6 Essential Ingredients for a Successful Marriage

6 Essential Ingredients for a Successful Marriage

Let me start by saying that I am not an expert in marriage counseling; neither do I know what makes marriages last 30 years and beyond.

However, I had an encounter with two distant family relatives who had been married for over 30 years.

Out of curiosity, I asked them one at a time, what was the secret sauce of your marital success? They both re-echoed one thing: “When you get married, you have to understand that you or your spouse are a gift that will take some time to unravel or discover”.

In addition, i believe that you must learn to understand and tolerate your similarities and differences.

Another of my uncle puts it this way: 

Remember, that you married someone who has his/her faults and isn’t perfect. So don’t try to force all the changes through in one year, remain open-minded and appreciate each other. 

Then your love will grow in numerous proportions. I totally agree with him on this point.

However, in my own view, I propose that marriages will be successful, if we can focus on these six ingredients:

1.    Communicate Regularly

2.    Define your Marriage goals

3.    Create your Marital Vision

4.    Identify Stakeholders

5.    Identify Challenges and Risks

6.    Create a Work Structure

I believe that every married couple should spend 90% of the time communicating to their spouse.

A sage once told me that: Marriage is 90% physical and 10% spiritual and I held on to that.

You can pray all you want, but if you have a problem with your spouse, spend time and talk about it. Before you realize it, you would have seen a reason to come to a common agreement. So begin with:

Communicate Regularly

Let me begin by saying that the Tower of Babel project failed because God made all the workers speak different languages.

If you want your marriage to be successful, then agree to a time, when you and your spouse must communicate. 

Communicate all the time to your spouse; tell him/her about your dreams, your fears and your battles.

It helps you build rapport for life and remember that 30 years from now, when the kids leave, you will have someone who you can continue to chit chat with.

On a lighter note, a comedian once said that two newly married couple had agreed to only speak 10,000 words every day. 

The man works as a teacher and the wife is a stay at home entrepreneur. 

The man uses up 9,990 words at school and comes home tired, while his wife has barely used 5,000 words.

The following dialogue ensued between the man and his wife.

Wife: Welcome my Husband! How was work today?

Husband: Fine

Wife: Only Fine. What happened in your class today?

Husband: Nothing.

Wife: Ok oh! Should I bring your food?

Husband: Yes Please.

As funny as it sounds, this man and his wife rarely communicate and it’s just a matter of time before the wife finds somewhere to spend time with to exhaust her 10,000 words.

Finally, I would like to share a suggestion that I learnt from a senior colleague who told me that his wife and him adopted. 

They agreed to a NO-TV days of Wednesdays and Fridays, so they can spend two to three hours talking before going to bed.

Define your marriage Goals

When you communicate constantly with your spouse, you not only build rapport, you share your dreams and aspirations with your spouse.

I remember very vividly the terms of reference that my wife and I agreed to in the early stage of our marriage. 

They include:

1.    We must never stop learning (we agreed to spend 24 days in the classroom every year – This we do without fail every year.)

2.    We must give our children the best education that money can’t buy (so we focus on teaching them the virtues of hard work, we teach them to say Please, Thank you and I am sorry and finally, we teach them that a good name is better than riches)

3.    We must always be happy no matter the circumstance (we have realized that money can’t buy joy, happiness or peace of mind)

4.    We will never support injustice or inequality.

5.    We must become global responsible citizens (My spouse and I travel on a vacation to a new country every year to have an idea of what is going on globally. 

      We open our eyes to new opportunities and we treat human beings with equal values irrespective of continental differences.)

All these terms has helped us to become diligent entrepreneurs, successful parents and globally conscious individuals who think globally and act locally.

My recommendation: Spend time with your spouse and ask yourselves the following questions:

A.   Why did we get married?

B.   What Legacy do we want to leave for our children?

C.   What do we want to be remembered for?

D.   How much money is enough for us to be happy?

E.   What will make us happy?

Create your Marriage Vision

Start your marital vision by setting SMART goals.

Your vision helps you to create a charter which is a guidebook that helps you navigate through the vicissitudes of life.

The charter will help you and your wife to stay focused on what needs to be achieved throughout your years of marriage.

Your charter helps you strengthen your ideals, and makes you see yourself in the mirror.

Personally I hold two key charters in life and they are:

1.    Every man is teachable. We just need to create the right atmosphere, get them to sort out their inner feelings and carry everyone along to the desired state.

2.    We are all equal in the eyes of our creator.

This charter has made to understand that we have no reason to neither label people nor call them names.

Rather we should seek to understand our self, and then go on to understand our spouse. That is the key to a successful marriage.

Identify Stakeholders

How well you manage your internal stakeholders (your values, your goals and your dreams) and external stakeholders (Friends, Family, Finances, Business and Strangers) can make or mar your marriage.

Always remember that you and your spouse are the captains of your ship and you must never let external influence get on board your marital ship of happiness, else the ship will capsize.

I wish to particularly say that most marriages are allowing financial challenges and various struggles to undermine their ship of marital bliss.

If you are reading this article and you are facing financial debacles, stop and remember what used to make you and your spouse happy and go back and rebuild those moments. That’s the internal stakeholder that will re-invigorate your marriage.

Always remember, that the intrinsic factors (Happiness, Joy, Peace of mind) are more important than the extrinsic factors (Cars, Wealth and earthly possessions)

  

Identify Risks and Challenges

Life is a risk. Challenges will always come.

So we must learn not to live under the illusion that there are no risks in marriages.

Once you acknowledge the risks that exist in your marriage, you and your spouse will begin to plan strategies to mitigate the risks and the challenges.

I know a couple that identified that a recession was looming and they stocked their house with over one year supply of provisions and food items and had cost savings running into thousands of dollars when the price of items and commodities doubled months after their decision.

Create a Work Structure

Finally, I wish to encourage division of labor amongst spouses. 

A professor of mine was apt, when he said that: I am a general and my wife is a major and the reason is simple.

“I make the general decisions and my wife makes the major decision.”

We laughed over this, but I was quick to realize that another major issue of contention in most marriage is: Who does what in the marriage? 

Every man or woman has their strength or weakness.

Spouses should identify their strengths and weaknesses in decision making and play to their strengths, so help your spouse to play in his areas of his/her strength and develop their areas of weakness.

Spouses have to discuss and agree amongst themselves, who will be in the best position to make the following decisions:

A.   What school the kids should attend?

B.   Who buys the groceries?

C.   What car or cars to buy?

D.   Who will pay the rent?

The list is endless, but spouses should also complement and support the other when he or she is not able to meet up his or her end of the bargain.

In a nutshell, doing all this would help you to build a successful marriage.

I hope these ingredients go a long way in helping you rebuild your marriage.