Road to a better marriage isn't on your parents' map

Imagine we want to drive from Chicago to San Diego. No problem. We just pull up an interstate highway map and … whoops, it seems the entire interstate system is closed for repair.

OK, that's a little far-fetched, but then again, considering the road work around here, maybe it isn't.

That's the way it feels for many married couples in today's culture. There used to be some well-marked, easily followed "roads" for marriages to follow. Men knew their place, women knew theirs, and things worked reasonably well (or, at least, we thought they did).

Not now. It looks like that road's closed, probably never to reopen. The model of marriage held up in the post-World War II years as the pattern for marital bliss - and the one may of us were raised with - simply doesn't fit very well for couples in the 21st century.

Actually, it didn't fit all that well in the late '40s and '50s either. In fact, despite Ozzie and Harriet, "Father Knows Best," and Donna Reed to the contrary, statistics suggest that even then less than half of American families ever really fit the pattern idealized in print and on TV. Working moms, day care, divorce, single-parent families and so on were also quite common 50 years ago.

In fact, the "model" families of that era also had their share of marital discord, child abuse and neglect, rebellious children, and so forth (even Ozzie and Harriet left a lot to be desired when it came to things like conflict management). And pundits decried the decline of marriage and family then just as much as they do now.

Given all that, we have still continued to believe that there was one best way to route ourselves to a satisfying marriage. And that belief is one of the reasons today's husbands and wives - especially middle-aged husbands and wives - are often so frustrated with each other and their life together.

Many of us were sure that if we did it the way we saw on TV or read about in the magazines, it would all work out. And now, 20 years or so into our marriages, we find that many of the basic assumptions we made about marriage just don't hold up. Not too surprisingly, some of us are pretty angry about that.

Going back to our analogy, it's like we didn't find out the interstates were shut down until we'd packed the car, loaded in the kids, and gotten a couple of hundred miles down the road. And if you've ever been in such a situation, you know how frustrating it is to figure out, let alone agree on, which way to go.

Actually, I believe much of the discord we see in today's marriages has to do with this sense of having lost our way. Men and women are confused, frightened and angry at just how hard it seems to be to even get along, let alone make a marriage work.

When we're lost out on the highway, sooner or later we're usually smart enough to recognize it. So we pull over, get out the maps, and consider different routes. Perhaps we need to do the same thing in our marriages. Maybe there are also different routes to a healthy relationship if we just do some exploring.

Some couples seem to be trying this out with more than a bit of success. They're exploring different roles and responsibilities, different ways of making decisions, different ways of being close. They're finding that marriages can work in all kinds of different ways, as long as both partners are valued and respected and loved for who they are.

Once we free ourselves from the expectation that our marriages must conform to some preconceived stereotype, once we recognize marriage as the give-and-take experiment in living it always has been, we can explore all sorts of different ways of being wife and husband. Chances are we'll find one that fits for us.

Or at least fits for a while. As we change and as the world changes around us, our marriages must change as well. Our relationship 10 years from now will in many ways be different from the relationship we have today, no matter how well things seem to be going for us.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."