A happy marriage is a cocktail of open communication, honesty, hard work, and a “whole lotta” love. While there are many rewards to being married to the love of your life, you have to work at it. Merging two lives into one is a challenge, and there are often adjustments that need to be made. There are several aspects to a successful marriage that are very important. While there are many different elements to a marriage, these are ones that can help make nearly any relationship stronger, which can help ensure you have a healthy and long-lasting marriage.
Marriage is the process by which two people make their relationship public, official, and permanent. It is the joining of two people in a bond that putatively lasts until death, but in practice is increasingly cut short by divorce. Over the course of a relationship that can last as many as seven or eight decades, a lot happens. Personalities change, bodies age, and romantic love waxes and wanes. And no marriage is free of conflict. What enables a couple to endure is how they handle that conflict. So how do you manage the problems that inevitably arise? And how can you keep the spark alive? Continue reading to learn more about the ingredients for cooking a happy marriage.
Ingredients for a Happy Marriage
Be Independent
Independence is rated ‘extremely important’ in a marriage. In order to be happy in a relationship, we must be happy on our own first. That is, in fact, the key to a successful marriage. With that in mind, wives and husbands must continue to take out time for themselves, enjoy their personal hobbies, and, in general, spend some time apart. Not only does absence make the heart grow fonder, but in the time we spend alone, we get to reunite with our spiritual side, re-establish our sense of self, and check in with the progress of our personal preferences, goals, and achievements.
Being dependent, on the other hand, weakens your resolve and ability to move forward as a free thinker. When we maintain our independent sense of self, we will always have something to talk about at the dinner table, and we are forever stronger, healthier, and more attractive to our partners.
Be courteous and kind to each other.
Much of courtesy begins with the words we say to our spouse. There’s a really fine line between words that build up and words that don’t. There’s also the words we say and how we say them. And, of course, remember the basics, please and thank you go a long way. Name calling is hurtful and will not help anything. Name calling should never be a part of any discussion, nor substitute for a discussion. Find another way to express your feelings other than calling names. Name calling works against any satisfactory resolution, attacks the other person and can damage the relationship. Perhaps a choice or action was unwise and that is okay to point out in love, but calling the person stupid crosses the line. Agree on the rule that if either partner slips and name calls, they should immediately stop and ask the other for forgiveness.
Support Each Other
This is pertinent. If you don’t support each other and learn about each others’ dreams and aspirations then you will become disconnected. When you support each other and you enter into each other’s world, you can become the cheerleader. We want our spouse to share his feelings with us, not with someone else. A healthy marital partner is never unreasonably demanding or needy. A spouse should be willing and ready to drop everything and respond with love to the other partner to comfort, encourage and attend to the other person’s needs. Partners should look for ways to respond in love to each other, not ignore the cues. Love and attention should not be held away or ransomed in a way that manipulates the other person. Partners should be candid about their needs, but not excessive in their demands. When marriage partners make their needs known, they become vulnerable in their trust of the other partner and their faith in the marriage. Trust and love can be built or broken down by how we choose to respond or not respond to each other.
Live in a “We” World
Whenever you find yourself saying “I, I, I,” you know that you are in the wrong mindset. You are acting like you do everything, or you do everything alone, whether it’s raising the kids or work. Instead, have a mentality of teamwork, such as these are our kids, our home, and our family. This is our life together and we have to go down the same path.
Trust
Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. It must be held as sacred. None among us are perfect and we will make our mistakes, but in a successful marriage, trust must not be broken. It is an enormous leap of faith to align personal destiny equally with another, and without trust in that person you will never make it. You have their back and they have yours; never allow anything to come between the two of you. And neither spouse ever lies to each other, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation.
Never Talk Ill of Each Other to Other People
Talking negatively about your partner to others fuels division and strife between you and your partner, and puts others in the difficult position of choosing sides. Sometimes, seeking clergy or counseling can be helpful. Otherwise, don’t look to friends, family members, or associates to take your side or come alongside your point of view and against your partner. Consider that a marriage has one side: the side of the relationship. Some folks excuse the negative talk as venting, but venting in that way against the spouse only builds animosity, is hurtful to the partner and to the marriage and sets your partner up to feel betrayed. Energy is best spent turning to each other, not in anger or resentment, but in love and honesty, to work through each and every situation.
Have Fun Together
Keep your marriage from feeling like work by having fun with your partner. Never stop doing the things you’ve always loved doing together. Try to recreate some of your old dates if you want. However, don’t just rely on the past, life is happening now. Keep finding new ways to share a laugh. Stepping outside your normal routine will keep you close and happy.
Intimacy
It is important for a couple to be close physically. This can include eye contact, holding hands, hugging, sitting close together, and massaging one another. More opportunities for physical closeness will enhance a couple’s sense of closeness and intimacy. It is important for couples to be conscious that some individuals are more comfortable being physically demonstrative than others and it is important to try to understand how comfortable or otherwise your spouse/partner is and take it from there.
It is important that both individuals are happy with their couple sexual relationship and feel able to raise and discuss their sexual relationship with the other as needed. Sometimes couples can be very concerned about the frequency of their sexual activity. As long as both individuals are happy with the frequency and the nature of their sexual activity there is no need for them to be concerned or to compare their sexual relationship to those portrayed in the media or those reported by others. It is never beneficial to compare your marriage to others.
Interested in making your relationship stronger than ever?