What is a Successful Marriage?

What is a Successful Marriage?

In today’s society, marriages that last a lifetime seem few and far between.  So many marriages end in divorce , in fact, there were  26, 577 divorces in the province of Ontario in 2001, and it is said that the fourth year of marriage is now considered the most likely year for a couple to divorce.  What has happened to people’s views of marriage?  My maternal grandparents (Grammie & Grampie) were married over 50 years, and my paternal grandparents (Oma & Opa) survived 60 years of marriage, as did Oma’s parents.  My in-laws also had a long lasting marriage of 41 years.  Are people choosing to believe that marriage is supposed to be easy?  Or has society’s views on marriage changed that drastically over the past 50 years?  Could people’s views on monogamy or spousal abuse play a factor?  Since most of today’s marriages are unlikely to survive the fourth year, I ask, exactly what constitutes a successful marriage?  Is it the 5 year mark? Or it is 10, 15, or 20 years?  Are the only successful marriages the ones ended only by death?  I think it is possible for a marriage to end in divorce but still be considered successful.  Ultimately I think a true measure of a successful marriage is not the duration, but the quality of the relationship in question.  If a couple can get divorced but salvage a long-lasting and genuine friendship, and continue to raise a strong family shouldn’t that relationship be considered successful?  I have very high hopes for my husband and me, and I hope that our families history of long-lasting marriages will work in our favour, but most of all I hope to strong and well-balance family.  I wonder what I’ll look like after 60 years of marriage.  Will I still be beautiful to my husband?  I hope so!

Word Count: 307

To see some statistics about divorce in Canada: Divorce Statistics in Canada (2001)