We hear that question a lot.  How do you have a successful marriage?  In the midst of any marriage, no two people can answer that question because a successful marriage only occurs when they are both dead and still married to each other.  A successful marriage means that you remain together through thick and thin and never part, but that shouldn’t be what we should focus on.  Instead of focusing on an enduring marriage, we should focus on if we are happy in the moment in our relationships.  Oftentimes, we may even think we are successful and there are celebrities who write books about how well their marriages are going only for the relationship to disintegrate right after the book is published.

We then ask what happened?  What happened is that relationships are organic and people and circumstances change.  We should not judge a relationship by it’s longevity, but instead what is happening in the moment with the couple.  Are you both happy?  Content?  Respectful?  If you are in that moment, that is all that matters.  For the thing is, that could all change overnight due to no fault of your own.  Does that mean that you should stay in a bad relationship for the rest of your life because that is the picture of perfection we’ve been told all our lives?  The truth is, it is better to be divorced and happy than it is to be married until you die and miserable.

People change and so do relationships and that is okay.  What isn’t okay is staying together because society tells you that is what you’re supposed to do.  A successful relationship is organic and ever changing.  If it means you separate because that is the healthy thing to do, you have completed the transition into a successful non-romantic relationship.  It’s time we start thinking about what success means to us and how it can ultimately ruin our lives if we let it consume us.  If success is vindication that you out-lived the nay-sayers, your relationship may not be as stable as you’d imagine.  However, if your definition of success depends on how you treat each other and how you value each other’s opinions and happiness, you may see that your definition is all that matters.