THE PHASES OF MARRIAGE: PHASE TWO

This lasts about twenty years, covering the period during which the children grow up and leave home. In general, dissatisfaction with marriage increases during this period and most couples tend to draw apart. Earlier problems that were not resolved are aggravated, intercourse rates fall, and experimentation declines. Ironically, sex now rears its head in a rather unexpected way. The man who, in the first years of marriage, felt he was getting less sex than he thought he needed (because his wife was inexperienced or reluctant), is now amazed to discover that she wants more than he can supply at a time when he is under increasing pressure at work and at home.

As the last sexual inhibitions are shed many women really come into their own sexually in their late thirties and forties. Some begin to worry about the menopause and what it will do to their attractiveness. Some women have a mad fling at this stage for fear that it will be their last chance before their charms fade. Often such women do so with their husbands, but others look elsewhere. Of course, there is no evidence that women are less sexy after the menopause – on the

contrary, many blossom as never before although others feel that with their fertility gone they have no right to sexual pleasure.

Two useful signs that a woman of this age is looking outside her marriage for sex are the onset of effective dieting after many years of unsuccessful efforts and suddenly finding endless fault with their husbands. The latter is a commonly used way of ‘de-loving’ him because in our culture, if she still loved him she would not be ‘free’ to fall in love elsewhere.

A common factor that links the first two phases of marriage is that the two partners may not see themselves as equal in attractiveness and value. The more attractive spouses can come to see themselves as under-benefiting from the relationship and the less attractive ones as

over-benefiting. Either way, couples often start to count the cost and this is a bad sign. The relationship no longer seems to be a good bargain, benefiting each equally. The under-benefited one becomes less willing to please and eventually starts having affairs, scarcely caring about the effect on the other partner. The over-benefited partner is less likely to object for fear of losing the (too good) spouse and is unlikely to have an affair to retaliate for fear of being totally abandoned. This is another reason why couples should be as nearly equal as possible in attractiveness as in all else.

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