The Marriage Podcast for Smart People

One of the most important aspects of marriage is creating a shared sense of purpose and identity with your spouse: a joint sense of meaning that helps couples face life together. This shared meaning is often expressed through the stories couples tell about their relationship. Couples naturally form their own interpretations of key events in their relationship and these become the stories which define their journey together. Creating joint purpose as a couple could take the form of running a joint business together, raising a family, jointly supporting a cause or getting involved in your local church. All these joint adventures can help you create a sense of meaning together, but marriage itself can also help you feel like your life has a purpose and give meaning to your actions.

Losing your spouse can be one of the most devastating experiences of anyone's life. And remarrying afterwards can be a daunting prospect as you are torn between your need to mourn and stay connected to your lost love and you continued desire for intimacy and the need to move on. Remarriage should not be seen as replacing your old spouse, but rather as creating a new bond and a new life. Your attachment to your old spouse is so deep that death cannot put an end to it, and this bond will continue to influence who you are. In this sense you do not lose that part of yourself, and your new marriages gives you the opportunity to expand and develop your sense of self even further, making you an even stronger and more fulfilled person than ever.

Perfectionism is a trait that's sometimes held up as a good thing: something that drives you to succeed and push yourself. But is that really the case? How does the need for perfectionism affect marriage when your spouse is constantly demanding impossible standards from you, or when you feel like you have to be perfect in order to be loved? Perfectionism comes in three kinds: believing that you yourself have to be perfect, believing that others should be perfect, and believing that others need you to be perfect. All three varieties can cause conflict and distress in marriage, as well as impacting your sex life and your capacity for intimacy. Luckily there are a variety of means by which you can overcome perfectionism and its impact on your marriage. Learning to change your communication style and learning to trust that your spouse willlove you despite your imperfections will allow you open up and create a more intimate, trusting marriage.

Join us for a special episode of the Marriage Podcast for Smart People as we take an in-depth look at sex addiction: What it is, how how it differs from normal, healthy sex, how it can be caused and what the options are for treatment.

Many people naturally find that passion and excitement decreases the longer your relationship lasts. But this certainly doesn't have to be the case! It's entirely possible to keep experiencing the same fiery romantic love all the way through your marriage that you do as newlyweds. Keeping the fire going is all about choosing to pursue intimacy and new experiences instead of settling into routine. Making fun, intimacy and growth your motivation and developing your self esteem can all help your marriage feel just as fun as the first few dates.

How does love affect the brain over time? Most people would think that love is at its most passionate at the start of a relationship, and that passion and excitement slowly settles into something more stable and companionate as time goes on. Research suggests there is some truth to this, and that there are indeed two separate systems in the brain for romantic love and companionate love, or partner attachment, and that each has a different role in creating healthy relationships. But it's not necessarily either-or: it's entirely possible to continue enjoying romantic love long into your marriage.

Fear can have a disastrous effect on any relationship, from increased conflict to reduced intimacy and skewed perceptions of how the relationships is doing. These kinds of fears are often coming from one of two places: fears about yourself — that you are unworthy or unlovable or fears about your spouse, and that they won't always be there for you. Both these fears stem from your attachment style — that blueprint of how relationships work that each of us form in childhood that can influence how we see relationships as adults. But our attachment style, and the corresponding fears and anxieties, can be changed and re-written in the context of a loving and supportive marriage.

Marriages where one of you is an introvert and one of you is an extrovert can present their own unique challenges. How do you spend your leisure time? How do you manage conflict, make decisions and organize your lives? Luckily, research shows that not only are introvert/extrovert marriages very common, they're also just as likely to be happy as marriages where the spouses are similar. There may be some differences and potential areas for difficulty, such as introverts needing to make sure their spouse knows they are valued, and extroverts making sure they don't dominate conflict, but overall there's no reason these marriages can't be thriving and passionate. Having a successful introvert/extrovert marriage is all about give and take, and learning to understand how you and your spouse think differently in different situations. It's also about seeing your differences as an opportunity for growth and complementing each other rather than as obstacles to overcome.

Menopause can be a difficult time for women, and it can create extra problems for your marriage. Higher rates of depression, stress sexual dysfunction and can all put strain on your relationship. But these problems don't have to stop you enjoying your sex life OR your marriage. In fact, research shows that a thriving, supportive marriage can actually reduce the severity of menopause symptoms. So creating a strong, conflict-free marriage is the best way to stop menopause having an impact on your life.

Pornographic images are everywhere in today's world, and porn addiction is destroying countless marriages and families. How can you create a marriage where pornography has no hold? Your social circle, your religious views and your upbringing can all affect your vulnerability to porn. But simply having a faith and hanging out in Christian circles isn't necessarily enough to remove temptation from your life: you need to have an active faith that you practice regularly and share with your spouse and family. The surest way to safeguard your marriage from porn is to create a worldview that sees pornography as the degrading, objectifying industry that it really is. Developing a mindset that values people for more than their attractiveness and looks to your spouse for intimacy and sexuality helps you establish a life where porn poses no temptation at all.

There are two views of marriage in western culture: as being the "happily ever after" that we all aspire to, and as being the end of personal freedom and the start of responsibility and boredom. But which of these views actually reflects reality, according to the research and stats? The good news is that research universally shows that marriage is a good thing and that getting married is one of the strongest predictors of having a happy life. Research also identifies several factors which contribute to the increase in happiness marriage brings, such as the increased support and friendship you get from your spouse and the shared sense of meaning and purpose you create. And not only is a happy marriage something to aim for in itself but it can also protect you against all kinds of hardships in life.

Couples from different racial or cultural backgrounds can face some unique challenges in their marriage. The stigma against such interracial couples in many societies and disapproval from family and friends can lead to isolation, and differences in financial and economic status can put further strain on your marriage. The hallmark of a successful cross-cultural marriage is the ability to build a shared worldview that acknowledges your different perspectives but strives to build a shared sense of identity. This sense of becoming "we" rather than "you" and "I" allows you to build a deep sense of trust and understanding which can overcome any difficulty your marriage may face.

Couples who have been through serious issues without ever finding a resolution in their marriages may be wondering if it's possible to move forward without re-visiting those past hurts. Is it possible to leave conflict unresolved and turn over a new leaf, even if there are issues that are still raw? Leaving conflict unresolved can be a risky strategy because the feelings of hurt and annoyance will always be there just below the surface and could boil over at any time. There are some strategies that couples can use to avoid conflict constructively, such as avoiding bringing up minor day to day issues and implicitly deciding that some topics should be declared taboo, but these strategies often have mixed results. Research shows that dealing with the past issues is almost always the better option, even thought it can be hard. Successfully confronting past issues and allowing them to heal is hard, but there are some questions and perspectives you can use to make it easier. You can't change what has happened, but by talking it through with your spouse you can work towards a resolution and figure out what needs to happen for you both to move on.

Public Displays of Affection (PDA) are a sensitive issue for many couples. How do you find a balance between what's socially acceptable, what you're both comfortable with, and what's good for your marriage? Research shows that all kinds of physical affection, both public and private, are good for marriage. PDA in a way that's non-sexual and is enjoyable for both spouses leads to increased marital satisfaction, better conflict resolution, reduced stress and a whole range of other benefits. But there are a variety of factors affecting how much PDA an individual couple may be comfortable with. These include everything from your culture to your upbringing and your perception of what other people think about your relationship. Talking about these issues and finding a balance that you're both happy with is the key to enjoying PDA to its fullest.

A common source of resentment and argument in many marriages is the division of household labor. Finding a fair way to share out the work that you're both happy with isn't always easy and there are a lot of factors to consider. Is there a best way to do this? Research shows that this issue is still split along traditional gender lines. Women, on average, do a lot more work around the house than men. Society's expectations on what is appropriate for men and women to do affects not only what we do, but what we prefer to do and the expectations we have for each other in marriage. The key to navigating this issue is splitting the work in a way that's fair, as opposed to equal. You need to decide who does what based on your preferences, ability, and availability so that you both think you're doing a fair amount. The way to do this is to adopt a communal mindset where you aim to do things out of concern for your spouse rather than keeping score of who does what.