Daly Focus Blog
The stress of daily life takes a toll on even the happiest couples – which is why marriage and family counselor Dr. Randy Schroeder says seeking marital happiness is unrealistic. A better approach is to pursue consistent marital satisfaction. How? Good habits.
Dr. Schroeder offers four “daily essentials” for creating good habits in your marriage:
“Goodbye, I love you.” Whoever leaves the house first should initiate this.
“Goodnight, I love you.” Whoever goes to bed first should initiate this.
It’s often easier to tell your spouse, “I love you,” than to show them through your actions.
I can tell you that’s true not only from personal experience but from the sheer number of questions we get here at Focus on the Family from married couples about navigating busy schedules, financial issues, and communication and conflict. Each question represents a small everyday moment that somehow turned into a disruption to the couple’s marital unity.
Authors Matt and Lisa Jacobson are with me on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to encourage husbands and wives to serve and love each other well.
You and your spouse don’t always see eye to eye. One of you talks too much – or not enough. One of you feels hot while the other is shivering cold. And one of you is probably a saver while the other is a spender.
Those differences – especially the last one – can drive you apart. Petty disagreements about money can easily turn into full-grown battles that bleed a relationship dry.
Well-known author, radio host, and financial expert Dave Ramsey is my guest on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
I don’t know if there’s a secret to building a happy marriage, but there’s one idea that comes pretty close. The happiest couples know their spouse well and feel like their spouse knows them.
There’s a word for that. It’s called intimacy, and the only way to develop relational connection like that is good communication. That means more than talking about the weather. You have to open your hearts to one another and connect at a deeper level.
Dr. John Gottman and his researchers can predict with almost 95-percent accuracy whether a couple’s marriage will succeed or fail. Their predictions are based on how couples fight – not how frequently or even the content of their disagreements – but how couples actually engage in conflict. They discovered four elements to conflict – which Dr. Gottman calls “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” – that are destructive to a relationship:
Criticism
Defensiveness
Contempt
Stonewalling
If the Four Horseman mean certain destruction, how can couples avoid them?
Howard and Danielle Taylor’s relationship is evidence that a biblical understanding of the purpose for marriage is the best foundation for weathering the rough seasons of life.
Danielle didn’t grow up in the church and Howard was raised without a dad. Both adopted unhealthy cycles of relationship they’d learned from their parents. The result was not harmony and intimacy, but arguments, stress and conflict.
Over time, they learned new patterns of relating and communicating with each other, all rooted in a biblical understanding of marriage.
What “season” of intimacy is it for your marriage? Is it summer because things between you and your spouse are sizzling? Or has winter settled in where your relationship feels a bit chilly?
Weather is a helpful metaphor for marriage because, like the weather, relationships change. Yes, that means a season of warmth and excitement can become cold and mundane. But it also means a relationship that feels icy and distant can become a season of new beginnings and growth.
Over the years, I’ve discovered how my interactions with my wife are shaped by experiences from my childhood – for good or for bad.
Maybe you’ve discovered the same thing. You have buried anger that’s seeping into your marriage relationship. Or you’re a loner who refuses help from anyone. Or you’re a people pleaser who tries to make everybody happy.
These attitudes may seem normal, but they create friction in a marriage. Some couples are so accustomed to their unhealthy patterns that they become trapped in a “conflict loop” where they routinely trigger each other without recognizing that they’re doing it.
Over the years, loving my wife has most often expressed itself in small ways. Like when our boys were young and full of energy. Some nights I’d come home after a long, busy day at work, and Jean would meet me at the door with Trent and Troy – 5 and 3 years old at the time – and say, “Take them.”
Jean and I were both desperate for a recharge after a long day, but in that moment, there was only room for one of us to take a breather.
Bob and Audrey wanted to change the world. They got married and hit the ground running. Within a few years, they had three kids. They worked at the local and the national level to strengthen families. They were well known in the community. And they were busy. Really busy. Not only did they not see that as a problem, they saw it as a mindset. Every moment was an important opportunity to reach somebody that needed help.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
