First comes love, then comes marriage, and then they both lived happily ever after, end of the story, right? But that’s not how it always ends, while it’s true that couples tend to relax a bit after they’ve tied the knot, they tend to feel more confused or worried if their fairy tale love begins to slip away.
Most people think that marriage is about marrying the right person because whenever it appears things are beginning to go wrong, they immediately begin to go down the wrong path; thinking to themselves, maybe I married the wrong person.
Although no one wants to end up with someone they’re not compatible with, marriage has a lot less to do with marrying the right person than it has to do with each partner doing right by the other partner.
To put it another way, relationships are a constant work in progress and in order to maintain a happy and loving connection with your other half, you probably need to try out the following tips that I’m about to share with you. I’ve been working it now with my soulmate Ivan for over 9 years and they haven’t failed me once.
- Treat your spouse with kindness.
Instead of being critical all the time, try instead to treat your partner with kindness, its one very important key to keep your love alive. “Research has shown that taking more loving actions towards your partner actually makes you feel more in love.
In any interaction with your partner, whether it’s personal or practical, try to be kind in how you express yourself”. This softens your partner’s disposition towards you, even in heated conversations and opens them up more towards you. Keeping on loving, being kind and generous to your partner always pays off in the end, it not only keeps love alive but also fosters a deeper level of intimacy.
- Reflect on the things you love and appreciate in your partner
What are the qualities you admire most about your spouse? Maybe it’s because they’re adventurous; then keep sharing new activities. If it’s that they are very playful in their communication and you enjoy it, then encourage more playful ideas in your conversations. If you value that they’re warm and affectionate, make sure to connect with them each day, rather than getting caught up in other daily routines. Your spouse will appreciate you picking an interest in the things they enjoy doing and in you doing it with them, it’s most likely they will reciprocate the gesture.
- Define your problems.
Spend some time together looking at your relationships and try to figure out which parts work and which parts don’t. I’d suggest you both take a moment to imagine what your perfect day in your perfect relationship would look like and all the things that would happen to make it so. Then you both should create a plan of how you can get from point A (your current reality) to point B (your perfect day scenario). Write them down if you need to, then start breaking the issues into bite-size pieces and tackling them one at a time.
- Make a financial plan together.
Money is a major stressor in most marriage. Many couples worry and argue about it constantly. If you find that you and your partner are beginning to argue often over money related issues, then maybe it’s time to address it.
Most of us are guilty of something economists call “passive decision-making”, which simply means we’re naturally inclined to always want to go with the easy option. Couples need to come up with a workable plan on how to manage their money: Either combine it, or separate it, or create a joint account to keep some joint and others separate. Whatever you both agree on, as long as you were both part of the decision making process because you two will have to keep working it out to ensure things keep moving smoothly.
- Use the three- sentence rule.
Whenever you need to ask your partner for something that could come across as nagging, you should try to restrict the request to three sentences, at most.
The art of being assertive without appearing aggressive lies in being concise and using a warm tone of voice and body language. When you keep your requests to three sentences or fewer, it’s almost impossible to blame the other person, use sarcasm, or use derogatory words. It’s also a lot more likely that you’ll get your point across without his or her attention.
Make your requests with a smile, be sincere and encouraging. You might even rest your hand on his thigh as you say, “Love, Papi or sweetie; whatever pet name you call your spouse, and especially not by their real names. (I don’t know about you but my mom used to call me by my full name back then whenever she was upset with me about something). Try to be gentle with your words, for example you can say something like “honey, the house is a mess, and I am exhausted, could you clean this place up with me? I could really use your help.”
- Don’t be overly confident.
Overconfidence can lead to complacency, which is dangerous for any relationship. According to a survey published in Law and Human Behavior, couples who had recently applied for a marriage license were asked to estimate the average rate of divorce and almost uniformly, they would accurately predict about 50%.
Then when they were asked to predict the chances that they would get divorced, they would reply 0%. It’s not that this is a bad thing in itself, after all everybody goes into marriage with the hope it will last a lifetime, but the problem with this response is that if there is no perceived risk of failure, then not enough work is put into maintaining the relationship until it begins to fall apart.
Don’t ignore the little things, they count. Remember to keep making the effort to keep your love life alive. Don’t wake up one morning to realize that you probably could have been able to do more only that now it has become too late.
- Take your fighting gloves off.
Don’t fight it out, rather give it some time to cool off. “There’s a concept in economics called ‘loss aversion’, which simply means we naturally don’t like to lose and when it feels like we’re losing, we fight like hell to try to flip it around.
This usually happens when couples talk about contentious issues like intimacy, housework, money, or the kids. If one partner thinks he or she is losing, he or she quickly begins to device means to turn it around and this only ends up escalating the issue.
The next time you notice something like this happening in your home, take a break and give yourselves time to cool off then revisit the topic at a much later date when neither of you feels overwhelmed by any negative emotions.
- Remind yourself of your choice to stay married.
Many people stay in troubled marriages because they think they don’t have any other choice. They think that they are stuck, and then they allow anger, hatred and bitterness to keep swelling blaming it all on their spouse. The truth however is that, if you are stuck, it’s not your spouse’s fault but yours.
Bowman says. The fact is, “You are not stuck; you have three choices: Do nothing and remain miserable, face your fears and try to save your marriage, or ask for help from a marriage therapist”, the choice is yours to make and you need to wake up every morning and remake that choice again and again, that way you’re better placed to live with the choices that you’ve made and not causing problems for your spouse in the home. The surest path to happiness is knowing that you are not a helpless damsel in distress, but rather a woman who can make her own choices. You can chose to live happily ever after.
- Send each other cute notes:
Every day Ivan and I send each other a text where we remind each other of how we feel about each other or what we both love about each other. One of the things I love about Ivan is that he is a wonderful father to my lovely kids amongst many, many other beautiful qualities he has.
I never said there won’t be times when there is a strain in your communication because we all come from different households. In my case I was raised by both my parents, my mom has a very strong personality and my father was the easygoing type so most of what I saw growing up around the house with my parents was “LOVE”
“I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I’m with you”