Marriage is not an easy situation to walk on. It takes time, patience, effort, and devotion to work, regardless of how long you’ve been together. Even the most stable relationships need regular reassessment and maintenance. And while we may not know what goes on behind the curtains of every relationship, we do know that it is possible to have and maintain a healthy marriage.
To time, money, and communication, we’ve rounded up vital marriage tips from couples who had a good run of healthy marriage and relationships.
Tips for a Healthy Marriage: How to make it work
Set yourself up for healthy and happy marriage years by applying these wonderful and helpful tips to your relationship.
Spend time with each other
One of the best ways to create and maintain relationships is by spending time, especially with married couples. To have a stronger bond, it is important to always set aside time and spend it with your spouse. If you can, plan regular date nights and weekend activities. If regular night-outs are not possible, there are also tons of things to do at home together, such as cooking, cleaning, or watching movies.
The thing with marriages that surprise most people is despite dating for years, there is so much more to unravel about your partner. Spending time together allows you to know and understand your spouse more.
Handle conflict calmly
Conflict and problems are normal to relationships. Some believe that constructive and healthy fights lead to strengthened marriage bonds. However, some conflicts reach a new level of intensity and become emotionally and physically unsafe. This can be avoided by learning how to handle problems calmly.
Understand the issues first and then discuss them with your spouse. Calmly talk with each other and avoid raising your voice and involving other issues that might trigger an intense reaction.
Respect each other
Respect come a long way. In friendships, in people you just met, in family, and more so in marriage. When a couple fails to respect each other, they are setting their relationship to failure.
Keep in mind to treat your partner the way you want to be treated. If you have the urge to complain about your partner’s flaws, ask yourself how you’d react if they are to do the same to you? Respect not only strengthens the bonds but also makes way for a happy relationship.
Know intimacy
Marital intimacy does not only refer to sexual intercourse. It’s much deeper than that. It means the closeness and the togetherness in a relationship and can come in various forms. One of the most overlooked but vital aspects of intimacy is the emotional type. Emotional intimacy in marriages can mean creating a safe space for your spouse to express their feelings and emotions without the fear of being judged.
As the other half of the marriage, you must understand and offer what kind of intimacy your partner wants at times. When they need someone to vent on but you are offering physical intimacy thinking it’s what they need, you are a step closer to more problems and conflicts.
Explore common interests
A relationship survives when couples share similar interests. This doesn’t necessarily that you should vitallove or enjoy every activity but this does open opportunities to bond, share, and compromise.
Doing and loving things separately is not a bad thing but sharing common interests is also vital and healthy to maintain the marriage. Common interests can be cooking, trying new food, hiking, and even playing board games.
Communication is key
When they say communication is key, they mean it. There are a lot of relationships that resulted in broken hearts because of the lack of communication. So if you are looking for a marriage that’ll last a lifetime, talk and listen to your spouse. Never assume that just because you’ve been together for a long time that they already know what you are thinking about.
If the situation calls for it, simply listen. If you are in a debate or discussing important issues, wait for your spouse to finish talking first before saying your own opinion on the matter.
Forgive
Your partner is going to do something that’ll hurt, frustrate, and upset you. And you’ll also do the same as well. It could be on purpose, saying something that is intended to hurt them, especially during an argument or a misunderstanding, or it could unintentional instead.
Forgiving someone is a hard pill to swallow, especially when your ego has taken the hit. But it is important and vital for a marriage to survive.
If you made a mistake and hurt your partner, immediately apologize and fix problems on the spot.
Accept imperfections
When you first met your partner now, you noticed all their wonderful attributes. And that made you fall in love with them enough to result in marriage. But marriage opens a lot more than just living together and having kids. Marriage is that time of the relationship where things take a shift and you see traits that you haven’t seen before. For example, when you were dating, your partner might have been good at finances but now, you think they are just cheap or excessively frugal.
Give each other a chance and make a new list of things you love about your partner now and fall in love with again!
