How Is Your Marriage Doing?

Here is a list of eleven attributes I have found are powerfully related to satisfaction in marriage. Review this list with your spouse and evaluate how you are doing.

1. Be loyal. Trust is built on honesty and fidelity. Protect your marriage from outside influences and alternatives. Honor your commitment to each other during times of unhappiness, vulnerability, adversity, illness, disability, aging and other trails of life. Part of that commitment is a willingness to raise concerns, take corrective steps and to seek the help you need.

2. Be accepting of differences. Accept your partner’s feelings, differences and idiosyncrasies. Show patience and tolerance with each other's weaknesses and imperfections.

As much as humanly possible, eliminate harshness, criticism, angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments, blame, contempt, defensiveness, verbal attacks, put-downs and misguided expectations. Your loved one needs to know that he or she has a true friend and is safe with you.

Courteous, polite, respectful conversation will underscore your love. Keep in mind that your partner has a unique and valid perspective on life. His or her feelings or opinions have value. They need to be understood and respected.

3. Show love through actions on a daily basis. Anticipate and meet your partner’s emotional needs through daily acts of consideration, kindness, courtesy, and attention. Be there for each other in times of joy and times of sorrow or threat.

Sacrifice for his or her goals, growth, dreams, wishes and even whims. Have a willing attitude about pleasing your partner and respond readily to requests and concerns even when it is inconvenient. Put his or her happiness ahead of your own.

4. Express affection, admiration, appreciation and fondness. Express appreciation and admiration for those wonderful qualities that attracted you in the first place or continue to discover as you live your lives together.

Give plenty of hugs, compliments, kisses, caresses and tender expressions of endearment. Share tender touches and loving glances. Draw physically close when you can. Show genuine awareness of his or her well-being. Give meaningful gifts.

5. Share your lives through emotional intimacy. Create and share a private world where you confide deeply about life, joys, fears, hurts, frustrations and challenges. Talk often, openly and deeply about feelings and wonderment. Stay in touch with the details of each other’s emotional lives.

Use each other as a sounding board for thoughts, ideas, feelings and problems. Turn to each other for advice and comfort. Be a good listener. Show empathy and concern.

6. Enjoy recreational companionship. Make time for each other. Take pleasure in each other's

companionship. Enjoy each other’s sense of humor. Find common interests. Have adventures together. Take time for leisure and light-hearted fun.

Honor your relationship by celebrating birthdays, your anniversary, and holidays and making these occasions memorable. Take special vacations.

7. Keep romance alive. Within the limits of your partner's satisfaction, enjoy the abandonment and pleasure of a dynamic sexual relationship. Make your sexual interactions a lifelong source of mutual enjoyment and love.

Set the stage so the spark of passion stays alive. Sexual intimacy is a natural extension of a relationship filled with daily acts of unselfish love. Marriage needs regular sexual fulfillment.

8. Operate as a team. Dream together and build a future together. Accept each other’s influence and ideas. Work out differences with respect, patience, flexibility and a genuine spirit of learning.

Plan and make decisions together. Coordinate schedules and activities together. Share household responsibilities as equals. Parent as a team. Manage your finances as a team. Support each other’s family commitments and obligations as a team.

As a couple you need a common foundation of meaning, purpose and goals. Your shared spiritual understandings, commitments, and values provide the basis for cooperation and mutual effort.

9. Manage your personal stress. Don’t bring anger, frustration and hurt from work or other situations into your home and unfairly take it out on your partner. Your home and marriage should be a haven and a place of peace.

Take care of yourself through rest, leisure, exercise, and pleasant personal diversions. This will allow you to give energy to the marriage instead of being a source of strain and worry. Support your spouse’s need for leisure, relaxation and personal renewal.

10. Be quick to apologize and forgive. Events will happen that are truly unfortunate, neglectful, mean-spirited, selfish and just plain wrong. Every relationship will have its emotional wounds and trauma experiences.

Be quick to repair your relationship after conflict or when hurts occur. Living with unresolved hurts and resentments takes an unseen and insidious toll on respect and love. Apologize for offenses and be willing to forgive and let go of past hurts.

11. Develop skills for resolving conflict. A couple who can solve problems together can correct their relationship and keep it on course. Be willing to confront problems, work through differences, take constructive action and persevere when satisfaction wanes or when the relationship is threatened or harmed.

You demonstrate this willingness when you try to improve conditions by talking problems over, seeking help, or by changing behavior to solve a problem. Show you take your partner's concerns seriously and are willing to work for mutually acceptable solutions. Build trust by honoring your agreements.