There’s a button somewhere inside me that I press when I want to spring into action. I’m most aware of this button when I’m relaxed, maybe lying in bed, stretched out in front of the telly, enjoying a hot shower. "Right," I tell myself, "The day needs to be seized. Inertia needs to be overcome. I need to crack on." I make a decision to get going and I’m off.
Making decisions has a huge impact on the way we think and behave. Say we decide to go for a Sunday afternoon walk. After we set off, it starts to rain. Because we made a decision, rain or shine, we’ll probably keep going. Had our plan been a little more tenuous – see how it goes – the rain might be enough to make us give up. The rain doesn’t change. The decision we made changes our attitude to it.
Commitment is all about making a decision. When we buy into the idea that we’re a couple with a future, we’re more likely to stick at it, enjoy it, and get through the more difficult times.
If we’re in a serious relationship, thinking about ourselves as a couple, an “us”, is also important. We have a new joint identity that we can value. We put one another first. We act as a team. A clear sense of future encourages us to look out for one another, to care about each other’s health and career, to sacrifice, to forgive.
All these are important aspects of successful relationships.
Understanding how commitment works helps make sense of my new research finding for the Marriage Foundation that shows the relationships of couples who marry before they have a child are the most stable.
Using data from Understanding Society, our largest national household survey, I found that three-quarters of couples who married before they had a child were still together when their child reached 14 or 15, compared to fewer than half of those who married after their child was born, and less than a third of those who never married at all. The mothers’ age and education made no difference.
What my finding establishes beyond doubt is that if couples want their best chance of staying together while they bring up their kids, they ought to make a decision about their future first.
I suspect many of those who marry after their child is born do so because it’s a nice thing to do or their family want it. ‘Sliding’, rather than ‘deciding’, into marriage means they have never quite bought into it.
So it’s not only marriage that is the big deal. It’s establishing a prior commitment before having a child.
Couples can be married or not when they start a family. But what couple can now argue that marriage doesn’t matter?
Churches need to regain their confidence in encouraging couples to do things in the right order. Nobody wants to judge. Nobody wants to speak up. But if you’re gentle and you talk about the importance of making decisions, that could ring a bell with people.
Harry Benson is research director for the Marriage Foundation
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User comments (4)
The questions in the Linneamenta for the Family Synod can shed a light here. One question might be summarised as What are we currently doing in our parishes to encourage family life?
If we are honest, the answer is very little, for many reasons., which we won't go into here, but the reality is that couples are not going to make a commitment to marry when our church and communities are so lukewarm in their welcome, support and encouragement of this central sacrament. When did you last hear a good homily about the vocation and gift of family and marriage? As a married (lay) man or woman when did you ever feel recognised, valued and affirmed in our Church?
Who are we to judge what finally motivates a couple to seal their love in marriage? It's many things, but most of all it's love, not legalities.
Yes; the Church can be gentle,but whenever a couple decide to marry, the key above is: ' thinking about ourselves as a couple, an “us” ---. We have a new joint identity that we can value. We put one another first. We act as a team.' This concept is so often missing. An analogy could be a rubber ball that rolls smoothly, but if that ball is severed, no section will roll along. An understanding of a new dual identity is necessary. Each party has to recognize that any action affects someone else. Without that sense of unity, every action will have a reaction.
Harry.
Nice try. When you want to promote a certain view you can always find the data to support it.
Marriage isn't what you suggest it is in all cultures and over the ages.
When Jesus was talking he was in a society that had very different ideas of marriage and his message has been as misinterpreted as the "You shall not kill" one.
It's not helpful to put forward a relationship model that does not understand the complexities of the times and its limitations for all of humanity.