Yesterday we looked at the concept of making marriage work. Here are some tips to help make marriage work.
Pick the right person. It sounds obvious, but too often people are blinded by love or physical attraction and don’t put enough thought into whether they are compatible, whether they have enough interests in common, whether they have the same beliefs.
It’s no good going into marriage and then expecting to change the other person. It won’t happen. All that will happen is you end up making you and your spouse miserable. So make sure you can live with other person’s personality quirks and habits and not think you can change them.
Commit to the marriage and to making it work. Attitude is important. Sadly I’ve heard people say before they are married. ’If it doesn’t work out we can always get divorced.’ It doesn’t bode well for any marriage when you start with that sort of attitude.
Make sure you have common interests, outlook and similar beliefs. These will help you maintain a friendship in difficult times.
Be aware of your own failing and habits. These are often the little things that can make or break a marriage. Make sure they are not things that will grate on your marriage partner and also make sure you can live with their shortcomings. Don’t expect perfection. You are not perfect and neither is your spouse.
Communicate before you are married and don’t stop afterwards. Talk about what is important to each of you, about the important and the trivial things that happen. The more we communicate with our spouse, the more chance there is of understanding where the other person is coming from and heading off problems before they arise.
Be spontaneous. Take time out sometimes just to do something different or fun, or something to break the routine. It might be something as simple as going for a cup of coffee and a walk along the beach as we did recently.
Make time for together time.
Love and laugh often. Love and laughter can cover a multitude of problems.
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