The Marriage Counseling Blog

When it comes to relationships, there’s a lot of advice out there about what you should do differently or how you can make your divorce-proof your marriage. However, a lot of marital satisfaction has more to do with your attitude rather than anything else. Keeping your attitude in the right place can help you to have realistic expectations of your relationship and can improve marital satisfaction.

1. All Couples Have Problems

All couples have differences and that’s not a bad thing. If marriage were really easy, it wouldn’t help us grow as individuals or as a couple. The way you address your problems is what has the capacity to be a problem. Learning how to negotiate, cope and work together can make your marriage stronger.

2. Healthy People Make the Best Partners

If you take steps to take care of yourself, physically, socially, intellectually and emotionally, you’ll make a much better partner. It’s important to not just focus on your marriage, but to take steps to grow as a person that will excite, nurture, and care for your spouse. Give your spouse good reason to want to be married to you by taking care of yourself.

3. “In Love” Feelings Change Over Time

Those romantic feelings that caused you to get together in the first place weren’t meant to last forever. In love feelings change over time and you shouldn’t blame it on changes to your relationship. Instead, accept that it’s normal to grow a more mature sort of love instead of focusing on recreating what life was like when you were dating.

4. Intimacy is Built Over Time

Work on growing your intimacy and marriage over time. Sometimes couples feel the relationship grows stale and they think they know everything there is to know about their partner. However, there are always opportunities to learn more. Look for new opportunities to grow closer as a couple and you’re intimacy can continue to grow throughout the years.

5. Your Relationship Will Change Throughout Life’s Stages

Nothing in life ever stays the same. And as your life changes, your marriage will too. If you have kids, move to a new town, start a new job or have new friends, your relationship will change as well. But change isn’t bad and if you focus on keeping your marriage healthy, your marriage will adapt much easier to the changes.

6. You Have Control Over Yourself Only

Focus on what you can change and don’t waste too much energy trying to force your spouse to change. Your attempts to nag, beg and force your partner into submission are likely to take cause more problems rather than help. So, spend your energy working on making yourself the best partner you can be.

7. Making Marriage a Priority is Healthy

Don’t let your marriage fall to the bottom of the priority list. Sometimes kids, money, extended family, social relationships begin to take up so much time that there’s little room for the marriage. However, if your marriage is not healthy, your parenting, your relationships with other people, your income, and your job are at-risk of being negatively impacted.

Put your marriage at the top of your priority list. Make time for your spouse and work together on your goals. Don’t give in to any feelings of guilt if you spend time with your spouse. After all, what could be more important?

8. Learning and Growing Together Makes for a Happier Marriage

Work on growing together as a couple to help ensure you have common interests. And make sure to have interests outside of just raising the kids. Take up a new sport, venture to a new area, try a class together or pick up a hobby that you both enjoy. This can keep your marriage fresh and exciting and ensure that you grow together rather than apart.

9. It Takes Effort to Protect Your Marriage

If you assume that your marriage is good and nothing bad will happen to it, you’re at-risk of having something bad happen. It takes effort to protect your marriage from the outside world. This means guarding your marriage against the temptations of an affair. It also means setting healthy boundaries with friends and family members.  Learning about relationships, attending counseling and working together should be part of keeping your relationship healthy and not a last minute effort to prevent divorce.

10. The Grass Isn’t Greener on the Other Side

Sometimes people think that the grass is greener on the other side.  Daydreaming about what life could be like if you were single or if you had a different partner is dangerous territory. These thoughts don’t tend to be rooted in any sort of reality and can often make it feel like your marriage is holding you back in life. The realities of divorce or an affair aren’t pretty. Don’t waste the time you could be focusing on your marriage dreaming about how the grass could be greener.