They are so much advice everywhere for couples on how to make their marriage better. Some of them are good, and most of then sound amazingly smart, but they are obviously bad marriage advice.
You have read so many books about marriage, attended seminars and marriage retreats, and your marriage is not getting better.
Some of them may have worked for you, but some didn’t help at all. The truth is that it will never work, because, in as much as you got it from a reputable marriage counselor, it may be bad marriage advice.
You are not alone, so many are in this condition too.
We really want a happy marriage, and we work towards that; but sometimes along the line, even in the midst of trying to make our relationship work, we became more confused by the bad marriage advice we received along the way.
The truth is that these bad marriage advice can only harm our marriage than making it good.
In this article, I have listed out those smart but Bad marriage advice that will hurt your marriage instead of healing it.
16 Seemingly Smart But A Bad Marriage Advice
1) A happy marriage begins when you find Mr. or Mrs. right:
Quote: A successful marriage isn’t the union of two perfect people. It’s that of two imperfect people who have learned the value of forgiveness and grace.
I think that quote said it all
Of course, you may have read some articles on how to find the perfect man or woman for marriage, that is good; there are many signs that will show you how a good someone maybe, but it will never show you that perfect person for marriage.
Marriage is the only thing in this life where you are not sure of what you get. It is you that will make your marriage what you want it to be.
I know some couples who had a terrible time at the beginning of their marriage, and now are living happily and some also started good and ended poorly.
However, it may be foolish to marry someone when you know he or she is of questionable character, and I did not also mean you should wait to see the perfect one.
Just go in and believe you will have the best marriage ever, and work on it and bring it to perfection.
An argument can destroy our marriage:
You may have heard that arguing with your spouse is bad. Again, this is another of the bad marriage advice.
You expected that your marriage will move smoothly with just a few small bumps along the part and then realized you were wrong; because you have witnessed more serious struggles for money, power, sex, children and even how to share the household responsibilities, all trying to tear your marriage apart.
But here is what you must understand: ) Every marriage is faced with all these same problems, so there are absolutely no problems with your own marriage.
Many couples decide to keep a distance from themselves instead of finding a way to settle their scores; at last, they find their marriage falling apart because the gulf has become too big that they cannot get back again.
This is what differentiates the happy marriage from the others.
The happy couples sometimes welcome challenges to their marriage, because they believed that quarrels, arguments and heated conversations can be a possible force that can help them move forward ion their marriage.
2) Get married first and every other thing will be fixed:
Many people get into marriage because they believed in their hearts that marriage will help them to make their lives better.
But that is the most useless thing to believe; having that belief will only make you feel bad when what you think didn’t happen the way you want it.
Just tell me how two people with bad or no job at all, poor health, wrong attitude, and bad habit could come together as couples believing there will be harmony in their marriage.
Having in mind that your marriage will fix anything will cause the most damage to you especially when you still see those attitudes there.
Probably you know your spouse to be an addict, a narcissist or a drunkard, and you think you will work on it; it will not work at all. If he did not change before you said I do, then it will not change again.
Have this quote in your mind that “any habit tendency or addiction you have before your wedding day will become worst after you married”.
4) You will be happy when you get married:
If you are the type of person that believes that marriage will make you happy, then you are very wrong. It is only you that can make you happy.
It is obviously true that you can find joy, satisfaction, and companionship in marriage, but have it in mind that you will also feel depressed, get annoyed, be angry and also get so confused.
Sometimes you will also wonder if you have made the worst mistakes to get married in the first place.
Many newly married couples became surprised when in their first or second year of marriage they found out that they are so depressed about the way things are going; that is why sometimes you hear them complaining about their spouse to their friends, and you will clearly see in their eyes that they are not enjoying the marriage.
One important thing you must do is to have an expectation of the best for your marriage.
There is no doubt marriage can produce joy naturally, however, there is no doubt also about what stress living and sharing a life with someone can produce, and the stress will be more to you when you have the belief your marriage will fix it.
Nobody is responsible for your happiness and not even your marriage.
Believing your spouse to bring joy and happiness to you, will only make you put more unrealistic pressure that will hurt your marriage.
5 Marriage requires more work:
That may be true only if you think having sex is work, holding hands as you take a stroll together is work, taking a summer holiday or spending quality time with your spouse is also work.
Understand this. : )
Marriage does not require much work. All you need to make your marriage work properly is just attention. Your partner needs your pure and undivided attention most of the time.
The marriages that crumbled was because proper attention was not given to it.
The same way your health will deteriorate when you did not pay attention to it, that is how your marriage will crumble when you refuse to devote your time too it.
So it is very important you remove your mind from the feelings that marriage takes more work and plan on how to pay proper attention to your marriage. That is when you will see the changes you require.
6 My spouse should instinctively understand my want and need if he/she really love me:
Your spouse is just a human being just as you are and there is no way he/she could read your mind to know your wants and needs.
You must make frantic efforts to communicate them clearly to your spouse that is when you can expect him/her to know all you need.
So instead of believing that your spouse should read your mind and know what your needs are if the love is there, replace it with if I really love my spouse, I must be open to clearly tell him/her what I need and not expect him/her to be a mind reader.
7 Women should not always be direct about their decisions.
It is better and healthier, to be honest, and open during communication with one another to eliminate “repression” or manipulations.
I have heard it so many times from people that women should be creative when they want to share their desires and ideas rather than saying them directly in other not to cause confusion.
But this is what I think is the best especially when you are trying to make your marriage strong; it is pretty much better to make decisions together, that will take away subtle and other “manipulative games” from your marriage.
8 You don’t have to invite outsiders to help you solve your marital problems:
Somehow this tends to be true: but that is not when you look for people that are inexperienced in family issues.
There may be times in your marriage when you will need a marriage therapist, counselor, financial planner, or sex therapist to help you in most of the areas mentioned above.
When things are not moving the way it should in some areas of your marriage, look for an expert that studied how to solve those problems. They may bring the solution you need.
9 Look at how other partners are living and inculcate it in your marriage:-
It is okay to have a role model. However, sometimes in life what works for someone else may not work for the other.
Marriage is a relationship between different people with different attitudes and lifestyles. Tweet This
To make your marriage work the way you want it, you must know and understand your partner very well, when you know your spouse, you will know how best to live with him or her.
This is the reason why what works for one marriage may not work for you.
Figure out the things that will work and make your marriage stronger and get busy doing it.
Example: you know some couples who travel out of the country for summer and you force yourself to do the same when you have a tight budget; what do you think will happen next? Debt, and eventually stress.
10 The best way to change your spouse is to point out their errors, inadequacies immediately:-
One of the ways to destroy your marriage in 10 minutes is to believe you can change your partner. Blames and nagging is the best recipe for that.
The only way you can help to change your spouse is to develop good communication skills, but you cannot achieve that through criticisms and nagging. That will only hurt your marriage the more.
11 Couples in good communication automatically becomes closer with time:-
No marriage becomes strong or happy just like that. It takes the sincere and constant work, cares and nurturing of the couples to make it happen.
Let’s use this as an example: We must study hard if we want to get good grades in our exams, we must exercise if we want to be fit and it takes proper work if we will achieve any good thing in life; you can never achieve anything by merely fantasizing.
That is how it is about relationships and marriage. You can like it to a living organism that needs time to grow. Tweet This
Couples will never at all times feel affectionate or close towards each other. There are times when things will look like all will be over in a minute, when you will be asking yourself if you made a mistake to get married in the first instance.
But those moments are the most important time in every marriage. It is a time of growth.
Always have in your consciousness that nothing about your marriage will come on its own. You must have to devote yourselves to nurturing, building and working to make it happen.
(12)Marriage is more beneficial to man than it is to women:-
This is one of the bad marriage advice that can destroy a marriage. This makes women feel that their role in marriage is a “negative light” and that they are a problem to their husband’s desire.
Women feel much free in marriage when they are sure that they are well recognized and appreciated; that is when they try all they could to do more for their marriage to succeed.
This will also help to make women not seeing themselves as a generous helper and the husband as the only benefactor.
13 Long term marriage is all about good romantic love and good luck:-
From the survey, the couple under survey accepted that the reason for more marital happiness lies in their ability to communicate and being each other’s companion.
Those couples who are happy in their marriage share compatibility and life in value and interest.
14 Strong marriage also depends on hard work, commitment and dedication. There is nothing as good luck. Tweet This
You must plan from the very first; start by writing down what you want in your marriage and work towards it.
15 It is wrong to pursue your needs individually:
I am yet to understand why people believe that partners must do everything together always. Does it mean one cease to be who he/she was before getting married? No!
Everybody has his or her own life to live notwithstanding the one they have as married couples. It is imperative that couples should take a personal interest in each other’s goals, however, that is very different than saying that they are compelled to do all things together.
If couples are expected to do everything together, that will clearly leave every one of the spouses feeling trapped into the relationship.
There are some marriages where couples feel better when they are together, and some need to be separated sometimes if they should feel better.
The point is this. Look for the method that suits your marriage perfectly and go on with it.
(16) Every couple must work together to make sure the marriage works well:
Obviously, this sounds smart, but it’s actually another bad marriage advice to disbelieve.
Of course, It is true that partners must work as a team to make their marriage stand well. But what if your marriage is passing through trials and maybe your partner does not look as he/ she wants to get involved in finding a solution to it.
Maybe you know exactly what to do to repair the marriage. Would you go on waiting for your other half, or do what you have to do to heal your marriage?
One partner can single-handedly take steps that could get the marriage back to its normal stage if he or she desires.
Let me round up with this:
It is obvious you will get lots of information when you want to take a new step in life. The most important thing is to compare it and know if it’s one of the bad marriage advice or good advice too.
Remember, the success or failure of your marriage is in your hand; take a proper step and you will make everyone happy. But one single mistake can destroy the relationship you have taken time to build. It is that easy.
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Bonus Read
7 Rules of a happy marriage.
10 Reasons marriage doesn’t work anymore.
4 Important problems you are likely going to have in your marriage.
Your comments will be highly welcomed.
