look, many marriages are barely afloat or even “taking on water” and on their way down. He then posses the question “What if, like airplanes, all marriages had to submit to an annual review to determine their health? How many would be deemed safe? How many would be deemed hazardous?” How does a marriage stay away from this hazardous state? To determine this we look at the different views and opinions as to the aspects of what makes a happy marriage successful and how that success maintained.

In an age when divorce is becoming more and more popular, maintaining a marriage is becoming an even more important issue every day. Currently the probability that a marriage within the United States will end in divorce is between 50 and 67 percent (Canary & Stafford, 1994). This subject has recently attracted scholars and researchers who are interested in finding out the important keys needed to keep a rel

The third component deals with keeping a relationship satisfactory by being affectionate and sexually satisfied. Researchers have concluded that people often put more effort into maintaining romantic relationships than relationships held between family and friends. This is because people invest more of themselves and their time into romantic relationships; they become more intimate through self-disclosure and openness making them more vulnerable since, in essence, they have more to lose. People expect more out of romantic relationships because one’s partner is supposed to excite, comfort and love unconditionally (Guerrero, Andersen, & Afifi, 2001). Along with this comes the expectation of affection and satisfaction, both emotionally and sexually.

When the children are grown and out of the house is when the next change occurs in a marriage. This is usually referred to as the “empty nest syndrome.” After years of getting adjusted to having a family, all of a sudden they are alone again. It is just the two people, just the couple. No children to interrupt. Most couples say “now what?” The challenge for the couple now is to refocus from their roles as parents to their roles as partners (Arp & Arp). Many couples deal with this change by traveling a lot and seeing what they have been longing to see all those years that they were taking care of the children. Some retire and buy a mobile home and travel across the country. Some take up hobbies that they never had the time or the money to before.

This primarily means that conversations, small talk, or simply talk in general keeps the relationship in existence. Overall, “a multitude of everyday communicative interactive behaviors define and redefine the relationship” (Duck, 1994, p 52), our everyday talk is what keeps us on-going and basically defines the relationship, thus being marriage. Yet, the pragmatic point of view suggests that being together and communicating is not the only component to keep relationship in existence.

Now that we know that anger and conflict are inevitable in a marriage, how is it that couples stay together, and how do they handle or manage their anger or stress? Since conflict is hard to avoid, an equal score of 32 percent of the responses said that they manage their anger by either exercising or sleeping, others choose to fight (16 %), ignore (16%), read, drink, or cry (all 4%). We were curious to know how they thought their partners managed their anger, most of them said that they fight (20%), while others sleep (20%), exercise, have sex, walk away (all 8%), read or go out (both 4%). It would have been interesting to know how their partners really responded to anger and how they managed it, but because the survey was not necessarily direct to just couples, we got a broader point of view.

Some topics in this essay:
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