by Ben and Alisha Walker,
Have you ever thought about what it would take to make your relationship better? What do you need to do to make that happen? What if you could get a formula to help you counteract any negative thoughts or feelings that can come up during your marriage? What if you could find a way to “divorce-proof” your marriage?
We have worked with thousands of couples over the years and there have been some common issues that continue to come up, so we decided to address them in our book I Love Being Married: A Guide to Divorceproof Your Marriage in a way that allows married couples, engaged couples and people seeking to be married to use the tools we share to make their marriage work and also be able to say “I Love Being Married”.
The following are 6 tips taken from our book to address the issues we’ve seen in our counseling sessions with couples for years:
1. Assess where you are in your relationship so you can truthfully see where you are.
We encourage couples to assess where there marriage truly is at this point. The only way to address concerns or to make changes is to know where you are. A quick way for you and your spouse to check in is by using a scaling question. For example, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how satisfied are you with your relationship? Numbers 1-4 need serious attention now. Numbers 5-7 could use some support or enhancement. Numbers 8-10 are definitely on the right track but could always use enhancement to make the relationship better.
2. Give Your Spouse the Benefit of the doubt.
After the assessment phase of finding out where you really are in your relationship, we encourage couples to look at their spouse in a way that always gives them the benefit of the doubt. Too often when couples are seeking help for their relationship, it is after they have created a tape that plays a negative message in their head. We ask couples to look for the good in their spouse allowing them to see their spouse in a positive versus a negative light. We incorporate exercises to help make this happen and share tools that will make this work.
3. Accept your spouse for who they are.
Accepting your spouse for exactly who they are today will make a world of a difference to them. How would you feel if someone accepted you for all of your flaws without negativity or criticism? This point is crucial to the relationship because people enter relationships with the notion that their mate will change when, in fact, they are the same person you married. Accept them fully, without criticism and a need to change them.
4. Appreciate your spouse for who they are.
Show your spouse that you appreciate them, no matter how small. When was the last time you told your spouse thank you, I love you, I appreciate you because …. ? Then give them a specific reason. Show your spouse that you see them and their efforts in your relationship.
5. Maintain your friendship.
Create an atmosphere where you are friends with your spouse, where you have more in common than what you don’t. Ladies go with your husband to the golf course one Saturday and learn the game. Men take a spa day with your wife. We’re not saying ditch relationships with other people, but we are saying to make your marital relationship a priority and make the friendship a priority.
6. Love one another the way Christ loved the church.
Our book has biblical principles throughout. One of which is love your spouse the way Christ loved the church, which is talked about in Ephesians 5:22-31. The bible explicitly spells out how Christ cherished, nourished, reverenced and honored the church. We ask couples to love their spouse in this way, where they know that they are first in your life and that no one else or anything else comes before them. This is where the efforts from the previous points come into play where you will need to employ them in order to have enough positive currency in your love bank to give to them. It’s hard to love someone this way, when you really don’t like them. Follow the other steps to be able to love your spouse this way. Eventually, it becomes contagious and reciprocal between the two of you.
BMWK – check back next week when we give you 6 more tips to divorce proof your marriage.
Ben and Alisha Walker the Co-founders of The Marriage Coaches have written “I Love Being Married: A Guide to Divorceproof Your Marriage“ which is a dynamic book that shares common sense tools to develop and maintain a happy, loving and peaceful marriage. They also show you how to avoid the pitfalls that lead to divorce in a straightforward, practical approach, and reveal secrets to singles before they walk down the aisle. You can buy the book here.