10 Things You Need to Know to Make Your Marriage Work

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10 Things You Need to Know to Make Your Marriage Work

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Here are 10 things that you need to know, in order to make your marriage work:

1. Marriage is still a relationship: One of the biggest misunderstandings that affect most of the marriages is that marriage is for a lifetime and you and your partner would be together forever. What many people fail to understand is that marriage is just like a relationship. At the time you started the relationship, you may have been head over heels for each other but you can just as easily fall out of love as you can fall in. So just because you are married, doesn't mean that you can take your relationship with your spouse for granted. You still have to go through all the ups and downs of a relationship. When I first got married with the love of my life, it took me two disastrous months to realize that I can easily still lose my partner. But since then, I worked hard on our relationship to make it work. So, the first rule to saving or improving your marriage is to never stop working on your relationship. In fact, chances are that you will need to put in extra effort for your partner's birthday and your Anniversary and Valentine's Day.
2. You can't work on your relationship alone: It takes two to have a wedding and it takes two to make it work. So even if you are putting your 100% into the marriage doesn't mean that your marriage is going to work unless your partner is also willing to make an effort. So if you are facing any issues in your marriage, you need to talk to your partner and you both need to work on your relationship together.
3. No relationship is perfect: Another common mistake that leads to frustration in various marriages is having very high expectations. People tend to have the ideology that because they are married now, so everything in their relationship is supposed to be perfect. I have news. No person is perfect and thus is no marriage or relationship. This doesn't even work in movies anymore. Everyone makes mistakes and its part of your vows to accept your partner as he/she is and not act, like you shouldn't have gotten into this marriage, every time your partner makes a mistake. So just like before, one of you is still going to forget a memorable event, or be too lost to hear what the other person was saying but that does not mean that your marriage is in turmoil or that you shouldn't be together. Also, I haven't met a single couple in my life that never fights, so unless you are always fighting with each other all the time, you are doing fine.
4. Keep Growing Together: Being in a stable relationship is almost never as much fun as being in a growing relationship. That is why most people don't forget the feeling you had in the first few weeks when you started dating someone and that is why girls are always talking about the first kiss with a guy. You meet someone, you like each other, you begin to hangout, you keep having fun, you begin to get serious about the relationship, you move in together, you live together for a while and then you get married; almost all the couples in this world go through more than one of the mentioned stages. Coming out of such a happening relationship, you enter the honey moon phase and its all heaven until you begin to get into the daily routine when nothing much is happening. Some couples face this stage before having children, while others delay this stage by opting to have children early in their marriage. In any case, almost all the couples go through this stage at one time or another. This brings feelings of boredom, confusion, regret or maybe even depression. What you all need to realize is that it is natural to feel this way and you can get rid of this feeling by concentrating on your bond with your partner, your history together, your good times together. Also, there is no bad time to take a vacation together. In fact, I suggest going on a vacation together at least once a year. Also you can take some classes (painting, cooking etc) together or do some activities together to get rid of your boredom (e.g. swimming, rock climbing, scuba diving etc). The theme is: Keep Growing Together.
5. Keep Sex Fun: Sex is one of the most integral parts of a marriage and you need to make sure that you both are enjoying it. If after a few years, you begin to get bored with it, invent something new. There are plenty of different activities and you can discuss together what you both like and then experiment with new things.
6. It's Not Me, It's Us: Ego has no place in a marriage and there are simply no exceptions to this rule. So once you are married, you need to make extra effort to just put yourself aside and think about the relationship. So you can no more think about my happiness, my career, my goals, my family but you have got to think about the both of you and what you both want from life. You should make all major plans together and work on your relationship and lives together.
7. Living Together: Living together brings certain level of stress to couples who have not lived together before marriage. Sharing your space, your room with some one is not at all easy, especially if you haven't lived with or shared your room with someone before. Chances are that one of you throws his/her clothes on the bed, doesn't take part in taking care of the room/house etc. You just need to deal with such situations with patience and help each other get accustomed to each others habits. Its not easy for any couple to live together especially in the beginning so you don't need to worry about this issue and just work on it together with patience.
8. Privacy: Some people suffer through the illusion that being married means complete openness. Well this might be true for some relationships, in others, one of the partners may want to still have some privacy, be it in professional capacity or personal life. You will need to respect your partner's privacy and not consider knowing everything about them, your right.
9. Stay Committed: A number of research surveys highlight cheating as the most common cause of divorce and relationship breakups. No man or woman, that I know, would not like to sleep with a perfect 10 Model if he or she had the chance but this doesn't mean he or she should. It is certainly not what they committed to by getting married. I cannot stress this point enough, no matter how deep a turmoil your marriage is going through, there is no justification for cheating on your partner. So if you want to stay married, learn to keep your pants on.
10. Workaholism: Workaholism means addiction to work. It is identified by many as another common cause that can end your marriage or relationship. Professional goals are the right of every person and I shall always encourage people to support their partners in achieving their goals but if your goals are coming between you and your partner then I believe that you need to sit back and think about what you want. You need to set your priorities straight and take your partner into consideration.