Health And Wellness Blogs

When marriage seems difficult, too much work or somehow not worth the effort, we tend to let the relationship take a back seat.  Here are some strategies to ensure that you take care of the trouble spots when they occur before the issues seem too much to work through.

• Spend time talking through your relationship trouble spots.
• Ask yourself what you avoid in your marriage-discussions about money, sex, in-laws.
• Do you have the skills to improve your marriage? Do you need professional help?

If your car needing fixing and you were not a mechanic, would you try and fix it yourself?  Of course not! Some things in life need to be taken care of by a professional.  Your marriage is one of those things. Seek out professional help by asking your friends who they would recommend.  Chances are they will have a name of someone they trust.

Keeping our relationship a priority is about valuing time and energy spent with our partner, and strategically putting them first.  Many couples believe that their relationship will naturally improve over time.  As a result, they tend to  invest more energy into improving themselves individually or into building their careers, than they do into enriching their marriage.  Here are some way to put your relationship first: 

• make time to talk together
• sit down with a calendar and plan your significant occasions
• take time to dream and plan your future together-the next 5, 10 or 15 years

Next week we will talk about what to do when the going gets tough, cause it will.

My 29th wedding anniversary is this weekend! As I reflect on our commitment, I realize that there are many nuggets that may be of interest to some of you.  Over the next few weeks my offering will be on lessons learned, many the hard way, over the last 35 years as a couple.  This week I want to share the importance of building a couple identity.  A healthy relationship requires that we strike a balance between individual identity and couple identity.  If a marriage is represented by two circles within one larger circle, the wonder of it is that while each person's individuality is maintained, something greater is created by the joining of two individuals in their life-long commitment to each other.  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Consider building your couple identity in these ways:

• spend time together talking
• develop a range of shared interests, activities and friendships
• identify yourself with your partner-talk about "us"

Next week, how to keep your relationship a priority.