Within the pages of Jordan Peterson’s book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, lives some of the best marriage advice available. Rule 10 encourages couples to “Plan and Work Diligently to maintain the Romance in Your Relationship.”
The theme of Peterson’s book is how each of us can, and should, move beyond a life that has become too orderly. In his prior book, titled 12 Rules for Life, Peterson prescribes methods for gaining control when life is too chaotic. In this book, he explains chaos is part of life and so is the desire for order, but too much chaos and too much order each cause problems. His view is that “neither the state of order nor the state of chaos is preferable, intrinsically, to the other.” As it relates to romance, he shows why and how we should avoid a stale relationship.
Marriage Advice
Peterson’s best advice on marriage can be broken down into the following five points:
Shackled Together
Peterson explains it is necessary for married couples to know there is no escape hatch. Marriage is a permanent situation. He writes, two are “shackled together” which fools will see as limiting, but wise couples realize as a strength. If you are permanently together with no alternative, then couples will learn to use that bond as a way to compliment each other, balance power within a relationship, negotiate, stop seeking relationship alternatives, and countless other ways of bonding.
Trust
Trust is clearly an important attribute in a healthy marriage. What Peterson adds to the discussion are the realities of what trust means. Trusting is a risk every happily married man and woman must take. Both must be honest, vulnerable, and seek truth. Without trust, all else in the relationship fails. Trust, he points out, is easier said than done, but total trust and honesty is the spine of every marriage.
Spend Time Together
Couples who spend time together are happiest. Peterson advises couples who want to improve romance to commit to two dates per week, which is over 100 dates a year. Over the course of a decade, that’s 1,000 dates. No one is insane enough to go on 1,000 miserable dates, so by forcing the habit, couples naturally learn to enjoy each other.
Make Peace and Learn to Negotiate
Most good marriage advice begins and ends with communication. Learn to communicate and all will be fine. Peterson drives to the heart of communication by encouraging negotiating. It’s hard learning to negotiate everything. Without it, you risk becoming tyrannical to your spouse or being tyrannized by him or her – both create massive resentments. When couples understand that “Until death do us part” is permanent, they learn to negotiate. People don’t set out to be overbearing or to get runover, learning to negotiate with one another respectfully prevents lots of heartache.
Determine Your Roles
The sooner a couple can establish who is in charge of what, the easier time they will have negotiating. Couples can either take or leave traditional gender roles, but for many it’s a starting place. If you establish who is doing what, then there are far fewer things to negotiate because each person knows their jobs.
If you do these things, your life and marriage will be better.
Dating Advice
Prior to marriage, people would benefit from understanding two key ideas Peterson sees as helpful.
1) Make a Marriage, Don’t Find One – There are billions of options and it’s not likely you will find the one person perfectly matched for you. It is much more likely that two people can be committed to each other, to the institution, to God, and do the correct things to make a marriage. In other words, making a good marriage is totally doable if you are willing to make the effort. The mindset of finding the perfect person is faulty and will set you up to fail.
2) Don’t Cohabitate Prior to Marriage – According to Peterson, there is no upside and in fact cohabitating is pretty destructive. This is what he writes:
You might be tempted to conclude: “Well, how about we live together, instead of getting married? We will try each other out. It is the sensible thing to do.” But what exactly does it mean, when you invite someone to live with you, instead of committing yourself to each other? And let us be appropriately harsh and realistic about our appraisal, instead of pretending we are taking a used car for a test jaunt. Here is what it means: “You will do, for now, and I presume you feel the same way about me. Otherwise we would just get married. But in the name of a common sense that neither of us possesses we are going to reserve the right to swap each other out for a better option at any point.” And if you do not think that is what living together means—as a fully articulated ethical statement—see if you can formulate something more plausible.
You might think, “Look, Doc, that is pretty cynical.” So why not we consider the stats, instead of the opinion of arguably but not truly old-fashioned me? The breakup rate among people who are not married but are living together—so, married in everything but the formal sense—is substantially higher than the divorce rate among married couples. And even if you do get married and make an honest person, so to speak, of the individual with whom you cohabited, you are still much more rather than less likely to get divorced than you would be had you never lived together initially. So the idea of trying each other out? Sounds enticing, but does not work.
It is of course possible that people who are more likely to get divorced, for reasons of temperament, are also more likely to live together, before or without marriage, rather or in addition to the possibility that living together just does not work. It is no simple matter to disentangle the two causal factors. But it does not matter, practically. Cohabitation without the promise of permanent commitment, socially announced, ceremonially established, seriously considered, does not produce more robust marriages. And there is nothing good about that—particularly for children, who do much worse in single parent (generally male-absent) families. Period. So, I just do not see it as a justifiable social alternative.And I say that as someone who lived with my wife before I married her. I am not innocent in this regard. But that does not mean I was right. And there is something else, and it is far from trivial. You just do not have that many chances in life to have an intimate relationship work out properly. Maybe it takes you two or three years to meet the potential Mr. or Ms. Right, and another two or three to determine if they are in fact who you think they are. That is five years. You get old a lot faster than you think you will, no matter how old you are now, and most of what you could do with your family—with marriage, children, and so forth—is from twentysomething to about thirty-five. How many good five-year chances do you therefore have? Three? Four, if you are fortunate?
Statistics on divorce rates show his logic holds true and satisfaction surveys show married people are more satisfied with marriage than living with a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Good Ole Fashioned Wisdom
The ideas Peterson present in this chapter are not novel – they are good ole fashioned wisdom. Not long ago everyone understood these truths and consequently marriage, child rearing, and family life where tremendously better. For more content from the Conservative Book Society, visit our YouTube channel and Instagram. If you like this review of marriage, you might also enjoy reading our review of Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. You can purchase the book here.
Peterson concludes that if you do these things:
“…maybe—just maybe—you will maintain the love of your life and you will have a friend and confidant, and this cold rock we live on at the far end of the cosmos will be a little warmer and more comforting than it would otherwise be. And you are going to need that, because rough times are always on their way, and you better have something to set against them or despair will visit and will not depart. Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.”
