Newlyweds
are often asked ‘how’s married life?’ As with everything in life, the answer
depends on you. For some, marriage is another word for frustration and even
misery. For others it is the bedrock of strength and support they build the
rest of their lives around.
1.
Work on Your Marriage. Like most of us, I learnt what I
know about marriage from my parents. When my father once said to me ‘marriage
requires attention, the moment you stop working on your marriage is the moment
it begins to falter’ I can remember thinking, this didn’t sound very much
like the movies. After all a wedding is the culmination of a movie, that’s when
everything is all sorted out and you don’t have to worry about anything anymore,
right? Alas, like in many other things, my father has proven correct.
As
we’ll discuss in the proceeding paragraphs, maintaining a healthy marriage
requires sacrifices, attention and care. It helps to think of your marriage as
a living thing in itself. Like all living things, it needs nourishment and
protection, healing when it is sick, and space to grow and flourish.
These
are all nice words, but what does that mean on a practical level? It means you
need to always think about your marriage and not take it for granted. It means
you need to be vigilant against things that might threaten it, not just the
obvious things like temptation, but the subtle things like imbalances in
responsibility and duty, comparisons to others, jealousy and so on. It means
you need to nourish your marriage with thoughtfulness for the other’s needs,
find time together and sometimes even time apart. It means when things are
going wrong you need to stop and think about how you can improve them and
perhaps what sacrifices you need to make. It means that a marriage needs to go
forward, to change as you both change and to grow stronger.
2.
Don’t Leave Things Unsaid. I watched
a movie once – I think it was one of those British romantic comedies – where a
man is asked why his marriage failed and he replies “Because we left too many
things unsaid” and though I don’t normally take advice from movies, this one I
took to heart.
If
you don’t voice your problems they have nowhere to go. Worse if you voice them
to people not in your marriage – i.e. friends, coworkers, anyone else – then
instead of airing your dirty laundry you let it fester.
No
matter how long two people have known each other there will still be things
that they don’t pick up when unspoken. Sure you may think your partner knows
what you’re thinking, but what if they don’t? Which leads us to number 3…
3.
Speak Plainly. The very worst thing you can do in
a relationship is play games with each other. No, not the twister or monopoly
varieties, I mean mind games. It’s tempting when you are in a bad mood or when
you don’t want to be hurt to be passive aggressive, to not say what you mean,
to make veiled hints in order to test the other person and so on. Tempting, but
it doesn’t go anywhere except sour.
I
think it’s fairly obvious why clear communication leads to a better marriage,
and yet it can be difficult to do. But if you have something to say, whether it
is to voice some upset, to show that you care or anything else, then you must
speak plainly if you hope for the other person to understand. And if you
weren’t hoping for them to understand, why are you talking?
Speaking
indirectly usually begins during dating or courting. We do it because it avoids
us opening up to being hurt. At this early stage if you were to tell someone
how much you liked them and they shot you down it would be painful. So to
compensate we move slowly and only hint at our feelings until we see enough
back from the other person that we start to open up. This is OK.
The
problem is when speaking indirectly continues on into the relationship. At that
point you should be able to trust the person enough to express your feelings.
If they abuse them then you leave. By keeping your guard up you only put huge
barriers in the middle of your relationship.
Speaking
indirectly is also a bad idea when one person just doesn’t get it. When you
have one partner playing games and the other doesn’t really understand their
behaviour at times they will begin to resent the other and inevitably this will
lead to problems.
Passive
aggression on the other hand is when a partner rather than voicing their upsets
appears to be smiling, calm, and usually puts bite into words that shouldn’t
have it. Over time passive aggression can become less and less veiled and turn
into exasperation, distain even disgust.
Another
bad habit is what is called stonewalling. This is when a partner simply shuts
the other out, going silent, ignoring them or even leaving for a time.
Stonewalling has obvious consequences of frustration and anger and quickly
leads to cycles of increasing problems as one person stonewalls while the other
becomes more and more frustrated, then becomes less and less reasonable leading
to further stonewalling.
If
you only take one thing away from my words, let it be to speak plainly, avoid
passive aggression, avoid games and avoid speaking indirectly. When you say
what you mean and communicate your feelings clearly the other person has a
proper chance to respond.
4.
Be Vulnerable. Too often we don’t want to put our
feelings and thoughts out there. Particularly if we’ve had bad experiences when
younger, or if simply taught to be that way by watching our parents and peers.
Admitting that you are vulnerable – everyone is – is the corollary to speaking
plainly.
It
is important to remember that this is your partner and they love you and you
love them. Between the two of you, if you both speak plainly and admit
vulnerability, then you will be able to resolve problems. It may take time, you
may have many hurdles to get over, but what other recourse is there than
resolution? After all neither of you are out to get the other – remember you
love each other!
The
flipside to being vulnerable is you get hurt sometimes. Don’t let this close
you off, remember this just means that wasn’t the right person, circumstances
or perhaps even a little closer to home, there were other things going wrong.
Whatever the case, you don’t need to hide away. Without being open to hurt, you
won’t be open to the joys of marriage and relationships.
5.
Accept your Partner. It is tempting to find a person
and try to shape them into the partner you really want. Trying to change a
person never works. People know when they are not accepted in their entirety
and it hurts.
You
shouldn’t go into a marriage or a relationship thinking to change someone. And
if you do remember the most you can do is explain what it is, explain how it
affects you or why it affects you and if it’s important, then they may change.
And if they don’t, then think about all the things that they may wish changed
in you.
Of
course if there are too many things you want to change, it is important to face
that this may not be the right person for you, or you may be expecting too
much. People will be what they will be, spending your marriage life trying to
shift habits and personalities is like trying to push boulders up a mountain,
tiring and not very fun.
6.
Spend Time Together. It’s obvious, but a relationship
without any face time is going to have problems. I have met happy couples who
spend months apart because of work commitments, but they are few and far
between and more often than not, their happiness is more a testament to their
character and emotional abilities than anything else.
Of
course spending time together doesn’t simply mean being in the same room, it
means actively finding time where you engage with each other. It may even take
work and effort, but remember from above, a happy marriage takes work!
Spending
time together, also often entails spending some time alone. Children, even pets
can sometimes be barriers to engaging with one another. Even if you simply have
a few moments while they run off, it’s important to be alone too.
7.
Make Time for Both Your Ambitions and Goals.
It is all too easy to focus on your own goals and ambitions and hope or even
assume that your partner shares them. If you don’t know what your partner’s
life goals are, ask them.
In
my marriage, I have goals that are to do largely with working, whereas my wife
wants to travel the world. If we did either and not the other, one of us would
feel unfulfilled. The solution is of course balance. We try to do one then a
little of the other, then switch.
8.
Be Clear and Assertive. While it
is important to be vulnerable, to make sure your partners goals are being
looked after, that you accept your partner and all the other things we’ve
talked about, it’s equally important not to be trampled over. You should always
be clear and assertive about your own feelings, your own needs and your own
goals. Remember that your own happiness is essential to a happy marriage.
