Q: What does The Urantia Book say about unhappy marriges?

A:  Marriage is one of the most challenging relationships that two people can engage in; marriage can bring great happiness, and it can also bring great sorrow. Marriage can bring out the best in a person and it can bring out the worst. Marriage is the first social unit, and the bedrock of civilization. Without it, our civilization would not have evolved as it has.

Please see: The Partnership of Man and Woman

In this section, we read:

84:6.2 Every successful human institution embraces antagonisms of personal interest which have been adjusted to practical working harmony, and homemaking is no exception. Marriage, the basis of home building, is the highest manifestation of that antagonistic co-operation which so often characterizes the contacts of nature and society. The conflict is inevitable. Mating is inherent; it is natural. But marriage is not biologic; it is sociologic. Passion insures that man and woman will come together, but the weaker parental instinct and the social mores hold them together.

Whenever you see the word “antagonistic” you can assume that you have a situation that is going to be challenging, and marriage certainly is that. “The conflict is inevitable.” One has to sacrifice “personal interest” at times; one has to practice the art of “antagonistic co-operation.” Nonetheless, people everywhere strive for the partnership of marriage. It is probably the most desired of all relationships, and when it works well, it is beautiful to see. There is nothing more heartwarming than an elderly couple who have been together for decades and who still feel the warmth of love for one another:

83:8.6 Marriage always has been and still is man’s supreme dream of temporal ideality. Though this beautiful dream is seldom realized in its entirety, it endures as a glorious ideal, ever luring progressing mankind on to greater strivings for human happiness.

As to why a marriage might produce unhappiness, Rodan of Alexandria had some great words of wisdom.

In the section titled The Art of Living , Rodan has this to say:

160:2.10 Too many times marriage is entered by those who seek other values which are lower than these superior accompaniments of human maturity. Ideal marriage must be founded on something more stable than the fluctuations of sentiment and the fickleness of mere sex attraction; it must be based on genuine and mutual personal devotion.

This entire section is well-worth a careful reading.

In our modern societies, marriage suffers. A website that I recently visited maintains that the rate of divorce is running about 50% in America, and even higher in some other countries. If we carefully read the quote above, it is easy to see that unhappy marriages are lacking either a high degree of “genuine and mutual personal devotion” to the marriage itself, or a lack of agreement between the partners as to the values that might otherwise keep them together through the hard times.

Rodan also calls marriage one of the “superior accompaniments of human maturity.” Only an emotionally mature person can hope to be truly successful at marriage. And so, even though marriage is held up as THE relationship to strive for, it still fails of success when its participants enter into it without the accompanying maturity that might keep it afloat.

Maybe modern societies would do well to adopt the following advice From The Urantia Book:

83:8.6 But young men and women should be taught something of the realities of marriage before they are plunged into the exacting demands of the interassociations of family life; youthful idealization should be tempered with some degree of premarital disillusionment.

And maybe the teachers of such ideals should be those old couples whose marriages have stood the test of time…

Again, I want to thank you for writing to us with your question. I hope that this reply has been of some help to you.

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:: Date published: 2014-05-13 19:31:12.873
:: Author: Truthbook Staff