Mattering in Marriage: Three Lessons for Success
Ora and I have been married for nearly forty years. Since meeting in 1982 we’ve lived in thirteen houses in six cities in four countries. We’ve also remodeled a few houses to make them wheelchair accessible for Ora, and every single time the contractors drove us insane. We bought and sold fifteen properties in three countries, and thanks to my financial acumen, we have a nearly perfect record of always losing money on real estate.
Surprisingly, we’ve found time to do other things together. For example: we co-authored four books on well-being that almost killed us, including the forthcoming How People Matter: Why it Affects Health, Happiness, Love, Work, and Society, to be published by Cambridge University Press in August 2021. We also co-taught a class for twelve semesters; and every semester Ora insisted that I upgrade my lectures, even though the students seemed to like them just fine. We lived through four graduate degrees and two doctoral dissertations. Combined, we’ve had a total of fifteen jobs. We also ran together two randomized controlled trials of an intervention consisting of 152 activities that we designed. Ora has censored dozens of my humor columns for fear that I might lose my job. We also raised an amazing and highly spirited child who could argue about the fairness of bedtime before he was toilet trained. And we did all of this without ever having a single argument.
You probably don’t believe us, do you? You shouldn’t believe us. Of course we argued! In fact, we argued endlessly about our latest book. But despite Ora’s search for perfection, and my many imperfections, we are still truly happily married.
When we think about what we’re doing right, there are three things that keep us together. First, we make each other feel valued. Second, we help each other add value. Third, we cuddle in bed. In our forthcoming book we deal only with the first two factors because Ora thinks it is too embarrassing to talk about anything we do in bed.
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky is an award-winning academic and author. He is also a coach, consultant and a researcher. His latest book, co-authored with his wife, Dr. Ora Prilleltensky, is How People Matter: Why it Affects Health, Happiness, Love, Work, and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Press here to pre-order.