Some food for thought on things that I think have worked well for Dana and I
- Pray together regularly
- Pray separately for your husband (check out the book "The Power of a Praying Wife")
- Schedule weekly date nights on your calendar and take turns planning something special for each other
- Have a separate weekly "couples meeting" where you handle the business side of running your house, budget and your calendars. Leave this out of your date nights so that you can keep those fun.
- Try to develop good habits early in marriage (i.e. perhaps if one person is cooking dinner, the other does the clean-up afterwards)
- Try to afford a maid once you live in a house to help minimize conflict
- Track chores (whose turn it is to do what) if you feel like one person is doing all the work (we have a nice template for this if you want one)
- Don't assume chores need to be 50/50. Try to divide them by interest (i.e. Dana always unloads the dishwasher and I take care of the cats)
- Be willing to pick up the slack for each other (without bitterness) during difficult times (i.e. busy season at work)
- Try to make every anniversary really special. You'll treasure the memories for years to come.
- Scrapbook each year of your marriage to capture and remember all of the fun stuff you've done. It can be so wonderful to look back on it together (we do this each anniversary) and realize how blessed you are.
- Be part of an "Accountability Group" (typically through church) that will help you keep your relationship on track
- Work on your marriage constantly, even if things are going great. It will give you a great foundation to carry you through any rough patches.
- Take advantage of classes at your church. Watermark Church offers very helpful classes on improving communication and other marriage seminars.
- Set annual goals for your marriage and review progress regularly (we do that at our couples meetings)
- Learn to cook your spouses favorite meals
- Try to still make time for your girlfriends and encourage him to spend time with his guy friends
- If you find yourself not sharing enough quality time together, institute no TV/no computer nights once or twice a week
- Talk as openly as possible about finances ASAP and try to build a realistic budget. It's hard/uncomfortable at first but it will help so much down the road.
- Consider sharing your email passwords with each other to encourage 100% trust at all times
- Know that 99% of the hard stuff you go through in your 1st year of marriage is being experienced by all couples in the same stage of life. (don't question whether you married the right person - you just have to work through the growing pains and then it will be a blast)
- Try to use positive reinforcement (rather than nagging) to change behavior
- When possible, Praise (rather than complain about) your spouse to others (especially family). It's good for everyone involved.
- Read the book "The Five Love Languages" and put into action what you learn
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