Relationship Status: It's Complicated

I mean yours.  Not mine.  (Sorry, to the approximately 6 friends of mine who clicked here hoping to hear some kind of announcement.)

Yes, you.  You people who are actually IN a relationship.

During this summer, the peak season for weddings, anniversaries, and relationship milestones of all kinds, I've heard it talked about a lot.  Weddings are the obvious leader, of course, because weddings are the time when someone is supposed to stand up and tell us the secret.  No pressure, naturally, but this moment where the bride and groom stand together before all their assembled friends and family is when the one profound piece of wisdom is to be delivered that they will carry through their wedded life--the one that lets them succeed no matter how many others have failed.  Right?  And so often, here is what that wisdom consists of:  Don't be a quitter.

Couple after couple have been told (and so have you, and so have I) that this is the answer to marital happiness.  You just don't quit.  Love, after all, is not a feeling.  It is a commitment.  So it must only be vulnerable to ending if you stop being committed to it.  Many people think that when you don't have the warm fuzzy feelings any more, you are no longer in love and can move on, can give up on each other.  But those of us who know, those of us who are successful, we understand that no matter how hard, personally unsatisfying, or emotionally barren the marital landscape might be, the thing that really matters is that you just. don't. quit.  Then you will stay in love, and nothing can stop you.  You have succeeded.  Congratulations.  It's as simple as that.

One troubling thing about this is that it seems to imply that happiness and success in a relationship depends entirely on you.  But don't worry--summer is also peak anniversary season, and anniversaries make it clear that you're not all on your own.  In fact, it seems to be just the opposite.  Although the secret to a successful marriage was supposed to be not quitting, if you stay together any number of years, God seems to be entirely responsible for the positive outcome.  Apparently, as long as you are faithful to God, he will take care of the details.  Person after person tells the world, "Married 27 years today--God is so good!"

It's been made to sound so simple, the answers so easy.  But I know lots of real people in real relationships.  I know their spouses and their struggles and their life-long compromises.  I know their real lives, and I know mine, and the reality seems at odds with so much of what is said.   And I, for one, would appreciate hearing a different approach.  Particularly as a survivor of divorce, I would find it both refreshing and encouraging if we began to speak about relationships in a thoughtful, intentional, and honest way--a way that acknowledges their complexity and fragility in the circumstances of our real world, the nuanced and delicate nature which exists even when no one just quits, even when a good and loving God is involved.

Yes, God is good, and (as I know there is someone just itching to point out) is the source of every good and perfect gift.  I understand if you believe your spouse is one of those gifts.  But so was mine.  And God's goodness is not the factor that determines whether marriages will endure--if it were, would any marriages end?  If a lasting marriage is a sign of God's goodness, what message was he sending me with a divorce?  The answer, in my experience, is rarely, if ever, that God is good, but one or both partners "just quit".

The truth is, love both succeeds, and fails, for many reasons.  It is a complicated interplay of factors, and it is often difficult to tell exactly where some stop and others begin.  Each person in every relationship must be both willing and able to be a partner to the other.  Being married to someone who fits this description is a reason to give thanks to God; becoming someone who fits this description is another, as it will certainly require his help to do so; and a commitment to continue, even in the face of adversity, will be necessary to go the distance together.

Meanwhile, I'd simply like to ask for an acknowledgement that, if a relationship works, the keys to its longevity are more complicated than they've been made to sound.  And if not, its passing is more complicated than that also.