Friendship and Agreement are Key to Successful Marriage

In a marriage that is to stand the test of time, romance is important, but compatibility is critical. Partners in healthy marriages come to agree upon common agendas regarding the directions their marriage will take, and the way each partner will behave. These common agreements may never have been discussed, but they will be present in how each partner chooses to act.

Areas of agreement that partners will have dealt with will generally include:

* Friendship. Successful partners develop a significant friendship at the core of their relationship. They genuinely like one another, amuse and comfort one another, and prefer to spend time with each other. This friendship and mutual liking is somewhat separate from other aspects of the relationship (sexuality, for instance), and can survive the loss of these other aspects of the relationship. A strong friendship and mutual liking is often the core to repairing troubled relationships.

* Role expectations. In a healthy marriage each reaches an agreement regarding how household responsibilities are divided and how they will behave towards each other. Traditionally, and still dominantly, the man will take on the majority of financial obligations, while the woman will take on nurturing roles. Tradition has broken down significantly in the industrialized west over the last century, however, and it is not at all uncommon to find 'women' who take on financial obligations, 'men' who take on nurturing roles, or to find both partners sharing these roles to one degree or another. But it is the couples agreement about who will be in charge of what that is essential to marital bliss. Failure to reach agreement regarding roles can be a major source of conflict.

These are only two more keys to a successful marriage. More will be covered in future blogs.

Marriage is Good For Your Health

Couples in conflict-ridden marriages take longer than happily married couples to heal from all kinds of wounds, from minor scrapes or athletic injuries to major surgery.

This new research, reported at the American Psychosomatic Society adds to growing evidence that marriage has a huge impact on health.

"Even a simple disagreement slows wound healing," says psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, of Ohio State University College of Medicine.

In this study, hostile couples who use criticism, sarcasm and put-downs, healed the slowest. It took them 40 percent longer - two more days - to heal.

On the upside, good marriages can decrease your blood pressure, increase your immune system and even lower your risk for major diseases such as cancer and heart attack. "You may not be able to get away from the job stress," says Dr. Baker, "but a good marriage soothes people which minimizing the effects of stress from their job."

People just don’t realize how much their marriage can affect the rest of their life. Dr. Kayser has studied how couples cope with the stress of a wife's diagnosis of breast cancer. She writes, "How the marriage helps or hurts tends to come out more during a crisis," she says, "but our marriages are affecting our health and well-being all the time."

Recipe for A Happy Marriage:

1 cup consideration

1 cup courtesy

2 cupfuls flattery carefully concealed

1 gallon faith and trust in each other

2 cupfuls praise

1 small pinch of in-laws

1 reasonable budget, a generous dash of cooperation

3 teaspoon pure extract of "I'm sorry"

1 cup contentment

1 cup each confidence and encouragement

1 large or several small hobbies

1 cup blindness to the other's faults

Flavor with frequent portions of recreation and a dash of happy memories. Stir well and remove any specks of jealousy, temper or criticism. Sweeten well with generous portions of love and keep warm with a steady flame of devotion. Never serve with cold shoulder.

The Need For Affection

I was 17 when I left home for college. I made arrangements to stay with my friend's family near to my school. Within a few days I was moved in and comfortable; that was, until I stumbled into the kitchen one afternoon and discovered my friend's parents lovingly embraced, with their arms around each other, talking. When I turned to exit the kitchen my friend's mother said, "Karen, come on in, we're just talking." Embarrassed, I excused myself anyway.

I had come from a home where physical affection was seldom expressed, especially between my parents. But it wasn't long before I realized that my friend's parents had something I wanted; an openly affectionate relationship. Their closeness wasn't foreplay, it was just an expression of their love for one another.

All to often, after we become comfortable with our special someone, we relax to the point of forgetting to court each other on a daily basis. We forget how important our affection is to our partner and we forget how important it is to maintaining a loving relationship. How often have you heard someone complain that the only time their partner is affectionate is when they want sex. It is a favorite theme in sit-coms. But if you want your relationship to flourish, don't let it become a regular theme in yours.If it has been a while since you have openly displayed your affection, take a moment to let your special someone know that you realize that this is an area in your life that needs to change and that you are willing to start the ball rolling. That way when you walk up from behind for a quick hug, s/he won't be too surprised.

Most of us have heard the phrase, "a good marriage takes a lot of work." This is something you can start today that doesn't have to feel like work. But it can make a positive impact on your life together. Don't just think about change, create change!

Become Each Other's Best Friend

What are the secrets to creating a lifelong love? Well, there aren’t any real secrets, but there are a lot of things that you can do to make your marriage happy and fulfilling. Here is one of the most important ones. I will cover some of the others in future blogs.

Be Each Other’s Best Friend

Ask yourself, “How do I treat my friends?” and “How do I treat my partner differently?” Erma Bombeck once wrote a piece about how strange it would be if we treated our friends the same way we treated out family at the dinner table. We’d invite our friends to dinner, but before we ate we’d ask them if they washed their hands first – “did you use soap?. When they pass on the veggies we get gruff and tell them that if they don’t eat their spinach they won’t get any dessert, and so on. Of course we treat visitors a little differently than family, but overall we need to be as respectful to our spouse as we would anyone else – perhaps even more so.

How often do you play together? When was the last time that you shared a good joke together? How often do you plan time just to hang out, relax and enjoy each other’s company? What do you enjoy doing with your friends that you could also enjoy with your partner? How comfortable are you sharing personal thoughts and feelings with your wife/husband? How good are you at listening without getting upset at what is being said? These are very important questions to answer as the quality of your relationship depends on the quantity and the quality of your time together.

Plan time in your life to be your partner’s friend, and make a commitment to be a great friend to him/her. Act like you did when you were first getting to know each other, happy, vulnerable, energized. Marriage is a lot of work, and most couples will agree with that statement; but all too often we forget to do that work. We begin to take each other for granted and we fall into a routine that doesn’t include enough positive time together.

So, get out your date book and make a date, right now. Putting it off may indicate the beginning of the end. Don’t let that happen.

Fighting in front of Children

It is never alright to fight in front of children. I used to be said that kids need to learn, through observation, how to fight so that they will know how to be in a relationship someday. That has been studied and proven over and over that this idea is clearly as damaging to families as divorce.

Now, because of recent longitudinal studies that have been done (taken over 20-30 year periods)we now know that children are in fact deeply scarred by living with parent’s that quarrel and fight within earshot of the children. Interior home walls are generally not insulated and the sound travels quite freely from one room to the next. And when parents are speaking loudly, you can bet that the children are hearing everything. Their anxiety rises as the tones and threats in the argument increase in intensity. And children can always imagine that their parent’s fight is the child’s fault

Children don’t know how to protect themselves from the pain that is welling up inside them and they feel helpless to run away. So they become prisoners in their own personal torture chamber, a prison, their bedroom; the same place where they are expected to find comfort and peace a few hours later so they can drift happily off to sleep. This will never happen. The child will lay awake feeling physical anxiety because they didn’t have the right arena to express their fears and feelings so they internalize their pain. Young children will automatically find reasons that s/he was the reason for the fight. Perhaps they heard their name among all the other words spoken in anger. Or perhaps earlier in the day or week they were scolded for something and now they believe that they are the problem that is being fought about. They worry that it will be their fault if the parents split up. Kids can create the most elaborate ideas about how it was their entire fault that bad things happen in their home. This is way too much pressure and responsibility for a young, underdeveloped child to have to deal with.

They may zone out, curl up in the corner or on their bed. They may even come to you and beg you to stop fighting. Sadly when this happens, either the child is not even acknowledged or s/he becomes another target for the angry parent. “Get back to your room. Can’t you hear me?! If your room isn’t clean in 10 minutes you know I’ll be coming after you next!” Even if this only happens once every week or two, it is enough to change the character and personality of your child for the worse…and for the rest of his/her life. Whatever your selfish motivation is to continue a disagreement with your partner, it is NEVER worth the damage to your children that fighting will inflict. Close your doors and keep your voice down no matter how angry you get. S/He isn't listening to you when you are yelling anyway - but the kids are. Be the parent they need you to be.