Marriage Pointers from someone whose marriage failed... but I learned something for next time!

What makes a good marriage?

First off you have to be best friends. You really have to like each other to last. When the sex becomes less important, you better enjoy doing things together (while still doing things apart). You should never fight about money. Financial problems lead to divorce. You don’t want your relationship to deteriorate over something as inconsequential as money. Everyone goes through financial ups and downs, including bouts of unemployment and significant credit-card debt. Never cat blame and remain calm during financial discussions.

Never discuss sensitive subjects when hungry or tired. My advice, eat marshmallows to improve communication. What’s the one thing you can’t possibly do with a mouthful of marshmallows? Talk. Communication is more about listening than talking. I always tell my partner that if I say something and it can be interpreted two ways and one of those ways makes them sad or angry, I meant it the other way. A good marriage is made up of a thousand small kindnesses.

Purposely sit next to your spouse on the couch each night. My father told me to be sure to do this when I got married. It makes it impossible not to physically touch each other. Always find thing to laugh about. Laugh together. Times are tough; tragedy happens in all families, things will go wrong. But if you find ways to laugh about it, you’ll form a special bond and can overcome anything.

Women want to be loved and cherished. Men want to feel respected …. Even more than they want to feel loved. This might sound odd but it’s true. Don’t emasculate your man. Don’t take your woman for granted. Life gets messy, boring and stressful. Your marriage will have seasons when it’s stronger or when it feels anemic. Whatever you did in the early days that made you laugh together, make time to do those same things again. Read to each other from a favorite funny book. Watch a favorite funny movie.

Keep a date night. One night a month go out as a couple. It doesn’t have to be just you two, Go with other adults or couples. This allows you to have adult conversation and keeps you from hashing over household problems. Unless you have a baby under six months, no children allowed. Don’t discuss problems or major issues. The activity doesn’t have to be expensive.

Each person should seek to do good for the other person, instead of fighting over ‘What about me??’ Then the experience is one where each person is giving and serving the other. A win-win solution. Plan forward and look back only to the good times. Everybody has their rough spots, but if everything is focused on the past hard times, your marriage can become like an albatross. Remember and revel in your successes. Ignore the times when you failed. Don’t look at problems to place blame, only to find solutions. Love is like a boomerang, throw it at your spouse and you’ll find it coming right back to you.

In the toughest times, couples need to remember why they got together in the first place. Put your relationship first. Be open and flexible to change. Adapt. These tidbits sound ordinary but I’ve seen many relationships break up because one or both partners refuse to do these ‘common sense’ things.

Be passionate, supportive and accepting of what the other person is doing in their personal life. We all know it’s important to be an individual. We each have things we want to get done personally. We want our work goals not just to be supported but also understood and facilitated. It won’t be easy.

Mind your manners. Too often we show more respect to strangers than to those we love. Parents often expect manner from their kids but don’t use them with each other. ‘Please hand me that plate’ is kinder, gentler than, ‘Hand me that.’ Would you, could you, please, sorry – these are magic words. They’re not just for dating.

Share a common dream. When a couple has that, every bump in the road is on the way to somewhere that matters. Without a dream, every bump in the road is a mountain to climb over. Finding your dharma, or what your unique service is to the planet, creating a larger context of meaning in life, puts the little stuff in perspective and makes it easy to process.

If you’re in it for life, you’re both going to do a lot of growing up and maturing over the years – you have to stay intimately in touch with each others growth over all this time or you end up not knowing the person you’re married to as he/she changes over the years.

I know it’s too late for me to salvage my previous marriage but I have learned a lot from it. Next time I will follow my own advice that I have put forth here and I know that my next wife will be the happiest woman on this earth! I promise you that!