6 Tips to Keep Marriage Alive and Happy

A marriage comes with excitement, expectations and fears. One fear common to singles and newlyweds is that of becoming trapped in a dull marriage. Marriage is relatively easy. It’s the staying together afterward that’s hard.

Most traditional wedding vows list problems that are bound to come up: “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health . . .” There certainly will be times when things are worse rather than better; when money is tight; and when one of the partners is in poor physical or emotional health. These are times that strain a relationship, and encourage bratty attitudes and behaviors.
If you find your marriage stagnating, or find that you are too tired to keep the spark of romance alive, you need help. Marriage requires effort to make it vibrant and enduring. Sometimes it means listening to your spouse when you’d rather go to sleep, hanging up the wet towel once again, and even taking out the garbage. Putting your partner first through little daily acts of kindness, or mounting a concerted effort to replace negative habit patterns with positive ones, will help you treasure your marriage. Here are some tips to help your keep marriage alive and full of happiness :

Adding a dose of humor gets you out of negative thinking and helps your relationship. Humor does not mean the same thing as telling jokes. In a relationship, humor involves the willingness to suspend judgment, to appreciate irony and to recapture a child-like playfulness, which helps prevent stress and tension. It is the ability to both be funny and to appreciate your partner’s amusement.
Look for the good and overlook the bad. Develop the encouragement habit No one is perfect. It is always best to focus on the positive. Be ready to give support and comfort during the critical and the mundane times of life. Decide to think positively. Decide that you are in the marriage for the long haul and that it is going to be an adventure and a delight.
Look for ways to serve, not be served. Let your spouse choose the movie, have the favorite section of the newspaper, or choose the menu for dinner. Be ready to say, Let’s do it your way.
Spend time with your spouse. Spend more time talking to and listening to your partner and spare more time to go on a date. Dates are really just scheduled time together. Time is more valuable to a marriage than money.
Become friends for life. Men value doing things together, while women value talking together. Foster quality time together that combines activity and conversation. Take a cooking class together, walk around the soccer field while your children practice soccer, or run errands together.
Be silly. Write each other notes or poems, buy little gifts, call just to say I love you, give lots of hugs and kisses, and consistently encourage one another.

Keeping marriage alive is not an easy task, nor is it one that necessarily comes naturally. It requires married couples to take an impartial look at their interactions to identify those areas that are especially unsatisfying. Then, as partners, they can take positive actions toward improving these areas of the relationship.