Holding on to Fundamentals will Save Marriages Today, Says Expert

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 Posted: 2:15:13PM HKT

Twenty marriages break down every day in Singapore, according to 2008 statistics. But counselling expert John Ng still believes 'great' marriages are possible, as long as couples are willing to build on the fundamentals.

Taking a leaf from basketball legend Michael Jordan, Dr Ng said that fundamentals are building blocks that make everything work. As such, they make people the best in what they do and need to be focused on.

And they don’t come naturally. They need to be built from the beginning. Otherwise they will catch up eventually. They can also be forgotten and neglected. People need to keep going back to them. Finally, fundamentals never change. What changes is people’s attention to them.

In his new book, Dim Sum for the Family, he shared ten principles for building healthy marriages. These will build up the positive moments and manage the negative moments in marriage. He noted that prominent family therapist John Gottman could predict with 94 percent accuracy the couples that will part. Gottman described a healthy relationship as one with a “magic ratio of 5:1”, or having five positive moments to one negative moment.

These ten principles include: to nurture shared values, manage differences, affirm each other’s strengths, share pain and gain together, try a little kindness, allow mutual influence, manage around unresolved conflicts, make the spouse the best friend, have an accountability community and take sex life seriously and enjoy.

Dr Ng described two perspectives on marriage.

Many people view marriage like first-car buyers buying a new car. Just as they would look for a perfect car, they look for a perfect spouse. And when they find it, they get exhilarated, admire, take great care of it and enjoy it. Later on, things go wrong with the car.

“Instead, we should come into a marriage not like buying a new car but really with the perspective of two individuals bringing each of our unique values, personality, strengths, weaknesses, gifts, dreams and fears into the relationship. We are bringing our own different parts to build a very unique car,” he said.

And when people try to build a car, it will definitely have problems, he highlighted.

“We not communicate that well. We may not stop when told. We will not be able to listen to each other that well. There will be conflicts. But the more we work on it, the more we are able to accommodate each other. The more committed we are, the older we are, the better we will become like good wine. That is what great marriage is like. It will become better as we learn to adjust to one another, accommodate each other, and build on it together.”

Though Dr Ng wrote on the subject of building healthy families, he concluded by reemphasising the importance of and fundamentals for building healthy marriages.

“The marking of a great society begins with a great marriage,” he said, adding that a healthy marriage is the ‘legacy’ that couples should pass on to their children and future descendents.

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Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com