Question for those who are (or were) married

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Jay74

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Hi all,

I’m getting married on November 13 to a wonderful woman. I wanted to ask those of you who have experienced this if you have a few tips on having a happy marriage, or avoiding a bad one. 🙂

I enjoyed pre-cana, and am just looking for some more insight.

Thanks!
 
Pray together daily if possible. When I grew up every night we prayed the family rosary. My parents had an awesome marriage. I married a non catholic so it was more difficult for me, but I prayed with my children.

Don’t assign jobs to one another, do what needs to be done and don’t worry about the garbage and who takes it out.

Always remain good friends as well as partners in a marriage.

Don’t pick at the little things, looking back on things and thinking how much I nagged at stupid things that had little importance.

Laugh together, play together, talk together and have fun.

But most of all love with all your heart, and don’t ever give up.
Good luck and may God bless you both in your new vocation.
 
Make your spouse your best friend. When you are happy about something exciting, call him to talk about it, not your best girlfriend. When you are sad and need cheering up (assuming he didn’t cause it LOL), let him cheer you.

ITA with Toni about not nagging, if the garbage needs to go out, do it. When you need help with things, ask him to help, don’t just expect him to know that you need help.

Talk about money and SAVE! Money is one of the biggest thing couples fight over, make sure you are both on the same page with money issues, and SAVE (did I mention that?), live frugally, give to the Church.

Absolutely pray together, let your spouse hear you thanking God for him. Praising God together will remind you that He comes first.

Remember most of all to be kind to each other, we tend to get “comfortable” with our spouses and end up treating them poorly, treat your spouse better than you would treat company.

Take lots of time to reconnect every night, talk, cuddle, just spend the time together.

I have not read it, but have heard good things about “For Better Forever” by Popcak (sp?), who is a Catholic author, who also has a parenting book called “Parenting With Grace” which I just love.

Appreciate the gift God has given you in your wonderful spouse.

Patty
 
We received some great advice before we got married, now 20 years ago last month!

Marriage is not 50-50; it’s 100-100. Make sure you are giving all you can, go the extra mile, and do it with love.

Love is a choice. As hard as it is to fathom when you’re in love, you will find times in your marriage where you may not like your partner very much, but you can choose to love him/her.

Divorce is not an option. You go into this for a lifetime. When there’s no easy choice for escape, you stick with it and go through the tough times, which in the end make you all the more in love with each other and develop trust in one another.

Compliment each other. Thank each other. Write a note to tell your spouse you love him/her and put it in a briefcase, lunch box, wallet or purse.

And yes, pray and keep Jesus the center of your lives together.
 
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Didi:
We received some great advice before we got married, now 20 years ago last month!

Marriage is not 50-50; it’s 100-100. Make sure you are giving all you can, go the extra mile, and do it with love.

Love is a choice. As hard as it is to fathom when you’re in love, you will find times in your marriage where you may not like your partner very much, but you can choose to love him/her.

Divorce is not an option. You go into this for a lifetime. When there’s no easy choice for escape, you stick with it and go through the tough times, which in the end make you all the more in love with each other and develop trust in one another.

Compliment each other. Thank each other. Write a note to tell your spouse you love him/her and put it in a briefcase, lunch box, wallet or purse.

And yes, pray and keep Jesus the center of your lives together.
Click to expand...
Very well said. Love is a choice.

May I add:

Put Jesus Christ at the head of your family.

Choose your battles.

Look at the big picture.

Watch your words. After they leave your mouth, you can never stuff them back in.

Put your spouse above all others. That sets a great example for your kids.

Be open to life.

Remember what is really important in this world.

Be interested in what your spouse is interested in. Share his/her joys and be a cheerleader.

Never criticize, even if you really want to and even if you think its really warranted. Sometimes folks have to figure things out for themselves.
 
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Toni:
Pray together daily if possible. When I grew up every night we prayed the family rosary. My parents had an awesome marriage. I married a non catholic so it was more difficult for me, but I prayed with my children.

Don’t assign jobs to one another, do what needs to be done and don’t worry about the garbage and who takes it out.

Always remain good friends as well as partners in a marriage.

Don’t pick at the little things, looking back on things and thinking how much I nagged at stupid things that had little importance.

Laugh together, play together, talk together and have fun.

But most of all love with all your heart, and don’t ever give up.
Good luck and may God bless you both in your new vocation.
Click to expand...
:amen:
 
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condan:
Put Jesus Christ at the head of your family.
Click to expand...
👍

For many years I have lifted up my wife and I as I pray the rosary, then my family and then the Church. And on frequent occasions I lift them during the Eucharist.

Remember that your spouse is a child of God worthy of respect no matter how bad things get between you both.

May Christ be with both of you.

Moe

:blessyou:
 
Congratulations!

Best advice on marriage I’ve ever heard:
Each of you must focus on loving God.
Ask God to reveal what He sees in your spouse.
Then, love the other as God loves the other.

Too often we tend to focus on our spouse “completing” us. It is true that two become one, but it is the love of God between us that “completes” us. If we make too much of the spouse completing us we risk making our spouse our God. A person cannot bring fulfillment to you, only God can. Putting too much pressure on the spouse to make your life whole leads to disappointment that he/she did not do that & leads to nagging, resentment, etc… Just love each other as God loves each of you.
 
Gosh, it is just beautiful what all of you have posted. Good work all!

I would say that one thing you two could do is to make a commitment - seriously that you will not get divorced.

Love is a choice and a verb. It is something you do – when reason says you shouldn’t.Love is so much more than romance – and perhaps that is the best part.

Take the advice to pray with and for each other – that is priceless.

If possible, I really love what I have gotten from FAMILIA, if you can find it your marriage will be blessed.

Also get to know the Theology of the Body – if we had known that when we were younger – wow, we could have been so much better at being married.
 
Trust in God who has a plan for you and who knows what is best for you.
Have the first of many conversations, that will continue throughout your life together, about what is the meaning of life, of your life together? The question at the beginning of every session is What does God want for us? Where are we going? Why? What means will we use to get there? why are we doing this or not doing that?

Read Humanae Vitae, really read it, word for word, and discuss it. It is the most prophetic document of the 20th century. Take NFP classes so the lady can begin charting well before your marriage date and get the hang of the process, and become familiar with (and learn to love and appreciate the miracle of) the workings of her body.

Make life decisions together, not unilaterally.

If you do not share the same religious belief, it is nearly impossible for you to put God at the center of your relationship, since you will each be hearing a different “version” of what God wants.

How to destroy your marriage before it begins:
1.Sleep together, or even worse move in together before marriage. Do this and you can kiss true intimacy goodbye, it will never have a chance to develop.
ASK yourselves tonight: when we go out together, is the biggest thing on our minds finding the opportunity for physical contact? If it is you have already short-circuited your relationship.
2. use artificial birth control, sooner or later one or both of you will realize that this has made you an object, a provider of sexual pleasure as a consumer good, not a person, and that realization will poison your relationship.
3. put your mother, father, job, sister, brother, or children ahead of each other.
4. put each other, or yourself, ahead of God

Married 35 yrs with the scars to prove it.
 
I so much agree with Mamamull–

FAMILIA and Theology of the Body for so many reasons that I can’t put into words other than I now feel I’ve scratched the surface of what the vocation of marriage and parenthood really is.

The beauty and wisdom of God and our Church is awesome.

And, of course, pray with each other and for each other.

God bless!

Debbie
 
My wife and I started teaching NFP because after 6 years of using it, we finally figured out it was a benefit to our marriage. It wasn’t obvious to us before that.

The suggestions here are all great. IPTgrad summarized it very well. 🙂
 
The best way to show unconditional love: Listen. That means you don’t start thinking about what you are going to say until the other person (spouse or child) has finished speaking and you have made certain you understand their meaning correctly (not just the strict meaning of the words they actually spit out, but what it is they want to say).

Keep your problems between you. If you need to talk to someone else because your spouse won’t/can’t hear you, talk to a confessor or counselor who will not tell anyone else. Give advice about marriage to others in the abstract… if you’re going to tell stories from your own experience, tell them exactly as if you were relating someone else’s story that you witnessed: “I know of couples that…”

Don’t “gunny sack.” Until you tell them, it isn’t their problem. It’s yours. And except for wearing seatbelts, banish “always” and “never” from your vocabulary.

If you’re expressing anger, that is what they will hear. Yes, let them know you’re angry, but until you get over that, you will not communicate much other information than that you are angry. It is better to keep your mouth shut when you’re angry except to say “I am really angry”… words let go won’t come back, whether you “meant” them or not.

Get used to the idea that some of their “bad” points will get worse and some of their “good” points will disappear… at least some of the time. Be willing to be in it for them, because you have chosen to make them a part of you, not for what they give you. (If you got tennis elbow, you’d learn to live with it, not get a new elbow.)

If they are just driving you nuts, try this prayer: “Jesus, you love them through me, because right now, I just can’t do it.” It has been known to work wonders.

If you wouldn’t live in a house painted your least favorite color, just because it makes them happy, you either need to find a different person or just grow up yourself. Life is too short to waste on stuff like that.

If you don’t respect their judgement enough to do what they want even though you think it may be ill-advised, keep looking. Tell them when you disagree beforehand. If they get their way and turn out to be wrong, say “Hey, we talked, we decided, we live with it and learn from our mistakes together. Enough said.”
 
Pray Together. Repeat many thousands of times to many thousands of powers exponetially. pray individually (same number of times. Pray always. Read Dr. Popcak’s book For Better…Forever. Take a NFP class together. Ministry together. Plan to have children early in the marriage rather than delaying them. Read Msgr. Burke’s book Covenanted Happiness (PS read together buy two copies).

Under the Mercy,

Matthew Sauer
 
We just celebrated 16 years of marriage in July, so I think we’re doing something right:D !

Definitely, God first, then each other. Then together, your children. Can’t go wrong.

TALK to each other! Don’t do the “What’s-wrong?-Nothing” type of communication. Tell your spouse everything… from your fears, hopes, dreams, and, yes, your sins and failings. Don’t let anyone make you promise NOT to tell anyone something, including your spouse. That’s putting someone else ahead of the most important earthly person in your life!

And of course, be someone your spouse can talk to and tell everything to! Works both ways! Believe me, if you can open up and talk to your spouse and also be able to listen, with open heart and mind, you will be able to avoid almost every single problem that married couples face.

You are no longer “me and you”… nor “you and I”. You are “we” and “us”. Whatever happens to one of you affects you both. This does not mean you are conjoined twins, nor clones, nor that one or the other of you has to do all the sacrificing (although, at one time or another, one of you might have to sacrifice more than the other… that’s okay, it’ll all even out, you’ll see!) But it does mean that what matters to one, matters to the other, if for no other reason than the fact that you love your spouse and want what’s best for them.

FORGIVE. Every single day. Not just your spouse. Yourself. Yeah, you mess up, too. Don’t beat yourself up over it and expect your spouse to build you back up over and over. Be strong for your spouse, but let them be strong for you, too (Yes, there’s a story there; no, I’m not giving details, figure it out!)

And ditto on the rest of the advice!

God bless!

BlueRose
 
Tell her that you love her. Every day. Morning and evening, at least. Send flowers on non-special days.
 
I forgot. Adaptability may be the best trait you and your spouse can cultivate. Why? Because things change. EVERYTHING changes. Jobs come and go, children are born, salaries fluctuate, accidents happen, moods swing. Go with the flow. Have faith that together you can weather any storm, no matter how severe. Look upon changes as exciting challenges, opportunities for growth. Don’t let circumstances beat you down. Remember, you’re in this together, for better and for worse, not for better or forget it!

Oh, and one other thing. Be yourself. Your true self. Or be the person YOU want to be. Don’t be who you think your spouse wants you to be. They have to love you for who YOU are, not who everyone else thinks you should be.
And accept your spouse AS SHE IS. Yes, always encourage each other to become the best you can or to overcome faults, but don’t try to remake your spouse into some fantastic ideal. Then she won’t be the person you fell in love with.

We’re all a work in progress and we all change (hopefully for the better!) But I’ve seen too many couples take on marriage as as they would buying a “fixer-upper” house… you almost can imagine them thinking, “Well, this one’s not bad, has a lot of potential, with a little paint and paper, a new roof, update the plumbing and electrical, and replace that awful shag carpet with hardwood flooring, we might have a keeper here!”

Sorry, you may have to live with your decision “as is”. No “For Sale, Cheap” signs here!

Blue"off the market"Rose
 
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