Category Archives: Educate Yourselves

A Great Marriage – The Ten Keys Part 2

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Last week we looked at the first five keys from the book How to Make A Good Marriage Great –Ten Keys to a Joyous Relationship  by Victor Cline, Ph.D.

Now we’ll look at the remaining five keys.  Here is a summary with my added editorial comments:

  • Sixth Key -  Develop Effective Communication / Negotiation Skills  -  Successful communication with our spouse is essential to a happy marriage and comes with practice, patience, and hard work.  Become a student of the best communication style with your spouse.   The good Dr. has these suggestions:
    • Get quiet time ALONE together, even if that takes an overnight away together. Never discuss critical issues when tired or exhausted.
    • Be a good listener without interrupting.
    •  Don’t flee or run away, rather stick it out and work at issues peacefully.
    • Be honest with each other sharing true and honest feelings.
    • Avoid blame statements and convey how certain actions or statements are making YOU feel.
    •  Remember to be positive and express your thankfulness for what is right in your relationship.
    • Avoid criticism.
    • If it is too difficult to discuss, try writing it out and sharing this letter with your spouse so you can discuss it.  This will allow you to share all your feeling without being “run over.”
  • Seventh Key – The “Extra Dimension”  -  Remember God desires you to have a richly blessed relationship.  Pray for each other and pray together as you work at growing your relationship.  Pray that the Lord will bless you with a patient and understanding spirit and that you learn how to selflessly love your spouse.
  • Eighth Key  -  Acute Stress can Kill Love – Deal with It!  -  Our lives are filled with a variety of stressors including the usual issues of small children (or larger teenage types), job or lack of a job, financial stress, health issues, or family and extended family issues, to name a few.  These can add extreme pressure on even the best of relationships.  But don’t quit.  Look at these times as the “white water days” of your marriage.  Much like a river raft trip, there are calm water days and white water days.  During the white water days you need to really hang on.  Find ways to simplify and de-stress your lives.  I believe that God will restore us to the calm water but remember to love each other even in your white water days, for then you need each other most.
  • Ninth Key – Participate in a Marriage Enrichment / Marriage Encounter Experience – Take time to grow in your knowledge together.  A weekend seminar together should be a major priority.  Find a marriage book to read and discuss together.
  • Tenth Key – Pair-Bonding, Renewing the Magic  -  Work daily at these things:  Make a daily decision to love each other and express that love, shower each other with positives and take time daily to share feelings.

Dr. Cline has shared some valuable ideas on how to have a Great Marriage.  But head knowledge alone will not bring about the desired results.  You must commit to work at these things.  The rewards are worth the effort.

Keeping Your Spouse’s Tank Full

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Last time we looked at the comparison between our emotional lives and an empty gas tank.  We all know when our gas tank is near empty, we need to fill up, or else we can look forward to a long walk or a long wait, even if we do have AAA.  We have common sense enough to know it’s foolish to let our gas tank get to empty.

How can we apply that same common sense to the “emotional tank” of our spouse?  Here’s where personal growth comes in.  We first need to be skilled at recognizing his or her condition.  This usually doesn’t take an expert, just an observant spouse.  Marriage is like a classroom and we are all in school every day.  Lesson plan number one:  Learn your spouse’s idiosyncrasies.  Become a student of what makes him or her tick.

There are two books that speak directly to the needs of husbands and wives, some of which they share.  In His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard F. Harley, Jr. the needs are broken down into five common needs for men and five for women.  In The 5 Love Needs of Men and Women, Dr. Gary and Barbara Rosberg address the five love needs of husbands and wives.  Some of these needs include:

  •   Unconditional Love
  •   Commitment
  •   Companionship
  •   Emotional Intimacy
  •   Communication
  •   Admiration
  •   Affection
  •   Honesty
  •   Financial Support
  •   Sexual Intimacy

Recognize that you are the person uniquely positioned to meet those needs.  When you meet those needs, your spouse’s emotional tank is more than likely at or near full and they can better respond to you and your needs.  Water your spouse so they can be strengthened to water you.

 Here are a few practical ideas that you can work with to better understand your spouse’s needs:

  1. Ask.  Yes, ask your spouse what makes them feel loved in various circumstances.  This is a great topic for a date night.  What are the FIVE keys ways that I can best show my love for you?  Be specific.  “I really feel loved and appreciated when you _____________.”
  2. Discover, by asking and observing, the kinds of comments and actions that de-energize your spouse.  Change how you respond to avoid emptying your spouse’s tank.
  3. Read up on it.  Become a student of your spouse’s needs and then work on getting an “A” for the year.  Better yet, get a Master’s Degree.  One of the books we’ve read says that if you don’t work at meeting their needs, someone else might.

Do it. Just do it. Not just when you feel like it.  Not when the time is right. Don’t wait for a full moon.  Just do it.  Today. Tomorrow.  And the next Day.  Selfless lovers understand giving and receiving.  Be a giver and your well-loved spouse will see that you are a receiver.

Personal Growth

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Here’s a fun date night suggestion –

Go to your local book store and go to the self-help section or the relationship section.  What a selection you’ll find there.  Here a sample of what may be available:

 

And the following obviously missed the memo about sticking to the number seven if you want to have a successful relationship book:

Then there’s the overachiever who went way beyond:

I really like the books that tell me right up front that something’s a secret.  Going to have to read that one for sure.  Or the one about Ten Stupid Things Couples Do  –  Only ten?  I think us guys can get a lot of benefit out of 1001 ways to be Romantic, mainly because we can usually only come up with three, and the third one is just a slight variation on number two!

For your date night, you and your spouse can browse the various titles.  Read the back cover or the inside flap of the books, which usually gives a quick overview of the book.  Find three that appeal to you and have your spouse find three. Swap your selections and narrow them down to the top two for each.  Then, put all four on the table and together pick the one you feel would benefit you both the most.

Next:  Over the next few weeks go through the book together.  You can read several chapters by yourselves and take notes and then discuss what you have read, or you can read it together and discuss it as you go.  I have found that most books have several real gems, real key ideas that particularly apply to you individually or to you as a couple.  Make it your objective to find something that is spot on, something that really resonates with you, that makes you say, “There’s some real truth there.  I need to work on that”, or “We need to work on that”.

The objective should be to uncover things that would help you grow as a person or help you grow closer together. Focus on being positive and avoid the “I told you so” trap.  We all need to grow and we can grow best when we are supported by a loving spouse.

More Common Sense

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Remember the Definition of “Common Sense”: sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.

Does that mean that we should not seek out specialized knowledge or training? That we should rely simply on our own good Common Sense to work out issues that surface in our marriage?

Let me ask a simple Common Sense question. If you wanted to go fishing and you really wanted to, as best as possible, catch fish, and you had no prior experience fishing, wouldn’t it make sense to try to acquire some “insider information” on how to fish before actually attempting to fish? Well of course it would. It would be operating in the principle of Common Sense to read up on some basic best practices of fishing before actually going out and trying to fish.

But let’s take a step back. Let’s say that you went fishing without reading or consulting anyone. You reason to yourself that you will need a fishing pole and some bait. So you purchase both, and you head out to the nearest river. You bait the hook and try to cast. After a few practice casts, you land the line in the water. You fish in this manner for several hours. Knowing that fishing takes patience, you repeat this process for several weeks, then months. In all that time, you never catch one fish. Truth be told, you have never even had a nibble. By now you are extremely frustrated. Fishing just doesn’t work.

Just as you’re getting ready to pack it up and go home, you notice someone coming down the bank of the river. He looks up and down the river, selects a spot near some rocks, baits his line and casts in. Good luck, you think to yourself. But within ten minutes, he hooks a beautiful steelhead, carefully works his reel and skillfully nets the fish. He brings it over to show you and then asks if you can take his picture. You click off a few and he leaves. You sit staring at the river and your pole and bait. Disgusted, you throw all of your gear into the river and go home vowing never to fish again. Little did you know that you had the wrong bait, the wrong pole, the wrong weight line and you were repeatedly casting in the wrong spot.

Sometimes we approach marriage the same way. After all, we got along good while dating. We knew each other pretty well and never had a big fight before we got married. And we’ll figure it out as long as we still love each other. How tough can it be? So we begin the journey of married life, figuring it out as we go. We are too embarrassed or proud to ask for help and we keep repeating the same mistakes because we don’t know how to do anything else. Common Sense says be a student of the most important relationship in your life. Read, study, ask questions, attend seminars, and by so doing improve your skills.

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