“Human beings are creatures of belonging which we achieve through three marriages. First, through relationship with other people and other things (especially and very personally, with another person in a relationship or marriage). Second, through work; and third, through understanding what it means to be yourself.’ David White, The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship.
For over fifty years I have helped people succeed in all three types of relationships. Like many, I married young. My wife and I were together for ten years and had two children before our marriage dissolved. After a time of pain and healing, I fell in love again and remarried. Looking back, I can see that one was a rebound relationship and it also ended.
Breakups are painful for everyone, but when you’re a marriage and family counselor who makes a living helping to fix relationships, it’s not only painful, it’s embarrassing. I talk about this on my website, MenAlive.com in an introductory video, “Confessions of a Twice Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Fortunately, I got my own help, worked through the unhealed trauma from my past, and learned what it really takes to have a successful marriage. My wife, Carlin, and I have been happily married for forty-four years.
We all want a happy and joyful life, but how to achieve it is often not clear and easy.
“If you must make a life choice, right now, to put yourself on the road to future health and happiness, what would it be?”
This question was asked by two world-renowned social scientists, Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD.
Dr. Waldinger is professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Dr. Schultz is the associate director. The Harvard study is the largest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. Launched in 1938, it offers the most scientifically-backed guidance for achieving a long life.
The latest findings are reported in Waldinger and Schulz’s book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Largest Scientific Study of Happiness. In a 2007 survey, millennials were asked about their most important life goals. Seventy-six percent said getting rich was their number one goal. 50 percent said their main goal was to become famous. More than a decade later, after millennials had spent more time as adults, similar questions were asked again. Fame was now lower on the list, but the top goals again included things like making money, having a successful career, and being debt-free.
What does the evidence from thousands of interviews over eighty-six years tell us? If we want a great life, what is the one thing that is more important than the others? The answer can be stated in three simple words: Build good relationships.
“In fact, good relationships are important enough that if we had to go through eighty-six years of Harvard study,”
say Drs. Waldinger and Schulz,
“and boil it down to a single principle for life, a life investment supported by similar findings in a wide variety of other studies, would be this:
“Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.”
The three marriages we must embrace to have a successful life
In his book The Three Marriages: Redefining Work, Self, and Relationship, David Whyte says,
“Despite using the word ‘marriage’ only for a committed relationship between two people, ‘in reality everyone is consciously or unconsciously committed to three marriages.’
Whyte goes on to say,
“There is this first marriage, the one we usually mean, to another. This second marriage, which can so often seem like a burden, to work or profession. and this third and probably secret marriage with a basic discussion within us. We can call these three separate commitments marriages because at their core they are usually lifelong commitments and, as I want to show, involve vows made either consciously or unconsciously.’
For most of my life I have tried to find a balance between my work life and my love life. The truth is, I was much better at work than I was at love. It’s not surprising. I did my first job when I was seven years old. My father had left when I was five years old, committed to a mental institution after an overdose of sleeping pills because he had become increasingly anxious and depressed because he could not live to support my mother and me.
With my father gone, my mother had to find work outside the home. We had little money beyond what was needed for necessities, so I learned early on to work for anything I really wanted. I was good at work, but like many who grew up without a father and mother at home, what I learned about a healthy and happy married life was minimal and I was too busy with my next professional success to have time to wonder. what it meant to know my true self.
For too many of us it feels like we’re moving up and down a ladder with our work and love competing for our attention, while our personalities are often neglected and forgotten. David Whyte does us all a great service when he suggests this basic reality:
“Each of these marriages is at its heart, non-negotiable. We should stop trying to balance one against the other, for example, taking away work to give more time to one partner or vice versa, and start thinking of every marriage as conversing with, challenging or encouraging others two. “
In the context of the three marriages, we can ask ourselves where we might need improvement. Here is a small scale that I find useful.
How would you rate yourself in all five areas? I feel successful in all five areas, but it has been a lifelong process of healing and learning. I still have a way to go, like all of us. My score was 24. How about yours?
Bringing It All Together
For me, I have seen success in the three marriages as a true hero’s journey, a journey that lasts a lifetime. My wife, Carlin, is part Native American. In our area, there are several women who weave beautiful baskets from local materials that grow in nature. A well-known basket weaver described a well-made basket as a metaphor for creating a great life.
See how he describes the process.
“Our life is a basket woven from many different threads, each necessary for a strong container. Every part of our lives is a leg in this basket. It is impossible to weave several strands at once. We must attend to the strand that requires our attention without losing awareness of others. Each strand will get our attention — not all at once. I know that I am paying attention where I need it most, knowing that I will then move on to the next requirement. The basket holds my life as I strengthen individual strands. I am no longer in a state of flux – I am weaving my life into something whole and wonderful.”
When I think about my life, there are times when I have to focus on my wife, Carlin, knowing that there are other parts of my life that will require my attention at another time. Other times, one of our five children or our seventeen grandchildren all for my attention. However, I can never forget my work and my commitment to my calling. Running through all of these “legs in my basket” is my commitment to my deepest self, getting to know who I really am and learning to love the man I am with all my flaws and gifts.
I’ve written about how I’ve incorporated these strands into the books I’ve written. If you are interested in learning about me and my workI suggest, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man, 12 Rules for Good Men, and Long Live Men: The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope for Humanity.
If you want learn more about me and my relationship lifeI suggest The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best Is Yet to Come, My Distant Dad: Healing the Wound of the Father of the Family, and Looking for love in all the wrong places: Overcoming romantic and sexual addictions.
If you would like to take one of my online coursesI suggest:
Navigating the 5 stages of love.
Treatment of irritable male syndrome.
Healing the wound of the father of the family.
If you want to join us mission to improve the lives of men and their familiesI suggest:
The moon for humanity and humanity.
If you want to do individual or couple counseling with me, drop me a note at Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Counseling” in the subject line. I will send you the information. If you want to receive my free weekly newsletter with updates and new articles, you can register here.
