What’s the #1 Reason Marriages Fail?

Last updated on: October 22, 2013 at 8:29 am by Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

What’s the #1 Reason Marriages Fail? 2013-10-22T08:29:56-05:00 Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

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People always ask me that question. They expect me to say, “poor communication” or “infidelity” or “addiction” or some such. Although these are all challenges, the real problem is something deeper. Here’s an article from Together for Life taken from Lisa and my latest book, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage.

In fact, the most common reason for marital break-ups actually cause all of these problems and more.

The biggest contributor to marital problems and, eventually, marital breakdown is that husbands and wives tend to love their own comfort zones more than they love each other. This leads to no end of opportunities to feel rejected, resentful, and angry.

Some people ask us what we mean when we talk about “comfort zones.”

Your comfort zone represents the range of experiences, relationships, and ways of being that are familiar, common, and preferred. A comfort zone represents the way you like to live your life, dress, behave, and organize your day. Your comfort zone includes those things you know how to do well and things you enjoy doing in your free time—for instance, your hobbies, interests, and skills.

It represents the way you prefer to act around people. For example, are you the life of the party, or do you like to keep to yourself?

Likewise, your comfort zone represents the ways (and the degree to which) you like to give and receive affection. For example, do you like to display a lot of affection, or are you more reserved? Do you like exploring lots of different ways to show your love for each other (in and out of the bedroom), or are there certain things that are more comfortable and meaningful than others?

In short, your comfort zone represents most of the preferences you may tend to think makes you “you.”

The fact that marriage is a sacrament means, at least in part, that marriage is all about getting you and your spouse out of your comfort zones in order to create a unified couple. Why? READ MORE…

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