Strengthen Your Marriage: 5 Simple Tips
- Mae Pulsipher
- Aug 18, 2018
- 4 min read
Marriage is a tricky thing and with how divorce is such an easy thing in today’s culture it’s so easy to just want to give up. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that families are eternal and that means marriages are eternal. But what can we do to make sure that these eternal marriages last and don’t just end up in shambles? Listed below are the five most important things that I have discovered through reading and my own life for keeping marriages strong.
1. It is crucial that you and your spouse are friends.
Dr. John Gottman in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work focuses on how it is that friendship that you build with your spouse that helps you continue strengthening your marriage. While things like mutual interests and communication are important, your marriage isn’t going to continue being happy and fruitful if your spouse is not your best friend. They should be the one that you want to share everything with. If a new activity comes up, they should be the one that you want to go with. If your spouse isn’t the one you want to spend the majority of your time with, you need to reevaluate and figure out what you two can do to grow your friendship; which will in turn strengthen your marriage.
2. You need to treat your marriage as a covenant marriage and not a contractual one.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen spoke on the differences between a contractual marriage and a covenant marriage. He said:
“When troubles come, the parties of a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work through them together. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent. But covenant companions each give 100 percent. Enough and to spare. Each gives enough to cover any shortfall by the other.”
When you look at your marriage, is it a contractual obligation or do you take the covenants you made to your spouse very seriously? On a day to day basis are you giving in your full 100%, or are you only giving 50% in hopes that your spouse will make up the rest? If you are more on the contractual side, strengthening that friendship with your spouse and praying to feel God’s love for your spouse will help you tip the scales to be back on the covenant side.
3. Strive to continue building your “love map”
Remember when you first started dating your spouse how you both strived to learn everything about them? You even wanted to know what they had for breakfast for the past month! Once you got married, that spark to try and learn more and more about each other sometimes tends to die down. Dr. Gottman spoke about how we need to continue working on our love maps with our spouses. What’s a love map you may ask. A love map is how much you know about your spouse. You might have known your spouse’s fears and dreams when you first married, but do you know them now? Strive to continue getting to know your spouse. In this way you both will be able to grow together, instead of growing a part.
4. Focus on the positive
Have you ever seen the Winnie the Pooh episode where he pretends to be a little black rain cloud to get honey? As cute as Pooh Bear is there, negativity can be like a not so cute, big black rain cloud over our marriage. When we focus on the negative it tends to taint every aspect of our lives, even going as far as to taint our memories with our spouse. When we choose to focus on the positive we are less likely to fight with our spouses, along with being more likely to overlook their weaknesses (because we know that there are some of ours we want them to overlook too!).
5. Continue dating after marriage
You’ve got the ring, you’ve said your vows, and the reception is over. That means dating is over now, right? You couldn’t be more wrong! Dating becomes critically more important once you’re married. You remember points one and three, the ones about continuing to learn about each other and building on your friendship? Going on dates is how you do those things. Even if it’s just a date to Costco to eat all the free samples. You are still spending quality time with one another, and that’s one of the most important things.
References
Hafen, B. C. (2005). Covenant hearts: Marriage and the joy of human love. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
Duncan, S. F. & Zasukha, S. S. (2016). Foundational processes for an enduring, healthy marriage. In A. J. Hawkins, D. C. Dollahite, & T. W. Draper (Eds.), Successful marriages and families: Proclamation principles and research perspectives (pp. 27-37). Provo: Brigham Young University.
Gottman, J. M. & Silver, N.(1999). The seven principles for making marriage work: A practical guide from the country’s foremost relationship expert (2nd ed.). New York: Harmony Books.
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