An underlying thought for many people is the tugging feeling that you don’t deserve to be happy, or to have nice things, or succeed in life. This fixes itself to every area of your life, including your marriage. If you have a tendency to sabotage anything that comes into your life that looks as though it’s going to be good, see a counselor. When it comes to your marriage, take my advice:
The first issue as always, in marriage is trust. If you don’t trust your spouse, even though they’ve never given you a reason not to, you probably don’t trust people in other relationships as well, such as business ventures. Becoming distrustful or jealous, and asking silly questions as to where your spouse was or who they were with will drive them away, both emotionally and eventually physically.
If you don’t expect much from your marriage, you are sabotaging it. Expect to have an exciting, happy marriage, not a “settled” one. Of course it won’t be exciting every minute of every day, but marriage is something you have to work on, so keep working on making it fresh with romantic little ideas and surprises.
Constant negativity is a major sabotage of marriage. If everything is turning out badly-even of it isn’t- and all you can see is the dark cloud looming over you and your life, it will rain on the marriage just as much as it will on every other area of your life. You must keep up optimism, for no one can tolerate a sad sack or someone who is constantly feeling sorry for them selves for long. It wears them down.
Insisting that you and your spouse go everywhere together and only enjoy the same things will also sabotage your marriage. People are autonomous, and enjoy different things. If she likes to bowl and you don’t, why shouldn’t she be on a league? The inability to give each other space is a sure bet sabotage, see the paragraph on jealousy.
Been a little light on the compliments lately? Another sure bet sabotage is taking your spouse for granted. Assuming that they will have dinner ready be there when you get home, and falling into a routine wherein you don’t have to talk much after dinner-you’re busy watching TV-is grounds for trouble.
Here’s an interesting marriage sabotage that most people don’t think about-take care of your self like you did when you were dating. Nasty personal hygiene habits don’t need to come out in the open just because there are rings on your fingers. And that’s along with becoming the slob you were in college as soon as you set her down in your honeymoon home. Marriage is not a certificate to leave dirty unmentionables on the floor or your old socks in the couch. Clean up after yourself, show some respect.
The bottom line for avoiding marriage sabotage is to show the same respect, humor, caring, and adventurous fun you did as when you were dating. The marriages that make it to their silver anniversary and beyond are the ones where the couple never, in fact, stopped dating at all.