10 Choices for a Better Marriage by Dr. Ron Welch

Author:Dr. Ron Welch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Love & Marriage;REL012050;REL012100
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

➜Sacrifice

The concept of sacrifice gets a bad rap in today’s world. People often look at sacrificing as losing the game or giving up and quitting. Making the choice to sacrifice for your partner doesn’t mean you are “losing.” In fact, it may be the key to winning in your relationship.

Scott Stanley has studied sacrifice for much of his career. He and his colleagues have discovered that sacrifice is an integral part of commitment and strength in relationships. People tend to be more willing to sacrifice if they see the relationship lasting and have a clear identity as a couple (for instance, as husband and wife). Specifically, they found that sacrifice in a marriage is a predictor of the success of the marriage.2

A famous quotation attributed to Henry David Thoreau goes like this: “Sacrificing your happiness for the happiness of the one you love is by far the truest type of love.”3 Hmm . . . what do you think about that? I know you had a reaction, positive or negative, when you read that.

On the one hand, giving of yourself to make your partner happy sounds like the unselfish thing to do, and that is what this chapter is all about. In fact, in the next chapter, I will even make the argument that focusing on your partner instead of yourself may be the best model of marriage we have.

On the other hand, something about the suggestion to “sacrifice your happiness” rubs us the wrong way. I am not sure I like the way the Thoreau quotation sets up the equation. Why does one partner have to give up happiness for the other to be happy? Can’t both parties be happy in a loving relationship? In fact, there are times when you can actually find more happiness in sacrificing for your partner, and I will talk more about that in the next chapter.

Sacrifice is often seen as a zero sum game in which one partner’s gains equal the other’s losses. That is not how marriage works. Marriage is more like the gestalt concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Working as a team, offering compromise and sacrifice to each other, and working toward the best solution to a problem can result in greater happiness and satisfaction for both husband and wife.

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