The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work

by Eli J. Finkel

The tendency of contemporary Americans to place so much responsibility for our social and psychological fulfillment on one relationship turns the marriage into something of a crucible.

agree that many of us—perhaps most—would benefit from considering ways that we might ask less of our marriage. Such recalibration won’t make our marriage flourish at the summit, but it can buy some time and goodwill to get us through fallow periods.

This is the idea underlying Shel Silverstein’s illustrated book The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, which argues that we are best equipped to love when we come from a place of completeness rather than from a place of incompleteness—that optimal relationships emerge when two fully functioning people seek to experience the world together rather than when two partially developed people look to each other to become whole.

Two complete people are better than 1.5

It appears that highly independent people feel stifled by lots of time with their partner, a problem that appears to be mitigated by living apart.

Having a robust social network is a surprisingly strong predictor not only of psychological health, but also of physical health, including longevity.

Wow - on Social Networks

Indeed, consensual nonmonogamy is a relatively extreme approach to recalibration. It’s often wise to start with an approach more on the scale of finding a tennis buddy or a monthly dinner date. Still, we’ll consider consensual nonmonogamy in some detail because of the recent surge of interest in the topic, both among social scientists and in society at large, and because it is the optimal option for some couples.

Perhaps surprisingly, consensually nonmonogamous participants reported lower jealousy and higher trust than their monogamous counterparts, differences that were small but statistically significant.

These results align with those from other studies: Relationship quality (with the sole or primary partner) tends to be comparable in monogamous and consensually nonmonogamous relationships, and the dissimilarities that do exist suggest that consensually nonmonogamous relationships have slightly higher relationship quality.*

The central point is this: Humans are cultural animals, and our mating psyche is flexible. Is monogamy realistic? Of course it is. Millions of people have till-death-do-us-part monogamous marriages that are immensely fulfilling.* But there’s no question that the human mating psyche also includes substantial proclivities toward nonmonogamy, and cultivating a healthy nonmonogamous relationship is also realistic.

If we elect to adopt a monogamy norm in our own marriage, we should probably appreciate the magnitude of that commitment. We should consider either what other things we’re willing to forgo in our marriage or what additional investments we’re willing to make for the arrangement to be fulfilling, perhaps including efforts to keep our bodies fit and, in some cases, to have sex even when we’d rather not.

Exactly - if you want to be monogamous you’ve got to step it up

Few of us will elect to adopt the normative marriage structure of 1950, much less 1750, but we can fruitfully resurrect or adapt some features of those earlier marriage structures for our own marriage.

It suggests that having high expectations regarding our marriage’s ability to fulfill our higher-altitude needs is beneficial when it can actually do so, but harmful when it can’t.

Summary of he advice in the book

Specifically, he tested the hypothesis that high expectations benefit the relationship when problems in the marriage are benign, but harm the relationship when problems are serious.

Good point, just as in any relationship

Spouses experiencing benign problems were happier when they had higher rather than lower expectations, whereas spouses experiencing serious problems were happier when they had lower rather than higher expectations.

short, as suggested by the all-or-nothing theory, it seems that spouses with high expectations regarding higher-altitude need fulfillment have especially fulfilling marriages if the relationship functions smoothly, but especially unfulfilling marriages if it doesn’t.

“There isn’t just one true and proper way to love, to relate, to bond, to touch. Any style of relationship is the right one, as long as it’s a decision made by the whole person and not the hole in the person.”

If we depend on him or her to help us meet a large proportion of our higher-altitude needs, periods during which he or she is unavailable are likely to be especially challenging for us. Third, our interdependence with our spouse means that stressful periods for us are likely to be stressful for him or her, too. In

Shared misery can bring us closer together, but it’s risky for those periods when our own personal resources are depleted to be periods when the resources of our primary source of support are also depleted.