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Invest in your marriage (part 1)
Written By: Inji Sami


After a couple of years of marriage, you may start to wonder where all the passion has gone and question why that wonderful feeling of being in love has disappeared on you so soon. When you reminisce, don’t beat yourself up with questions of what went wrong, think positive and rather question what you’re going to do about it. In this article, we’ll try to analyze marriage and come up with a plan together. A plan that might just be the most important of your life. An investment plan for your marriage; one you can make as profitable as you want. Just by investing in your relationship, you’ll gain love, happiness and peace of mind.

First, let us agree that there are certain foundations that constitute the base for anything, and that the foundations of marriage are love, trust, security and partnership.

Love has to cover and envelop all aspects of your marriage. So love your partner, your home, your kids, your new family and most of all love your marital life. To have a happy marriage doesn’t mean that you must have lived a love story before; it’s enough to believe in your husband and who he is and then give yourself a chance for love to grow. If your husband is not the romantic type and doesn’t show his real feelings try teaching him bit by bit. Give him hints of what makes you happy, what you expect from him, and give time to learn. Even if he is not a fast learner the environment of love that you create can make him improve. Try not to give a chance for small problems to grow, and remember that love is always the perfect solution for any difficulty. So cure your fights or problems with a loving touch, a sorry note, a small gift or just the magical phrase “ I love you”. The results are sure to be lovely.

Then comes trust, which constitutes a major issue at the base of any relationship. It’s essential that you trust your husband, his words, his actions and most importantly his capabilities to be the leader of your family. If you trust your husband you have to give him his space. Let him have sometime for himself, to meet his friends, travel with them, have a lunch with his family (aside from regular family gatherings) or just have a coffee on a Friday morning at a nice coffee shop. This will make appreciate his time with you at home even more. To assure your happiness though, this trust has to be mutual so you can enjoy some of this space for yourself too, as you will need it from time to time.

Does your partner make you feel secure? If your answer is yes, then any problem can be manageable. Security here doesn’t just mean protection from danger. It’s very important to feel secure about your present life, secure that your husband can fulfill his responsibilities, secure about your future and what kind of life you are going to lead, secure about your kids how they will be raised and to live in a loving family. Unfortunately, these days a lot of marriages end because of lack of security, as a lot of women find that their partners are not responsible enough, in turn, they fell insecure about their life, their financial status and how they are going to raise their kids. Realizing how important security is to you, try to share this with your husband and if a situation arises where you feel your security is threatened try to discuss the problem but always be there for him (remember your presence and encouragement make him feel secure too).

Finally, we come to our last point that is sharing or partnership otherwise known to be the secret behind any successful marriage. Sharing thoughts, concerns, ideas, hopes, dreams and most of all responsibility is really the whole idea behind marriage and the quest to find the right person. Unfortunately, women usually think that they are being taken advantage of in their relationships and that the bulk of the house responsibilities weigh heavy over their shoulders like the cleaning, cooking, laundry and kids. Not sharing in these responsibilities, however, doesn’t mean that your husband is not sharing in the marriage. Remember that there are other things he does but aren’t daily like paying the bills and fixing the car. On the other hand, if you are still determined to commit him to some daily chores, how about driving the kids to school or picking up the laundry?

Now, a lot of people may live together and yet manage to remain very distinct. So don’t depend only on the fact that you’re living under the same roof to maintain your relationship with your husband. You need to be very close friends, confide in each other and help each other out. Theoretically this partnership must start even before your marriage. Marriage should consolidate this bond as it gives you more time to talk, plan your life, and time to spend together. Try not to act like roommates who barely meet in the mornings before going to work and share TV dinners every now and then.

Overall, if you succeed to mix the previous ingredients from love to partnership, you should have a solid foundation for your life together, a base that should withstand your hand of life’s difficulties. So concentrate on building that solid base that will become the cornerstone of your marriage. Theoretically this partnership must start even before marriage. Marriage consolidate this bond as you have more time to talk, more time to plan your life, more time to spend together.

Apart from laying down your foundations, you’ll be faced with every day problems most of which related to one or more of the points below:
  • prioritization
  • personal attitude
  • communication
  • sex
  • life routines
  • small things
  • relation with family & friends
PRIORITISATION:
You and your husband might be very close, very much in love, share everything and yet each has a different set of priorities. This is where problems might begin. For example, most men have their work on top of their priority list, then comes family, friends,...etc. In order to avoid problems later on, discuss his version of priorities before your marriage and try to come to terms with them or reach a compromise. For women priorities start with the home and family, friends and usually end with work. If work comes first, though, on your list don’t neglect your house for your work, rather try to balance the two because your husband will always expect you to manage the house, even if you work just like him.

When you become a mother, especially for the first time, your priority list will surely change. The baby will occupy the first three positions on your list and your husband will fall to its end. Take care men don’t accept this situation and you can risk loosing your husband to another women who is ready to give him love, care & attention. Never forget that men are big babies, so deal with it the sooner the better!

PERSONAL ATTITUDE
After putting the basics, and setting the priorities, then it is time for your personal attitude to show. Are you a positive, negative or a passive person? For investing in this point, you better be positive or learn to be, along with being realistic too. The first challenge that face lot of couples is when they expect their partner to change and resemble them. So if being realistic, you will understand that it is very hard to change people. But you can achieve some compromises. Even better is being positive instead of trying to change your partner, why don’t you love him, as he is, highlight his qualities & good points. Be sure that this will reflect on you, as he will be seeing the best of you too.
Another major point in your attitude is being ambitious. Encourage your partner to improve your life, his career, his financial situation and his hobbies, have dreams that you will be looking forward to achieve. Living day-by-day make your life very material, so dream, be positive, be ambitious. Finally to gain this point completely, try to be close to your partner. Be next to him whenever he needs you. Following this advice and having this attitude will help you a great deal to win your husband’s love & respect.

This is not all in the next article we will provide you with another ideas; tips and we will discuss other parts of marital life that is very important to every one. So stay with us and send us your comments questions or even your problems. We are here just for you.