Three Reasons You
Should Never Marry
for Love

People who don't marry for love in
our culture are considered unlucky,
suspect, manipulative, exploitative,
and bad. From our perspective, they
are either doing something wrong or
there is something wrong with them.
It makes us feel a range of emotions
for them -- everything from sympathy
to contempt, because most of us were
taught that love is the only "right"
reason to tie the knot.
But if you really think about it, love is
a luxury. When you marry for love, it
generally means you have all -- or at
least most -- of your other needs met
(like food, shelter, warmth, etc). That
may explain why those with fewer
financial resources also have lower
marriage rates: If you're worried
about your survival or safety, you're
not going to be focusing on finding the
man or woman of your dreams --
unless of course this dream person is
your ticket out of your terrible home
life, dreary financial picture or scary
"singledom."
Procreation has always been a reason
to marry, but up until about two
hundred years ago or so, people in the
West married more for political or
financial gain than for love.
The Victorian Era and the Industrial
Revolution (1800s) created two
important changes in how people
lived: Romance became all the rage
and technological advances made life
much easier. Prior to these
developments, divorce was incredibly
rare but when love entered the picture
as the reason to marry, marital
dissolutions became more
commonplace.
Critics point to Women's Rights, No-
Fault Divorce laws and the greater
emphasis on the pursuit of personal
happiness in the '70s, for opening the
door to more choice and, therefore,
more divorce. Rates spiked up to 50%
(up from 11% in the fifties) and have
not changed much in the last 50 years.
We've come a long way with
technology and modern living but
have we actually come too far in our
conjugal love-centric culture?
What experts like Andrew Cherlin
(Marriage-Go-Round) and Stephanie
Coontz (Marriage, A History) tell us is
that, in our attempt to make marriage
stronger by raising the bar to meet our
higher needs, we have seriously
weakened the institution now that
marriage is based on love and
romance -- both highly changeable
emotions. When love wanes, the
marriage gets shaky; when the
romance stops, the nuptials die.
People whose primary reason to
marry is other than love -- such as to
have children with someone they
believed would be a good co-parent, to
have financial security, or for
companionship -- generally have
longer and perhaps better marriages
because their choices were made with
a purpose. Additionally, their
expectations of marriage and their
mate are less unrealistic. Their spouse
wasn't expected to be "The One." They
merely needed to be Mr. or Mrs.
"Good Enough."
Some people call this settling, but we
are seeing the wisdom of marriages
like these more and more.
I'm not saying love shouldn't be on the
list of things that need to be in your
relationship, but it doesn't need to be
number one (and perhaps shouldn't
be).
Here are the three reasons I think
marrying primarily for love is not
wise:
1. Love is a changeable emotion. As
quickly as you fall in love, you can fall
out of love. Then what? Either the
relationship ends or it becomes toxic.
If love is your primary connection, the
glue is gone. This is true for
passionate, physical love as well as
"soul-mate" love.
2. Love does not make for a strong
enough foundation. Yes, love is
strong but, due to the fact that it can
evaporate, it is not something that can
stand alone as the basis for a long-
term relationship (especially when
kids are involved). Anything built on a
foundation of love is subject to
crumbling.
3. Love is far from "all you need."
You need mutual respect, shared goals
and compatibility way more than you
need love to have a sustainable,
lasting relationship. People "fall in
love with love" just as Kim Kardashian
showed us, because they think it will
carry them the distance. We all want
to be wanted and we love to love yet,
if you had a recipe for a strong,
healthy relationship, it might look like
this: 3 Cups respect; 2 Cups shared
goals; 2 Cups compatibility, 1
Tablespoon love, 1 teaspoon
attraction (optional!). (Of course a
relationship has many more
ingredients than this but you get the
idea).
What do you think?
A version of this article appeared in
PsychologyToday.com
Note: Journalist, Vicki Larson and I are
currently writing a book entitled, The
New I Do, Reshaping Marriage for
Cynics, Commitaphobes and Connubial
DIYers, (Seal Press, Fall 2014). If you
have a marriage that was based more
on companionship, co-parenting,
safety or financial security than on
love, please contact me at
info@changingmarriage.com. we'd
like to interview you.
If you have a Covenant Marriage (a
more religious marriage based on love
and service for God -- legal only in
Kansas, Arkansas, Arizona and
Louisiana), we'd like to hear from you
too. And please forward this request
on to anyone else you know who may
be interested in speaking with me.
Please send me an email through my
website at
www.changingmarriage.com.



I do not agree with this point,today is my weddingg anniversary , I married for love and am enjoying every bit of the journey .
m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4294079?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003