If you’re like me, the older you get, the more you see friends divorce … friends that seemed like the perfect couple … friends that you didn’t think were ever in danger of splitting.

Sadly, the reason given for these divorces all too often runs along the lines of a lack of happiness – a spouse was bored, felt unloved, or some other thing that can often seem rather petty to outside observers.

But while marital unhappiness is a common reason for divorce, it also is almost entirely preventable. According to recent research from The Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, there are four things which drastically increase marital happiness, and as a result, greatly diminish the odds of divorce. These four things include simple activities – such as frequent date nights and regular church attendance – but also important mindsets, including protection and commitment.

Commitment, as can be seen in the above charts, is the area that has the most positive impact on a marriage staying together. Yet this same commitment is the area that so many seem to struggle with today.

Why is that? Perhaps it’s because, when it comes to marriage, too many of us place a great emphasis on what author C. S. Lewis called “Eros,” or “that state which we call ‘being in love.’”

This type of love has all the feels – the excitement, the thrill, the ecstasy, the joy of being loved and giving of oneself for the lover.

But as we all know, those feels only last for so long. Marriage turns into the mundane. Self rises to the surface, Lewis explains, and those who have put the feels at the center – “those who have idolized Eros” – will be sadly disappointed to find that marriage wasn’t what they imagined it to be. In fact, marriage is all about doing the hard work when we don’t feel like it:

Eros, having made his gigantic promise and shown you in glimpses what its performance would be like, has ‘done his stuff.’ He, like a godparent, makes the vows; it is we who must keep them. It is we who must labour to bring our daily life into even closer accordance with what the glimpses have revealed. We must do the works of Eros when Eros is not present.

What are those works of Eros? They are the simple, everyday things that any couple can do, some of which are listed in the report referenced above, including:

• Praying together, as “previous studies show that prayer and other shared personal religious activities help couples deal with stress, enable them to focus on shared hopes for the future, and allow them to deal constructively with challenges and problems in their relationship.”
• Shunning “scorekeeping about spouses’ levels of effort and investment.”
• Setting aside regular times to communicate, as “communication … can be an important vehicle for approaching mutual difficulties productively.”
• Defending your spouse from negative comments by family, friends, and children, while also speaking respectfully of him or her yourself.

Doing the works of Eros is really just plain common sense, Lewis concludes, submitting to the ups and downs of married life and weathering those storms with “humility, charity and divine grace.”

This Valentine’s Day may find many of us disenchanted with the idea of love, no matter if we’re single or married. If so, then perhaps we should take a moment to consider whether we’ve allowed ourselves to idolize the idea of Eros – of being in love just for the feelings it brings to ourselves. Then let’s correct our course and begin doing the works of love broadly, not only toward our spouses, but to friends and other family members as well, setting self aside in order to do what’s best for others.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Freerange Stock