Successful Marriage?

Lifestyle Relationships
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There is often a big hooplah made here that arranged marriages are not always successful, even if they don’t end up in divorce. The argument put forward is that the marriage may have turned sour and the couple are just sticking together for the sake of kids/family/reputation etc. Its not a bad argument, I will grant you that. Makes sense and is reasonable.

However what is to say that this is not the case with other kinds of marriages too?

And more over, what is an objective criteria to judge when is a marriage successful or not?

Most of us use a few anecdotal examples around us and try to extrapolate it to the whole population, and in their minds score a point. Is that even reasonable? How can we possibly quantify whether people are happy/sad in their marriages?

At the same time, the rate of divorce is often thrown about as a reference point to show how many marriages actually failed. Its objective, because when someone is divorced, its pretty clear things didn’t work out. But when that statistic is disputed by saying “ya ya ya.. but there are many marriages in Pakistan which don’t end up in divorce but the couple lives sadly ever after”, what does that prove?

Granted there are highs and lows in almost all relationships, how do we define what makes up a successful marriage?

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successful marriage

Here is an initial list from my perspective, there could be other factors too, but these are a start.

1) where both parties are happy with the marriage
2) where both parties dont feel that there is a disproportionate amount of compromise on their part
3) where both parties do not have to unwillingly change their lifestyle due to the other person's pressure
4) where the marriage lasts

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The last part is probably the only objective and verifiable criteria, don't you think?

The rest are all judgemental.

For example, I have never quantified or kept a tally of how many times I or my wife compromised. I doubt anyone else carries their note book too. Its all basically anecdotal.

Happiness is also relative. Some days you are happy, some days you are not, for whatever reason. You get annoyed, repetitive, stressed, bad day at work, etc etc... there are so many things going on in life, all at the same time, how would you quantify your happiness with marriage?

Point is, does anyone really know, to some degree of precision and accuracy, how many marriages (percentage-wise) in a community/family/country/society are unhappy marriages but the couple decide not to get divorced?

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Re: Successful Marriage?

Faisal bhai i completely agree with u

whether a marriage lasts or not is the sole criteria for its success imho

wishing all the married GS folks a long happy married life inshallah :)

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i thnk shaddiiaan...are just another name of GAMBLE!
these dayz.

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Originally posted by Faisal: *
**The last part is probably the only objective and verifiable criteria, don't you think? *

Not necassirily, divorce is the most visible and publically available data, rest we dont know about unless you are a confidant of the husband or the wife.

*For example, I have never quantified or kept a tally of how many times I or my wife compromised. I doubt anyone else carries their note book too. Its all basically anecdotal. *

its not about keeping a score, it is about how you feel, if a woman was forced to do something different than she wanted ..i dunno, quit school, quit work, start hijab, stop hijab..

Happiness is also relative. Some days you are happy, some days you are not, for whatever reason. You get annoyed, repetitive, stressed, bad day at work, etc etc... there are so many things going on in life, all at the same time, how would you quantify your happiness with marriage?

its not a day thing, if you ask someone to objectively say are you happy with your marriage. have you and your partner tried to understand one another's issues and tried to solve them to the best of their ability. Does your partner treat you right? People may not be honest and upfront in answering those questions.

*Point is, does anyone really know, to some degree of precision and accuracy, how many marriages (percentage-wise) in a community/family/country/society are unhappy marriages but the couple decide not to get divorced? *

Faisal, i know marriages where the couple did not divorce either due to social pressure, or for kids sake. and this is not just in our generation either. I know people in my own family, cousins, uncles, aunts, and family friends where the marriage exists but because they have kids and because there is social pressure.

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Re: Re: Successful Marriage?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by irem: *
Faisal bhai i completely agree with u

whether a marriage lasts or not is the sole criteria for its success imho

wishing all the married GS folks a long happy married life inshallah :)
[/QUOTE]

sole criteria?

so a marriage which lasted where the husband physically abused his wife is a successful marriage in your opinion then?

shabaash..

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *

Not necassirily, divorce is the most visible and publically available data, **rest we dont know **about unless you are a confidant of the husband or the wife.

its not about keeping a score, it is about how you feel, if a woman was forced to do something different than she wanted ..i dunno, quit school, quit work, start hijab, stop hijab..

its not a day thing, if you ask someone to objectively say are you happy with your marriage. have you and your partner tried to understand one another's issues and tried to solve them to the best of their ability. Does your partner treat you right? People may not be honest and upfront in answering those questions.

*Faisal, i know marriages where the couple did not divorce either due to social pressure, or for kids sake. and this is not just in our generation either. I know people in my own family, cousins, uncles, aunts, and family friends where the marriage exists but because they have kids and because there is social pressure. *
[/QUOTE]
The bold parts are perhaps the most significant, because it brings us back to the point which is in my original post, that we base the assumption which is imperfect and anecdotal at best.

My point is, how fair it is to contrast extrapolation of a few isolated examples with hard statistics (divorce rates) to prove a point? Aren't we comparing apples and oranges - basically comparing a verifiable and objective data with imperfect and judgemental data?

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Faisal: *
**My point is, how fair it is to contrast extrapolation of a few isolated examples with hard statistics (divorce rates) to prove a point? Aren't we comparing apples and oranges - basically comparing a verifiable and objective data with imperfect and judgemental data?
[/QUOTE]

how is it an apples to oranges comparison, I see it as different sets of data, now the fact that the other set of data is not openly available does not make the data less important, it just makes the data hard to get.

divorce rate data is data you can get at a macro level, but the other set of data could only be available on a micro level to a few people.. yes you can not extrapolate it based on a few examples you are personally familiar with, although if there was a study done they can probably sample a representative group and give you a good basis for analysis.

although you can not extrapolate it to the wider population in some sort of percentages with solid reasoning behind it, you can however conclude that these other factors do have an impact yet we are unable to quantify them at this point. it does not make them irrelevant.. just unavailable
we dont know how many marriages which have not ended in divorce are successful marriages because there is no data available to show otherwise...

that is a very different statement from

marriages which have not ended in divorce are successful.

data inavailability does not mean that the hard to get data is not critical in the assessment.

because by the assumption that marriages that last are successful marriages would also include marriages which would ultimately end in divorce..so at some point in time, maybe even when you looed at them they were nto successful, but were failing, you just did not know..because you did not have the other set of data.

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Re: Successful Marriage?

Faisal bhai i totally agree wid u that there are millions of people living around the world that cope up with their spouses just to avoid disgrace or anything like that,

but that kinda relationship is more dangerous and exploiting for the whole family... even that is not termed as succesful marriage..

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Re: Successful Marriage?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Faisal: *

Most of us use a few anecdotal examples around us and try to extrapolate it to the whole population, and in their minds score a point. Is that even reasonable? How can we possibly quantify whether people are happy/sad in their marriages?

At the same time, the rate of divorce is often thrown about as a reference point to show how many marriages actually failed. Its objective, because when someone is divorced, its pretty clear things didn't work out. But when that statistic is disputed by saying "ya ya ya.. but there are many marriages in Pakistan which don't end up in divorce but the couple lives sadly ever after", what does that prove?

Granted there are highs and lows in almost all relationships, how do we define what makes up a successful marriage?
[/QUOTE]

If you're happy, you're successful.

However, I think alot of people don't realize that there are definitly relationship lows where people are not happy...miserable and near divorce...BUT there are people who get through this and are still married..and then happy.

I don't now how that works out. I remember reading somewhere that marriages that last have a couple where both partners are committed to the institution of marriage and want to stay married and make it work...and I can't remember the rest... I also know friends who have talked of their divorce years later and said that looking back, they could have worked through the problems, they were not big deals..they both just got overwelmed and "freaked out".

I don't know..the more I think about looking at others to judge how successful I am/or how I should percieve my marriage isn't the smartest thing...I am a unique person as is my husband and what works for us in our marriage is not what works in others..or would work for others..and thus what we are happy with...others may not be. So, I don't think there's one set thing that makes a successful marriage...rather committtment and shared goals...caring for the other person...love, is important but there will be times ( to quote others) love won't be enough or you won't be in love...uff i'm rambling..sorry! :)

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A successful marriage is the one where husband always agrees with his wife and if anything goes wrong its HIS fault. I will tell you that marriage is going to last for a loooooooong loooooong time :D