Dear fellow “I’m interested in experiencing all marriage has to offer” types,
I present to you your own copy of A Simple Marriage Manifesto.
->Click here to open or download the manifesto in PDF format.
Copyright stuff: While there are many sources I use to create the posts, classes, emails, and products here at Simple Marriage, this manifesto is free to be shared and/or quoted from in anyway you wish. In other words, spread the word. All I ask is for a link back to here.
Fellow bloggers: If you share this with your readers, please link to this page: http://www.simplemarriage.net/manifesto.html
A few things you’ll learn in this manifesto
- The purpose of committed relationships
- What growing up is, and isn’t
- Two different views of marriage
- How to create a better relationship by blowing things up
Want to help?
A Simple Marriage Manifesto is free. If you’d like to help spread the word, use the ShareThis button below, or share it on Facebook and Twitter. You are also welcome to write about this on your site, or simply share this within your circle of friends and family.
If you enjoy this, feel free to leave a comments below.
(photo source)
“When you feel you need to talk your partner out of what he or she wants in order for you to get your way, you lose.”
This sentence is the key for me. I know that I do this constantly. Now I need to figure out how to stop doing it.
Many couples co-exist in smoldering
unhappiness, resentment and frustration for
years. — that sentence really speaks to me. I thought the manifesto was great.
The manifesto is great. I’m in the process of growing up in my life and relationship and reading this was encouraging. It gets pretty difficult, and it’s easy to slip back into the same patterns that have led me to feeling unhappy. Another thing that has been extremely helpful for me in growing up is group therapy; I’m learning how to effectively speak my mind in constructive ways which has really served as a catalyst for improving my life and taking responsibility for myself. It’s amazing how I’m seeing things differently in my relationship as a result of growing up, and knowing that, regardless of what happens, I’ll have myself to count on is relieving. I don’t need someone else to make me happy, but they can be the icing on the cake, as you said. Love your blog!
I really enjoyed reading this. I love your blog and loved the post about marriage being about growing up and this just expanded on that even more. I’m sure I’ll read it again to make sure I take it all in. Thank you!!
Love, love, love the Manifesto and have already shared it with several people I know! I think this is something every newly wed or engaged couple should have!
Corey, thank you for this. I liked that it was a short read and something I can easily pass on to others. The message is clear to me: I am responsible for myself and the ways in which I respond in the relationship and cannot control the other person. Our marriage can be great if we want it to be but it will take work (just like everything else that is worth our time:) I agree with Shauntelle. I was just thinking about passing this on to a friend who is getting married in a couple of weeks. Thanks again for sharing this and especially encouraging us to share it freely with others. I love that idea!!!
Corey,
Thank you so much for all your work. Your posts and material such as this manifesto offer a very sound approach to marriage. I’m struggling in mine for years, and you’re helping me getting a much better picture of what’s going on.
Excellent job, Corey. You’ve placed in relatively certain terms the requirements for being a mature “grown up” person who can function well in a marriage. I agree that by standing on your own two feet and creating the life of your dreams, you can be more successful and happy individually and in the relationship. I’ll share it with my tribe.
Best,
Lori
Great job with this Corey. My wife and I have been together for 25 years and have what we consider a great marriage but even the best relationships go through rough spots. Thank you for putting into words what I feel was at the heart of the problem. The concept of Differentiation (one of us was/is primarily a thinker and the other primarily a feeler), and the balance between togetherness and separateness. It’s so true that when going through a tough time the tendency may be for one to “lean in” while the other “leans out” and that can lead to resentments. Once that happens it does take some time with yourself and growing up to get past it.
Bravo.
Thank you, Corey, it’s absolutely great.
I think the red pill is working, so I feel a bit wordless.
The part that resonates the loudest right now is the part about responsibility: I used to think that everything that happens between two persons is the responsibility of both of them. Which I still think is true, except that it often left me confused about boundaries. Now I shall take the details, and apply the 100% or 0% rule, and the picture is getting clearer right now.
Happy to share it. Already have.
Melinda
Where do I even start on commenting on the Manifesto? About a dozen statements had the following reactions: “OMG, that’s ME” or “OMG, that’s my husband.” It’s like you peeled back the layers of what others see on a surface level and saw the core discussions that we hide from others in effort to appear ‘Normal.’
My husband always says “I got to be me” “that’s just how I am.” Which I then withdraw from wishing he could find a balance not just for US, but for himself.
Also, I think our “A” diagram as a couple is profoundly slanted. I know I lean waaaay too much on my husband rather than balance or work on myself separately.
Thank You Thank You Thank You for this. I’m going to print it and share it tonight after dinner.
Fabulous reading.
Thank you for a clear and direct statement on being in a relationship. It’s not been easy for me, because I’ve used my parents A-style marriage as my source of knowledge. I remember when my father died, my mother wondered how she was going to live without him. Since reading your emails, I have been learning how to stand up by myself and not blame my husband when I lean on him inappropriately.
Thank you very much for the information! I’ve sent it on to friends.
Ruth
Thank you!! I really enjoyed reading this. I’m sure my husband already practices this, so now it’s my turn to grow up!! I’m going to forward this to others. I sometimes think if I just thought more like a man, things would always go smoother!
Thank you for your words of wisdom…it has helped me to begin to think of some changes that I need to make in and for myself. I am a bit surprised to find out that I have so much “growing up” to do!
loved the article.Even the end,’strength and honour’>which arte the most important qualities in all relationships.
loved the article.Even the end,’strength and honor’>which are the most important qualities in all relationships.
Thanks for writing this! It has helped to clarify exactly what I feel like I’ve been going through this year. It was both reaffirming and a great challenge. I’m definitely sharing this with others. I look forward to hearing more from you. My best!
I read this in under an hour, but have a feeling I will be coming back to read some sections again. It is precise and to the point. thanks for making this available to everyone. I already thought of three people to send this to.
thanks again.
Where were you two years ago? sigh
I’ve spent a few years fighting against ‘growing up’. Now, having been married for about six months, I’ve learned some important things.
1) My wife is usually right when she says there’s a better way to act
2) Acting in that way has made me happier about myself (and has certainly made her happier).
Without realizing it, she was teaching me how to MAN UP, and I’m grateful for her patience while I figured it out.
Thanks for the great article. I’ve certainly felt marriage ‘working on me’ and it’s a bonus I never expected when I said I Do.
I enjoyed this article very much. The use of diagrams to demonstrate how we interact with out partner was especially useful.
I’m emailing this link to my friends-thank you!
I really found this manifesto interesting, even as a person who is in a strong relationship. It’s so true about the need to stand on your own and improve yourself to better your relationship
If you rely on your partner for 100% of your happiness, what happens if they get sick, or have to travel for work, or leave?
The reason they fell in love with you in the first place was probably because you were social, had lots of interesting hobbies, and great friends. So many people make their lives all about their partner and lose their sense of who they are, and maybe even find themselves becoming less attractive to their partner because of it.
I will definitely keep this manifesto in mind as I approach my 2nd wedding anniversary
Thanks
seems to be common sense, 99% of people dont seem to have it!! Needed to read it to make sense of it in my head, think my partner and myself are at different stages hopefully we’ll reach one we communicate better at. Will be looking into more of what you do. :0)
Thank you for taking the time to put this manifesto together. I linked to it off of Tim Brownson’s Life Coaching ebook.
The big point for me in this manifesto is the shift from my partner and I working on our relationship to our relationship working on us. This is fantastic–the kind of figure/ground shift that suddenly makes all kinds of confusing things come into focus.
We’ve been working hard with the Hendricks’ Conscious Loving approach, and we really enjoyed reading this ebook out loud to each other.
I really feel like this could change the way I view my relationship and my own decisions and actions in life. The visual of the two people leaning against each other versus the two people standing next to one another really helped drive the message home for me. By leaning on every word, thought, or action of my spouse, it is impossible for me to stand on my own and grow. I really appreciate you making this available.
My husband and I had one of those long, late night, things aren’t going as well as we’d like conversations. I mentioned that one possible problem is that we don’t have much of anything going on in our lives right now other than work, the kids and each other trying to plug along through it. Then, wouldn’t you know, he finds your article and sends it to me saying, “I think this is what you were talking about last night”. Wow! Needing other sources of friendship, fun etc… is important even when your spouse is your best friend as mine is. While family is the most important thing, they can’t be the only thing.
Glad we found this. Thanks.
Thanks for standing in the gap for marriage as it should be. What a beautiful picture that can be painted in a relationship growing and flourishing. 10 years in and my love and I are just getting started.
Thank you for your Manifesto! I realize that even though I have committed to change, I have remained “insane”. Trying to change without giving anything due to fear. Standing on my own two feet is hard but I feel fearless because of it, and it’s brought nothing but positive transformation.
Thank you for the manifesto. I have been looking for something like this for a couple of years. My marriage has been in crisis for over a year, and I don’t know if this can save it. But it’s given me a whole lot of hope for myself! I feel like dancing when I think about standing on my own two feet and only being responsible for the things that I am 100% responsible for. Those include my emotions, my health, my children, and my job right now. So far, all are thriving since I stopped trying to hold my marriage together and I let go of my husband. Although my marriage fell to pieces, I feel great. And I don’t feel envy for happy couples anymore. I can celebrate them. Thank you.
I just discovered your website and I LOVE IT! I’m so excited about reading and learning more on how to improve my marriage… thank you!
Thanks for providing this manifesto! I’ve recently come to your site from Man vs. Debt, and I have already been deeply convicted about a couple of things. I think I was most into the concept of “getting to rejection.” My husband of five years and I have an amazingly awesome life together, but there are one or two issues I avoid because I’m afraid of what will happen if I bring them up. NOT a grown-up response, I know. I’ll keep reading!
“By the way, getting to rejection quickly does not mean …”
I liked this passage best. I know I will take it with me, think on it and surely change some of my actions because of it. Thanks for writing the Manifesto it has given me food for thought and some ideas for becoming more “grown up”
Thank you so much, we are extremely independent ambitious people and somehow ended up in the a frame. Hoping we can re-find ourselves so we can truly enjoy each other!
WORD!
The two diagrams of leaning on each other versus standing on your own two feet really spoke to me. In reading other posts or comments, it seemed counterintuitive to focus on yourself first, but in that context it totally makes sense!
Best simple advice for having a great marriage instead of just ho hum avg one!
Wow, this manifesto is great. People complement my wife and I about our relationship every day. We ourselves feel like we have a terrific relationship, but we are always looking for new ways to better ourselves and better enjoy our shared space and time. I can’t wait to share this with her today, I know we will be visiting your blog often. Thanks for making this free.
thank you for openly and freely sharing your wisdom with me through the manifesto. I’ve discovered your work/words at a timely point in my marriage.
The illustrations reminded me of Kahlil Gibran’s words about marriage:
“And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
I will be sharing this with my husband and am optimistic we can both grow up to blow up our marriage.
Everything expressed in the manifesto resonates 100% with my personal experience – for years i refused to grow up and take responsibility for my own dissatisfaction in my marriage, it died a painful death. It took a few years but i grew, and gained a real sense of myself, and have since been blessed to find a grown partner. There is work, but we approach it with joy filled hearts, and our relationship is everything we dreamed it could be, close without being constricting. Honesty is the corner stone. First honesty with yourself, and then honesty with each other. Thank you! I will share the manifesto with all my friends x
Thank you for the Manifesto! It was calming and gave me hope at the same time.
“• Be honest and transparent• Learning how to be 100% present• Set healthy boundaries…” These guidelines seem so evident and basic, they can look unimportant, but actually they are the most important- it’s good to know and feel that.
I have been married over 25 years now to a wonderful woman. About 5 years into our marriage I began just trying to keep her happy. Since then I have felt “lost” and just content. About every 5 years we go into therapy and I am told to find my passion and do something for myself. I have never understood how you could totally love someone and be thinking of yourself. Well, as you said, it’s insanity – doing the same thing and expecting different results. I am beginning to understand now what I have to do for myself AND our relationship. Stand up and be true to myself.
Great! Can’t wait to show and start working it with my partner. Thank you!
Amazing! Thank you, Corey for this manifesto. It has enlightened how I usually act in a relationship.. I want to be free & independent, yet still love a person with as much passion as he has for me. I will share this, definitely!
Thank you so much for offering this for FREE! It means a lot to me, because we are so financially strapped right now, yet I can still get wonderful advice, etc… to help me be a better wife!
Corey, thanks for this manifesto! It is very sound advice and feels true, also from the view of my own relationships. Thank you.
Thanks for your free excellent online service. Plenty to think about, plenty to reflect on.
Probably this promotes good life, florishing life of many people. I am grateful.
Thanks! I have just begun to browse around your website. I am exceedingly impressed. I just downloaded and read your Manifesto. I love where you are going. Thank you so much! I am eager for more, and very much appreciate the fact that this is FREE. There is “so much” out there, and I find it annoying to begin to read something and then have to subscribe, buy a book, etc. If I wanted to do that, I’d search Amazon- I am searching the internet to see what good stuff is offered with just the investment of my time- if it’s good stuff, I always spread it (which I will do!)— thank you!
I’m like the guy who’s been trying to avoid conflict with my wife, just to make her happy. Sometimes when I try talking to my wife and being honest, she just packs up and cry. At times she think I don’t love her or lost interest in our relationship. For a long time I became silent, and very bottled in trying to avoid conflict. Her priorities have always come first in her life and mine.
With what I learned from the manifesto, is facing your greatest fear “loneliness”. Once defeated, you’ll realize self-growth and maturity. And if you’re still on the same relationship, your spouce will then notice new changes and admire the rooted qualities you’ve been hiding all along.
I needed this Corey. Thanks a million times.
My wife Sandy and I just wed on the Isle of Jersey…I’ll tell you one thing, getting married in jersey is a big hassle if you’re not Anglican.
Wow. Growing Up. I’m sure this will be one of the single hardest things I will have embarked on in my life. My marriage is close to the edge and I want to do what it takes to save it. I know I need to communicate, which is also one of the hardest things I have to do. I need to do it for the sake of me, my marriage, and for my whole family.
I need to be up to the task and I will be.
God help me.
Hi Corey,
thank you for this great piece of work. It has met me in the right moment I am curious to see, what my life turn into, once I lean into the fear and grow up. Thank you for comprimising and making understanding easy.
I will certainly forward this on to my friends. Have you got this available in other languages by any chance? Yvonne
Your advice really speaks to me. My husband and I have been having problems for years now because I am inattentive and not active enough in our relationship. When you described waiting for the other partner to act as a cancer it really hit home. I have been in denial of a self-inflicted variety of emotional cancer, and I really need to remove these awful behaviors and grow up!
You write very well. It is not only insightful and informative but easy to comprehend and relate to.
Thank you very much.
This is basically a manifesto on ‘how not to be codependent.’ But, my question – how do you apply this when one partner is unbalanced due to addiction or mental health issues?
While being in relationship with a partner like you describe makes this a little more difficult, the same concepts still apply.
Thanks, Corey. Your information aligns with the readings and support offered through Alanon. I highly suggest that anyone with a spouse dealing with addiction to drugs or alcohol also look to Alanon for support, especially since the 12-step programs work on building a better spiritual life.
I think your manifesto is pretty much spot on, but I’d like to see more information on your site on applying these principles to a marriage with an addicted spouse.
Applying all this is difficult because the addicted spouse is generally harder to reach; it takes longer – with more patience and letting go of expectations – to see relationship improvements (though Alanon works to help you understand that you can only affect change in yourself, not the other person – so improvements are only in how you react, you may not see it in the other).
It can be very confusing when one spouse is working on “individuation” after years of centering on the other and the other isn’t. It can easily breed resentment in one or the other.
Can you write more on alcoholism/drug addiction? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.
Love love love it!!! Thank you so much
There are really a lot of true aspects in this manifesto. For me my whole life i was more the intellectual person, but according to some changes in life the last year was the most emotionally intense one of my life. I was expressing my feelings so much, sometimes to directly. So now the time has come to combine those two extreme ways into one.
But there is still one question bothering me. When both partners concentrate more on themselves, it will cause a lot of anxiety because it brings kind of more distance then there was before. So how to deal with this? Ok I guess this is the challenge, to give more room to the partner’s needs without feeling to be rejected and get angry.
Corey I found your manifesto excellent. If I had to say something, I’d say that it doesn’t only -I think- apply for marriage, I think that in some ways it could be applied to all kind of relationships.
Anyways, thanks for this piece of reading, it was a really good one.
Greatings from Argentina
Thanks for this! I just finished reading it and I look forward to growing up. A lot of this is resonating with me since I’m in the process of reading 9 things you simply must do by Henry cloud and he talks a lot about responsibility there too. Thanks again Corey!
Thank you for writing this. My marriage of 2 years is just ending. My husband walked away spewing that he was miserable and needed his freedom and his life back. We have an 8 month old daughter. We had been in counseling for two months before this happened and I am shell shocked. I believe in personal growth and respect for your partner. That no one person holds importance over the other. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful example from my parents on how to have a healthy relationship and “growing up” is key. Something he obviously doesn’t want to do. I feel like he didn’t even put in the effort for his family and was all about himself. It’s unfortunate and heartbreaking but reading your articles and the manifesto, I know that THIS is what a good marriage is supposed to look like. Something I wanted so badly for us, but as one person I can’t change his outlook on himself or this marriage. I can’t do it all by myself. Thank you for reaffirming my beliefs on marriage and the way I view things aren’t “crazy” like i’m being told. There is a way to have a balanced healthy marriage.
Wow. Just got done reading the manifesto and it hit home in so many levels. Even before the recent issues in our marriage I had always been of the mindset of making my wife happy and she would return the favor, so to say. When the affection wasn’t returned, I drifted off and she drifted into an emotional affair. We rectified the situation and I addressed some of the issues with my life but I had started leaning into the same scenario of me doing things to try to make her happy, expecting it would be returned. I was very fearful of the situation repeating. This quick read has opened my eyes and makes me want to improve myself in more areas hopefully creating a better bond between my wife and I.
This was an interresting read. I am not married, nor is my relationship in a crisis, but nontheless this manifesto resonated with me and I want to thank you for giving this advice into the world for free. I was just looking into what makes a relationship work, thinking I’d better find out before I “really needed to fix something”. And here I found a piece of work that truly inspired me to understand. Thank you.
This sounds very similar to what Dr. Robert Glover teaches through his “No More Mr. Nice Guy” website.
I love Dr. Glover’s work and reference it often. It’s very helpful – and in many instances, spot on.