Marriage Maintenance According to the Experts .
When developing some tips and suggestions for a great marriage, Mike Woods (2001) posed the analogy that marriages are a lot like sailboats: as long as they are afloat, no one thinks twice of boarding and sailing away. However, this creates a problem. Woods says that upon closer look, many marriages are barely afloat or even "taking on water- and on their way down. He then posses the question "What if, like airplanes, all marriages had to submit to an annual review to determine their health? How many would be deemed safe? How many would be deemed hazardous?- How does a marriage stay away from this hazardous state? To determine this we look at the different views and opinions as to the aspects of what makes a happy marriage successful and how that success maintained. .
In an age when divorce is becoming more and more popular, maintaining a marriage is becoming an even more important issue every day. Currently the probability that a marriage within the United States will end in divorce is between 50 and 67 percent (Canary & Stafford, 1994). This subject has recently attracted scholars and researchers who are interested in finding out the important keys needed to keep a relationship together. This area of study has become known as relationship maintenance. Relational maintenance, as defined by Canary and Stafford (1994), is the "actions and activities used to sustain desired relational definitions- (p. 5). In interactions with others we perform or act a certain way using strategies and rules to maintain our relationships. From the results reached, we than define our relationship as being a good one or a bad one. Marriage is one of the important relationships where maintenance is important. Maintaining marriage requires dedication, effort, patience and perseverance. .
In maintaining a relationship one must have goals, and relationship maintenance is a process of goals.