How to make your marriage a success

Marriages involve love, respect, fighting, and a lot of work! But it’s not rocket science either. Anyone who suggests otherwise is surely lying. When we see couples who have spent a whole lifetime together, we always wonder what could have possibly kept them holding on to each other. Honestly, it’s the basics that you need to get right to enjoy a happy and healthy marriage. We are here with a simple list of doable things that can help our readers have a happy marriage:

Don’t discuss your marriage with anyone except your partner
The biggest mistake one makes is to talk about one’s marriage to every person but one’s partner. One often finds it convenient and easy to discuss marital issues, small or big, with one’s parents or friends or colleagues or even strangers at times. Little does one understand that such acts are just adding fuel to the fire. Barely anyone can know both sides of the story to give an appropriate suggestion. So, instead of discussing it with the people not associated with the marriage, why not discuss things with the person involved in the issues?

Fight fair
Remember to ‘fight fair’. Key points to remember here are: set boundaries, describe what isn’t acceptable during arguments, do not bring up past fights, and act like a team rather than being opponents. Do not let any third person become the reason for your fights because no family member, friend, or office colleague is worth your peace with your partner. Come to a conclusion and never sleep without resolving a fight.

Validate each other
Validation is a simple act of helping your partner feel heard, understood, and reassured. Try using kind words such as “I’m right here for you”, “your ideas matter to me”, “what you are saying makes sense”, and “you’re not alone”. This develops trust and instils faith in one another.

Value your spouse
With the advent of social media, we remember to post a picture of our spouse with a fancy caption but often forget to tell them how much they mean to us. Be grateful for your better half. Appreciate their presence in your life. Tell them why and how they add value to your life. Get back to the old ways of writing a letter, getting a greeting card on special occasions, and leaving small notes around the house. Keep the love alive with simple gestures. Appreciate your partner’s strengths and ensure mentioning even the smallest efforts they made to make you feel better. Acknowledging their efforts will make them feel worthy and loved. Say, ‘I love you’ more often. They will surely reciprocate the love.

Create a life together
Understand the fact that you’re both a team fighting the world as one. The two of you are working for a living and are trying to provide for each other. Your partner should be aware of your work life. So, ask about their day at work, know what’s going on in their professional lives, if they’re facing any stress, if they’re growing in their career, or if they’re troubled by anything at work. This way, you’ll become more aware of their state of mind at home too. Also, make sure you share honestly about your work life so that they can understand, contribute, and help you elevate in whichever way possible.

Make time for yourself
The two of you are different personalities and it’s a must to find dedicated time for each other and also for yourself. Much importance is given to being a couple but we forget our individuality over a period of time. Whereas it is essential to spend time with yourself, take yourself out for a treat, or a drive, or a walk, or maybe just read a book of your choice, indulge in some self-care, and pamper yourself with a spa session all by yourself, for yourself. It is this person that our spouse fell in love with and we can’t let our individuality fade away. So, maintain it by finding time for yourself. Also, plan similar couple activities to spend time with each other as it builds a healthy bond.

Travel together
Every two-three months, step out for a short vacation of a minimum of two days and every year ensure investing in a vacation for at least a week. You both need and deserve breaks from routine life and vacations are the best solution. When you travel with your spouse, you discover new traits of their personality, you identify their strengths, you find out their weaknesses, you understand how you both balance each other, you push each other into new adventures, and much more. The mantra here is taking 2-2, two days every two months, or/and 7-1, seven days every year. Your trips don’t need to be extravagant or uber-luxurious, whatever suits your pocket, go ahead with it. Make sure you keep a travel allowance out of your earnings. Also, ensure never to crib about the money you spent on travelling. A lot of young couples come back from vacation exhausted financially because they travel for social validation. In the age of Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, do not, I repeat, do not travel to please or match up to the so-called influencers. Travel only to spend time together as a couple, for your joy, relaxation, and enjoyment.

Be patient
Talking about this whole online world that is influencing our habits, likes and dislikes, we tend to become impatient. We send a text message and expect the recipient to immediately respond, be it with a ‘k’ or a ‘thumbs-up emoticon’. We start to expect the same from our spouses as well. In reality, messages are to be responded to as and when you find the time. Also, we forget that it’s not always possible to attend calls in between office hours and this has caused major fights between couples. So, be patient enough to wait for your spouse to return your call or respond to that text you sent them when they were at work. Do not create an issue if your partner took some time to reply. One doesn’t delay responding purposefully. And, in all honesty, if you focus on the work when you’re working, your productivity is much better and you’ll surely not have to get your office work home. It’s because of this constant beep-beep boop-boop that we are unable to be mindful of anything. So, be accommodating to late responses. On the other hand, if your spouse doesn’t respond at all, don’t jump to conclusions. Ask them what keeps them from responding to messages or taking your phone calls. Again, do this without fighting. Do it with the purpose of understanding and finding a common ground to fulfil each other’s needs.