The Nine Phases of Marriage: How to Make It, Break It, Keep It

By Susan Shapiro Barash

From the author of Toxic Friends-a groundbreaking look at how to understand your marriage and create a more satisfying relationship

Every marriage goes through nine phases. It is only by understanding the course our marriages run that we can truly begin to craft the perfect relationship. In The Nine Phases of Marriage, Susan Shapiro Barash breaks down and analyzes these phases, which are:
- Phase One: Passion and Longing
- Phase Two: Conforming: The Perfect Wife
- Phase Three: Real Life: Child Centricity
- Phase Four: Tension: One Bed: Two Dreams
- Phase Five: Distance: Two Beds: Two Rooms
- Phase Six: Fracturing: Midlife Divorce
- Phase Seven: Second Chances: Remarriage and Renegotiating
- Phase Eight: Balance: Concessions
- Phase Nine: Successful Coupling

With this essential knowledge, spouses can successfully navigate the natural pitfalls and perils of their marriages and embark on a true partnership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781250017239

Susan Shapiro Barash

SUSAN SHAPIRO BARASH is an established writer of nonfiction women’s issue books and has written more than a dozen books, including The Nine Phases of Marriage; Toxic Friends; Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets and Tripping the Prom Queen. She teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College. A well-recognized gender expert, she is frequently sought out by newspapers, televisions shows, and radio programs to comment on women’s issues. She also blogs for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. She lives in New York City.

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Preface

What Is the Twenty-First-Century Deal for the Wife?

Let’s face it, it isn’t always easy being a wife. I write this with some experience, since I myself have been married twice and have spent my adult life in two very distinct marriages. The first time I got married I was in my early twenties. Most of my friends weren’t married yet and were busy being single, flocking to cities to start their careers. I remember running into a college acquaintance on my second wedding anniversary who remarked that she heard I’d gotten married. I told her I’d also had a baby girl. She looked at me in wonder and asked why had I done this, what was the rush? This was in the early eighties, a period of flux in terms of women and work, women and marriage; the concept of life/work balance was not yet a fully formed dilemma for women. Mostly what I felt that night was misunderstood, as if those who had not signed on for wifedom couldn’t possibly understand what it entailed.

In those days, women were building careers and applying to graduate schools in unprecedented ways, but the safeguard of marriage was clearly in the ether as well. Twenty months after my daughter was born, my son was born. I was deeply invested in the marriage/wife business, swept up with the life of the wife—taking care of little children, pleasing a husband, writing in what stolen hours I could find. By the time my third child, a daughter, was born, five years after my son, I felt that three children might as well have been ten. During this breeding period, I had established a bevy of friends who also had husbands and children. I began to notice that everyone’s husbands seemed cranky and less forgiving than they’d been just a few years earlier. Meanwhile, my friends, the wives, had now become doubly stressed, but stoic—purposely chipper and intent on pleasing all family members, including, in some cases, even their mothers-in-law.

Few of us wives dared to disclose a negative thought, divulge a disloyal feeling. No one said it was hard to raise small children, that her sex life was precarious, that she stuck with her husband for the security, that she suspected her husband of having an affair. No one spilled forth that she was lonely or overwhelmed as a wife, that her husband was controlling, that she was worried about money, that a colleague at her part-time job had caught her eye. Anyone who got divorced was a pariah in our group—practically diseased. It was too threatening to mothers of young children who shared a rarefied universe to hear of such defection; we were too deeply entrenched in our wife/mother bubble to tolerate it.

If I ever had any doubts or dared confide any uneasiness at this juncture, my mother and my aunts reeled me in. They reminded me I was a member of a coveted, age-old club, a time-honored institution, one that defines women, stamps them with a seal of approval, and offers an idealized version of life ever after. So what if your marriage went through all sorts of inexplicable stages—Lucky you, you were married.

The Truth About Being a Wife

Neither the reveries nor the compromises of my first marriage lasted for me, and after much soul-searching, I filed for divorce when my youngest child was seven. For me this was one of the most painful periods of my life, filled with remorse and murky memory, damage and despair. I didn’t glibly dismantle my family; my marriage had completely deteriorated—it had no viability. I was still female, still a mother, still a daughter, a writer, a sister, a friend, but I was no longer a wife. Oddly enough, not being a wife loomed large and sinister—it was a profound loss of identity. A few of my married friends dropped me, and I made new friends, among them single women, divorced or widowed. As I got to know these women, I realized that they were unhappy with the status quo; their goal was to be married, and they spoke endlessly of being a wife again.

And in the years that followed, for my research, I have listened to a varied group of women beyond my own circle talk about their lives—with marriage inevitably part of the conversation. Most recently, two hundred women in this study, from small towns, suburbs, and cities, ranging in age from twenty-one to eighty-five years old, expressed that a love relationship, preferably a marriage, is a big piece of their lives. Some interviewees were realistic, seasoned, and sophisticated; some naive and hopeful. That isn’t to say that others weren’t disappointed the first time around or that young women assumed that it was a slam-dunk; rather, it was the happily-ever-after aspect that was ubiquitous, that got everyone’s attention. These women reported that:

• 80 percent of wives begin their marriages believing they are based on romantic love.

• 70 percent of wives express unhappiness and dissatisfaction (emotional, sexual, financial) in their marriages over time.

• 60 percent of wives feel that they’ve married for the wrong reasons.

• 55 percent of wives say they wouldn’t marry their mate if they had it to do all over again.

• 85 percent of women yearn to be married at some point in their lives.

After I had compiled the statistics, I felt that the complexity of these feelings had to be addressed. I was curious to know what it is about marriage that makes us want it so intensely, and why a faction of women say they have grown apart from their husbands, while others are content with their husbands for decades. Although I anticipated a natural progression for each phase, I wanted to investigate those wives who felt uneasy after five years, others who reported a disconnect from their husbands after ten or fifteen years, and those who finessed every phase. If we are able to look closely at ourselves as wives at every stage of our marriages, we may be able to find a middle ground and establish better bonds with our husbands.

Nine Phases Rolled into One Marriage

Since my second marriage, my second chance, took place fifteen years ago—two years after my divorce was finalized—I’ve come to see that marriage, with or without children, is challenging. I watch myself play the good wife, I remain idealistic, and like many of the wives with whom I’ve spoken, I am capable of acrobatic feats. Sure, I’m older and wiser, and the common snafus of everyday life are more apparent. I realize there is a natural progression to love relationships—in theory. Because I’m also part of a culture that spins marriage for women today—and this applies to young wives as well as wives married twenty years and more.

Thus, the role of the wife is in play with plenty of societal prescriptions—as if we’ve shifted gears for the twenty-first century, added new requirements, but are still paying heed to the old rules. We may marry later, become part of a dual working couple, put off childbirth, decide not to have children at all, remarry once or twice, and with any of these choices, our hopes of success don’t lessen. Few of us can deny that the pressure is on for wives to value their marriages, glamorize them as celebrities do, and when the going gets tough endorse the improvement plan. Could it be that although we can’t give up the dream, we don’t have the skills or understanding to make it work for us?

To this end, I have devoted each chapter to one of the nine phases of marriage from the wife’s perspective. I believe that by seeing ourselves in various phases and identifying with other wives whose experiences echo ours, women are at a great advantage. It is then that we face the pros and cons head-on in order to formulate fresh options. Women who can create an intersection of knowledge, self-awareness, and personal power can better sustain their marriages and adapt as wives. These informed wives will pick and choose their battles, realize when the marriage is in jeopardy, divorce and remarry if they wish, and engineer a beneficial relationship with their husbands based on symmetry and mutual respect. Whatever phase you are in, it is not too late to have a better understanding of your role as a wife and a more satisfying marriage.

Phase One

Passion and Longing

• Are you a die-hard romantic?

• Did you have to have this man as your husband?

• Were you raised to believe your husband would be your prince and savior?

• Did you have a big storybook wedding (or do you feel cheated that you did not?)

• Do you consider yourself one half of a romantic entity?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then passion is an important component of your marriage.

You and your husband fell in love six years ago, when you first met. In many ways, it was like a dream: You couldn’t take your eyes off him and there was the promise of what was to come. After a steady, respectful courtship you moved in together, which was thrilling, a milestone. You both were in a romantic mode, and after a year of living together, you became engaged.

The wedding plans took on a life of their own; they were consuming, almost breathtaking, as you moved closer to the most important day of your life. Every aspect of the wedding mattered to both of you—you vetoed your mother’s and grandmother’s advice when you knew your vision with your fiancé trumped their vision. At times during the engagement period, there were a few dramas—a friend who was offended she wasn’t asked to be a bridesmaid, your future mother-in-law who wanted the wedding shower her way.

Throughout, your husband-to-be was a rock and it made you feel incredibly protected—you were a couple, united no matter what and madly in love. It was as if you shared a notion of passion as primary, determined to hold on to that intoxicating feeling. Although you’ve heard enough women say the honeymoon is over, it isn’t like that for you. On the eve of your second wedding anniversary, you’ve never lost sight of the goal—to be happily married to this man with whom you are in love.

Proper Passion + Love = Marriage

I can honestly relate to the composite above, since both times I married for love, totally sold on the idea that being in love meant one should be married. My first wedding day was choreographed by my mother, and I had very little input. It was a thrilling time, as if I were walking on air. I was also not very discerning; in those days, the mother-knows-best concept had some weight. My mother had eloped during the war and my first wedding was the wedding she’d never had. My first husband, who was thirteen years my senior, had been married before, and for me there was this lingering sense that he’d already done the wedding go ’round. I remember being at Bloomingdale’s together to enlist in the bridal registry. I was keenly aware while picking out china and flatware that he’d seen it all.

We were married on a Sunday afternoon at the now-defunct Tavern on the Green in New York City. I had a few friends there, but mostly the guests were friends and family from my parents’ and in-laws’ guest lists. My parents were the hosts, and my in-laws had hosted a rehearsal dinner the evening before. Everything was by the book, including when my closest friends and I all crammed into the dressing room at the end of that fateful afternoon. My friends unbuttoned the delicate silk buttons on the back of my high-necked organza-and-lace gown, loosened the bustle, and helped me step out of my peau de soie bridal shoes. One friend whispered in awe, That’s it. Now you’re his wife. I entered the arena gladly.

And after listening to the young wives for this chapter more than thirty years later, it’s obvious that the way I felt on my first wedding day is how most brides still feel. What I brought with me to my second wedding was an acute sense of hope and determination, wisdom and romance. My present husband and I had both been married once before and were on equal ground, entering a second marriage together. We planned everything as a team: We chose my engagement ring together, mulled over the font and wording on the invitations, the songs for the band, the venue for our wedding, the menu. In retrospect, both experiences were loaded with anticipation and reflective of the decades in which they occurred.

By the time I was remarried in 1997, brides, whether first-, second-, or third-timers, had become more hands-on about their weddings. Demure weddings devised by proper mothers, as my first wedding had been, were no longer in vogue. Brides had developed strong opinions and a specific vision of how their weddings should be, including the gown. I wore a long, slinky, cream-colored scoop-neck, sleeveless fishtail dress that was not from the bridal department but straight off the rack of generic evening gowns. This had become the style—less demure, a more sexy bride (this look would last until April of 2012, when Kate Middleton would marry Prince William in a long-sleeved lace gown that combined pristine with form-fitting), and I was part of the crowd. My second husband-to-be and I pooled our friends for the guest list, orchestrated the entire affair, and split the cost.

Marriage, the last vestige of church and state, is testimony to our commitment to each other and the culmination of profound love. According to the U.S. Census, today more than two million marriages take place each year. For women, as reported by the Pew Research Center, the median age of first marriage is 26, and for men it’s 28. The average cost of a wedding soars to $26,327, according to an article by Grace Wong for CNN Money entitled Ka-ching! Wedding Price Tag Nears $30,000. The cost of wedding gift registries is $19 billion per year, and the cost of weddings themselves is $72 billion, according to the Web site The Wedding Report.

The Passion Sale

Erotic love has a hold on us in ways we can’t explain or imagine until it hits us. We know this deep, passionate feeling as love at first sight—an overwhelming desire. In our society, we take this passionate, sexual longing (think Romeo and Juliet) and move it forward so that what begins as eros—an immediate sexual attraction—now incorporates other, more practical, aspects of a love relationship—intimacy, friendship, trust. Women learn early on in their lives that having a serious boyfriend is a means to an end. This is what is sold to us; these passionate feelings we share are expected to kick into marriage.

It rings true in fairy tales, especially Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, where the justice of it all, in the form of passion, longing, and bliss, rules the day. Novels for centuries have offered happy endings, too. Jane Austen’s nineteenth-century novel Pride and Prejudice gives us Elizabeth Bennet, in search of a husband. When she meets Mr. Darcy, who is eligible, attractive, and wealthy, she initially mistakes his aloof manner for disinterest. This is why this book is evergreen; the discovery of an underlying attraction and passion between two people that results in marriage is quite the draw.

Moving into the twenty-first century, the packaging of passion with marriage is underscored in the ABC reality show The Bachelorette (a spin-off of The Bachelor, which first aired in 2002). Here we have one attractive young woman who gets to choose her potential husband from twenty-five young, eligible men. Not only are these winsome men eager to be chosen, but the bachelorette, who has all the power, dates and romances several men at a time, eliminating them as she goes along. While this could be viewed as a female fantasy, the goal of finding your mate in the most glamorous and romantic settings is also the way that most women hope, perhaps on a less lavish scale, to begin their romances that lead to marriage.

Choreographing the Wedding

Along with more outspoken brides today is the daunting task of creating wedding as theater. Brides are on a quest for a flawless wedding—they have a specific vision, spun partly from the media, the family, and the culture at large. When Kate Middleton’s engagement to Prince William was announced in November 2010, we had a firsthand look at a couple in love and very involved in their wedding plans with a relatively short engagement of five months. The fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton had been dating since 2003 and had lived together in North Wales at the prince’s home makes it all the more familiar for many brides-to-be.

And while there has always been the attitude that one’s engagement and wedding make the bride a kind of princess, the influence of Kate Middleton as fiancée and bride is tremendous. In March 2011, during the countdown period before the royal wedding on April 29, 2011, an article entitled The Ultimate Reality Show ran in The Wall Street Journal announcing that two billion TV viewers would be able to watch the coverage of the wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Add an expected 400 million for online streaming and radio and the number would swell to nearly 35% of the world’s population, wrote journalists Amy Chozick and Cecilie Rohwedder.

In the case of the young royals, their wedding was all about romantic love. Romantic love has such sway that Prince William was able to choose his bride and resist an arranged marriage (unlike his father only a generation ago). This popular view of modern marriage obliterates the long-standing historical doctrine that marriage was for political and financial gain. Marriage as a business has fallen by the wayside and love affairs—where passion and longing rule—are at a premium, launched with the wedding. Wedding plans are artfully threaded, carefully constructed, and filled with promise. What has become de rigueur for brides today are the