Part Two: Fundamentals for Creating a Merry "Marriage"

So, the first part of my series on a Merry Marriage was focused on dealing with holiday stress.  That is such a small portion of the year, I wanted to provide you with tips on how to maintain happiness in your marriage or really, in any romantic relationship you may find yourself in.  If you exhibit great behaviors while you’re dating, it only helps success in your relationship and marriage as it grows.  Being married is not the time to become a responsible partner.

I’ve always thought about a romantic relationship as a seed.  You choose to put it in the ground together and care for it from there.  With proper care, it grows, blossoms and matures.  Some people pull the seed out of the ground before it even had a chance to become anything and others improperly care for it because they’re not sure what to do.  Like it or not, our parents were our relationship role models and sometimes, we learned some things that aren't very productive.  

Some relationships start with the seed in the wrong soil (e.g. getting married or hooking up for the wrong reasons) or by planting it in the wrong season (e.g. advancing a relationship too quickly).  This does not mean the relationship is a total failure.  Failure is not having any success at all.  I have never heard anyone come out of a relationship and not be able to recall at least one good thing about the relationship, at any point.  Even if it’s only one good thing that you carry with you, that is perfectly okay.  We tend to be quite hard on ourselves when it comes to relationship successes and failures.  

For many, success means perfection all of the time and failure means, something, even just one thing, sucks.

There is a huge middle ground there that gets missed.  We cannot expect perfection all of the time nor should one error be cause for relationship dissolution.  However, we often see these types of situations play out.  One argument causes a relationship to falter.  

There is a lot of give and take in a relationship and sometimes one person may be giving or taking more than the other and likely one day, the other person will do the same.  Now, knowing when that balance is exhausted and the relationship is 

one-sided can be a tricky circumstance to navigate on your own but know you don’t have to because I am here to navigate it with you.