2297: Dear Marriage, Humanity Wants a Divorce from You by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Marital Advice & Communication

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[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Optimal Relationships Daily. Dear Marriage, Humanity Wants a Divorce from You

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr.KellyFlanagan.com

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello everybody, I'm Greg Audino, your host and narrator. Very happy to be with you once again on

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_01]: a Sunday. Thank you so much for making some time to tune in over the weekend, and I'll keep this

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: intro nice and short for you. Let's get right to the post as we optimize your life. Dear Marriage,

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Humanity Wants a Divorce from You by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr.KellyFlanagan.com

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Dear Marriage, There is a demographic time bomb about to explode in Japan.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_01]: The population of Japan is predicted to drop from 127 million people to 88 million people by 2065,

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and to 51 million by 2115. Last year in Japan, there were less than a million births for the

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: first time in recorded history. Soon, Japan will have almost as many senior citizens as

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_01]: able-bodied workers. Japanese economists are terrified. Why is this happening? Are Japanese

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: couples simply having fewer children? Or something else going on? Something else is going on.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: The number of Japanese men planning to marry has dropped from 67% to 39%,

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and the number of Japanese women planning to marry has dropped from 82% to 59%.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This kind of change is not totally unheard of. Over generations and across the centuries,

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: attitudes toward marriage have fluctuated dramatically. However, this change has

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: not happened over three centuries or even three generations. It's just happened in three years.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Dear Marriage, Young people in Japan are no longer divorcing themselves from each other.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: They're quickly divorcing themselves from you. And Japan is just the canary in the coal mine.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm writing this letter to you because most of humanity appears to be writing an entirely

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: different kind of letter to you. A Dear John letter. Increasingly, it seems, we're planning

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: to end our relationship with you. We're splitting up with you, and young people in particular are

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: leaving you en masse. Walking out, moving out. The whole thing is very complicated.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The end of every relationship always is. But as a marriage researcher and marital therapist,

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: here's my analysis. People are leaving you because you did not give them what they wanted.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I know the feeling. You didn't give me what I wanted either.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: When I got married, I wanted you to make me feel like I was an adult.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: But I thought marriage and maturity were synonymous. I wanted to feel like I had arrived.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But my arrival at the marriage altar was just another beginning. That has been difficult

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: to accept. When I got married, I wanted you to make me feel finally stable in my life.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Secure in my own skin, and safe in the world. And yet slowly, I discovered you to be dangerous,

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: in the way any unpredictable adventure is dangerous. In marriage, we are asked to give our all

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: to something that may end up in disaster. There is very little stable, secure, and safe about that.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: When I got married, I wanted to feel loved. My wife is one of the most unconditionally

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: loving people on the face of the earth. And yet very rarely have I been satisfied by her love.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The truth is, no one can make us feel loved until we have first decided we are lovable.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a decision no other human being can make for us. It's an inside job.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But more than anything, when I got married, I wanted you to make me happy.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd carried a stubborn seed of sorrow in the center of my heart for exactly one

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: quarter of a century. And I wanted to feel something better.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I still want you to do that for me. And I'm beginning to believe you might actually

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: be able to bring me joy. But only if I'm willing to walk the path to happiness upon

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: which you would lead me, not the many other paths I would stubbornly tread.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So marriage, that is both my personal and professional opinion. I believe your relationship

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: with humanity is on the rocks because you have failed to give us what we want.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We are a vending machine world. For a while we put our quarters into the marriage slot.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And when what we wanted from you got stuck dangling in the little metal coil,

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: we smacked the side of you for a few generations. And then, when what we wanted didn't

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: finally drop into our hands, we started walking away. However, though we think

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: you are to blame for our problems, that you have failed to serve us, the truth is,

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: while you have been utterly faithful to us, we have not been faithful to you.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And like most reconciliation, our relationship to you can begin healing right now,

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: if we are willing to make a confession. And our confession is this.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We have used you and we are sorry. And then after the confession, a new question.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Rather than asking what do I want from marriage, we must begin asking,

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01]: what does marriage want from me? In other words, marriage, we must ask,

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: what is the path to true enduring joy that you have been asking us to walk all along?

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm 20 years into marriage now and I'm beginning to think that path is called surrender.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Submission? No, not submission. Submission implies that its opposite,

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: domination, is also present. So no, not submission.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Surrender to each other? No, not even that. Not surrender to each other.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Rather this. Mutual surrender to our humanity. Two people stumbling their way toward happiness

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01]: by becoming more human together, more aware of their arrogance, more aware of the subtle

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and not so subtle violence they perpetuate in their search for peace,

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: more aware of how they long to be seen and yet hide themselves away,

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: more aware of their anger and fear and shame. Then one day, ultimately,

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: more aware of the light that lies beyond all that darkness.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The light that is not the exception to our humanity, but the very source of it.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: The light at the center of each one of us. Surrendering together until the light within

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: one comes so close to the light within another that they are no longer certain where one light

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: ends and the other begins. Marriage, I believe this is what you want from us,

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and I believe the good news is this. It is also, slowly, what we are coming to want from you.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: We just don't know it yet. You just listened to the post titled

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Dear Marriage, Humanity Wants a Divorce from You by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr.KellyFlanagan.com

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'll be back shortly with my comments. All right, and yet another terrific one

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_01]: from Dr. Kelly Flanagan, thanks a lot to him for that.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It's funny how he assumed that marriage would somehow come with a new level of maturity.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, years later, he can see the error in that. But even more importantly, I believe

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: he's leveraging the maturity that he has gained in his 20 years of marriage to create this article

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: because he's pitched a very mature approach to marriage, which is essentially to focus on

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: what you can give to it rather than what it can give to you.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a great reminder for all of us, no matter how healthy our

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: relationships are or how far into them we are. We can always come back to the question,

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: what am I giving to this marriage? Am I giving my all to my partner and putting in the work

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_01]: that's necessary to keep this afloat? And mind you, that work shows up in different ways.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it may be on the nose like splitting chores up. It might be more interpersonal,

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: like communicating effectively. Hey, it might even be about pulling back and not doing too much.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, oftentimes, if we do everything in our marriage, we actually take away from it because

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: we might have separated ourselves from our sense of individuality, which if the relationship started

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: off healthily is likely what our partner has found attractive about us in the first place.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So think deeply about this article and try to figure out what the most valuable type of

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: work is that you can do in your relationship. It's time to get going for now, but I

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: thank you as always for being here and doing right by your relationships.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Enjoy the remainder of your weekend and I'll talk to you again tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.