Quiz: Is your marriage heading for a breakup?

Family of Origin
Love can only take you so far. Then you have to live with someone who was raised with different experiences, priorities and beliefs. The fact is that your family of origin, the family you grew up in, follows you into marriage. What you saw growing up will more than likely play itself out in your own marriage. This is not always a good thing. But if you understand this, you will gain a better understanding of yourself and your partner.

Think about it. Something you grew up with and would like to continue -- for example, mealtime as family time -- may be inconsequential to your mate, who grew up in a household in which everyone was left to his or her own devices at mealtime. Olson points out that it's often "not the big things that cause a decline in the quality of a relationship but the little things, which eventually affect a couple in big ways."

There is a definite link between your early family life and the relationship you enjoy with your spouse that will seriously affect two key areas of your life as a couple: closeness and flexibility. Closeness is about intimacy and how connected you feel to someone. It involves how you balance your private time and your time together. Finding the right balance is the key to being a healthy couple and family.

Flexibility is not only about how open couples are to change but how they deal with it as well. In every relationship, each partner plays a role within the structure. While a structure that is too rigid can cause problems, so can excessive flexibility. Again, the key is to achieve a healthy balance.

Defining your roots
Note: This part of the quiz is not typical, in that there are no scores. The questions are deliberately left open-ended to give you and your partner the opportunity to talk about where you're at and how your families of origin figure into your marriage.

1. How similar or different were your families in terms of closeness?
2. How do the similarities or differences impact your current relationship?
3. How similar or different were your families in terms of flexibility?
4. How do the similarities or differences impact your current relationship?
5. What would you like to repeat from your family of origin and what would you not like to repeat in your current couple relationship?