I grew up around a variety of marital situations. I had relatives that were single, that were married and then divorced, that were cohabiting ( and I never knew they weren’t married until I was older) and that were married for a very long time. My parents have been married for over 40 years and my grandparents were married until death did they part. And although I saw marriages growing up, I never saw any couples that “seemed” to be happy together. I never saw couples holding hands or hugging. I never heard spouses speaking positively about each other ( I was more apt to overhear some of the negative things when the adults were talking.) And I never saw togetherness of any sort…they would arrive at family functions together and go their separate ways until the it was time to leave.
Of course this does not mean they they were actually “unhappily’ married. It’s merely the impression that I have about the marriages I grew up seeing. And although, from my perspective, I did not see any happy marriages growing up, I still wanted to be married…happily married.
As Lamar and I tour the country with our films on marriage, we meet so many people that say they never want to get married because of the bad examples that they saw growing up. They are afraid of having the same experiences in their own relationships. And that’s exactly why we promote positive images of marriage with our website and films. Because we want everyone to know that healthy happy marriages do exist…for everyone. Regardless of what you saw growing up or what you see around you now, you too can have the marriage and relationship that you desire to have.