You don’t stop working on your relationship after getting married. A marriage requires work put in by both people. It’s not something you should halfway.
In the old days, people used to partner up for reasons such as procreation and economics. Today, spouses expect to be romantic lovers, best friends, co-parents and sometimes business partners.
To say that balancing all of those roles is hard would be an understatement. When you bring kids into the picture, the difficulty goes up a couple of notches.
Planning and tackling life together means you need to stay in sync so that you can work as a team. You also need to make sure both of you don’t get burnt out. This begs the question, how do you stay connected and avoid burnouts?
Many relationship experts and marriage counsellors suggest holding a 30-minute meeting once a week with your partner. You can organize the meeting by breaking it into four parts.
• Appreciation – This is the part of the meeting where you express gratitude to your spouse.
• Chores – Marriage isn’t a cakewalk, there are things that need to be done so that processes run smoothly. In this part of your meeting, you can divide chores between each other to make sure that things that need to be done are getting done. (Ex – She goes for daughter’s PTA, and he goes for son’s football game)
• Plan for good times – In a relationship, there are bad times as well as good times. Couples often get caught up with small issues. This makes them forget about loosening up and having fun. This part of the meeting is for both of you to schedule date nights as well as individual and family activities.
• Problems/Challenges – The last part of your session is where you should talk about any issues or challenges both of you are facing. Talk about changes in your relationship as well as changes in both of your life.
Scheduling a weekly relationship meeting and following through is one of the best ways to have a happy marriage.
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