How can we make our marriage work?

While roaming around one day on the cruise, I meet a very nice young couple.  We got to talking and had a fairly long conversation while gazing at the ocean in the coffee shop.  They explained that they were newlyweds and were on the cruise as part of their honeymoon. During our conversation they asked if I was married and when I said yes, they asked me “for how long.”  When I told them that I had been married for 56 years, I got the usual reaction.  WOW!!  They seemed genuinely impressed, as is often the case.  That always surprises me a little. When these folks make their vows, they fully intend for the marriage to be lasting and expect that one day someone will ask them ”how long”? and they will be able to say 56 years (or more).  The vows they took contained a promise of “for ever and ever.”  They surely meant it.  Sadly they, like so many others, assumed that the love and affection they felt for each other at that moment would guarantee that their bond would last for ever and ever. They didn’t realize that the relationships that last do so because folks in successful ones do so many right things that sustain positive, growthful relationships.  Love doesn’t just happen and keep happening out of the blue. To paraphrase Clint Black, ”its something that they do” that keeps the love and affection alive and growing. 

At one point they asked the inevitable question.  “How did you do it, how do you keep it alive.”  Often when people ask me this they don’t anticipate the flood of advice that comes their way.  You see, I have spent some real time looking at what works in relationships and trying to practice some or all of them.  I also spent a great deal of my professional practice helping others to build, sometimes repair their relationships.    So.. I gave forth.

The first thing I suggested they do is to spend real time and effort recognizing and marking this time in their lives.  They will certainly recall and cherish these early days.  They will remember the glow; the good feeling; the affection; and the promise of forever.  They will never want it to go away.  If they’re lucky, all those good feelings will remain to a degree and be supplemented with a growing deeper more mature love and affection.  When I say I want them to remember these days I mean something more specific than the general glow.  I want them to remember details of their thought, feelings and behaviors.  I want them to recognize that the powerful feelings they feel and the behaviors they express to each other are tied together.  Affectionate touches, gentle gazes, laughter, loving phrases, do indeed spring from the love they feel for each other. However, it is these touches gazes, etc. that build and maintain love and affection.  As an engineer friend of my would say, it can be a self-sustaining feedback loop.  Some relationships whither and die because these seemingly small thoughts, feelings, and actions stop happening in the rush of day-to-day business.

Ok, maybe it is a bit much to expect this amount of detail from a couple while they are in the happy throes of their honeymoon.  But, sometime early in their time together and going forward they will be well served if they take the time to reflect on these details with an eye to replicating and perpetuating them.  Expensive dinners, bouquets, other gifts are nice but they don’t replace the real currency of the mature loving relationship.  So, what are some of the things people can do to enhance and nurture their relationship? The real currency of a thriving relationship doesn’t require money, it costs nothing but a little ongoing attention and effort.  Some would say this is too simple an approach to happy relationships.  Well, it is simple, but it is not easy or a given.  It takes long term commitment to the task of building the relationship together.  Happy couples attend to the relationship and to each other on an on-going basis.   It takes the application of relationship skills.  These “tricks of the trade” are practiced by folks in successful relationships.  They learned them by watching others or by being taught in workshops or by reading books.  How ever they acquired these skills, they practice them and hone them throughout their time together. 

All this is fine and dandy, but how about some concrete examples of these skills you mention, you say.  OK.  In the next couple of posts we’ll look at some practical actions that can help maintain happy, healthy and productive relationships.

So here is today's saying that probably bears some meaning in today's post.

 “Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda