In marriages, like in most relationships, there are stories we all tell about each other. Whether it’s the story of how we met or that time we survived a thunderstorm during a camping trip, they’re the stories that come up when you’re at a party or meeting your partner’s colleagues.
But what do those stories say about our relationships?
Well, a new study has some answers. It’s called “Happily Ever After?: What Stories Repeatedly Told to Others Reveal about Marriage and Identity” and, for it, researchers interviewed 51 married participants about the stories they tell about themselves — and why.
Renee Bordeaux was one of the authors of the study and The Show spoke with her more about it.
Full conversation
RENEE BORDEAUX: One day, we were noticing that our spouses tended to tell the same stories to other people in different scenarios. So if you were at a work event or something else. I'd be like, “Why do you always pick that story?” And it started us thinking.
And actually, one of the other researchers I work with is a psychologist, and she's fascinated by memories and why we select certain memories, and I was fascinated by communication and how we tell the story. So we just thought this could be a really cool way to learn more about things like why are we telling these stories in front of our spouse who already knows the story, making the same ones?
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so give us some examples. Like, what do we mean by the stories we tell about our marriage, like, what kinds of stories came to mind for you?
BORDEAUX: So sometimes it would be like really good stories, like we worked so hard, we persevered. Look at us. We conquered this parenting challenge. But sometimes we were finding either our spouses or other spouses we were talking to were sharing like these hard moments they were in, or struggles that they were having. And so, we're like, well, there has to be a reason why we're selecting those. And as we started recruiting, we're like, well, we want to talk to people who would ideally say, like, “I think I've got my marriage together.”
GILGER: Right.
BORDEAUX: And so we started recruiting people, and we had them take an assessment, which actually tells us, yeah, they on paper have it together, and they're happily together. And so then we just ask them, like, why do you choose these stories? And we asked them to tell us some of the stories. And we didn't ask them to just tell their story. We wanted them to hear what their spouse was telling.
GILGER: Were they different often? I mean, are these sort of very different stories?
BORDEAUX: They were always very different. And sometimes they like the stories their partners told. And honestly, sometimes they were like, “I don't know why they keep telling this story. It embarrasses me every single time.”
GILGER: So there were positive things revealed about marriages because of this, and negative things revealed about marriages because of this, but even the negative things it sounds like were within this context of people who say they're pretty happy with their marriage, right?
BORDEAUX: Absolutely. So we actually found it, and it was fascinating, because there was, of course, a good, long, awesome list of things that people said. This is what a happy marriage looks like to us. Yeah. And they were things like, you know, my partner's meeting my emotional needs. We're actually enjoying spending time together. We have a shared vision for where we're going.
But there were some negatives, which was actually, honestly very surprising to us, since they all tested as people who said that they were in happy relationships, but things about, like, negative impacts other people, interestingly, like boundary mismanagement, like people trying to be too independent, people sacrificing their individual needs, always giving into their spouse.
GILGER: Sure, there's this idea in the study of collective identity, or like, like marriage identity, right? Which is really interesting because storytelling is so much about identity. So within the marriage context, that's what the storytelling tends to be about, this marriage identity?
BORDEAUX: Interestingly, it was about marriage identity a lot, yes, like what we've done together, but we also saw quite a few instances in the data that talked about our personal identity. Like, what am I teaching other people? What do I want people to see that I'm capable of because I did these things, and I think sometimes that's why we saw the negative things come out, because they were frustrated, or their partner was sharing something that maybe didn't paint them in a good light. And so there was always, it was, it was very interesting that in the realm of them talking about themselves and sharing about themselves in public, they were sharing both good and bad.
GILGER: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, right? And those are people who are still happy. So when we talk about conclusions to this, right, like, if you're looking at where all of this lands, what did you learn about sort of happy, satisfied marriages?
BORDEAUX: I actually have two things that people, when they look at this research, what they can do with it, number one, and I think that the clearest takeaway is an action. What can I do? The largest instance in all of the data set, in every couple, they talked about doing things together and talking about it and making the best of whatever it is. So one takeaway is continually schedule time together, regular date nights, take time to hang out together and then reflect on that, talk about what it means to you to spend time with the other person.
Now, the second takeaway, I think, is a more powerful kind of mindset, because social media has made us believe that, you know, everybody lives in these highlight reels and everything's awesome. We interviewed a large group of people. We qualitatively asked them to tell stories, and deeply got to understand more about them in their marriage. And the takeaway was that they were all happy, but they all talked about challenges.
GILGER: Yeah.
BORDEAUX: So the takeaway is that not every happy marriage looks the same, and you shouldn't be aiming for this perfect highlight reel of what everybody else is doing, because everybody's version of happy is a little bit different.
GILGER: What did this study and sort of the process of conducting this many interviews with this many married couples, right, like, what did it reveal to you about communication and the importance of that in a marriage?
BORDEAUX: So people could talk for hours. And we actually had to close our recruitment because people just kept signing up and signing up and signing up. They wanted to tell stories, and they're so proud of what they've crafted and created. And signing up for a study where you get to talk about your happy marriage was really cool.
So number one, people love to share their successes, because I think it shows and teaches others how to do it, and maybe that's what's at the heart of it. But number two, I think it helps build your own identity. Like I'm proud of this, I did this, but the other thing that we see is communication is crucial in healthy relationships, because it actually helps construct your meaning. Relive the stories, retell the stories, tell them to other people, honor where you've been and where you're going, celebrate the things that you've accomplished together.
So telling life stories is actually one of the things that builds our marriage identity, and it helps other people see what we've created as well, and we do that through story, because on the outside, people don't know all of the things you've done. You show them that through story.
