IS MARRIAGE HARD WORK?

We often hear people say that marriage takes a lot of work. I remember a TV show years ago. It was one of those summer replacement shows. The characters would occasionally talk directly to the camera. The topic of this show was relationships and marriage. The comment was made that marriage takes a lot work. One of the male characters looked into the camera and said ‘Why would I want to get married? I already have a job!’

Is marriage hard work? That’s a good question. I think the answer can be found in how you answer the following question.

Does your relationship add stress to your life or does it reduce the stress that is caused by the daily ‘drama of living’?

Life can create a tremendous amount of stress: job, co-workers, commuting, kids, other peoples kids (just kidding!), neighbors, money, car repairs, household repairs, health issues, aging parents, etc, etc., etc.

How do you deal with all of that? How does your spouse deal with all of that?

Does your spouse add to that stress? Do you add to your spouse’s stress?

If you answered yes to the last two questions, then it is a safe bet that it takes work to maintain a good marriage.

You can help reduce or at least minimize the effects of stress on your spouse. Here are a few ideas to help you:

1) Listen - That's all, just listen.

It took me three marriages to figure this one out. Listen – that’s all, just listen (of course paying attention is implied here). By nature I am a problem solver. I would hear the problem and immediately propose a solution – which would be ignored. That in turn would irritate me and created more stress.

2) Look upon your spouse’s little quirks as ‘cute’. My wife found this idea in Readers’ Digest during our honeymoon. You can use this with humor in a non-threatening way to let your spouse know that he/she is doing something that could be irritating. It helps you by not storing up all those little things (quirks) inside you until you explode because your spouse left the cap off the toothpaste.

3) Praise your spouse for being ‘almost perfect’. This came from the same Readers’ Digest article. ‘Honey, You did a good job of entering the checks in the checkbook. You entered all but two checks in the checkbook’. That is a lot better than saying ‘you did it again – you failed to enter two checks in the ‘checkbook’.

The last two ideas must be done ‘lovingly’, not with sarcasm. In most cases, your spouse will appreciate your tact and respond accordingly.

- Joe Freeman