The Three T's Leading to Successful Marriages

 It is safe to assume that most people want a good, healthy marriage. There have been studies that have shown trends that ‘typically’ provide healthy marriages. Providing this information, I am not suggesting that this is the only way we can have a good marriage or that there aren’t any exceptions to these rules. Generally speaking, however, studies have found that these characteristics have correlated with many healthy couple’s marriages.

I would like to share the 3 ‘T’s’ that help when dating and finding a romantic partner. They are: Togetherness, Talk, and Time. First, let’s dive a little further into ‘togetherness’. The important thing to know about this is that togetherness is a shared activity between you and your partner. This can be a first date, second date, or fiftieth date. It seems pretty self-explanatory why this would be important. However, many people in this generation, especially teens and young adults, are simply ‘hanging-out’ rather than actually going on dates. Hanging-out is less than ideal when seeking out a marriage partner, because hanging-out requires no mutual self-disclosure, planning, or any level of commitment. There are many dating activities that are inexpensive that would allow for ‘togetherness’ to occur, such as going on a walk together, but that is not happening nearly as frequently as it used to happen. Is it the fear of rejection or heart-break that is stopping dating and pairing-off from happening? As a result, people are getting married much later and cohabitating before marriage (which also shows little commitment and may lead to many problems in the relationship or marriage later on). Second, it is important to ‘talk’ with your partner while you are on the date. Again, this seems like a pretty self-explanatory concept, but it seems that many dates now are ending up on the couch watching endless episodes of shows or Netflix, and not actually getting to get to know each other much at all. These activities aren’t necessarily bad, but if they are consuming our dating life, it can lead to problems. Getting to know one another is an essential part of dating that strengthens the relationship between you and your dating partner. When we are being physical too early in the relationship, especially if we are being physical more often than we know the person, this could lead to many heart-breaks and problems later on. Third, we need ‘time’ while we are dating. Studies have shown that we generally don’t begin to get to know someone until after three months of knowing them. This is important to note, because if we are rushing into things too quickly, this can also lead to disappointment.

Now, I would like to explain the concept of the RAM model. On the model, we have 5 concepts that contribute to a relationship. Know, trust, rely, commit, and touch. The order is extremely important and of which I am going to explain. The model explains that we shouldn’t touch more than we commit to someone, we shouldn’t commit to someone at a higher level than we rely upon them, we shouldn’t rely upon them more than we trust them, and we shouldn’t trust them more than we know them. Here is a visual of the RAM model that will hopefully help you to understand this concept a little better.

 

 

This model is a very strong correlation of building healthy relationships while we are dating. One of my favorite quotes when it comes to dating is, “Choose your love, and love your choice.” When choosing a romantic partner that we would like to get married to, incorporating these principles will greatly enhance our ability to have a healthy marriage. Furthermore, it is important that we focus on “being” married, and not just “getting” married.

Though I have seen exceptions to what I have discussed today that have turned out wonderfully well for the couples, it is also true that marriages tend to be healthier as couples have incorporated these concepts into their dating.