Marriages ebb and flow, as does any long-term relationship, but few other relationships in life are as long lasting and important as marriage. So, to make sure yours never ebbs too low and you and your partner stay happy together forever, follow these simple tips. Then check out some of our past tips here.
Establish Your Family Rules
Rules can become tiresome and suffocating – if they’re too stringent and inflexible. However, if you establish no rules whatsoever in a marriage you’ll likely end up with total anarchy. The mere act of setting up rules, not even following them, goes a long way for communicating how each person views certain issues, what is and isn’t important and how they think certain things should be responded to. Almost everyone enters marriage with pre-conceived notions about it thanks to their own family experiences, and those notions are never going to be the same for any two people.
Should you take turns taking out the trash, or is that always the man’s job? Should the same person who cooks also clean, should you switch or should you share in both responsibilities? Figure out rules for this stuff and don’t be afraid to bend them a little sometimes, but try to stick to them for the most part.
Allow Some Flexibility
As mentioned above, rules are good, but they shouldn’t be written in stone. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that you must consider. But even more importantly, your lives and situations change over time. If you get married in your 20s or 30s, you can guarantee that the rules established then will not all make sense when you’re in your 40s and 50s. If someone loses their job – or gets a better one – for example, then your financial dynamics and personal lives can change drastically. Household duties, spending habits, the ways you show affection and more all need to evolve over time.
Consciously Give Care
Empathy can be difficult when one person is sick or hurt and the other injured, because often the symptoms are not visibly obvious. It’s important then for the person who is suffering to communicate that suffering and for the other person to listen carefully and respond with the appropriate care. Later, when the roles are inevitably flipped at some future point, both people should respond in kind. Being open in this manner won’t completely solve the problem of the person who needs care feeling guilty and frustrated and the person who needs to give it feeling controlled by it. But it will help you both to understand each other more and give you the strength to get through those feelings.
Make Bedroom Activity a Priority – Not a Chore
You know what we mean here. Don’t make an appointment for it in your Google Calendar or jot it down in your planner – that’s how it starts feeling like a responsibility that you have to accomplish, something that must be checked off the list of weekly chores. But do make sure it doesn’t fall by the wayside. The frequency really doesn’t matter. This is not something for which you have to “keep up with the Joneses.” Instead, focus on feeling as if you’re both satisfied here, not that you’re hitting an arbitrary number.
Go on Dates
Dating is fun. That going on dates is enjoyable is something that is universally understood to be true. So why do we think dating should stop once we get married? Your wedding should be the happiest day of your life – because it’s the day you commit to be with the one who makes you happiest. So keep on going places and doing things together to enjoy that happiness. Additionally, you should plan to have occasional family meetings to make sure everyone understands what’s going on and why and can figure out what, if any, changes need to be made.
Give Gifts
Everyone knows to give gifts on birthdays, religious holidays, Valentine’s Day and your anniversary. Those are obvious. But you shouldn’t only use those special, clearly marked occasions for gift giving. Make a point to occasionally give out small presents to each other. These don’t have to – but can be – monetary gifts. They can be just small ways of going beyond the norm to express your love and care for each other. It can be buying something when you take a trip, or it can be leaving a nice note out for your spouse. These small displays of care will go a long way toward reminding the other how you feel about them.
Cubic Zirconia Jewelry
Guys, what’s one of the best gifts to give your wife? Jewelry, of course! Every woman loves to get jewelry, and you don’t have to break the bank to give it to her. Get her Russian Formula cubic zirconia jewelry to save on cost without sacrificing any of the beauty you’d get from real diamonds.