The 10 Commandments of Marriage: #10 Do Not Settle

Ever wondered why the divorce rate is alarmingly high and true marital bliss so rare? On our latest episode of the Living in Clarity Podcast, Coach Ratner doesn't just explore the problem—he offers a solution that might just save your relationship. Discover the final and perhaps most crucial commandment in our series: Do Not Settle. Coach Ratner is here to inspire you to aim for nothing less than an extraordinary marriage by arming you with knowledge and practical advice. Learn why many marriages fail and what you can do to ensure yours doesn't become another statistic.

Join us as Coach Ratner introduces the four phases of love, starting with the exciting "crush" phase and moving into the insightful "research" phase. He shares his wisdom on how to differentiate between fleeting infatuation and lasting love, emphasizing the importance of truly listening to your partner. This episode is packed with actionable tips and heartfelt advice aimed at guiding you towards a fulfilling and passionate relationship. Whether you're single, dating, or already married, this episode offers valuable insights to enrich your love life and help you build a lasting connection.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Living in Clarity Podcast. This is Coach Ratner. We are now finishing up our series on the Ten Commandments of Marriage and we are now on number ten. The tenth commandment from the Torah is called Do Not Covet, and the tenth commandment from the Ten Commandments of Marriage is Do Not Settle.

Speaker 1: 0:20

Aspire to have an awesome marriage. If you take a hundred marriages in the world today, how many of them get divorced? Generally, in the regular world, it's about 50%, maybe 60%, although the rate of divorce is now going down because less people are getting married. If you take the ones that are not divorced the marriages that are still together have not gotten divorced how many of them do you think are in passionate, loving, happy relationships? It's very low. I would say that if you got married today, you have less than a one in five chance of having a happy marriage. That's horrible. It's a horrible statistic. I mean that's one of the reasons why people aren't getting married today, and one of the reasons is because you know, when you think about it, what's the biggest decision you're gonna make in your life. So you're gonna marry. Yeah, how many people study, learn what it takes to be in a passionate relationship, what it means to be in a relation with someone from the opposite gender? Most people don't. Most people just basically hope they get lucky and meet their best, share it in a bar or on a dating app and expect to have a successful marriage where we know that that is not the case. What I suggest to all my students is that you study, you learn, you have a coach, you read books, you take classes and you learn what it means to be in a passionate relationship, because what is the biggest decision you're going to make in your life is who you're going to marry. So my goal for doing these classes and for doing this series is I aspire to inspire you before I expire, for you to have a passionate relationship with one person the rest of your life, and one of the reasons why I wrote the book Infinite Marriage the Four Phases of a Loving Relationship is so whenever I'm not here anymore it was going to happen someday, god willing, another 61 years I always say to my students on my 120th birthday, you can bring me a card and say have a nice day, but I hope that if I'm not here anymore, that my wisdom still is around in podcasts and in my books and that you can still use it to have a passionate marriage.

Speaker 1: 2:26

And one of the things that I came up with is called the four phases of love. And the reason why is because if you think of marriage as the end game, you're going to have a hard time. Marriage is not the end game, because we know that most of them don't work. So I put love into four phases. Phase one is what I call the crush. This is when you go out with someone and they're kind of cute and they're nice and make you laugh and you like them and you say I can see dating them for a while. And sometimes we confuse the word crush and infatuation. But it's okay to have a crush, it's okay to have infatuation, you just have to turn that into love. It's when people get married because they confuse infatuation with love, because they didn't define the word love, and they go into a relationship and wondering why they're in a horrible relationship. That's called the crush.

Speaker 1: 3:15

And then phase two is called the research phase. This is when you decide that you're going to see someone exclusively. You like them and you enjoy their company together and it's a very exciting time in the relationship because everything is brand new. You're learning their likes and dislikes, what makes them laugh, what makes them tick. You're looking for the skeletons in the closet, where really you're not going to find them all, and that's one of the issues and you're trying to see if this is a person you can marry.

Speaker 1: 3:40

It's interesting because when I was living in America and I tried to set people up, sometimes they would tell me oh, I'm seeing someone already. When you say I'm seeing someone, what does that mean? That means really you're dating someone. But what should they be saying? Is I'm really listening to someone? Because listening as we discussed many times throughout this series listening is how relationships are formed. It's very interesting If you ever got into a fight with a friend of yours or someone in your family and they're yelling at you. And what are you doing in your mind when they're yelling at you? You're thinking of a response. You're not listening. Listening is not internalizing what people are saying, understanding it. It's interesting that the word listen and silent have the exact same letters. Listening is how relationships are formed and that's phase two.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Phase three is what I call the commitment. This is when you decide to marry someone. From my vernacular, I think marriage is the commitment and this is where the problem lies, because the commitment isn't the end. You know, if you've ever gotten engaged before. What do you usually do? After you call your future in-laws and your parents? You spend a few months planning the wedding. Where is it going to be? Who's on the A list, b list, c list, what's the theme going to be? Who's the caterer, what's the music, who's the photographer, what are the invitations going to look like? You spend months and months planning a wedding that's going to last five hours max. Yet what should you really be planning the rest of your life together?

Speaker 1: 5:12

If you've ever watched romantic comedy, what is usually the last scene in the romantic comedy? It's usually a wedding. How come they never show 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years after the wedding? Because it wouldn't be a romantic comedy, it'd be a murder mystery. The day you get married is the day the hard work starts, and that's why I came with phase four.

Speaker 1: 5:33

When I was dating my, when I was married to my wife for about five, 10 years, I said to her why is our marriage equal? I know marriage is a word, it's an institution, but not every marriage is the same. There's marriages that are dysfunctional. There's marriages with abuse in them. People get married four, five, six, seven times. Why is our marriage equal to everybody else's? There should be what I call an upgraded marriage, marriage 2.0. Just like you upgrade your phone, you should be able to upgrade your marriage.

Speaker 1: 6:03

And this is where do not settle comes in, because do not covet means do not desire your neighbor's cars and wives and horses and cows, and what we should desire is an awesome marriage. So that's why it's called do not settle. You should want an awesome, passionate marriage with one person the rest of your life. But in order to do that, it's just more than the commitment you have to get what I call phase four. It's called never leaving. Never leaving is the point in your relationship. When you realize you've been married 5, 10, 15 years, you realize that there's you know, if you really want it there's someone better than your spouse in almost every single category you would like. There's someone who's a better cook. There's someone who opens up more emotionally. There's someone who's a better lover. There's someone who is funnier. There's someone who's got more money. There's someone who's skinnier. There's someone who's fatter. Whatever you would like in that category, there's someone better. Yet you realize the person you marry isn't perfect, but you realize they're perfect for you, and that is what I call the phase of never leaving.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Now, what is the difference between the phase of never leaving and the phase of the commitment? You're only committed to things until you're not committed anymore. How many times have you been committed to? You know, a certain diet. I'm going to eat vegan. I'm going to keep kosher. You know I'm not going to smoke cigarettes. I'm committed to stopping smoking cigarettes. I'm committed to not smoking pot. I'm committed to eat vegan while I'm smoking pot. Whatever it been, you committed to. You only committed to certain things. You're not committed, like working out or a political party, or a school, or a boyfriend or girlfriend. You're committed until you're not committed. So there has to be more than the commitment. Never leaving is the phase you want to get to. It's the phase when you realize you got married. You married your soulmate and you formed a merger of two souls.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Marriage isn't a partnership, because partnerships form because each person has a need that they need the other person to help them get to. This is why, when people get married for the purpose of having children, when the children are older, in their 20s, and they leave the house many times as relationships falter, they fail because the reason for the relationship left the house. So it has to be more than just children. Relationship has to be deeper, more meaningful. We have to share a common value or goal in life and that can be spiritual, it can be charitable. But it has to be more than just physical. It has to be more than just working out. I remember when I was dating my wife, we used to work out together, we used to run together, and I see a lot of couples work out together and sometimes you'll see people working out when they're married.

Speaker 1: 8:47

But wait till you have two, three, four kids and you have jobs, new hobbies. Do you think people that are married 20, 30 years work out together? I mean, I guess it happens, I'm sure it does, but I bet it's very scarce, very rare. So you have to have more common interests than just physical, because to have a passionate relationship you have to have all the four A's Attention, affection, appreciation, awareness. And those four A's go with the pies, which is the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual.

Speaker 1: 9:23

A man must connect emotionally with his wife and a wife must respect her husband. And if you can do a lot of things that we've talked about in this podcast. You'll have a perfect marriage Not perfect, but it'll be the phase of never leaving. So to review the Ten Commandments of marriage I am your spouse, which means you're to know your spouse. What speaks to her, what speaks to him, what are their love languages?

Speaker 1: 9:51

Number two and three do not criticize and do not get angry, because both of those are like saying God made a mistake. God doesn't make mistakes. Number four is keep Shabbat. Families that pray together stay together. Number five is respect your spouse. For men especially, respect is much more important than love. A man must respect his wife, but, again, love is more important. Number six do not speak negatively. Number seven do not commit emotional infidelity. Number eight do not steal my time. Number nine do not reduce the value of your word. And number 10 is do not settle. My blessing to all my listeners is that may you find the love of your life, may you take the wisdom that I'm giving you in this series and also all my other classes and books, and may you aspire to have a passionate marriage with one person the rest of your life. This is Coach Ratner on the Living in Clarity podcast. If you enjoyed this series, please give a like, share a comment, or you can contact me at thelivinginclaritypodcast at gmailcom. Thank you so much. See you soon.