A Marriage Therapist's Blog

 

Thoughts on Marriage Counseling

 

The Importance of a Happy Marriage

I read a great piece by David Brooks in the March 30 issue of The New York Times. Rather than summarizing it in my words, I’ll just quote Mr. Brooks.

Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.

This isn’t just sermonizing. This is the age of research, so there’s data to back this up. Over the past few decades, teams of researchers have been studying happiness. Their work, which seemed flimsy at first, has developed an impressive rigor, and one of the key findings is that, just as the old sages predicted, worldly success has shallow roots while interpersonal bonds permeate through and through.

My postscript would be simply to point out that the best thing you can do for yourself is to get (or keep) your marriage healthy. Marriage counseling can help!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 9:32 pm and is filed under About Marriage Therapy.

2 Responses to “The Importance of a Happy Marriage”

  1. BK Says:

    I couldn’t agree more with David Brooks. When we have professional setbacks, it would definitely make a great different to come back home to a supportive wife who would one you the moral support and encouragement; it will give one the motivation to move on with greater challenges in life. On the other hands, life would be much less fulfilling if one do not have someone to share that happiness.

  2. Luvely*All*Ova Says:

    Love the article by Mr. Brooks and I couldn’t agree more with BK’s response. Now we just need to learn how to have a happy and fulfilling marriage. A decade later it seems to get worse not better and the sad part is that a good marriage is so important to many of us.

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