Ep24: On Marriage - part two

What creates a successful marriage versus a dysfunctional one? In this episode, I touch upon red flags to look out for prior to marriage; a few pillars that could create a successful marriage (such as open communication, including communication in the bedroom, and intimacy); patterns to avoid while in relationship; and some unwarranted advice...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello there and welcome to Casual Fridays by I Read Aloud. I am your host Dada and this

(00:08):
podcast is part of my I Read Aloud channel on YouTube where I read fairy tales, short
stories, children's stories, poetry, letters and other excerpts. So if you like such content,
make sure to subscribe. You'll find me on YouTube in the search box under at I Read
Aloud. You can also find me on Instagram, TikTok and X also under at I Read Aloud.

(00:32):
I also want you to know that this podcast airs every Friday on the following platforms,
YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Samsung Podcasts,
Podcast Index, ListenNotes, RSS and Spotify. This week's episode is on marriage part two.

(00:53):
In part one, I had given you a brief history of the institution of marriage and how it has
evolved throughout the ages since around four and a half centuries ago. Today's focus shall
be on what makes a marriage functional versus dysfunctional. If you had asked me 20 years ago

(01:17):
what qualities I would look for in a mate, I would have said someone who would help me out in the
house, would actually clean the dishes and do the laundry with me, clean the house with me,
someone who's generous with his money, someone who is witty and funny. And then of course,

(01:38):
I would have listed a few physical attributes as well. Little did I know then that all these
qualities could exist in a mate who is also toxic for you and very harmful for you. In the end,
cleanliness and taking care of some household chores is nothing but survival skills for any
human being and any human being should hone these skills for sure. A man who is generous with his

(02:05):
money could also be possessive and narcissistic. A man who is witty and funny could also be a liar,
but in truth that was the extent of my generation's knowledge of what a relationship is all about.
No one actually took the time to explain to any of those who got married 20 and 30 and of course

(02:32):
more than that years ago. That marriage is about patience and kindness and respect and generosity
in time, generosity of soul. That marriage is about honesty and although many don't want to hear this,
also about loyalty. And so my list today of a mate for myself includes kindness, generosity of spirit

(03:03):
and loyalty among other attributes of course, but these are basic ones I look for today. I am sure
many of us by now agree that marriage is not happily ever after. After the ordeals that so
many couples have gone through and after the divorce rates have become so high these days,

(03:25):
I am sure many agree that marriage is mainly about overcoming obstacles. The least challenges you
will face in any marriage are financial challenges, possible sickness, sometimes even the death of a
spouse and having to raise the kids alone. And probably the largest or the hugest two challenges

(03:50):
are how to raise your children and how to cope with your partner changing throughout time. People
don't really remain the same, so about every five to ten years people evolve and how do partners
cope with that change? Then of course there's this taboo topic of sexual challenges between a couple.

(04:14):
You know there's a saying in my country that goes, you won't know your partner, really know your partner,
unless you live with them under one roof. But I've come to believe that this is true only if you
ignore red flags in the pre-marriage phase. So when someone love bombs you, makes you feel on top

(04:35):
of the world all the time, gives you such highs all the time to reel you in and then at some point
gives you a taste of their anger, their bitterness through their physical abuse or psychological abuse
or emotional abuse. And then they see they've taken too far and they love bomb you again to make you

(04:59):
believe that that's just something that's an anomaly. It is not the norm and that the love
bombing and the love phase is the norm and makes you forget about all the ugliness that transpired
just a few days ago. That is you ignoring a major red flag. If someone slaps you once before marriage,

(05:20):
make sure that this slap will turn into a beating one day. So do not ignore physical signs of abuse.
If someone calls you stupid and ignorant and then apologizes and offers you gifts, do not
ignore this red flag because the word stupid and idiot or whatever will turn into much worse words

(05:44):
of the future. If someone keeps you on your toes, unsure of what they're doing and what they're saying,
it means they are lying to you. When you don't feel comfortable in someone else's presence to
the fullest and you feel there's always something lacking, something missing, something wrong,
trust your gut instinct because most probably your partner is lying to you. When your partner

(06:09):
is not excited about your dreams, doesn't support your dreams, no matter how small they are,
it could be something as small as building a house for your puppy. And if they put you down and tell
you, oh yeah, whatever, or they don't even listen or they don't help you build that house for the
puppy. That's of course a very small example, but bear with me. Then this means that this is someone

(06:32):
who will not respect your bigger dreams later on. This is someone who does not respect you enough to
respect your dreams, to respect your thoughts and to respect who you are. If the only physical
contact between you and your partner is sexual, whether it is kissing and other intimate sexual
actions, then this is a red flag because intimacy is about wanting to touch someone all the time,

(07:01):
not touching them sexually, touching their hands, playing with their hair, just being close and
touching shoulder to shoulder. Just want to be with someone all the time, just wanting to not
part from someone because you miss them so much and that you feel you will miss a lot if you're
not with them. Intimacy is about sharing your deepest thoughts, your smallest thoughts, your

(07:25):
largest thoughts with someone who is excited for you, who's listening actively to you, who wants
the best for you, who supports you in every way. The last thing you want is a partner who does not
see you and does not hear you. These things I've listed are kind of the hidden gems of a relationship,

(07:46):
things that you may not think of looking for when you are in a relationship, especially a new one,
and things that no one tells you really about when they talk about relationships because people
talk about shells, about outer matters, about shallow matters when they talk about marriage.
Another major pillar to create a functional and successful marriage is compatibility in your

(08:10):
belief systems. I've heard so many times people saying, oh, you know, she's so and so in her
beliefs, but you know what, she's found her husband who also believes things like her. I don't know
how they're going to evolve in life together if that's what they believe. And the thing is that

(08:31):
people don't realize is that these two people are definitely going to have successful marriage
because even though their belief systems aren't maybe too evolved for someone who is more evolved
in the path of life, but these two people are going to grow together and they actually have a
good foundation of a similar belief system. Now, belief systems are major things in life,

(08:54):
such as religion or faith in general. Belief systems can include how to raise your children,
what tactics you will use when your children misbehave, what decisions reactions will you
take when children misbehave, for example. Your belief systems include how to overcome

(09:16):
financial obstacles. Your belief systems include how to deal with sickness in the family or even
death. And of course, belief systems could include all sorts of, you know, metaphysical ideas that
you might have in life and so on and so forth. But it's basically important that you should have

(09:36):
similar belief systems so that you can gel together and walk on this path of life. And,
you know, I heard something very interesting once that a marriage occurs without paper,
just it occurs automatically between two souls, two people, when or the moment that they agree

(10:01):
on a similar life path. And that divorce happens automatically the moment that these two people,
these two souls diverge in their life path beliefs. Then, of course, you have to watch out for anger.
Anger is a huge, huge red flag and it indicates traumas that are unresolved in your partner.

(10:27):
Anger is what most of the time leads to physical abuse, mental abuse, and verbal abuse. And the
danger with anger is that you might be used to it in your childhood home. If all of your life you've
lived in a way where you are anticipating one of your parents' anger to flare up and you have

(10:48):
learned to cope, you've developed coping mechanisms to deal with the anger of one of your parents or
even both of your parents, then you will not see anger as a red flag in a partner. You will actually
think this is the norm. People get angry, it's normal. You absorb it and you know how to deal

(11:09):
with it. And that is the worst thing you can do for yourself because then you'll be living with
someone who is a ticking time bomb, who at any moment could explode in your home and who is going
to literally make you live on eggshells, make you walk on eggshells, make you live in a state

(11:30):
of constant terror even if you don't admit it to yourself. So it is so important that your partner
knows how to heal and is willing to heal childhood traumas because you know modern day psychology
attributes most of negative behavior in humans to childhood traumas. And so if someone is willing

(11:55):
to work on their childhood traumas, of course I'm saying that you are willing to do this as well.
So you have to heal yourself in order to be in relationship. And this is something else that's
been talked a lot about in modern psychology that you have to heal yourself, heal your traumas,

(12:15):
face them and deal with them and learn from them and forgive whoever you have to forgive and
you know change your behavioral patterns and end up loving yourself before entering into
relationship with someone else or else you're going to come with all your traumas, all your baggage in

(12:37):
that relationship and you're going to just dump them on your partner and that is just you know,
this is basically the major reason for divorce that nobody really realizes. Generally people
don't communicate their sexual desires and they don't tell their partner what they like and what
they don't like. You know sexuality is such a taboo in our society in the Middle East but you

(13:05):
know even all over the world, you know especially in religious families and in conservative families
where you know we don't talk about this, we don't shed light on it and even if you learn a bit about
it at school, it doesn't teach you to communicate openly with your partner and to be completely
honest with your partner about your sexuality and your likes and dislikes. And I know that this is

(13:30):
probably the hardest type of communication with a partner because it's a very sensitive issue,
you don't want to hurt your partner, you don't want to make them feel less than that, you don't
want to make them feel incompatible but believe me communicating with your partner during the
sexual act is the easiest thing you can do. Sometimes just sitting and talking to someone

(13:54):
about something will not resolve the matter or resolve any issue when you are in the sexual act,
you know and you're in the throes of passion, whatever, you could just tell your partner do
this, do that, whatever you know and give them some, not dump them 10 instructions all at once

(14:14):
in one session but just you know like throw in one thing here and then another day throw in another
thing there and you know little by little your partner will get to know more and more what makes
you feel pleasure, what makes you happy in the bedroom let's say. And I believe from the core of

(14:38):
myself and my heart that the only thing that works in a marriage or that allows a marriage to be
perfectly functional is open communication on all topics. Open communication is so important on
every single aspect of your relationship and of the struggles of life and it is so important when

(15:03):
you communicate that you are certain that the person in front of you is receiving your communication.
The worst thing is you feeling as if you're talking to a wall, you're talking to someone who will not
listen and who will not care about what you say and that is why it's so important to begin this
open communication ritual if you will before marriage because then you will see all the dynamics

(15:30):
of that open communication unfolding before you and you will see the pattern that will be developed
even after marriage in that open communication. And you know I've stumbled across a few lists
online of questions to ask your partner you know before you get married to kind of make sure that

(15:53):
you are on the right track or whatever and yes there are many important things to be discussed
and I believe that one of the most important things is what I've mentioned before how to handle
financial challenges, how to raise your children. I mean some people still till today beat their
children. Is this something that you want you know in the life of your children? Is it something you

(16:17):
want to bring into your home for example? And you have to have communication about what happens when
you evolve in the relationship. You are going to change that said before every five to ten years
you're going to have new beliefs, new ideas. How will your partner change with you and cope with
that change? Will you grow together? Will you stagnate together? You can stagnate together,

(16:40):
be happy, why not? Major things to discuss as well is what do you do in case of sickness or
even death of a spouse? How do you handle raising kids alone if your spouse passes? Or how do you
take on this possibility of the household in case of a partner who gets sick? The list could go on

(17:02):
and on about different things to discuss before marriage and by all means go check out these lists
and these questions. It's an eye-opener and it's important, an interesting exercise to go through
these topics you know with your mates. But the bottom line for me for a successful marriage
is open communication, intimacy as I had discussed before, and becoming smart at detecting red flags

(17:30):
and acknowledging them not ignoring them. Well these are my two cents on the whole issue. I'm
sure there are so many things I could have talked about as well but I want to concentrate on things
that I have faced in life, my friends have faced in life, things that are you know very practicable
and not theoretical. And so this brings me to the end of this episode. Next week's topic shall be on

(17:58):
unconditional love. I hope you'll tune in then. For now I wish you a lovely weekend and I send
you all my love. Till next Friday!