Marriage as a Playground

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What metaphor best describes your relationship? It's important, because the way we talk about marriage, or any long-term relationship, shapes the way we see it and, subsequently, our expectations from it.

Marriage as ball and chain

The media, TV, and movie industry tend to describe marriage as something dull, monotonous, rigid. The TV show Married With Children epitomized this perception. Some of us grew up in homes where our parent’s marriage was at best the background for their life, at worst the golden cage or the burden they had to carry. Bachelor parties often emphasize your “last day of freedom.”

But does that metaphor help couples? It sets up an expectation that once you marry you’ll stop evolving, exploring, playing, and discovering more about yourself and your partner. It signals that marriage is a sort of compromise, even defeat, from the vitality of life.

Marriage as an unconscious choice

Many traditional theories of couples therapy posit that people choose partners based on a deep, unconscious image (also called Imago) of their caretakers. Such an attachment-based approach emphasizes unfulfilled childhood needs and fantasies and therefore marriage should be a warm, safe womb for couples to feel secure enough to heal their unsolved childhood needs and attachment issues.

The focus is consequently on unconscious, unmet needs. Conflicts are seen as manifestations of early wounds. This metaphor accentuates the childish self-states, encouraging partners to validate each other’s feelings, which is helpful for building trust but can ultimately slow down the development of the functioning, differentiated adult part of them.

Marriage as a crucible

Another metaphor for marriage was developed by couples therapist David Schnarch: Marriage is a crucible, a hot place where partners fight, heal, melt, confront themselves and each other, die, and rise up. This approach emphasizes the heat of relationships, which pushes partners to their limits and helps them confront themselves and grow. The approach encourages self-confrontation, self-validation, and directness. Such a visceral metaphor can scare couples, who envision a safer, gentler process.

A better metaphor for marriage:

Marriage as a playground

Many relationships and beliefs about relationship lack the element of play, that soft perception of reality where partners don’t take themselves too seriously, are not afraid of making mistakes, and are spiritedly exploring new ways of being. Play has become a major component of my therapy and lifestyle, and I thank my wife, Galit Romanelli, a Ph.D. candidate and personal coach, for suggesting the metaphor of marriage as a playground.

Why playground?

• It’s all about play. Our mother tongue is play. That is how we all began. When kids enter the playground, they know it’s time to play. They might initiate some games or competitions, but it’s about leaving everyday reality and entering a potential state, between reality and fantasy, where reality is a bit softer. Play is the lubricant of relationships and an essential component of happy marriages.
• It’s all about relationships. You learn so many skills on the playground: How to take turns, fight, compromise, revel in your wins, lose, make friends, show empathy to a loved one, gossip. In short, you learn the art of relationships—how to read and react to different social situations. These are the exact skills you need to master when you are living your life full-time with another human being.
• It’s all about exploration and experimentation. The swings, slides, seesaws, merry-go-rounds are fixed in place, but how to use them is all up to you. You can explore and invent your own ways of playing and being. You get to use your imagination. Creativity and curiosity are the cure for boredom and judgment; they are the traits needed to help keep marriage exciting and vital throughout the years. Exploring beyond the known and familiar keeps couples hungry, renewed, and vivacious as they sage together.
• There are playground rules. No yelling, no vandalizing, no loud noises between two and four o’clock. Just as in marriage, there are ground rules. Those rules provide a sense of security within which to explore. The Law of Creative Limitation emphasizes that people are more creative when they act within limits. This is essentially a form of positive liberty, which is defined as acting according to the values, rules, and limitations that you take upon yourself. Learning to play by the rules is essential in a committed, intimate relationships, where there are moral, financial, sexual, logistical, and family limitations.
• It’s all about a wide range of feelings. In the playground, you can feel many different emotions: joy, wonder, anger, hurt, sadness, elation, defeat, jealousy, love, hate, and everything in between. Feelings are what make us human. Living the full emotional spectrum means feeling the full range of what it is to be alive. A good marriage gives us the opportunity to go beyond survival toward feeling the whole range of being alive.
• It is fun. Yes, it is fun playing in the playground. And marriage should be fun as well, or else why are we doing it?

That’s my metaphor for marriage. I hope it inspires you.

Now let’s go play!