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I suck at finding mentors. I hate asking people to mentor me. I don’t know how to do it without it becoming awkward. And I secretly fear that the person I’m asking will laugh and say no.
When I was in college, it was so much easier. The theatre association I joined assigned every new member a mentor, it was just up to you to maintain the relationship. When I joined my sorority, you picked your big and your big then mentored you through out your Greek Life experience (and I still go to my big when I’m mulling over major life decisions, Thanks Michelle!). When I was elected president of my chapter, there was an alumnae member just waiting to be my advisor. Everything was provided for me.
But now, I have to find my own mentors. And I don’t know where to begin. I really don’t have a mentor for my career or a mentor for blogging.
I’m more concerned though about finding a mentor for my marriage. Because, at the end of the day, I will only be married once. Making this work, and in a healthy way, is so important. I won’t get another shot at a happy marriage but there will always be a second chance with my career.
There are a few reasons why finding a couple to mentor my marriage is so hard.
With that being said, not having a mentor is just not a good idea. But I’m not quite sure where I am supposed to go next. And when something is so important, how do you establish criteria without crippling yourself in the process? It almost feels more difficult than the decision to become a married couple.
Where do you find your best mentors? And how do you establish that relationship once you have realized the potential?
Hi Dorie, thanks for the response. First off, I think you do a great job of showing that you're taking personal responsibility for your marriage, so apologies if I came across like I was questioning that.
I agree with you that marriage is a commitment between more than just yourself and husband, in many ways. (And I don't happen to think this is religion-specific.) Families - whatever their shape, size or format - are the building blocks of our communities, which is why it's so important that they work for everyone involved. I think this becomes especially true when children come along (I love that old saying about how it takes an entire village to raise a child).
But I still strongly believe that when it comes to making a marriage work, the buck stops with the couple, both as individuals and as a pair. And it's important that the couple and their community are clear about where this line is. Because *not* being clear on this is one area where I believe (some) cultures have been going wrong when it comes to marriage, and that's a shame.
How to make my marriage work is something I think about every day. On the one hand I find the shortage of relevant role models very difficult. On the other, I'm starting to embrace the idea there are no easy or instant answers. I like the idea that our journey is about myself and my husband working this out for ourselves.
I love that you've started this dialogue - it's brave. Thank you.
Given that my wife and I are about to begin some marriage counseling, I think it's important to have people around that can offer candid, often time critical advice on your actions within a relationship. It's easy to look at what you're doing as OK, whereas your partner sees it as hurtful.
My wife and I have very different backgrounds, but we both know that we want to share both the good times and bad, and doing whatever we can to make sure the bad doesn't take over is paramount.
@Anna Michelle - Congrats to you and your fiance! Just in case no one has told you yet, go pick up Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. It was, by far, the best marriage book we read in our pre-marriage prep.
@Norcross - I'll be really interested to hear how you and your wife will be dealing with the process. Please let me know.
@Darlene - How are you trying to combat your communication laziness? Brian tends to call me out when I'm lazy about communication (usually a subtle "i don't know what's in your head" does the trick) - now we just need to work on calling it out a little earlier.
I don't know, Dorie - I see what you're saying, but I have to say I don't agree with your pastor. Why isn't it enough for you to be accountable to yourself, and to your partner? Why does an outsider have to come into this for you to be made accountable for yourself?
Personally, I believe you each need to look inside yourselves (or to your god, if you prefer) for your answers on how to be the best person you can possibly be, every day, in everything you do. That includes how you communicate and interact with your partner. Then, like Melissa said, you need to be be mentors ***to each other***. It seems to me that turning away from each other is the last thing you need to be doing.
It's fine to observe what works for others, and it's good to think about if and how certain elements of this might apply to your relationship.
But I think inviting other people to mentor your marriage sounds dangerously close to absolving yourself of responsibility for your own thoughts, words and deeds, and in an arena where you are extremely vulnerable too... It might sound like a nice, neat way to manage difficult times in your relationship, but I don't believe it's the healthiest, to be honest.
FWIW, I found The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (J. Gottman and N. Silver) a really useful read in helping me develop tools to work through some tough times with my husband.
I too am married (for about 2 years now). I respect your decision to seek a marriage mentor.
I can't see how a mentor would help me with my marriage though. My husband and I try not to even get our family members involved, because very few people can give you accurate advice on how to deal with your relationship. Even if they've been through something similar to you, it's never exactly the same.
In my experience, my marriage tends to do better when each of us are doing well on our own first. When we're both happy with our lives, we're able to be happy together. I wonder if it would be better for each person in the marriage to get individual counseling when things go sour? I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Why do you say "not having a mentor is just not a good idea"?
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of a "marriage mentor," honestly. I know that for my and my husband, the most important thing is that we be honest with each other and never assume that either one of us is capable of mind-reading. But I didn't need a marriage mentor to tell me that; I just paid attention to what does and doesn't work in other marriages (indeed, other relationships) that I've seen.
I'd be really leery of trying to find a mentor for every part of your life. In fact, I'm not sure how great an idea it is to have a single mentor for your career--even for a particular stage in your career. Even in a work situation, I think it's better to have multiple sources of information and guidance, and weigh their different inputs yourself.
In the end, your actions are based on your decisions, and your decisions should be based on your analysis of information. I'm not sure why a mentor is required for that most of the time.
I wonder why you need 1 mentor for your marriage. I have been married for almost 4 years and been with my husband for 10. We have always sought the advice and wisdom of the people around us who are married, have been married, and aren't married anymore. It's a variety of people that make up our circle and you can learn from other people's mistakes for sure. Our discussions of what a variety of people have done has been what has steered us so far.
I get the idea of a career mentor- someone to guide you through your industry, help you make contacts, someone to advise you during times of transition- but I don't get how that translates to marriage. Ultimately you have to be eachother's mentors and navigate the waters together. I would find it really difficult to always feel the need to look outside of "us" first for the answer.
It's hard to find a spiritual mentor, but it's harder to try to find a couple of them at the same time that fit the needs of two different people.
Maybe if you can find a married woman that you trust and respect and he can find a married man he trusts and respects, it won't matter if they are married to each other. In fact, in that case you'll have two neat couples to get to know.
whenever I want a mentor, I just look to someone I admire and aspire to, then ask them. People are usually flattered to help, so get over the shyness. Just find someone who you find yourself thinking "damn, I wish we had a marriage like theirs" and go for it. There must be someone who has what you want. They have your answers as well.
@Monica - We leave our family out of it too. Main reason why: our families are so invested in both of us but for very different reasons.
@KateNonymous - I believe that as a culture, we desperately need to rethink how we do marriage. As a product of divorce, I don't always have healthy ideas regarding married life. Part of finding a marriage mentor is keeping me accountable.
@Melissa - A big part of wanting a marriage mentor is the Christian aspect of our lives. Our pastor once told us that the ability (and developed skill)to let other people into our marriage was so important for when times get rough. We haven't hit anything rough yet, I just don't like the idea of floundering when it really counts.
@Chuck - Such a good point. Sometimes, I really need to learn to surrender my concept of the ideal situation and pursue realistic situations.
@Max - Thanks for the tip. I admire your ability to ask for what you want.
Dorie, great post! I just got engaged, and this is something me and my fiance are looking for too!
Right now, we feel really confident in how NOT to do our marriage, based on our parents' - but we haven't had access inside a marriage that actually works. We go to a mega-church in Nashville, so there are formal programs to get newlyweds connected to older married adults. Maybe something similar in your city?
Thanks again for a great post!
Before my husband and I got married in February, our officiant told us that counseling after the wedding was more important than any counseling we would have beforehand. He introduced us to a couple at his church who are active in a program called "PAIRS--Passage to Intimacy". We went to a weekend workshop that was very good, but evidently you can get into small groups that walk you through its tools over a period of months. You can then get mentoring from the couple leading the group and input from the other couples who are a part of it. We want to try this. We're only almost married 6 months, but I can already see myself getting lazy in how I communicate.
I'm not married... or about to be or anything like that... but if I were in need of a marriage mentor, I'd look to my grandparents. Both sets have been married for 50+ years... they must know something about maintaining a successful relationship.
@Kaila - My grandparents taught me a lot about how not to do marriage... Now that they are in assisted living, it seems like they are just starting now to work on being kind to each other.
@Sarah - As a Christian, I believe marriage is not just a commitment that my husband and I made but a commitment that was made amoungst my husband, myself, God and the community we live in. I'm not trying to take this down a no personal responsibility path but I am looking at marriage within our culture and trying to rethink how we approach the process and the commitment. We (as a culture) have been doing something wrong for sometime now and its only through dialog that we can change that.
Marriage and coaching.. So many questions, so few answers.
Most of us have our own pile of issues to work on, and then we get into what is the longest commitment that we can think of. Marriage is about many things at the same time. Starting with love, respect, communication, and the promise to grow together.
And that is the part that we all tend to forget.. Life is all about learning and growing, and if a marriage is to endure the test of time, it's very important to understand that our needs and views will change as we grow, that it's our responsibility to what after our partner’s growth as well as our own. Most break-ups are in fact rooted in different growth speeds.
I really don’t know if a coach can add value to this equation, but the fact of asking the question, is a real step forward.
Great questions. Sorry, I don't have an answer on how to find a marriage mentor. I get my advice mostly on-line, from older couples, and a bit of therapy.
I got a lot of help out of PT's comments about successful career women, and how hard it is to find two career families that work (without the kids being raised by a nanny, which is not what I wanted).
Reading blogs (like this one, and PT's) have helped me a lot with comparison information, and realizing that over time there's more or less time spent on different aspects of our lives.
Past generations aren't so helpful with navigating the modern world (although you can still learn a lot about patience, commitment, and faith).
Women have it especially hard, as good historical models are very, very few (unless you were born rich, in which case a lot of child care stuff is much easier).
I think your topic is too general. What if you were looking for a mentor to talk to you about "affair-proofing" your marriage, or "remaining intimate" or handling finances, or god-willing bringing children into the world. Those specifics might make finding a mentor easier. Marriage is a very big topic....
@Yvette - You're right, marriage is a very big topic. But I'm not sure about specific topic mentors. "Remaining Intimate" is part of "affair-proofing" a marriage and "handling finances" is an act of "remaining intimate". And children, well, children change all of the rules of the game (ie: children change what the face of intimacy looks like). It seems, at least so far in my own marriage, that all aspects of life are more blended than I ever realized possible.
As a generation X, only-child, INTJ personality type--it's probably no surprise I would be baffled at the idea of a marriage mentor. The whole idea of "working at" marriage is foreign to me and I have never understood why people find it difficult to make a marriage work. Life itself is difficult and there are many challenges on a daily basis (we have 3 kids under 4 and have been married for over 13 years now) so I am not trivializing things and saying it is "easy." But we are a team and I can't concieve of bringing another person in for advice on our family.
Dorie, I can't believe I missed reading this post earlier this year! I recently finished a year of marriage and really really relate to what you've written about. Advice from older siblings and friends are easy to come by. But yes, another couple, really walking you through the initial few difficult years of marriage, is a different experience altogether. And I agree so much with you on the fact that you have just one chance to a successful marriage, but several chances to a great career. Marriage is a challenging relationship and I too feel the frustration at times when I'm at a loss for ideas on dealing with something. If you do find a mentor, I'd love to read what you have to say. :-) Good luck with the endeavor!
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