Marriage is a sacred union between two people who commit to spending their lives together. However, with divorce rates hovering around 50% in many developed nations, it’s clear that making marriage last is not easy. So what are the secrets to a long and happy marriage? Let’s explore some key factors.
Communication
Open and honest communication is vital for any healthy relationship, but especially marriage. Couples who communicate effectively are able to express their needs and concerns, understand each other’s perspectives, resolve conflicts, and nurture intimacy. Good communication involves:
- Active listening without judgment
- Being open and vulnerable
- Validation and empathy
- Compromise and conflict resolution
- Non-violent communication using “I” statements
Couples should make time each day to talk about any issues that have come up and openly share their feelings. It’s also important to communicate appreciation for each other. Silence and bottling up emotions can damage the relationship.
Intimacy
Physical and emotional intimacy helps couples feel loved, desired, and connected. This intimacy promotes closeness, passion, trust, and self-esteem. To cultivate intimacy, partners should:
- Make sex and affection a regular priority
- Be attuned to each other’s needs
- Try new and fun activities together
- Have in-depth conversations
- Be affectionate in small ways each day
Even during conflict, happy couples maintain some level of intimacy instead of withdrawing from each other. The intimacy shared between spouses helps validate the marriage.
Commitment
Marriage requires a strong, lifelong commitment from both partners to stick together through good times and bad. This means:
- Regarding marriage as permanent – not leaving when problems arise
- Making your spouse a priority over other relationships
- Protecting your marriage from outside forces that could divide you
- Working as a team towards shared goals
- Seeing divorce as a last resort, not a first impulse
Couples who are committed focus their time and energy on nurturing their marriage. They don’t make threats to leave. Even if couples hit rough patches, their commitment helps them weather the storms.
Support
Spouses lean on each other for emotional support in both good and bad times. Supportive behaviors include:
- Being present and available when your spouse needs to talk
- Providing encouragement and reassurance
- Helping bear each other’s burdens
- Celebrating each other’s victories and accomplishments
- Speaking positively about your spouse to others
Knowing your partner has your back provides stability. It also promotes closeness when you share vulnerabilities and dreams. Support doesn’t mean fixing all problems – just lending a listening ear.
Trust
Happy marriages are built on a foundation of trust, honesty and faithfulness. Partners should:
- Be reliable and follow through on promises
- Be truthful even about difficult subjects
- Live with integrity and avoid deception
- Remain faithful and honor the marriage vows
- Respect privacy and avoid snooping
When you prove yourself trustworthy over time, your spouse will open up with confidence. Betrayals of trust like infidelity can damage the bond. Repairing broken trust requires sincerity and changed behavior over time.
Shared Values
Spouses don’t have to agree on everything, but sharing core values provides a vital connecting thread. Important areas of common ground include:
- Faith and spirituality
- Views on children and parenting
- Ethics and integrity
- Use of money
- Lifestyle preferences
- Vision for the future
Partners who share values find it easier to set goals, make decisions, and resolve disputes. Values form the moral structure of marriage. When spouses’ values diverge, they will struggle to align priorities and compromise.
Quality Time
It takes regular, dedicated time together for marriages to thrive and spouses to feel connected. Try these tips:
- Share at least 20 minutes of undivided attention each day
- Have weekly date nights (or days) for fun activities
- Turn off phones and devices to be present
- Take vacations and weekend trips together
- Find hobbies and interests you enjoy as a couple
The happy memories created through quality time build lasting intimacy. Life’s demands can crowd out time together, so couples must be intentional about making it happen.
Resolving conflict
Disagreements and arguments are inevitable in marriage. How conflict is managed determines the impact. Healthy conflict resolution requires:
- Staying calm and avoiding insults or threats
- Listening to understand your spouse’s perspective
- Communicating respectfully using “I” statements
- Seeking compromise instead of pressuring your spouse to concede
- Taking a short break if needed to reset
- Resolving the conflict before moving on
When both spouses commit to conflict resolution, they gain skills to handle disagreements constructively. Unresolved conflict creates distance between spouses.
Sacrifice
A spirit of generosity and selflessness allows spouses to put their partner’s happiness before their own. Sacrifice might include:
- Taking on more chores to ease your spouse’s burden
- Moving for your partner’s career aspirations
- Spending less money on hobbies to save for shared goals
- Attending family functions even when inconvenient
- Watching your spouse’s preferred TV shows or movies
The commitment and maturity to make sacrifices prevents selfishness from eroding the marriage. It enables spouses to care for each other unconditionally.
Friendship
Marriages last when spouses remain each other’s best friend. Friendship includes:
- Enjoying each other’s company
- Sharing laughs, interests, and adventures
- Liking and respecting each other as people
- Supporting hopes, dreams, and growth
- Having inside jokes and shared memories
This companionship and fondness creates positive sentiments to carry you through challenges. Without friendship, marriages grow cold as partners drift apart.
Forgiveness
Letting go of hurts and extending forgiveness keep resentments from accumulating:
- Forgive daily irritations and annoyances
- Don’t dwell on mistakes or hold grudges
- Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt
- Focus on repairing rifts, not assigning blame
- Pursue help to forgive major betrayals
An unwillingness to forgive leads to contempt, score-keeping, and stonewalling. Accepting imperfection with grace preserves the marriage bond.
Appreciation
Gratitude creates positive sentiments and goodwill between spouses:
- Express daily appreciation for kind acts
- Compliment your spouse on qualities you admire
- Notice small efforts as well as big gestures
- Celebrate milestones and achievements
- Send thank you notes just because
Appreciation energizes marriages, enhancing satisfaction and affection. It provides reassurance of the value you find in your partner.
Flexibility
The ability to adapt and go with the flow helps couples navigate life’s twists and turns:
- Adjust roles as circumstances change
- Accept that no stage lasts forever
- Compromise to find new solutions
- Show resilience when plans must shift
- Keep a sense of humor and optimism
Rigidity causes marriages to crumble during transitions like moves, job changes, or family additions. Flexibility allows couples to reinvent their partnership as needed.
Teamwork
Spouses who work cooperatively as partners experience many benefits:
- Share decision making and responsibility
- Divide household duties fairly
- Parent children with unified guidance
- Support each other’s personal growth
- Make social and leisure time mutual
Pulling together lightens the load and brings a sense of closeness. Marriages suffer when one spouse tries to go it alone as an “I” instead of an “us.”
Humor
The ability to laugh together relieves stress and puts difficulties into perspective:
- Share jokes and funny stories
- Be playful and silly sometimes
- Use humor to defuse tense situations
- Poke gentle fun at each other
- Watch funny movies or attend comedy shows
Without laughter, marriage can become rigid and joyless. Humor provides an escape valve for irritation and a bridge during periods of distance.
Intimacy
Emotional and physical intimacy serves as the glue in strong marriages. Closeness is built through:
- Daily affection – hugs, kisses, hand-holding, etc.
- Regular date nights devoted to each other
- Meaningful communication and sharing feelings
- Enjoying activities and hobbies together
- A satisfying and adventurous sex life
This intimate connection validates the marriage in good times and bad. Without it, partners can drift into a friendship or roommate arrangement.
Spirituality
For many couples, shared spiritual beliefs provide a stabilizing force:
- Attending religious services together
- Participating in faith communities
- Following moral principles from scriptures
- Engaging in spiritual practices like prayer
- Allowing faith to inspire generosity and service
A spiritual dimension gives marriage transcendent meaning. Challenging times can reveal whether faith is a source of strength or a source of discord.
Outside support
Stable, loving marriages benefit from a network of support:
- Spending time with happily married friends
- Attending marriage enrichment classes or retreats
- Receiving guidance and feedback from mentors
- Participating in counseling when needed
- Investing in family relationships
Don’t let marriage become isolated. Other role models and resources help couples gain perspective when they get stuck in negative patterns.
Divorce avoidance
Treating divorce as off the table allows couples to fully invest in solutions:
- Regard marriage as forever, not “till death do us part”
- Visit a troubled marriage, not a marriage counselor
- Never use the D-word, even in heated moments
- View separation as a last resort, not the next step
- Believe in transformation, not hopeless incompatibility
This dogged commitment motivates couples to dig deeper to rediscover their love during periods of disillusionment.
Conclusion
An enduring, fulfilling marriage doesn’t just happen by luck. It requires ongoing effort to strengthen the foundations. When couples make their relationship a priority, remain flexible, forgiveness abounds, and love perseveres, they position themselves for the long haul. With care and attentiveness, spouses become each other’s lifelong intimate companion.