Foundations for a Successful Marriage: Understand These Principles and Improve Your Relationship!

By Mark H. Bayer Ed.D.

This book covers five key areas which will determine if a marriage has the greatest potential of being rewarding. Marriage is a balance of these factors which will either add or detract from the relationship. The better these areas function together the more rewarding the relationship can be. Although these five areas are typically common to books on marriage, the author seeks to look at the core issues behind each topic. For example, communication is more than just talking. Communication must include being willing to hear your partner rather than just listening to them. The goal is to maintain a positive attitude while understanding that no couple will have a marriage free of problems. With this foundation, the couple can better understand the weakest areas in their marriage and work on improving them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479795673

Mark H. Bayer Ed.D.

Dr. Bayer has spent decades studying human nature, marriage, and the importance of finding an individual's gifts and developing them. Mr. Bayer has two undergraduate degrees, one from Kansas State University and another from William Jewell College. His masters degree is from Central Baptist Theological Seminary and his Doctorate is from Lael College and Graduate School. Dr. Bayer has done seminars on the above topics for over ten years. Dr. Bayer also has an interest in art, photography, history of the motorcycle, and religion. Mark and his wife, Jean, have been married for over 40 years and have four grown children and three grandchildren.

Book preview

Foundations For A

Successful Marriage

Understand These Principles

and Improve Your Relationship!

Mark H. Bayer Ed.D.

Copyright © 2013 by Mark H. Bayer Ed.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2013902827

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-9566-6

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-9565-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-9567-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 02/19/2013

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE      The five basic areas which will make or break a marriage

CHAPTER TWO      The impact of personality within relationships

CHAPTER THREE      The development of good Communication in marriage

CHAPTER FOUR      Intimacy: emotional and sexual harmony in marriage

CHAPTER FIVE      Problem resolution within marriage

CHAPTER SIX      The impact of our human nature on our relationships

CHAPTER SEVEN      Applying these truths to your relationship

CONCLUDING STATEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THANKS TO CATHY Bone, Brittan Bowman, and my wife Jean for your editorial help. Special thanks to Fred Herron, Senior Pastor, Vineyard Church of Kansas City and Jim Riegel, Pastor Emeritus, Vineyard Church of Kansas City for supporting my endeavors.

PREFACE

I BELIEVE THAT the traditional marriage model is not only a historically proven format, but it is one which has worked well throughout the centuries. However, problems may arise, not with the structure of the marital relationship, but with many who engage in the practice of marriage. All of life includes tradeoffs, and this is certainly true within marriage. The understanding that we all have imperfections goes a long way to explain the imperfections of life. Many of the people I have known through the years who deny or want to cover up their own imperfections, possess the greatest amount of them. Some of the nicest, most pleasant people I have known in my lifetime are the ones who focus on positive things, rather than the negative things of life. There is nothing worse than blame oriented people. A good marriage is not determined by individual perfection or the ability to blame your problems on a spouse. Marriage is a partnership between two imperfect people living in an imperfect world. Marriage is about enjoying life together, enjoying what each individual can put in the relationship and having someone to be with during the tough times. Marriage is about giving and receiving as well as having together times of both struggle and success. Marriage is a progression of two different individuals growing through their life together. Sometimes there are two steps backwards for every one forward step, but hopefully, the steps forward far exceed those which go in other directions. Often the problem is that of commitment. An investment counselor showed me once that to really make a good return on your investments, you must stick to an investment plan. If you back out when the returns are low, you lose when the stock market begins to grow again. I think many couples bail out of marriages that could return to emotional health with a little work. By backing out they create a pattern that causes them to fail in future relationships. After several failures or divorces, it becomes easier to give up trying than to make the appropriate adjustments to save the relationship. This book is about accepting the imperfections that both spouses possess and making the best of your marriage anyway. If you are unmarried, your next partner will most certainly be imperfect also. At least you will see them (the imperfections) more clearly within the first year of the relationship! Here is the plan I am pushing: find a potentially satisfactory mate, get to know them, determine if you can live with their human flaws and then pursue the relationship if you can accept their defects. If not, start over again. If you marry this flawed person, understand that you have your own imperfections which impact your partner as well. After you have married, learn to support each other and build your life together. It’s usually not simple or easy to build a successful marriage, but life itself is not simple either. Most good things require sacrifice and a good deal of effort.

I challenge you to read this book and apply all that you can to your marriage. If you are not married, I think this book will give you some helpful insight if you ever do decide to marry. Even if you never get married, I think this book will help you to better your relationships with other people.

INTRODUCTION

It takes two to make a marriage a success

and only one to make it a failure.

Herbert Samuel

WELL OVER A decade ago, while developing a course on marriage enrichment, I was unsure of what boundaries I wanted to stay within. I wanted to be culturally relevant and socially accepting, but most of all, I wanted to deal with the core materials that I had been studying. I also wanted to be true to what most interested me regarding this topic. I am a Christian, but I am very careful not to encourage people to assume that this means I believe one way or another about any topic. I don’t want to argue my beliefs but rather, talk about what I have found to be true regarding the marriage relationship. After much thought, I determined that I wanted to focus on the historic, traditional, monogamous, heterosexual, and American marital relationship. There you have it. There shouldn’t be any reason to misunderstand what group I’m referring to unless you just want to be contentious. This is where my interest lies, and where my studies have been focused. I hope that my findings can help or challenge people in this traditional group.

Many of the principles I will discuss have a much greater application than the boundaries of this book or its specific audience. I think many of the truths which will be discussed have an almost universal value. A good book on business management will likely discuss some principles which could actually help your marriage, and this book on marriage might have a few challenging ideas which could help you in your business. The challenge is to become more aware of who you are and how you function as a person. It can also help you in developing a better intimate understanding of yourself. Most of all, the goal is to become a more honest person through self knowledge and personal reflection. A marriage can only become as good as the two people who have entered into the union. By better understanding yourself, you can impact your relationship greatly.

One of the toughest challenges we face as people is to become more inclusive, rather than remaining individuals who are exclusive. This is the same as being either a more open-minded or closed-minded person. We typically determine what we want to accomplish (or have accomplished), what we want to believe (especially about people), and how we want to project ourselves (the way we want others to see us) and then we seek to make these prerogatives into realities. The more we limit our views and experiences, the less potential we have to see real change. I am not saying that we need to be accepting of everything; I certainly am not. I am saying that we need to be open, honest, self-challenging, and reflective about what we believe and why, especially as to how these qualities apply to ourselves! Women, you shouldn’t assume that most men are selfish and oversexed, and men, don’t assume that most women are controlling and excessive talkers. There are plenty of selfish, quiet women and controlling, minimally sexual men in the world. For your marriage to become better, you need to be open to personal change. Old patterns die hard, but they must still die. Being more transparent allows you to be open to personal change and possibly see things that couldn’t be noticed otherwise. Being a closed person prevents you from seeing yourself as you really are. We must be open to change because the world is in constant change itself.

Finally, this material is primarily from my personal years of study, research, discussions, counseling, notes, and observations. Therefore this writing will not be filled with quotes from other writers, theories from various studies, or academic findings on the topic. Instead, my intention is to be more practical than academic, easy to apply than intellectual, and usable rather than complex.

Hopefully you will find a specific area or even numerous topics that will help you to see yourself or your spouse in another light. My goal is to pass along information which could be challenging but helpful, providing some insight into old but relevant topics.

CHAPTER ONE

The five basic areas which

will make or break a marriage

When a marriage work’s nothing on earth can take it’s place

Helen Gahagan Douglas

FIVE KEY AREAS have evolved from my Doctorial Dissertation entitled Watershed Issues Impacting Contemporary Marriages. This original writing dates back to 1996. Afterwards, I developed a seminar called Watershed Issues That Will Make Or Break A Marriage. In both my Dissertation and my seminar, I covered the following six key issues: communication, the ability to solve problems, maintaining commitments, sexuality, having realistic expectations, and being able to deal with the demands of contemporary society. Over time I added topics such as dealing with addictive behaviors, determining marital tradeoffs, forgiving your spouse, dealing with escalating anger, dealing with disappointments, blended family issues, expectations, the impact of children, financial harmony, and the significant differences between the sexes and personalities. At this point in time, I have reduced my material to five key areas which incorporate materials from all the topics I have covered over the past several decades. The five core areas are the following: the significance of personality, the importance of communication, the need for positive problem resolution, the need for genuine intimacy, and the impact of our human nature on our relationships. These areas must be functional and operate with some positive regard in order for a relationship to be fulfilling and long lasting. When these areas are functional, maintain some level of harmony, and develop in a positive direction, a relationship will be on solid ground.

Whether we are considering four, five, six, seven, or even eight principles, the issue remains the same. We all have some good qualities, some bad qualities, and some undeveloped qualities which impact how we see ourselves and others. We commonly misjudge our qualities and their values. We frequently overrate our assets and often underrate our spouse’s qualities. The opposite can also be true. We often don’t fully understand what we bring to a relationship and underrate what our spouse is putting into the marriage. We have something to contribute to the marriage, and we have things we want out of our relationship. Often an individual doesn’t really know what they want in a relationship or the values they have to offer another person in a marriage. Our wants often exceed our partner’s ability to provide them. The bottom line is in order to have a good marriage, certain key areas must have some basic harmony and balance. Furthermore, we can’t have everything our way. We must also offer something to a prospective spouse as well. What an individual lacks in one area, he or she must add to in another. The balance sheet must continually adjust over time as well. I knew of a woman who married a man because of the financial security she thought he would offer her. Within a decade, surprisingly, she had excelled his career and income level. Their marriage worked out fine because he became an exceptional father to their children, which provided something else of great value to their relationship.

One of the core problems found in many relationships is this-a couple will marry when they are very young, and their needs are not fully developed or understood. Because they have not developed an understanding of themselves, as they mature and become more aware of who they are and what they want, they may determine that they married the wrong person. If the couple is older, a similar situation may occur. They have a better understanding of what they want but have expectations beyond what they can receive. In this case, it’s easy to see others through your personal needs lens and not from a more rational perspective. Finally, mature adults often have trouble assessing a good mate because of the long term patterns they have practiced throughout their life. Furthermore, people often live under a cloud of expectations which have materialized as things they think they want. Significant life experiences often cloud their ability to