Marriage is tough.  Two people coming together doesn’t automatically make a relationship.  It may start with energy and passion, but the relationship evolves over time.  Passion comes and goes.  Connections wax and wane.  Communication strengthens and weakens.  Individuals grow and change.  As statistics indicate, many marriages end in divorce.  There are all kinds of articles about reasons people get divorced.  It ranges from money to sex and everything in-between.  On the blog YourTango, the ten reasons which link back to the ideas of the business of you are:

• Getting in for the wrong reasons
• Lack of individual identity
• becoming lot in the roles
• not having a shared vision of success
• intimacy disappears
• unmet expectations
• finances
• being out of touch . . . literally
• different priorities and interests
• inability to resolve conflicts

When people don’t have an idea of what their own business in life is, how can they possibly connect with another person?  It becomes a series of random events which may or may not lead to a successful long-term relationship. It takes work to share our perspectives, feelings, thoughts and doubts.  There are many ways to go about this and each relationship has to figure it out for themselves.

My wife and I used to share personal journals in the beginning of our relationship.  Some of the exchanges were difficult.  The journalling went on for a couple of years and waned as we began to share our inner thoughts without having to write them down.  Partaking in something physical while we both learned was also helpful.  We both became avid practitioners of the Taoists Arts to be point of becoming instructors.  The key is to work on things together and open the doors to foster our individuation at the same time of stewarding the relationship into the next day, week and year.

After eighteen years, and kids in school, we find we have to reconnect after periods of getting lost in our parenting roles, working our full-time careers, and developing different interests.  Rekindling our desire for a lifetime together is an on-going thing.  Our relationship is a living thing as much as we are individually.  As a living thing, it requires nourishment, energy and letting go of unneeded elements.  Marriage is managing a business of two.

“Getting married is one of the most important decisions people make since marriage is the business of sharing sex, money, property, and the likelihood of raiding children, it needs to be given the same dignity that making a million dollar deal gets.”  from Orgasm for Two by Betty Dodson.

“Passion is a choice and staying in love is a decision.” from Serpent’s Kiss by Thea Harrison.