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“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” – Barnett R. Brickner
Years ago, my family and I embraced a minimalist lifestyle. We decided that too much clutter had collected in our home and it was demanding too much of our money, energy, and precious time.
We embarked on a journey to sell, donate, recycle, or remove as many of the non-essentials possessions from our home as possible. It was one of the best decisions we ever made.
When we began removing the “stuff” from our life, we found a whole new world open up. We found that we had more time for the things that we valued most.
Now, as a result, we spend more time at the dinner table, we take longer walks as a family, and we have been able to save money for some worthwhile experiences—like a weekend at the beach, for example.
Removing the non-essentials has allowed us to focus more on the essentials. And we have discovered that true life is found there.
Often times, our marriages follow the same trajectory.
At first, when we have nothing but each other, we focus intently on the important building blocks of a healthy and successful marriage. But as our relationship continues forward, “stuff” begins to accumulate and begins to distract us from the very essentials of what makes a good marriage.
Suddenly, we worry more about the appraisal value of our home than the value of our relationship. We check the health of our retirement account far more often than the health of our marriage. Or we spend more time taking care of the car in the garage than the other person in our bed.
Things begin to accumulate in our homes and lives and soon demand our money, energy, and precious time. As a result, we have little left over for caring for the very elements of a happy marriage.
Wise couples realize that a nice home, car, or retirement account may appear nice to have, but they do not make a successful marriage. They understand that there are far more important principles at play.
They have learned to invest their money, energy, and time into the 8 essentials of a healthy marriage:
1. Love/Commitment.
At its core, love is a decision to be committed to another person. It is far more than a fleeting emotion as portrayed on television, the big screen, and romance novels. Feelings come and go, but a true decision to be committed lasts forever—and that is what defines healthy marriages.
Marriage is a decision to be committed through the ups and the downs, the good and the bad. When things are going well, commitment is easy. But true love is displayed by remaining committed even through the trials of life.
2. Sexual Faithfulness.
Sexual faithfulness in marriage includes more than just our bodies. It also includes our eyes, mind, heart, and soul. When we devote our minds to sexual fantasies about another person, we sacrifice sexual faithfulness to our spouse. When we offer moments of emotional intimacies to another, we sacrifice sexual faithfulness to our spouse.
Guard your sexuality daily and devote it entirely to your spouse. Sexual faithfulness requires self-discipline and an awareness of the consequences. Refuse to put anything in front of your eyes, body, or heart that would compromise your faithfulness.
3. Humility.
We all have weaknesses and relationships always reveal these faults quicker than anything else on earth. An essential building block of a healthy marriage is the ability to admit that you are not perfect, that you will make mistakes, and that you will need forgiveness. Holding an attitude of superiority over your partner will bring about resentment and will prevent your relationship from moving forward.
If you struggle in this area, grab a pencil and quickly write down three things that your partner does better than you—that simple exercise should help you stay humble. Repeat as often as necessary.
4. Patience/Forgiveness.
Because no one is perfect (see #3), patience and forgiveness will always be required in a marriage relationship. Successful marriage partners learn to show unending patience and forgiveness to their partner. They humbly admit their own faults and do not expect perfection from their partner. They do not bring up past errors in an effort to hold their partner hostage.
And they do not seek to make amends or get revenge when mistakes occur. If you are holding onto a past hurt from your partner, forgive him or her. It will set your heart and relationship free.
5. Time.
Relationships don’t work without time investment. Never have, never will. Any successful relationship requires intentional, quality time together. And quality time rarely happens when quantity time is absent.
The relationship with your spouse should be the most intimate and deep relationship you have. Therefore, it is going to require more time than any other relationship. If possible, set aside time each day for your spouse. And a date-night once in a while wouldn’t hurt either.
6. Honesty and Trust.
Honesty and trust become the foundation for everything in a successful marriage. But unlike most of the other essentials on this list, trust takes time. You can become selfless, committed, or patient in a moment, but trust always takes time. Trust is only built after weeks, months, and years of being who you say you are and doing what you say you’ll do. It takes time, so start now—and if you need to rebuild trust in your relationship, you’ll need to work even harder.
7. Communication.
Healthy marriage partners communicate as much as possible. They certainly discuss kids’ schedules, grocery lists, and utility bills. But they don’t stop there. They also communicate hopes, dreams, fears, and anxieties. They don’t just discuss the changes that are taking place in the kid’s life, they also discuss the changes that are taking place in their own hearts and souls.
This essential key cannot be overlooked because honest, forthright communication becomes the foundation for so many other things on this list: commitment, patience, and trust—just to name a few.
8. Selflessness.
Although it will never show up on any survey, more marriages are broken up by selfishness than any other reason. Surveys blame it on finances, lack of commitment, infidelity, or incompatibility, but the root cause for most of these reasons is selfishness. A selfish person is committed only to himself or herself, shows little patience, and never learns how to be a successful spouse. Give your hopes, dreams, and life to your partner. And begin to live life together.
This is a simple call to value our marriages, treat them with great care, and invest in them daily.
Accomplishing the marriage advice listed above will always require nearly every bit of yourself—but it so worth it if you want to learn how to have a happy marriage.
A successful and healthy marriage is more valuable than most of the temporal things we chase after with our lives. And will always last longer.
Thankyou for sharing this to the point points about how to keep your marriage focus on the relationship of one another and then the children also. Thanks again for sharing these lessons that you have learned.
This is a wonderful list :-)
I think its very appropriate that commitment is number one. After all, love is a choice :-) Once we realize that and choose to love, its amazing how much easier it is to love and more fun.
I enjoyed the post very much but got more out of the exchange of ideas between Joshua, Ray, JLundholm and Dalbir.
I’m married to my second husband, our marriage is his third. I was married to my first husband 26 years. This doesn’t make us marriage experts but we have learned things from our past relationships that we’ve brought into ours. My husband and I have made agreements around honesty that includes when we’ve had sexual fantasies or attraction to someone else. It’s been a difficult concept for me to embrace but there is no doubt in my mind that it is the healthiest way to deal with sexual feelings outside of our marriage. We take that sexual energy and bring it back to one another . . . talking about it and bringing the energy into our relationship has helped me heal from a long term marriage where I was intentionally kept in a state of uncertainty about fidelity.
I have a high value for fun and playfulness and when that is waning in my marriage I start to feel bored. Because of our agreement to honesty and listening/speaking without judgment, I can go to my husband and ask for what I want. We may ask for adjustments to requests but we always work it through because we have a commitment to our marriage. In addition, we have a sacred agreement to never threaten our relationship. If there is anything that we feel is a threat we speak up before we are compelled to act on it. Making agreements works for us.
Hi,
As someone who is getting married sometime this year, and who is moving in with my fiance this week (!), this post is helpful, grounding and real. Nige and I have honesty, friendship and a soft place to land at the core of our relationship, and it’s great to read this and see my own value system reflected there. I just wrote him a note to say thank you to him for being better than me at photography, training and vigilance around his thinking – it’s so important for me to be humble, and is one area that I struggle with.
Thank you!
Love
Elloa
Religious leaders or marriage counselors aren’t necessarily any more qualified than anyone else. Someone who has less experience, not a good life, etc. doesn’t make what they offer any less valid. It’s crazy how we decide what is correct and what isn’t and most of the time its all WRONG. I’ve often given the best advice to people and truly helping them despite that things haven’t worked out for me. One may not have anything to do with the other. Except usually someone who has gone through tough times can be way more qualified to give advice than someone who hasn’t especially if they are constantly improving themselves.
Great post. I agree with everything & I’m not at all religious.
I do believe communication and trust are the inseparable ones for a good long relationship to work.
CD,
Joshua is offering his advice according to what he has personally learned from becoming a minimalist and how it has affected his marriage.
Since his advice is free and you’re “free” to close the page and/or unsubscribe, why not do so without leaving your negative opinions behind?
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and that’s why most bloggers have a comment section, but there is a way to express yourself without putting someone down. It’s called constructive criticism.
-Marnie
I mean, this is nice and all, but it seems to me that this minimalism blog has run out of ideas for minimalism material and has now shifted to unrelated topics. Religion…. Marriage… First, it takes more than a line like “Often times, our marriages follow the same trajectory” to convince me that there is a true connection; hence my description of “unrelated”. Second, I’m not sure the author of the posts is qualified as either a religious leader or a marriage counselor. To be fair, I never see the author claim to be either. However, for not being either, the posts seem very authoritative. I’m not sure I need a “call to value our marriages” from someone who has less years of successful marriage than I do. The “preachy-ness” of this site is slowly become a turn off.
CD, Congrats on the many years of successful marriage. Good for you.
To be fair, this site has always been about things bigger than minimalism. It’s about intentionally living with less for sure, but it’s also about finding value in the most important places of life. And both marriage and parenting have made frequent appearances here in the past and will do so in the future.
Sir r u the team counsellor?
I think a person with experience is more qualified than someone with just knowledge. A religious leader or marriage counsellor who have not had years of marriage to pull from could very well be less qualified than Josh here.
I appreciated this post. In this day and age when everything’s a free for all, “just do it” sort of mentality, someone needs to remind everyone about commitment, trust, forgiveness, humility etc. We don’t hear much about those anymore. Even worse when you dare to talk about sexual faithfulness. Everyone thinks it’s the most impossible thing. It isn’t and I endorse what Josh says completely.
CD, you sounds negative and I am not sure if your wife is happily married to you.
Hi Joshua,
I´ve been Reading your posts lately and this is the first time I make a comment; thus, I’ve decided to get involved with your ideas, and the reason I’ve decided this is because you are combining two issues I am interested: minimalism and married lifestyle.
What other post of yours would you recommend in this sense?
You hit the nail on the head.
I think, in this time of the what’s-in-it-for-me-mentality, articles like this are a good reminder of what’s more important, and that things worth doing are worth doing well (like being a spouse).