If you are getting married today with the aim of being happy, then you will be totally disappointed with what I am going to write in this post, because your marriage is not about your happiness.
Of course marriage can bring some of those happy moments into your life, but you must believe me when I told you that marriage is not about your happiness.
Here is why I said. so
Dear, whether you like it or not, marriage will surely cost you so much than you think of. Yes, you will spend so much than what you have in mind right now.
Well, you have planned to spend or have spent so much money on buy ring or having a big wedding.
But Money can’t buy Joy
But, am not talking about money here, I am talking about those things money can’t buy. Have you ever thought of all those things you need to do to be sure your relationship is still intact? those time you will need to go hungry so that your family will have three square meal.
From that little example, you’ll agree with me that money is just the insignificant part of it especially when want to have a successful relationship.
Am talking about the time, the sacrifices you have to make, the thinking of how to fend for your family.
Here is what I mean
Marriage is not just about you, its not about your joy and happiness either, it is about love, forgiveness, serving, reconciling, commitment and all those things you have to lay down for the success of your relationship.
That’s why I feel so amazed whenever I hear people say “I will never be in a relationship /marriage if I am not happy ” I tell myself what a selfish world we are in.
Obviously, if you see marriage as a contract where you stay as long as you are getting what you want instead of where you ‘ll need to sacrifice to get a better relationship, then you are totally ignorant of what marriage is all about.
You can read my post on how to be more committed to your marriage here.
Get Committed
Until you realize that it takes commitment and not divorce, it takes giving your time even when it’s not convenient for you, until you learn to help get the children back from school because you know that your partner needs to rest for a while , until the first thing that comes to your mind whenever you wake up in the morning changes from I am not happy with marriage to, what new thing can I do today to make my relationship the best.
Until you understand how to put someone else before you, then you are yet to know what true love is.
To me, the true definition of love is you before me and that’s what marriage is all about.
But, selfishness in our world today have turned things upside down.
From today on, change your view about relationship; don’t let your happiness be dependent on what your partner did or didn’t do.
View your relationship as your responsibility and your marriage will change and then happiness will come.
Conclusion:-
You’ll have to nurture your relationship from day to day; that’s when things will start taking a new change.
Remember, your spouse is not the cause of your unhappy marriage, but you.
Make plans to change today.
I am still your friend murphyaik
See you at the top and remember to share the article if you are blessed by it.
What is the statue of your marriage now? Happy or unhappy? Have you ever considered giving 100% self to make your marriage successful?
This is a question only you can answer. It took me time to understand that 50:50 is not a good score when it comes to making a marriage work properly.
There was a time in my marriage when I thought everything was going to be over between my wife and I. We loved each other so much, but we still have lots of differences.
It doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying all I could to make everything work out good, but one thing was clear and that is the fact that I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.
But we love each other
We were so much in love with each other, we share time together, we share the domestic chore, we have special romantic dates, we do many other things we know that can make a marriage successful, yet we quarrel and fight more often.
Then I asked myself this question “what are we not doing right”?
Is this your story?
Just like I, I know you have asked questions like these. After doing all you could do to make your marriage happy, and yet everything seems to be crushing down.
Don’t worry; )
In this post, I am going to share with you one thing you have not tried before; and that is the same thing that changed the statues of my marriage.
The secret I want to let you in that will help make your marriage successful in a short time. t is to try to offer 100% self and not 50% to save your marriage.
Let me explain
You and I knows too well that one of the best ways to receive anything in life is to give, and what you give also determines exactly what you’ll receive in the end.
Simply put, when you give love, you are sure to receive love, when you give life,you’ll receive life also.
The most important of all is that the amount you give also determines how much you will receive too.
The Bible made this clear in Mathew 7:2 (Parallel Version) ”For the same way you judge others you will be judged and the measure you use, it will be measured to you”
All though relationships should not base on what you give is what you get, but if you really want to get the best from your marriage, you should first of all consider giving your best, even when your partner is not giving half of it.
“Relationships are not 50/50 (but 100:100. This is because you are responsible for what you bring to your (relationship) what you elicit from your partner, what you maintain or allow with your partner. You need to look at you”
Obviously, it may be easy for you to consider the 50:50 games, but always remember that when you stop at the middle, your partner will definitely meet you there.
However, mind you that the center (50:50) is where keeping scores and giving conditions are located.
It’s a place where you think relationship is a transaction, where you give half and expect half back.
But, a good relationship is all about giving everything freely without expecting getting the same amount in return.
Giving 100% self means choosing the way of complete commitment to your marriage and your mate, not regarding how good or bad your relationship is.
It also means getting up from your bed in the morning and the first thing that comes to your mind is ‘what one thing can I do today to make my marriage stronger than it was yesterday,even when your partner is not doing the same?”
Husband love your wife, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her”
In this chapter of the Bible, we men were commanded to give all (100%) to our wives and also to die daily for her.
Until I realized this, I was still struggling to keep a balance in my marriage.
If you are really interested in saving your marriage as I did, then here are 5 things you must consider doing starting now.
Give more of your Time: Trust me; I know too well that you have your business to attend to, your job, the house chores and so many other things that are yawning for your time, but you must make out time for your marriage and your spouse.
One major reason why there are so many break ups in our society today is because couples rarely have time to share together.
You see! Most couples find it hard to give each other enough time each day, each week and month.
It is actually not lack of time that brings separation, but just that without spending time together, it is impossible to meet those needs that are responsible for marriage growth.
There is a personal attention needed to sustain love in a marriage that only comes through spending time together.
Here is some importance of spending time together
It will make your relationship stronger
You can understand what has been on your spouse’s mind all the while.
You feel happier because you are with the love of your life.
You have time to discuss on the way forward.
Having all these benefits in mind, I think you should try to make time available.
2 Give more attention:if you are really interested in making your marriage grow which I know you do, then you have to keep paying attention to your spouse. I said this because I know a lot of things like, work, children, church activities are all there and if we are not careful, it will steal all our attention that we will forget our spouse.
Paying attention to our spouse means love. One of the ways you can show some one you love him/her is by paying attention.
It simply shows them that you value, care and love them.
When you give attention to your spouse, you are simply saying to him/her ”I value you” and you matter to me more than anything and you also worth listening to.
Giving attention also means giving up your whole time and our time is our life.
When you consider how you fell in love in the first place, you’ll realize that it all started from paying attention to someone and the other person paying attention to you too.
Remember those days, when you will call him/her time and time again, because you want to know how she is doing, you will buy flowers, talk for hours, write love notes and spend hours together.
Then ask yourself if those things are still in place in your relationship now. If they are not, then try to get them back.
3 Communicate Effectively:- You can never talk about successful marriage/relationship without talking about effective communication. Simply put, Communication is vital to marriage, just as blood is to human beings
Now, it is not just mere communication, but to do it effectively, the way it will empower your marriage/relationship.
There are couples who find it difficult to have chit a chat for just 1 minute; the minute the settle down to talk, you see them raising up their voices.
The reason is that they have not discovered or learnt how to communicate effectively.
Probably, every one of them wants to talk without listening to the other.
If you fit my description, then all hope is not lost, what you should do is learn the skills in communication, it will help you in your marriage.
The are so many advices 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 a bad marriage advices.
You have read so many books about marriage, attended seminar 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 reputable marriage counselor, it may be a bad marriage advice.
You are not alone, so many are in this condition too.
We really want a happy marriage, and we working towards that; but sometime along the line, even in the mist of trying to make our relationship work, we became more confused by the bad marriage advices we received along the way.
The truth is that these bad marriage advices can only harm our marriage than make it good.
In this article, I have listed out those smart but Bad marriage advices that will hurt your marriage instead of healing it.
16 Seemingly Smart But A Bad Marriage Advices
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 in the beginning of their marriage, and now are living happily and some also started good and ended poorly.
However, it maybe foolishness 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.
Argument can destroy our marriage:
You may have heard that arguing with your spouse is bad. Again, this is another of the bad marriage advices.
You expected that your marriage will move smoothly with just 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 are faced with all these same problems, so there is absolutely no problems with your own marriage.
Many couples decides to keep distance from themselves instead of finding a way to settle their scores; at last they find their marriage failing 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 things will be fixed:
Many people get into marriage because they believed in their heart that marriage will help them to make their lives better.
But that is the most useless thing to believe; having that believe 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 believe 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 maybe 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 times.
The marriages that crumbled was because proper attention where 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 you 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 to different people with different attitude and life style. 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, care 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 liking it to a living organism which 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 advices that can destroy a marriage. This makes women feel that their role in marriage is a “negative light” and that they are 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 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 couple who are happy in their marriage shares 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 personal interest in each other’s goal, 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 of the spouse feeling trapped into the relationship.
There are some marriages where couple feel better when they are together, and some need to be separate sometimes if they should feel better.
The point is this. Look for the method that suites 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 advices 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 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 advices or a 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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