Marital democracy

Controversial take here. A great marriage shouldn’t be a perfect democracy.

Most of the time, however, it should appear that way.

Obviously, step one is to seek agreement on things. If you and your spouse can make decisions together without concessions, that is optimal. This, of course, requires marrying someone whose values and principles align with yours. That way, the big stuff (e.g., having kids, where to live, etc.) is rarely problematic.

If agreement can’t be reached, the next best option is compromise. Our house would probably be decorated much differently if every decision was up to me or to my wife, independently. More importantly, there are aspects of raising kids that require us to figure things out and work together; even important things aren’t always black and white.

Good marriages begin with agreement and move to compromise when necessary. This system builds trust because it always seeks a win-win scenario, or something close to it.

Where I suspect many marriages fail, is when compromise is not an option. If husband wants to move to New York to take a higher paying job but wife wants to stay in Kansas because it’s a better place to raise kids, who gets the final say?

The best option, in my opinion, is to abandon the quaint and feel-good notion of marital democracy. As it pertains to decision making, the partnership isn’t 50/50, even if you pretend it is. You are likely going to New York or staying in Kansas. Even not deciding is a decision.

One person in every marriage should have the final call on important decisions. There is a time and place for the answer to simply be “no” or “this is what we are doing.” That’s a hard pill to swallow in our 21st century “equality or death” culture, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

In my marriage, I’m the pragmatic, decisive one. My wife has taught me to step back, to show empathy (still a work in progress), and to consider the implications of my sometimes emotionless demeanor. At the end of the day, I am the one to make the final call for anything on which we can’t find common ground. I have authority to say “no” or “this is what we are doing” if it comes to it.

This is a great responsibility, not a mere perk. It is something that must be continually earned. If my modus operandi is to act as king rather than to seek agreement or compromise, we risk a hard, peace-less marriage. Then we both lose.

My goal for my marriage is to make it democratic as close to 100% of the time as possible. But I’m not so foolish as to assume that we’ll have that luxury forever.

In the meantime, I’m grateful that we’ve always managed to meet somewhere in the middle.

P.S. – My wife approved the final draft of this Reflection…