It happens to all of us: Sometimes marriage starts to feel a little stale, a little frustrating. Dealing with your spouse can feel like just one more stress in your busy, stressful life.
There’s something you can do about this, though. And it’s not some complicated, multi-step plan to improve your relationship. It will take a few minutes. And it’s all about you.
Ready? Here it is: Set a timer for two minutes and make a list of things that bring you joy. Don’t overthink this. Just quickly write down what comes to mind, whether it’s a big joy, like a dream vacation, or small, everyday joys, like an uninterrupted cup of coffee or catching up with an old friend.
After you finish your list, take a look at your calendar. How many of the things on your joy list did you do in the past week? The past month?
I’m betting you’ll discover that the things that bring you joy didn’t make it onto your schedule very often. Our days are busy, and unless we make a conscious effort to add our joyful activities to them, they can fill up fast with less-gratifying things.
Make Time for Joy
Here’s what I want you to do now: Schedule some time in the next week for a few of the things that bring you joy, or find ways to nudge yourself to do them. Maybe that means setting aside a lunch break to walk around outside instead of staying tethered to your desk. Or maybe it means putting a Post-it note in your car reminding you to listen to music you love instead of that stress-inducing news channel on the way home.
So what does all this have to do with your relationship? Regularly doing the things you love inevitably changes how you show up in the marriage. When you give to yourself and inject more joy into your life, it makes you happier and less stressed — and that takes pressure off your relationship. Including yourself in the circle of people you give to regularly usually lowers the resentment most people feel when they are giving, and giving, and giving. When you put energy into allowing yourself to be more you, don’t be surprised if that kind of vibrance makes you more irresistible to your husband!
If you do not value yourself enough to keep yourself in the picture, there are tremendous limits to how much love you can truly give or receive. Holding onto your marriage and holding onto yourself go hand in hand.
Adding joy to your life is a gift to yourself — and to your marriage. Try this relationship tip and tell me about how it goes!!
June is wedding season. At ceremonies this month, couples will be speaking vows from the traditional to the deeply personal.
If there’s one promise I could have every couple place in their wedding vows (and honor over time), though, it would be this: Don’t just say “I love you.” Show it.
Saying “I love you” doesn’t guarantee that the other person feels loved. What carries a stronger message: the rushed “I love you” that you mumble as the two of you leave for work, or the fact that in the preceding conversation you weren’t listening or you rolled your eyes at something your husband said?
To feel loved, we need to feel safe and cherished. We need to believe that our spouse sees who we actually are — in all of our strengths, weaknesses and quirks — and accepts us. If we say all the right words but don’t back those words up with actions, the message doesn’t come through.
Cultivate Your Personal Power. Identify your needs and take responsibility for getting them met. This means taking care of yourself and making time for your own friends, hobbies, and interests. Encourage your partner to do the same. You both need to nurture yourselves so that you can be strong partners in the relationship.
Eliminate any Poisonous Patterns that make the climate of your relationship negative. Stop hurting each other by doing things like criticizing, shaming, or casting blame. Even withholding affection, micromanaging your spouse, or getting overly wrapped up in your own world can cause emotional pain. Remember that if your hurt your partner, you are also hurting the relationship.
Inspire a Passionate Partnership by creating an atmosphere that strengthens friendship and romance. This doesn’t mean you must have candlelit dinners every night. Lots of little actions can keep passion alive: Make eye contact. Show affection. Do something to grow together, like taking a class on a subject that interests you both. Be curious about each other. Always start with the assumption that your husband loves you, needs you, and wants the marriage to work as much as you do.
Resist the Persistent Pressures that place all marriages at risk. All of us are under more stress than ever. What actions can you take to reduce stress in your lives — to ease up the pressure on yourself, and on your partner? When stress levels are high, fear gets triggered, leading most people to (1) assume the worst about their partner and (2) miss what’s positive about him–a double whammy! You are also much more likely to overreact to anything your partner does. Dialing down the level of stress is one of the most effective ways to move from a state of fear to a state of love.
Protect Your Principal Priorities. One of the most powerful things you can do to show love is acting in ways that show you value your marriage. That means working together to create a life that prioritizes your relationship. You may consider moving into less demanding jobs, directing your energy toward your shared hopes and dreams, or turning down yet another volunteer obligation so you can carve out some more couple time.
Above all, the most loving action is to consistently choose loving your partner over submitting to your worst fears about him or your relationship. The strongest marriages emerge from each person repeatedly choosing to believe in their relationship. Whatever you said in your original marriage vows, and however long you’ve been married, it’s never too late to be more loving!
Infidelity is the ultimate betrayal. But does it have to be? Relationship therapist Esther Perel examines why people cheat, and unpacks why affairs are so traumatic: because they threaten our emotional security. In infidelity, she sees something unexpected — an expression of longing and loss. A must-watch for anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on, or who simply wants a new framework for understanding relationships.
I admit it: Those dog-shaming posts do crack me up. But otherwise this trend toward shaming is a cruel one that’s dangerous to our relationships.
It doesn’t take a viral social media post to hurt someone with shame, either. Have you ever criticized your husband while the two of you were with your kids, with friends and family or out in public?
Why Shame Hurts
Shame erodes the very things that are essential to the health of your marriage. Relationships need respect to thrive. Dr. John Gottman has done extensive research on what leads marriages to fail. He identified what he calls “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” in marriage. Shaming summons two of the Horsemen: criticism and contempt. Contempt, which is at the heart of shaming, is Gottman’s No. 1 predictor of divorce.
When you shame your spouse, you are robbing him of his dignity and taking away his sense of safety in the marriage. A shamed person feels rejected, which is profoundly painful to us as humans — it even activates the same parts of our brains that get triggered when we feel physical pain.
Make it a priority to preserve dignity and respect in your relationship. Distinguish private conversations from public ones. As you keep shaming out of your marriage, I also want to encourage you not to share or like social media posts that shame others. If you haven’t already, watch the powerful TED Talk by Monica Lewinsky (someone who knows firsthand the pain of shaming) about our “culture of humiliation.” Is that really the kind of culture we want to participate in creating? Take a stand against it by communicating with empathy and respect, both in your marriage and online.
Have you noticed the kind of pressure new parents face these days? Magazines, advertising, blogs and even friends’ social media pages abound with images of blissful couples and their infants in picture-perfect nurseries. Both parents look enraptured with their new baby and each other, making it all seem so easy.
That sets up some unrealistic expectations about the transition to parenthood. Now don’t get me wrong: Adding a child to your family is a time of great joy and can deepen the bond you have with your partner. But it can also be a time of great stress, messiness and strain on your marriage. We know from the research that marital satisfaction often takes the biggest nosedive after the addition of the first child.
Becoming parents means changes in practically every area of your life. And for most people, change equals stress. You may go on leave from your familiar world at your job. You can’t just dash out for an errand or meetup with friends so easily anymore. Going for a quick walk or even getting a hair cut can be hard to do when you’re responsible for a little one 24/7. All that can leave you feeling isolated and trapped.
The stress doesn’t stop there. Kids can also strain our wallets (hospital or adoption bills, daycare and on and on …) and our schedules. There’s simply less time for everything else, from work to self-care (especially sleep!) to couple time to housework.
And speaking of housework: Not only do you have less time to do it, you have more to do when you add a child to the family. Keeping up with it can seem overwhelming. And if your husband doesn’t have the same threshold for noticing that things need to be done, you could find yourself in a pattern where you complain and accuse and he gets defensive.
If the upcoming Mother’s Day is your first as a mom or expectant mom, I want to give you some down-to-earth advice that will help you navigate the transition to parenthood while also caring for your marriage.
Tips for New (or Soon-to-be) Parents
If you don’t have kids yet, build up goodwill. Use this time to practice being the best partner you can be. Be especially thoughtful, appreciative, and kind. Have fun together, and build up good memories. Perhaps go off on a spontaneous trip, or try something new together. Take advantage of the time you have to hang out with dear friends and loved ones. Strengthening your bond now will pay off in those intense early days of parenthood.
Get the stress level down! If you have the financial or family resources, get some outside help, such as housekeeping, meal delivery, or child care. Children are very physically dependent for the first few years and need constant supervision. This can be absolutely exhausting! Hand the baby off to your spouse or someone else for a while, and take a break. Otherwise, you’ll be likely to get upset with your husband just because you’re stressed.
Prioritize sleep and rest. Try to go to bed early, shift your schedule, or nap when the baby does to minimize fatigue. Taking turns being the one responsible for the baby at night can give each of you the unbroken sleep you need to refuel. Some people benefit from having a relative help out or hiring a night nanny for a while.
Work together. If your goal is to fully share in parenthood with your husband, be very intentional about giving him time and space to also bond and take care of the baby. Believe that both you can be equally competent as parents, and don’t make the mistake of micromanaging your spouse. Each one of you will have you own unique way of caring for baby. So, play to each of your strengths and divide responsibilities in a way that lifts the stress off both of you.
Be polite and respectful. Remember the basic gestures that show respect and acknowledge each other’s humanity, like greeting each other warmly or saying “please” and “thank you.” Little things like this go a long way toward maintaining respect in your marriage, and, as I’ve written before, mutual respect can sustain your relationship until you have time to rekindle romance and passion.
Love your baby, but keep your bond alive too. The parent-child bond can be very intense, and that’s a good thing. But it’s important to remember that you need to spend time together as a couple, not just as parents. Don’t lose yourself to motherhood. When you have a newborn, time may be limited to a short conversation with your husband or cuddling together while you’re exhausted. Brief moments of connection can be good enough during the very busy first few weeks of parenthood, but make sure you work toward reengaging each other more deeply and regularly over the long run.
And check out this wonderful, down-to-earth advice from seasoned parents:
If you’re about to begin, or just beginning, the journey of parenthood, realize that change and stress are inevitable, but that a weakening of your marriage is not. You’ll find more advice about keeping a thriving relationship even as you balance family, work and other demands in my book Strong Women, Strong Love.
