A New York University researcher reported last year that in a study which allowed people to bend the rules (cheat), individuals were more likely to do so in order to avoid loss rather than to make a gain. I experience this application to marriage on a daily basis.
As I encounter couples in my counseling office, many are stuck in unhealthy places in their marriage, and have been so for years. In attempting to help them get unstuck, I often encounter resistance, which doesn’t seem to make much sense until you consider the study above. While people would like their marriage to be better, rather than take a chance and do something different to move it forward, they are more likely to stay hunkered down and stuck because they figure that will at least guarantee that things won’t get any worse.
However, if you stay stuck, haven’t you already decided to live with “worse?” Sure, you haven’t lost ground, but is this really want you want for your marriage? Rather I want to encourage you to risk having things become what you always dreamed of. What have you got to lose? Hopefully, everything.