Ways to a happy marriage
Here are some great ways to build a happy marriage:
Talk
Couples are losing the art of communicating with each other. Try eating dinner or breakfast together. Find a time to come together and talk about your day and your dreams. And most importantly, listen, really listen, to your partner. Communication is perhaps the most important ingredient for a happy marriage.
Read
Read to each other, that is. There’s something about listening to the sound of your lover’s voice that can soothe you. It’s a great way to experience in-direct communication through storytelling.
Touch
Remember your first year of marriage when touching was as natural as breathing? Love pats on the buns while passing in the hall can make for warm feelings. Hey guys, basketball players even do this to celebrate a great shot (although I doubt they call it a ‘love pat’!)
Date
Go on a date once a month. Now, if you’re like us, you are on a tight budget. You can do this for little or no money. Just get creative. For the cost of a few homemade sandwiches, a picnic can be intimate. How about having someone watch the kids and just the two of you picnic together. No time to drive to a park? Hey, the kids have gone to Grandma’s, so have a picnic in the backyard. The location doesn’t matter. Being together is what counts.
Get creative
Here’s a crazy idea that my wife and I did during our early years when we were living on a shoestring budget (sometimes we couldn’t even afford the shoestring!). On Valentines Day we’d go to Hallmark and “shop” for cards. We each pulled cards off the shelf that we liked and showed them to each other. After reading the cards, we’d smile, say thank you, and put them back. Crazy? You bet. But we still remember those days – not as doing without, but as being crazy in love. (Of course, we weren’t exactly helping Hallmarks stock, but they seemed to do pretty well even without us.) Now we actually buy cards for each other!
Role-play
You can be anyone your lover wants you to be (and visa versa). Check out our Cheating Game post.
Enjoy your family
You can’t always get away from the kids – and you probably wouldn’t want to. But doing things with your children doesn’t mean you have to ignore each other. If you have access to a beach, for example, walk along hand in hand while keeping a close eye on your kids. Hey, why not put your arms around each other as you walk along – you know like you did before kids? You still can you know. Instead of feeling neglected, your children will experience a sense of security seeing you both in love.
Time with the kids
Get active with your kids. If your children are little, how about a game of “Go Fish” with the whole family sitting on the floor? When they are older, how about a game of flag football? The kids might get a surprise to find out how fast their Mom can move!
Throughout this entire site, you’ll find more ideas on how to fire up your marriage again. The bottom line is this: marriage is meant to be monogamous, not monotonous. You don’t have to “work” at making a happy marriage; you just need to play with it.
