Marriage is more than love
By John Payne
Staff Reporter
As America steps into the 1990s,
the family will undergo a few
changes, while continuing on cer
tain trends established in the late
’70s and the ’80s, according to
Craig Smith, director of Marital and
family 'I herapy at the Department
of Human Development.
Smith says that he expects
somewhat of a return to “conven
tional relationships” in the decade
to come.
“I think that there may be a
swinging of the pendulum as cul
tural norms and values change,” he
said.
Smith said he believes people
have been returning to what he
calls “stable” relationships, al
though not necessarily marriage.
One of the more dominant trends
to be expected in the ’90s is family
counseling, Smith said.
“1 think people today are a lot
more educated about relation
ships, and they're learning how to
acquire the skills they need to
make them work,” he said.
Divorce rates quite often can be
misleading, according to Smith.
"When people hear that half of
all marriages end in divorce, they
think they’ve got a 50-50 chance,”
he said. “But that’s not true, be
cause oftentimes someone will
marry and divorce two or three
times, while other people will get
married and stay married, making
the statistics somewhat misrepre
r
sentative.”
Smith said it’s encouraging to
see people trying to make mar
riages work rather than ending
them.
“People will step in a mud
puddle, so to speak, and rather
than get out and clean things up,
i 4UT' ' * ' * '
‘When people hear
that half of all mar
riages end in di
vorce, they think
they’ve got a 50/50
chance. But that’s
not true because of
tentimes someone
will marry and di
vorce two or three
times, while other
people will get
married and stay
married, making
the statistics some
what misrepresen
tative.’
- Smith
£ > >?? 'A.Z
they’ll all too often throw the shoes
away. Then they’ll get new ones,
and move on to another puddle,”
he said.
"I ask my students ‘Why are you
getting married?’ and they’ll say
‘love,’ but that’s the worst reason in
the world,” he said. “It’s not
enough, you need more.”
for example, Smith says that
couples need to learn how to deal
with financial problems that can
arise in relationships, and so finan
cial planning often is part of marital
counseling. Contrary to the popu
lar belief that 90 percent of marital
arguments are over money, Smith
says that there is usually another
problem beneath it, and the prob
lem simply manifests itself in this
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