{"id":57458,"date":"2019-03-15T06:31:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T06:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xenodochial-archimedes.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/2019x103x1make-marriage-work\/"},"modified":"2022-11-29T17:55:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:55:11","slug":"make-marriage-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/2019\/03\/make-marriage-work.html","title":{"rendered":"How We Make Our Marriage Work – Mrs. Bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

I am reluctant to share marriage advice a lot of times, because some people scoff at the idea of someone else offering them \u2018tips on making their marriage work.\u2019 And I get it! Everyone\u2019s marriage is different. We all have different love languages and roles in our marriages. Sometimes I wonder how I, as a stay at home mom who homeschools, can offer advice to a working mom whose kids are in public school? So, most of the time I don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, instead of offering advice to you- I\u2019m just going to share what makes MY marriage work. And believe me- I am by NO means an expert. But, with almost 12 years of marriage under my belt- I would at least say I\u2019m a novice? We rarely argue, we get along like best friends most of the time, and we\u2019re still just as in love as we were as teenagers. So, I\u2019m going to say I have a little bit of knowledge on the subject. With that being said, here\u2019s my tips on what makes my<\/strong> marriage work<\/p>\n

Communication<\/h3>\n

I know, I know. Every single marriage book you ever read will start out that way. But it is an important part of making a marriage work- and last. The worst thing you can do is bottle up everything that your spouse does to make you mad- because it will come spewing out later at a time when it\u2019s not even really relevant. You will be throwing all sorts of daggers that don\u2019t even pertain to what you\u2019re arguing about. That\u2019s where resentment builds and you say things you don\u2019t mean. And that kinda stuff makes a crack in your marital foundation. We all know that cracks in a foundation are NO good!<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know that scene from The Notebook where Ryan Gosling tells Rachel McAdams, <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYou tell me when I\u2019m being an arrogant son of a b**** and I tell you when you\u2019re being a pain in the a**! Which you are, 99% of the time. I\u2019m not afraid to hurt your feelings, you have like a two-second rebound rate and you\u2019re back doing the next pain in the a** thing.
So, what?
So it\u2019s not gonna be easy, it\u2019s gonna be really hard. And we\u2019re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I wanna do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever. You and me. Everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I mean. If your spouse is doing something that\u2019s bothering you- TELL THEM ABOUT IT. You don\u2019t have to be mean about it. You don\u2019t have to point fingers. But, talk. COMMUNICATE<\/strong>. Do not let resentment build up. DO NOT have fake arguments with your spouse in your head- because they cannot read your mind<\/em>. <\/p>\n

I used to be SO guilty of this. But, I\u2019ve gotten much better. If I\u2019m angry with my Husband or something is irritating me, I tell him. And if I\u2019m being unreasonable he tells me. I know that seems counter-intuitive to a happy marriage, but it\u2019s not. Because we communicate those things when they\u2019re happening. In real time. So they don\u2019t come up later- at a really bad time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Listen<\/h3>\n

The flip side of the communication coin, is listening. It\u2019s easy to tell your spouse what\u2019s bothering you. But, really listening to their needs can be harder. Especially as a Mom, I have the needs of my child to worry about too- and sometimes the needs of my spouse get pushed farther down on my list. However, I\u2019ve noticed time and time again- that the more that I fulfill his needs- the more he reciprocates mine. I joke a lot and say happy wife, happy life- yes. But, happy spouses beget happy spouses<\/strong>. You know what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n

And please- do not make me get into the importance of dating your spouse<\/a> again! Spending time in each other\u2019s company is a HUGE part of making a marriage happy. I know it\u2019s hard when you have little kids. But, you need that time together, to reconnect. <\/p>\n

I know so many people whose marriages didn\u2019t work because they didn\u2019t know how to communicate with each other, they didn\u2019t know how to meet each other\u2019s needs, and they forgot to spend time together. Then, they forgot why they fell in love in the first place. And that breaks my heart. I don\u2019t want to see that happen in my marriage, so I\u2019m always working at making our marriage work. {And so is my Husband}.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we forget- marriage IS work<\/em>. <\/h3>\n

We sometimes laugh about it, but before we got married, we both agreed that we don\u2019t believe in divorce. So, whatever it takes we\u2019re in this thing for the long haul. Even when times are tough- when things get hard. We said until death do us part, and we\u2019re sticking to it. <\/p>\n

I hope this jumbled up mess makes sense to you- and that the most important thing you take from this is that communication and listening are so important to a happy marriage. I SO want everyone to live in happy wedded bliss, but I know that isn\u2019t always the case.<\/p>\n

{Also, this post is meant for people who are both<\/strong> willing to work on their marriage. If only one half of the marriage is willing to work- things get substantially harder. In that case I would recommend some books on dealing with that [would you like to see a post with some of my favorite marriage books?], or a good marriage counselor. And in the case of an abusive marriage, where one person is hurting the other in any way, shape, or form- this kind of advice is of no<\/strong> help, and I urge you to seek help.}<\/p>\n

If you could offer one piece of marriage advice to a friend- what would it be?<\/p>\n\n

You may also like: \u2018Marriage Tip: How to Flirt With Your Husband.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Pin it for later:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of offering advice to you- I’m just going to share what makes MY marriage work. And believe me- I am by NO means an expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage","category-uncategorized","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrsbishop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}