Epic elder wisdom from 40,000 years of married life…
Tuesday, September 12, 2023.
Imagine over 40,000 combined years of marital experience boiled down like maple syrup to 5 essential points
The largest ever survey of long-term marriages has revealed the five keys to a happy marriage.
Based on the most detailed survey of long-term married people ever conducted, the book, 30 Lessons for Loving shows the way to enduring resilient, long-term relationships.
The author, Professor Karl Pillemer is an internationally renowned gerontologist at Cornell University. He focused on collecting marital wisdom from the wise old Americans with long-term successful marriages.
He interviewed them on many topics which explored their relational values; from finding a life partner, to discerning when to commit, and the ins and outs of growing old together as a loving couple.
How the study was conducted:
Dr. Pillemer spent five years asking more than a thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five to share their life wisdom.
From these personal recollections of difficulties transcended and lives well loved, he has discovered thirty essential lessons that form a powerful plan of action for living life – values any human can heed.
Along the way, Dr. Pillemer comments on the anecdotes and narratives of what he calls our “wisest Americans.” viewing them not only through the lens of his training as a social scientist, but a also in terms of his own personal thirst for acquiring life wisdom of consequence.
Along the way, he explores questions like these: How do you know if the person you love is the right one? What are the secrets for improving communication and reducing conflict?
What gets you through the major stresses of marriage, such as raising kids, achieving a work-life balance?Dealing with money concerns, and extended family? .
Over 700 humans who have been married for a aggregated total of over 40,000 years participated.
Professor Karl Pillemer described the purpose of his undertaking:
“Rather than focus on a small number of stories, my goal was to take advantage of the ‘wisdom of crowds,’ collecting the love and relationship advice of a large and varied cross-section of long-married elders in a scientifically reliable and valid way.”
The Top Five Lessons for a Happy Marriage Were:
Learn to communicate
Professor Pillemer made this point painfully clear:
“For a good marriage, the elders overwhelmingly tell us to ‘talk, talk, talk.’
They believe most marital problems can be solved through open communication, and conversely many whose marriages dissolved blamed lack of communication.”
Get to know your partner before marrying
This is an area where I personally dropped the ball more than once, and this advice stings a little. Professor Pillemer said:
“Many of the elders I surveyed married very young; despite that fact, they recommend the opposite.
They strongly advise younger people to wait to marry until they have gotten to know their partner well and have a number of shared experiences.
An important part of this advice is a lesson that was endorsed in very strong terms: Never get married expecting to be able to change your partner.”
Regard your marriage as an unbreakable, and lifelong bond…
Professor Pillemer advised:
“Rather than seeing marriage as a voluntary partnership that lasts only as long as the passion does, the elders propose a mindset in which it is a profound commitment to be respected, even if things go sour over the short term.
Many struggled through dry and unhappy periods and found ways to resolve them — giving them the reward of a fulfilling, intact marriage in later life.”
Have a sense of we-ness and work as a team
Professor Pillemer commented on the importance of “we-ness”:
“The elders urge us to apply what we have learned from our lifelong experiences in teams — in sports, in work, in the military — to marriage.
Concretely, this viewpoint involves seeing problems as collective to the couple, rather than the domain of one partner.
Any difficulty, illness, or setback experienced by one member of the couple is the other partner’s responsibility.”
Choose a partner who is more similar to you than different
What Professor Pillemer said here has been confirmed by other research:
“Marriage is difficult at times for everyone, the elders assert, but it’s much easier with someone who shares your interests, background and orientation.
The most critical need for similarity is in core values regarding potentially contentious issues like child-rearing, how money should be spent and religion.”
Final thoughts on epic elder wisdom
Well, a life well-lived in intimate connection certainly bestows a degree of street cred.
What makes these qualitative research projects so powerful is that most humans are enthralled by narratives and stories.
First person narrative is a powerful way to learn for most of us. Gottman arrived at his model of couples therapy by studying what he originally called the “masters of marriage.”
With these couples, he was able to de-code exactly what they were doing, and why it was so powerfully effective. The truth is that humans you love will sometimes hurt you. You just have to pick a partner worth suffering for.
A life well lived boils down to fundamental, essential truths. This book has managed to convey some urgent wisdom on the importance of human thriving in relationship.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
The research is published in Professor Pillemer’s classic book, 30 Lessons for Loving
