Tips for a sustained marriage from those who had done it.

Ask Those Who Have A Sustained Marriage

Not every marriage is a success. These days especially 50 percent of marriages end up in divorce. What makes a marriage sustain for a long time? Most of the old couples have lived a long married life. The younger generations wonder how these couples are able to keep their marriage going when theirs fall apart within a short period after marriage.

Many of the couples from earlier generations agree that they have been practicing certain qualities that have helped their marriage stay in tact. If you ask them they would list the following qualities:

- Learn to survive within your means – finance is the main cause for many a break up. If you envy other people’s possessions you tend to compare and belittle your husband’s capacity. So be happy with what you have and live within your income

- Maintain a good physical appearance - you need to keep yourself healthy looking. You have to maintain your physical health by a proper diet and exercise. Remember, it was your looks that attracted the man to you initially? Even as you grow with age, you can age gracefully.

- Develop a good sense of humor – a sense of humor lightens up your life. You can learn to just laugh away those minor problems in life.

- Participate in community activities – you build a strong social life for your family by involving yourself in community activities or social service. The quality of your marriage improves with a good circle of friends and a healthy community.

- Be responsive to your partner’s moods – try to respect and respond to your partner’s moods. When he is feeling low try to be more understanding and supportive.

- Admit your faults – it would do good to apologize if you know you are at fault. This will certainly bring the couple closer together.

- Forgive your partner – if your partner has made mistakes forget and forgive him. After all, no one is perfect. You can be broadminded and forgive him.

- Share your good and bad feelings – learn to tell good and bad things about each other. Feel free to have disagreements. Be open to each other’s differences. Tolerance is one of the major factors in sustaining a healthy marriage.

- Share domestic chores – It would be nice to share the work at home because it would lessen the burden on one person. You may also have more time for yourselves. Sharing just shows your generosity and kindness towards each other.

- Surprise each other with gifts – who wouldn’t like gifts? Surprising your partner with gifts is an affectionate gesture. Even if there is no special occasion such as Christmas or Thanksgiving you can create the festive mood just by giving each other gifts. A surprise dinner or trip to Bahamas? Anything would lift your spirits.

- Be a good friend and companion – you could show interest and encourage your partner to paint or draw or whatever he is good at by being at his side. A constant companionship is a constant source of inspiration.

Develop these qualities and join the list of those who have sustained their marriages for long!

When two people get married they tend to be in their honeymoon period. They need to prepare themselves for the little “after marriage jolts”. Some begin to wonder why they ever got married in the first place. Most people think that life post marriage would always be a bunch of happy and beautiful moments. If that was true would there be so many couples divorcing today?

Even when we hear about others having problems with their marriage, we assume this will not happen in our life. When it comes to marriage many of us take it for granted that it will work. What we fail to understand is that to make it work, our basic emotional needs must be satisfied.

A need is a craving. You may crave for something simple or something more valuable. Or what you consider as valuable and absolutely necessary appears to be an unnecessary craving for your partner. Emotional needs often over-ride physical and biological needs in most women. For most men it is the other way round.

Two persons involved in marriage have their own prioritized list of needs. What gets top priority for one may get the least priority for the other. This is where the conflict begins. Some of the common but important needs are love, affection, sexual satisfaction, etc. Some of the most important things that can sustain a marriage are communication, companionship, mutual trust, etc.

In a marriage both partners should identify their emotional needs and try to satisfy each other’s needs. When there is no mutual interest in attending to the needs, one’s marriage starts to have problems. Emotional needs can be met only by expressing your needs to the other.

Love – love can be expressed if it is within you. It can be expressed through nice words, kind actions, helpful deeds, surprise gifts, etc. No one needs to teach you how to express love. But if your love is not expressed or reciprocated, then your love dies and so does your relationship.

Affection – What is the difference between love and affection? What is the difference between the love you feel for your parents, brothers, sisters, best friends and a person you have married? In the other relationship it is love minus the sexual urges that you feel for a partner. In the platonic relationship it is love plus something more, something that goes beyond the body - something that reaches out to the mind and energy of the being.

If you think of a mixture of physical and beyond physical love, you may have it in different degrees. For some we feel 80% physical and 20% beyond physical love. For some others it may be vice-versa. Or the mixture may have less or more of one or the other component. In a marriage, apart from the physical needs, the partners have to satisfy each others emotional needs. So the more the mixture has beyond the body component, the more sustaining the marriage can be. Unless the relationship and the feelings for each other goes beyond the physical attraction, the marriage cannot withstand situations when one partner falls sick or both partners grow old or for any other reason the physical closeness alone is not enough to bind the marriage and keep it together.

Sexual satisfaction – this is one major aspect of marriage. Sex is a natural instinct but we as superior animals have taken it to such a level of complexity that both partners may have a language barrier when they talk about sex. In many cultures, it is taboo for a woman to discuss sex with her husband. If there is no sexual satisfaction, partners can go elsewhere for satisfaction and the end result may be divorce. There is a lot of help available for those having any problems or sexual inadequacies. But unless there is self-analysis and genuine involvement in getting the problem solved by both partners, problems cannot be solved.

Communication – Communicating our needs properly in a language that our partner can understand is important. Both the partners may be using the same language and still face a language problem. Open communication helps the couple to understand each other better. So to keep your marriage healthy it is necessary to communicate our emotional needs in practical language that leaves no chance for misunderstanding.

Companionship – Without companionship, two people bound by marriage may grow apart from each other. Both may choose separate lifestyles and different leisurely activities. It is good to have space in marriage and choosing different activities in itself is not bad. But if the intention of choosing these activities is to be away from each other and find pleasure elsewhere, it is the first sign of problems. When both partners choose different activities and give space to each other as best friends do then the marriage is safe. The partners decide to adjust their need for companionship as well as their own emotional needs and give priority to each others needs.

Mutual trust – Importance of mutual trust in a marriage cannot be emphasized enough. You have to build your marriage on mutual trust. You can never regain a relationship when it is lost due to mistrust. Many marriages fall apart without any rhyme or reason just because one of the partners have a suspicious nature. For them the whole world adorns the color of their spectacles. By their very own nature of looking for suspicious activities of their partner, they attract such a problem to themselves. Our thoughts are very powerful and we can attract whatever we fear most just by thinking constantly about it.

To maintain a healthy marriage both the partners have to discuss their needs and put in an effort to show that they value each others needs. If you need help or more information, there are plenty of online resources and books available on these subjects. Learn to express your emotional needs and take your marriage to the heights of joy.