Marriage Advice.
• Please, Be Honest.
Little lies can add to big disasters in the future. Please, be honest and don’t let yourself be tempted into telling fibbers once in a while.
• Please keep what is personal between you and your lover personal.
No one else needs to know what goes on in the privacy of your home (unless it is abusive). When we talk about our marriage partner to others in a demeaning way we are showing character weakness and disrespect.
• Respect is very important in marriage. You want to be respected, so please show respect for the one you chose to marry.
• Appreciate your partner.
It is very easy to become disappointed about work, other people, your own issues like putting on weight or making mistakes to start snapping at yourself and also at your partner. From then it becomes a habit, a very nasty habit. A good loving soul will put up with emotional abuse for a long time, but then eventually they will go.
Years ago I read about a man in his 80’s who was tired of his wife’s nagging. He got up from the breakfast table, walked across the room, got a gun out of a drawer and shot her. Asked why after so many years of marriage he did such a thing, and he said, “She has been nagging me non-stop for the last 30 years and finally I couldn’t stand it anymore”. Marriage should not be about driving the other person crazy.
Please, do some soul searching once in a while, study what you think, do and say – a running mouth can be a very nasty weapon that will destroy another’s happiness and your own.
This old mans mistake was putting up with her nagging for so long he should have left her or got her help, and her mistake was allowing herself to get into the habit of nagging and not noticing the serious damage she was doing to their relationship.
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• When one of the two feels that he or she is not appreciated in the relationship this feeling will build and build and then when they meet someone else (predator or just an innocent nice person) who acts like he or she really appreciates that person then an affair can develop from this or even divorce.
It is a very sad situation when one partner feels more appreciated by someone out of the marriage than in it. Please don’t let this happen to your marriage.
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• That greeting kiss can be forgotten with time and it can just become a careless, “Hi!” when one walks in the door.
Love is a very spiritual joining of two souls, but it is wise to note that both the spiritual and physical side of the relationship are important.
The small simple things really count. The random hugs, jokes, time away from home, gardening “together”, playing the fool together, running together or cycling, going to the gym together, doing he housework together.
Look back and ask yourself what was it that you both used to do that you loved doing so much together?
Find out why you stopped doing it and then find ways to be what you both once were.
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• United we stand, divided we fall.
Married couples can become divided emotionally and this can start the rot in the relationship that will eventually break the foundation of love that formed the marriage in the first place.
This dividing can come in the shape of regrets, bad feelings for the other that have not been dealt with, lack of communication, and other people (friends and family) interfering.
Please don’t let life or people (no matter who they are) divide your relationship – your love for each other is the foundation of the marriage. Please keep it strong, you should be best friends, a team strong enough to stay as one against all obstacles that come your way.
• Communication.
In the beginning of a relationship the two appreciated each other, saw amazing things in the other, had hopes in the relationship and being with the other etc. Most importantly they both put aside time from other people, work and family, to talk to each other, and shared dreams, ideas, desires, feelings, sometimes to talk about the past (healing), and in doing so both looked forward to this time together.
Later in the relationship with busy job schedules, other obligations (family etc), the introduction of child after child, the loving communication that once existed gets put aside and is sacrificed for less important things like workload.
Communication is very important in a relationship and it is not only verbal. Marriage is also about body communication, like hugs, nudges, caressing, massaging the others shoulders when they look tired, holding hands, a kiss on the cheek, arm around the shoulder, touches, little fingers (pinky’s) locked in embrace, gentle rubs and touches etc.
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When you are very tired, had a hard day, or just overworked you can really feel good about your marriage partner when he or she steps up and takes over what you are doing to make your life or day better. It really is felt deep down in the soul and very much appreciated when our partner sacrifices his or her own time to make our life easier or more enjoyable. Marriage should be about deliberate efforts to love and care for the other.
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• Stepping forward to volunteer to help the other makes the other feel appreciated, loved, worthy and that he or she is in the right relationship – “it is very important to think that we are in the right relationship”.
For instance she has had a hard day with the children, housework and has a headache. So while she is doing the dishes and he sees or “reads” her situation and he either dries the dishes or he leads her to a chair, makes her a drink and does the dishes for her. Then when he comes back he gives her shoulders a massage, and asks about her day taking the time to reassure her that she is worthy, loved, appreciated and he is the happiest guy in the world for having wonderful this woman as his own wife.
A mistake some men have made is to assume that the housewife’s work is not as important as his. What he does not realise is that if she collapses in some way so does the whole family unit. She is very worthy and the most important cog in the family machine that he needs to appreciate and look after because if she breaks down it all breaks down.
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• We are creatures of habit and in relationships we can fall into bad habits and like bricks crumbling in a wall, eventually the wall will collapse, and so will a marriage.
It is the little things that people do for one another that makes them feel that life is right and they are doing right, are in the right place with the right person.
• If you have something loving to say to the other let go of pride, say it, be very generous with your love to your marriage partner. If you were angry at your partner for something yet feel the desire to hug them, then go hug them (pride is the enemy in marriage). Marriage is not a competition, so please don’t love to compete and win against the other. Love should be gentle and relaxing like a hug as they sink into each others bodies gratefully and happily.
A hug between lovers should be like collapsing into a warm cosy bed after working outside in the cold, it feels like heaven on earth, meaning that your marriage partner feels like heaven on earth and both should feel that there is no other place on the planet that they would rather be 🙂
All the best from
James Martin Sandbrook.