Why Do We Get Married?
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INTRODUCTION
After many years of research and consultation with married couples, I have discovered that the most difficult decision for any young person is the decision to get married. Marriage is a contract between the mind and body of two individuals and should not be entered into lightly. Many couples think of marriage as an escape to a better life, but are unprepared for the responsibilities of joining their lives with someone else.
However, if this decision is based on self-awareness, understanding, love and most importantly, knowledge, not just of self, but also of your potential life partner, then it is possible for a marriage to survive. Without this knowledge, the marriage will ultimately fail.
There are seven steadfast rules that I have stuck with throughout my thirty-five years of practice:
First Rule:
Distinguish between Need and Want:
When we decide and want to get married, we need to have the following personal qualities:
1) Self-awareness
2) Compassion
3) Honestly
4) Generosity
5) Low expectations
If we lack any of the above qualities, we are not ready to marry and should not marry. If we want to marry only for the sake of being married, we are making the assumption that married life will bring us happiness (we have to be happy with ourselves first, before we can be happy being married).
We need to be ready to accept the other person with all their good/bad qualities and not attempt to change that person. We usually want our partner to be like our “dream” mate; this will never happen and will result in unhappiness for both individuals.
We need to accept our partner the way that they are and lower our expectations. We also need to abandon our desire to be in control of everything in the marriage since the marriage life is full of conflict and misunderstanding that can only be exasperated by a controlling partner.
Marriage life is never the way we imagined it would be. It can be full of pleasant surprises as well as shocking revelations, not only about ourselves, but our partners as well.
We need to be both mentally and emotional prepared for the transition from being single to being married.
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About the Book
Why do people get married? Is it for the right or wrong reasons? Love? Money? Security? Fame? Loneliness? And why do so many marriages end in divorce? In this groundbreaking new work, Dr. Dowlatshahi draws on his more than thirty years of family and marriage counseling expertise to expose the do’s and don’ts of marriage, from before couples walk down the aisle, to financial matters and children, to advice on how to stay married in this hectic fast paced world.
About the Author
Dr. Iraj Dowlatshahi was born in Iran and immigrated to the United States to study psychology. He attended junior college in southern California and received his undergraduate degree in psychology from San Jose State University. He returned to Tehran and received his M.A. in Psychology before marrying and returning to the United States where he began his postgraduate work at University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from California Graduate School of Psychology and has been a marriage and family counselor for thirty years. He and his wife, Nooshin, live in the San Francisco Bay Area.