Why a successful marriage is no easy accomplishment

It was one of those warm afternoons (a rarity this year).

I was out running a few errands and found myself stopped in front of a Catholic church. The sidewalk out front was crowded with people of all ages. They were talking, laughing, milling around excitedly. The tuxedos and formal dresses gave them away: a wedding was ending.

I realized I had been thinking about a couple I was counseling whose marriage was probably going to fail. I was struck by the difference in demeanor between the people I saw gathered in front of the church and the married couples I saw in my office.

A recent study of success in marriage revealed some discouraging facts. We all have heard that about five out of every 10 marriages ends in divorce. But, this study suggests, in the five marriages that remain intact, three of the couples say they are dissatisfied with their relationships but are just not doing anything about it (a few were planning to enter counseling).

If my arithmetic is correct, that leaves us with two couples out of every 10 who get married who will be generally happy.

Now statistics are notoriously fickle. But I think we can safely say that a good many marriages end in divorce and of those that don't, many continue primarily out of habit, desperation, fear, etc.

Why do we do it? Despite the gloomy statistics and prognoses, literally tens of thousands of couples will get married this summer. Tens of thousands more get married during other seasons. Either we are more than a bit naive (if not downright stupid), or incredibly optimistic.

Or perhaps we are just human. I think that ultimately our incessant search for long-term, intimate, adult relationships (which is another way to describe marriage) is a basic part of our makeup.

I'm not suggesting marriage is the only way to meet such a need. But at its best marriage does offer a chance for a lifetime of closeness, shared experience, and mutual growth that can be found in few other relationships. (Which is why marriage, at its worst, is so destructive, even disastrous. I guess great potential for good always includes an equally great potential for bad.)

But back to our question. Why do we do it?

I suspect some of us are more than a bit naive when we get married. And others are eternally optimistic, even when we have not the slightest reason to be so.

Similarly, we can get married out of infatuation, dependency, convenience and a host of other reasons that have little to do with true intimacy.

Ultimately, though, I believe that within each of us is a basic human drive toward closeness. That drive plays a part, a large part, in our continuing to risk marriage.

Of course, making marriage live up to its potential requires, knowledge, hard work perseverance, compromise, forgiveness and a host of other factors. It even takes a good prayer every now and then. A successful marriage is no easy accomplishment.

Yet despite the opinions of some "authorities" to the contrary, I think we will be pairing off and getting married for the foreseeable future. What such marriages look like, how they work, and don't work, will change over time, but there will always be some sort of way for men and women to come together to explore their need for intimacy.

So, to the couple who shared the beginning of their life together with me the other day: Thank you. I needed that.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaracare 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."