7 Signs Your Marriage is Healthy and How to Keep it Going
I enjoy asking couples, “what is the key to your success?” The answers vary, but they involve small, daily gestures.
It’s not grand gestures that make a marriage great. It’s not major feats or super activities that keep a marriage healthy and thriving. It’s the small, daily activities that keep a marriage vibrant.
7 Signs of a Healthy Marriage and How to Keep it Going
Sign #1 - Expressions of love and appreciation for your partner. What do you love about your partner? Have you told them recently?
Expressions of love and appreciation for your partner, done daily, result in an exciting, thriving marriage. We respond to positive affirmations. Hearing them from our spouse will encourage us to respond likewise.
Daily Tip: Look for positive ways to daily affirm and love your spouse.
Sign #2 - Request for love and emotional connection. We get busy, we get it. When you are not feeling loved and emotionally connected with your spouse it is important to let your partner know what you desire or need. Make this request without thinking your partner “should know” what you need or want. They don’t.
As we are aware of the state of our marriage, we will make the request for love and connection rather quickly. This helps keeps the marriage fresh and healthy.
Daily Tip: Express your request for love and connection when you need it.
Sign #3 - Conversations about matters important to your relationship. Important conversations include finances, intimacy, parenting, and goals, to name a few. Each day take some time to see what important matters you need to discuss.
Some couples schedule an hour each week for discussions relating to the family.
Daily Tip: Think about the important discussions you need to have and set aside time to have them, either daily or weekly.
Sign #4 - Unburdening conversations about outside stressors. Stress happens. We have stress from outside sources. Left alone, it can affect your marriage. Partners will express these stressors to each other in a healthy marriage.
When we keep our stress inside of us, we internalize it. Stress will come out in some form. The conversations help externalize the stressors so it doesn’t cause extra stress in the relationship.
Daily Tip: Have daily conversations with your spouse to unburden your stress.
Sign #5 - Casual conversations about life and daily occurrences. Thriving couples don’t only talk about heavy, important matters. They talk about experiences of the day and happenings of general conversation.
Casual conversations don’t need resolution or to be stressful. It’s a way to connect with each other in a relaxed manner.
Daily Tip: Spend time each day to talk about your day.
Sign #6 - Request help to accomplish a task. A partner in a healthy marriage will ask for help. They are able to express their needs and wants. Whether it’s cleaning the house or working on a project, ask your partner to help.
Couples are a team. Working together and being able to ask for help are signs of a healthy marriage.
Daily Tip: Ask for help on a project or task and work together to finish it.
Sign #7 - Express grievances about relational hurts. We are not perfect. We make mistakes and unintentionally hurt one another. We need to be able to communicate our hurt to our spouse.
We will get hurt in a close relationship. When we express our relational hurt there can be healing and restoring the relationship. In a healthy relationship we won’t let the hurt linger for long.
Daily Tip: Express relational hurts as soon as possible.
Marriage is hard. It’s two very different people, committed to love each other for life, trying to figure out how to make it work well. A thriving marriage is intentional every day with small gestures of talking and connecting with each other. It’s keeping short accounts of hurts. It’s expressing your needs and wants. It’s sharing the important and unimportant matters of each and every day in communication.
Written by Cindy Picht, LPC, CEO. Adapted from Stephen Dorsey’s “Setting the Bar in Your Marriage”
About Stephen:
Stephen has many years of experience in marriage counseling and mentoring at a local church, where he is an elder. He has been with Light the Way since 2013, and helps couples rekindle the love that brought them together in the first place.
About Cindy:
Cindy is director and co-founder of Light the Way Counseling. She is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and a Certified Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professional. She combines her skills with compassion and encouragement to help people find hope and healing.