Helpful Marriage Tips

Before getting married, what’d you picture your marriage to be like? Hopefully not like out of a fairytale. You’re a new unique family building a new lifestyle. Along with your clothes and miscellaneous items, you both brought expectations to your marriage. Expectations about E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. From who’s gonna kill the spiders to who’s in charge of cooking or finances. Our spouse may have envisioned eating candle lit dinners every night and the both of you sharing your thoughts and feelings every night. Or maybe they envisioned getting showered with gifts and love letters daily, or flowers every week. All the while the other spouse may have envisioned coming home after a long day and just doing nothing but watching Netflix and eating dinner on the couch. Maybe they envisioned playin sports after dinner with their friends. How they envisioned showing love is keeping the yard or cars cleaned. Maybe just spending time together will be enough so they won’t have to buy gifts. Whatever...

Listening is vital during a discussion. As tempting as it is to interrupt, don’t do it. You’ll communicate much more effectively if you try to understand your partner BEFORE you respond. Let them get it all out before dealing with the problem. Sometimes you gotta let off some steam before you can cool down. Cause feelings aren’t right or wrong, they’re just feelings. You must be willing to listen. Cause listening is much more than just being quiet or silent. It requires undivided attention. The time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. The time to deal with someone who has a problem, is when they still have a problem. The time to listen is when our attention is vital to the one who seeks it. Listening is part of loving. Listen to what they’re feeling along with what they’re saying takes an immense amount of concentration and effort. Show them you want to listen. By putting your phone, iPod/iPad, game controller or tv remote or anything else down.  Avoid giving your 2 ce...

Most of us do things a certain way cause it’s programmed into our minds. So when we live with someone who’s raised a different way, our brain sees it as foreign. So when we see our spouse doing something different from the way we were taught, ask them about it. Find out if their way is better or just different. Lots of times it’s just different. No one wants to be constantly told what they’re doing wrong. So remember in your mind you may think you’re helping, by pointing out all the things they COULD or SHOULD be doing. When in reality, they may think that everything they do just isn’t good enough for you. I remember reading a story about a woman who read in an article that couples should sit down together and go over all the little things that annoy them. So she made a list and went over it to her spouse. Then when it was his turn to tell her all he said was, ‘I don’t think there’s a single thing I don’t already like about you.’ Ouch. While she’d been fussing over the little thi...