We’re marrying less nowadays, and later. But a good marriage can still be the best thing that ever happens to you. Because successful married couples are the happiest group in society.
So what does it take to become one of them?
It’s basically all about attitude. Happy couples have figured out that getting married means a fundamental shift in your outlook. From the single’s ‘Me’ to a couple’s ‘We.’ Marriages only succeed when a couple is willing to merge their whole lives together.
So, for example, happy couples are always completely open and honest with each other. While couples who’re forever hiding something from one another usually come to grief. Good couples communicate well, think like team players, show each other their true selves and discuss everything about each other’s lives together.
That’s quite a shift of course, because most people are never entirely honest with anyone at all. Not their friends, their parents, colleagues or children. But the one person you can be honest with is your spouse, and it’s a wonderful feeling having someone like that in your life.
So don’t even think of marrying someone who’s secretive or who won’t discuss their thoughts. They won’t change, and your marriage will never be truly successful.
There are also skills involved in being open with your spouse. You need to learn to share your thoughts without criticising each other, or giving each other a hard time. Or telling anyone else. Because if you don’t, you’ll start editing what you tell each other, and so the seeds of distrust begin to grow.
The current idea that you should be totally independent also creates problems in marriage. No one ever thought like that in the past, so successful modern couples must create a new balance. They need to completely share their lives, but also to do their own thing. With their own friends and interests. But nothing’s kept secret. You know each other’s friends. And how you’re spending your time.
Successful couples do all the fundamental things as if they were one person instead of two. Especially managing their money. So if financial independence is massively important to you, then you shouldn’t marry at all. Because keeping financial secrets is a deal breaker.
Another deal breaker is not making time for intimacy, because good sex holds relationships together. Not having clearly agreed goals is another, like when to start a family. Your marriage must come first in all your priorities, before work, friends, parents, your wider family, even your children.
What else? Stop socialising as if you’re still single. Instead go out as a couple with other couples. Never take each other for granted. Or try to change each other. Instead, accept your differences and turn them into strengths.
Most important of all, become good listeners, learn from every fight, and once the argument is over, let it go. Good relationships aren’t win-lose battles, they’re win-win partnerships.
