BEST Marriage advice given?

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Seconding (or am I thirding?) the advice about not involving your families in your marital disputes. So many times I just wanted someone to talk to, but that advice rang in my head and I never did it. Thank God!

Do NOT marry a mama’s boy. If he isn’t out from under her thumb, he is not ready to be a husband. Mine proved to me he wasn’t before I married him. He loves his mom and is very respectful of her, but he drew the line big, bright, and wide, to show her that I am on this side with him, and she shouldn’t cross it.
 
puzzleannie said:
trust in God
NOT in your earning power, intelligence, your husband’s employer, your friends, your parents, your talents, skills, energy, health or any other gifts you have now.
trust in God, not in doctors, teachers, employers, the government or the system.
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👍 Right on the mark, as usual, puzzleannie! This is how we’ve lived our first 20 years and hope to live our next 20 (and beyond!)

Oh! Which reminds me of one piece of advice I once heard. Divorce is not an option and that means it is never considered, not even in jest or frustration. Once you mention it, even if you “don’t really mean it”, the idea starts to grow and seem a viable solution to the simplest of problems. I’ve seen it happen. Scary!
 
I have read some excellent posts on here, and I will remember them.

But when it comes to my wife and me, the best “advice” either of us received was actually the agreement we reached before we even went out together, let alone married.

Without going into the details, we were as close as you would want to get to being enemies when we first met at a party, (I was vain and she saw through me, and didn’t make any secret of it.) but then we made a truce instead of carrying on a war that could have been pretty severe at that time and place. She is really smart and could cut a person to ribbons if she wanted, and that was obvious. I wasn’t so bad at that myself. During the truce discussion, we were pretty honest with each other, and, kind of surprisingly, I ended up asking her if she would be my confidante; the one with whom I could discuss anything, honestly and with no reservation. She consented on the condition that I would be hers as well. At the time, we considered it a friendship of the utmost honesty and confidence; a rare and neat thing, and surprising under the circumstances, and we really did it. I could discuss anything with her, and she with me. It didn’t take long for that “deal” to turn into love, particularly on my part. And we have kept that agreement, and consider it the “core principle” of our marriage.

I have received a lot of advice since, and a lot of it, like the things posted here, was good. But I still consider that the best. Each was to be the other’s confidante. And nobody gave that one to us at all. It just came out of nowhere.
 
When I asked my future father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage (old fashioned, I know, but that’s the way I was taught to do it), he held up his index finger and said “There is only one thing you need to remember to have a successful lifetime commitment–RESPECT”. My wife and I will be celebrating 34 years of respect and love this October. Hey, it must have worked!
 
i love the trinitarian aspect of marriage. when GoodHusband and i got married, my best friend gave us a braided fig tree to signify God in our marriage and fruitfulness. it was a wonderful blessing. but when it was dead 6 months later, it looked like a bad omen instead. but now we’re approaching our 20th year, so the tree wasn’t telling any prophesies.

the best marriage advice i ever heard, i didn’t receive. instead, i’m the lucky woman whose GoodHusband received it and took it to heart.

he heard, “the vocation of marriage is to help your spouse get to heaven.”

wow. that changed my husband. he was already good, after that, he’s been wonderful.
 
It takes three to make the Marriage work—The husband, the wife and God–the family that prays together stays together…
that led us to Marriage Encounter and we have been dialoguing every day for14 years without a miss…that makes our marriage more One in our minds and hearts…then the marital embrace makes us one in body, and Mass and prayer together and frequent confession make us one in spirit!!
We have been married for almost 35 years…our marriage is more united/one than on our 18th wedding anniversary before we went on a Marriage Encounter. (We go every couple years for a communication tune up)
 
BlestOne said:
Best advice about marriage was from a seminar on Catholic marriage…

50% of all marriages end in divorce
10% of faithful Catholic marriages end in divorce(meaning go to mass almost every Sunday)
1% of faithful Catholic marriages who pray together nightly end in divorce

I’ll take the 99% success rate for my marriage…

So before I would consent to marry DH I made sure he understood that this was important to me.
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WOW, I have not posted on here much for the last 3 years, but this hit me. I was a Protestant that married a Catholic Girl. We went to Mass together though for 20 years, took our kids. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t get any Grace from God from just attending Mass!

I joined the Catholic Church 4 years ago, and am as faithful Catholic Husband as I can be, still so imperfect though! But I see those stats above, being old enough to see how faith and action in God can help us stay together, and become closer that we ever thought possible.

I converted just in time, to give my Wonderful Wife the support in faith instruction to our two Sons and have the information and credibility to explain to them why being a Christian and a Catholic Christian are so important. I am going to use these numbers, I think they ring very true.

Peace and God Bless!

DeColores!
 
Never really got marriage advice, then again, I’ve never really asked. But I won’t forget my father in law (who I just call dad) walking my wife down the aisle, kissing her on the cheek, then bringing her to me and simply saying “Read the Bible, pray every day and you take care of her.”

I don’t think there is much better advice than that for a man.
 
Some really good advice on this post. My modest contribution as someone who has been very happily married since 1972:

Show appreciation for the little things that often go unnoticed.

Make time every day for the two you to share some time apart from children, jobs, etc. (My wife and I have been having a glass of wine every evening during which we listen to music, talk about the future, and try to focus on all of the good in our lives and our many blessings)

Never take each other for granted.

Keep a sense of humor.

Don’t get stuck in a rut. Be open to new experiences, new friends and new activities. We have been involved in polka clubs, bridge groups, golf, dinner groups, gardening, etc., etc., most of which we never were aware of before we married.

Keep God and the Church in the center of life always.
 
Goldfish said:
It takes three to make the Marriage work—The husband, the wife and God–the family that prays together stays together…
that led us to Marriage Encounter and we have been dialoguing every day for14 years without a miss…that makes our marriage more One in our minds and hearts…then the marital embrace makes us one in body, and Mass and prayer together and frequent confession make us one in spirit!!
We have been married for almost 35 years…our marriage is more united/one than on our 18th wedding anniversary before we went on a Marriage Encounter. (We go every couple years for a communication tune up)
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A lovely story and I wish you and your spouse the best of all this world can offer, but I don’t think any particular faith is going to assure anyone a long happy marriage more than say common interests, true friendship with one another, trust, etc. In fact, at least one significant survey that is often repeated indicates that atheists have the lowest overall divorce rate. Of the religious, Catholics and Lutherans have the lowest divorce rates.
religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm
 
The absolute best advice I have heard is from Dr. Laura:
  1. Choose wisely
  2. Treat kindly
 
The priest that married us suggested that we fight holding hands.

Our current pastor took it a step further, and recommends to his pre-cana couples that they fight naked (though not til AFTER they’re married!)

😃
 
this is MY advice to people:

The simplest way to solve minor arguments is to play Paper/Scissors/Rock. If you lose, accept it, eat the chinese food when you really wanted p izza, and move on with your life.

Oh yeah, and the wife gets to go two out of three if she loses on the first one 🙂

We also play Wii Swordfighting when we’re mad 🙂

More serious advice: having been a hairsbredth away from divorce at one point, I would say taht remember that you are a family, even if you have no children. you and your spouse are a family of two. It keeps things in perspective.
 
I believe it was Mom who said to me “Once spoken, you can never take back the words. Turn you tongue in your mouth 7 times before saying something.”

I never forgot that. There were many times, when DH had done stuff that made me angry when I wanted to lash out and say something hurtful. I’d remember Mom’s words and think “Saying that he’s a stupid jerk and telling him what I overheard his co-workers say about him might feel really good right now but in an hour when I’ve cooled off I’ll be begging forgiveness for having hurt him and telling him I didn’t mean it. But he’ll never forget what I’ve said. So I’ll act like an adult, tell him I’m angry and leave it at that.”

In 34 years I’ve never had to say “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said.” That’s not to say we’ve never fought. We’ve even gone to bed angry because, like it or not, there are things that you need time to resolve. But at least I’ve never deliberately inflicted pain.
 
I read this somewhere, I can’t remember where but I liked it and have reflected on it throughout our 13+ yr marriage.

See your marriage as a separate entity, i.e. 'Will this be good for our marriage?" not will it be good for me/him/her. Sometimes you know that your marriage needs some extra effort to keep it on a healthy trajectory. For example: is it good for our marriage to have a date night each week? Sometimes neither of you have a lot of energy but if you think “Will this be good for our marriage?” it can be easier to make a decision.
 
We also play Wii Swordfighting when we’re mad
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More serious advice: having been a hairsbredth away from divorce at one point, I would say taht remember that you are a family, even if you have no children. you and your spouse are a family of two. It keeps things in perspective.
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I love BOTH of these!!

Actually, the second one, about family – the priest who celebrated our nuptial mass talked about that specifically during the homily. I have always remembered it. He also spoke about God being Love and our love being a manifestation of God in our lives. He said “To love another person is to see the face of God.” And, therefore, to treat it with the care and respect that befits it!!

And one last thing, a friend told me that I thought was right on:

Don’t complain about your husband to your mother – You will forgive him, but she might not!!"
 
Love is a decision, natch (see my nic).

Marriage isn’t 50/50, it requires 100% from each of you.

Order your priorities: God, spouse, kids.

Lots of good advice, as far as the spouses, even without kids, being the primary family unit now for each of them, and everyone else is extended family. Three to get married, also good.
 
leonie said:
The best advice I ever got was during a really difficult period in our marriage.

My friend said, “you know, when you get married, people tell you that you will have bad days. But, for a lot of people, there are bad years.”

The basic message was persevere! It was exactly what I needed to hear. We got through those bad years (about 2), and we have a great marriage.
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👍 (I ought to have read this thread a year ago, when after 5 months of marriage I felt like only MY marriage was so terrible)
 
From my Dad. If he were alive today, I’d let him know how wise these are…

“You can be right or you can be married - take your pick…”

“If you don’t mind the “store” (house and marriage) - it’ll be robbed of everything that’s in it.”

“Even though she says she doesn’t want kids, someday you’ll need to come to terms with it cause she will change her mind and will need you to work through it with her”

“Booze, drugs, gambling, how to handle money or too many extracurricular hobbies outside of the marriage will wreck a marriage”

“Live below your means”
 
My mom told me “Never let the sun go down on your anger”. We took that one step further. Every day when either of us leaves the house we give each other a kiss and say “I love you”. Sometimes it was hard to say, but in 21 years of marriage there is only one time that my DH was so angry he left without kissing me. I think that helps to remind you every day of the other person and why you are there.
 
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