A Marriage 4 Life

Help Your Marriage Last A Lifetime!

Building A Love Relationship

What is a Love Relationship when it comes to our marriage? I’m going to try and give you a good idea about what changes you may have made to weaken your relationship, and what changes YOU CAN MAKE to strengthen your relationship. It’s not just simply “do this” and “don’t do that”. It’s about changing your habits, your ways, your thinking, and your attitude. Yes it’s all about CHANGE! Oh boy, that’s a word none of us like to hear, me included. There is a lot of material here, but it’s worth reading.

We’re going to cover some things that helped build our relationship in the first place, things that seem to slip away after being married a while. These are things that will help keep romance alive in your marriage and help build a friendship between you. I believe husbands and wives must be friends, I know my wife and I are best friends. These are good things to keep on doing if you’re already doing them, or if you have stopped doing them, to start again.

  • Love notes, these are my favorites, my wife and I don’t do them real often, but a little note in the lunch pail, on the pillow, in a clothing drawer, almost anywhere you know your spouse will be today. They don’t have to say much either.
  • Voluntarily doing something for your spouse they’re not expecting. This will be quite different for husbands and wives. Example, husbands help out around the house in some area, (dishes, cooking, cleaning, picking up things at the store), and wives doing a little extra special thing like (the two of you watch a game together some night, greet him at the door when he’s coming home with that special drink. (tea, coffee, soda). You can think of many if you try!
  • Compliments can go along way, so be sure to add a few to your days allotment of words for each other. You look nice today, you smell nice today, house looks great, dinner tastes great. For you wives, just notice all the things that the guys do around the house, the yard, the garage, and let them know the job was done well.
  • During dinner, don’t just eat and get it over with. It is healthier to eat slow, and a good way to do this is to talk during dinner! WOW can that be possible? Is it possible to have a conversation with the spouse between mouthfuls? Try it, but be sure to keep the conversation in the positive, don’t bring up bills, or problems at work, be happy!
  • Hugs and Kisses, sometimes are kept just for saying hello, goodbye or goodnight, but let me tell you, they’re really special, when they come just because you want to say I LOVE YOU in a very special way.
  • Take time out of each week, just to take a walk together and talk! This is a very good thing, because most of us don’t get enough exercise anyway, and talking and walking always bring satisfaction. My wife and I always talk about the future and the family, we like to make plans for the up and coming weeks.
  • Be a good listener, because there are going to be times when your spouse is having a difficulty in their life, and allowing them to share it with you helps to relieve the strain on them. Give them all the support you can and let them know you care!
  • Dates are very important, even if it’s only going out to dinner. I think you can at least squeeze in dinner and a movie though. Find something you both enjoy doing together and do it. DON’T tell me there is nothing you enjoy together, I know better, or you wouldn’t have gotten married. You had to do something when you were dating!
  • Remember the good things about each other, and focus on them. Yes there may be physical changes that have taken place, but each one of us is the same person inside. Look for that person, they are still there. If personality has changed with appearance, it is most likely due to self image, and for it to be low, the one finding fault has caused much of the problem. Always look for the positive things in each other.
  • Be an encourager, and encourage one another in all endeavors, especially when it comes to loosing weight! Yes you heard me, that’s a big one. My wife and I have both gained more weight than we wanted, but we love each other in spite of it, and are always trying to work together to change it.
  • Be a helping hand whenever you can and in anyway you can. Sometimes it’s the little things you do that say I Love You.
  • Let the words I’M SORRY be words that are frequent and apologize often. I heard someone say once, that “love means not having to say you’re sorry”. Well, I’m here to tell you, that the opposite is true. If you love someone, you won’t hesitate to tell them you’re sorry for something you may or may not have done!
  • Forgive and forget! This goes along with saying I’m sorry, when your spouse does apologize you must be willing to forgive and not only forgive, but forget it too. Too many times we seem to remember some of these things when we get into a fight, and up they come, only adding more conflict.
  • Do HOLD your tongue, if what you have to say isn’t going to make the situation better. We seem to shoot our mouths off, and throw things in just to make conversation, when conversation isn’t what’s needed.
  • Let’s not forget the little gifts that say I love you. They don’t have to be much, because it’s the thought that counts, not how big it is, or how expensive it is.
  • Here’s one that meant a lot to me, before my wife and I started working together, and that is a Phone call to your spouse at work sometime, just to say you were thinking of them, and a big I Love You. Just because we’re at work, doesn’t get us off the hook either, we still can take a couple of minutes out of our day to call our spouse at home, for the same reason, just to say you were thinking of them and that you love them. Very simple one here, of course you have to use wisdom and not call too much to cause problems on the job. There is a balance as with all things.

Ok we have covered several things we can do to help build a strong marriage, or in many cases things that can help repair our relationship, that will lead to building that strong marriage. Now though we have to talk about some of things we do, that we SHOULD NOT DO. If we do more of the things we have covered already and do much less of the things we’re going to cover, I believe you will be on your way to building that strong marriage.

  • Don’t criticize each other! We have to quit looking at the negative things in our partners, because that’s where criticism starts. If you always try and look for the positive in everything, you’ll find less things to be critical about.
  • Don’t take your spouse for granted. This is a big one for us guys I know, but ladies, it applies to you too. Let your partner know you appreciate all that they do, and do it often!
  • Don’t withhold your body from your spouse because you are mad at them. Try to work things out early, before retiring, because usually it’s more fun to make up, so it’s worth working at!
  • Don’t give your spouse the silent treatment! This is a big one for the ladies, but it applies to us men also. In the case of an argument the silent treatment is like throwing fuel on the fire to make it burn hotter.
  • Don’t let material things or your job take you away from your family. Sometimes we tend to get so busy that we neglect our spouse and children. This is not good, we need each other.
  • Don’t NAG, nagging doesn’t seem to do anything but create tension, and puts more stress in our marriage than whatever we were trying to fix in the first place.
  • Don’t bring up things the other did in the past, as defense in an argument or fight. This is another time, that if you do you are putting fuel on the fire and just making things worse.
  • Don’t find fault in your spouse, because if you do, then you are looking for the negative things in them, and not the positive things. If you would stop and think, and take the time to really look at your spouse, you will see many more positive things than you can find negative things. You want to know why? Well, I’m going to tell you. When you first met, and became attracted to each other, it was because of all the positive things you saw in them, or soon learned about them. Guess what they all haven’t gone, but you are now only noticing the negative ones, you’re taking the rest of them for granted.

I’m sure there are a lot more of both, but if you start to really work at these, you will definitely see a difference in your marriage. If you are having problems in your relationship right now, I suggest you start with a few of the do’s and try and stop all the don’ts that you possibly can, and watch the good it can do.