When you and your spouse first met, talking, doing things
for each other or just being together was probably very romantic. During that
exciting and memorable time of courtship, having someone you admired notice and
care about you was a real thrill. How can you keep that glow going in your
marriage? Many other responsibilities compete for your attention. Stresses and
worries can crowd out time for your spouse and your marriage. It is possible to
keep love and romance alive in your marriage with some planning and effort.
Friendship is the Key
Keeping love and romance alive in your marriage doesn’t have
to depend on going on cruises or weekend getaways. Couples who still “feel the
glow” in their marriage are those, who on a daily basis, have nurtured the
friendship that is the basis of all happy marriages.
“The determining factor in whether wives feel satisfied with
the sex, romance and passion in their marriage is, by 70 percent, the quality
of the couple’s friendship. For men, the determining factor is, by 70 percent,
the quality of the couple’s friendship. So men and women come from the same
planet after all.”
John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,
1999
Strengthening the Marital Friendship
1. Stay in touch with each other – be aware of each other’s
daily lives to keep up on how your spouse thinks and feels. Have a regular time
to talk each day about the simple things of the day whether its talking on the
phone or spending 15 minutes each evening holding hands and talking.
2. Show appreciation. One of the greatest needs we have is
the need to feel appreciated. Most of us do pretty well at saying thanks or
giving compliments for the obvious things. To get really good, we need to
improve at noticing the not so obvious things. Learn to say thanks for the
invisible work (things that only get noticed when they don’t get done) such as,
“Thanks for a drawer full of clean clothes” or “Thanks for putting that back
where I keep it.” Also say thanks for the daily efforts of others such as
“Thanks for bringing in the paper” or “Thanks for cleaning up the kitchen.”
Tell your spouse you’re grateful for her or him. After a while you will develop
the appreciation habit.
3. Show kindness. Doing little things for each other is so
simple, yet it is often overlooked. It is especially hard to be kind when our
spouse has been critical or unkind towards us. It’s just human nature to be
less kind in return. But kindness is catching. Your kind words and actions will
bring out kindness in your spouse. Try doing simple, unselfish things for your
spouse such as listening with patience, helping with a task when they are busy,
avoiding an angry reply, or apologizing for something you said. Leave a short
“love note” on your spouse’s pillow or lunch sack, send your spouse a card in
the mail or give some a small gift for no special occasion.
4. Give the gift of understanding. It’s true that none of us
ever fully understand what our spouse is feeling, but when our spouse is
feeling down or upset we can listen and offer support rather than minimizing
their feeling or offering advice about what they should do. As Stephen Covey
puts it, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
Try these steps: 1- Listen with full attention; 2- Give a
simple acknowledgement of your spouse’s feelings with an “oh” or “I see” or
“Mmmm…”; 3- Check out your understanding, “You’re feeling upset because …? Is
that right?” 4- Say something to show understanding. “I didn’t know that’s how
you felt…” or “That must have been awful.”
5. Learn your spouse’s “love language.” One language is
telling our spouse we love them. Another is showing them we love them by doing
some special thing for them. Or we may to want to hug and hold hands and be
close. We all probably like to be told and shown in different ways at different
times. Which means the most to your spouse? You may want to ask.
6. Make time for fun. Having fun together is essential to
keeping the glow going in your marriage. In your busy lives, that may take a
little planning. Some things continue to be fun, but others may get to be
boring. Add to the fun things you do in your marriage. Try and shake up the
familiar patterns. Howard Markman has suggested a simple way to add to your fun
things to do list. You and your spouse can each make a list of fun activities
you’d like to do. Trade lists. Choose one thing from your spouse’s list. Have
them choose one from yours. Schedule the activities. Each spouse takes
responsibility to plan the activity chosen from the partner’s list. Make the
scheduled activities a priority.
When you were first dating, you probably laughed together a
lot. You can still add a little humor to life each day. You don’t have to be a
stand-up comic to help your marriage over the rough spots. Learn to bring home
jokes or funny stories about something that happened during your day. Cut
comics out of the newspaper to share with each other and post on the fridge.
Rent a video of a funny movie and watch it together. Try using some props to
add humor – like coming to the table in a wig or fake glasses and mustache or
serving a rubber chicken for dinner.
7. Balance being a parent with being a partner. Parenthood
can bring some special demands and challenges to the marriage including
fatigue, increased time demands, increased financial pressures, differing ideas
about how to parent, unequal involvement in parenting, and unequal division of
household labor. For wives especially, this can result in feeling unappreciated
and resentful, and most wives report a decline in their marital happiness after
becoming mothers. But one recent study found that about 33% of women
experienced an increase in marital satisfaction upon becoming a mother. This
was not due to having an easy baby, working or not working, nursing or
bottle-feeding — it depended on whether the husband became a true partner in
parenting. For their marriage to continue to grow, he has to become a father as
well as a husband (Gottman, 1999). To foster this:
• Wives can recognize Dad’s role – don’t exclude him from
child care, let him be the child’s playmate
• Dad can give Mom a break sometimes by coming home early
from work or being home on a Saturday morning instead of at the golf course
• Dad can share the work – the wife does the majority of the
daily drudge work, which leaves her feeling disrespected and resentful. When
the wife feels the husband is doing his share, she is happier and couples
report a more satisfying sex life. Two other factors are also important –
whether he does his jobs without being nagged, and whether he is flexible to
sometimes do some of her jobs if she has had a bad day.
Source:
strongermarriage.org
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