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5 ways to a happy married life | introduction
5 Ways to A Happy Married Life
#5 ways for a happy married life
#make your love last a lifetime
#how to have a good married life
#how do you save your marriage when you’re the only one trying
#how to save your marriage alone.
When watching the videos for the first time, it is really important to watch them in order. It consists of instructional material and exercises that will help you practice the new skills . When you’ve watched the entire series in the proper order, you can watch any of the parts you need again . It is like having your own life coach.
Some Benefits of a Good Marriage:
1. A source of comfort and strength for each other.
2. You feel safe and protected in your relationship allowing you to grow emotionally closer and create an unbreakable bond.
3. The result of a strong marriage is a stable, happy home that will be nurturing for you and your children.
4. A healthy marriage allows you to raise confident and morally upright children who will make a positive contribution to the Community.
Always keep these beautiful goals in mind as you struggle in your path of improving your marriage.
5 Ways to a Happy Married Life
Personal Development
Trust & Understanding
Piousness
Solving Issues
Affection & Physical Touch
key actions to success | perspective TOWARD marriage
Key Actions To Success
# plan for happy days
# plan for good times
# goals for a happy marriage
# Aims and objectives for a happy marriage
Perspective Towards Marriage
Your perspective on marriage and how you view it will have a major impact on your marriage. To change your behavior in marriage, you have to first change your mindset.
Our point of view is formed either by observing our parents' interactions, including their strategies for resolving conflicts or by the media, which usually portrays marriage unrealistically.
Don't let your point of view towards marriage be one of hopelessness but of hopefulness.
-Write down what your current point of view towards marriage is:
-Write down what would you want your point of view to be in the future:
Hopes & Desires
Many people have very high expectations going into marriage. Some expect that their spouse will be perfect or is always the ideal spouse. But it is unrealistic to expect that your spouse will keep you happy. Happiness comes from within.
Your spouse cannot keep you happy. You have to work on yourself, develop yourself, and contribute to your marriage if you want to remain happy.
People whose expectations are too high end up feeling disappointed and frustrated.
What you grow up with affects your expectations. What you need to become aware of is what experiences shaped your expectations.
If you lower your expectations to zero, you're always happy and never disappointed. Appreciate your spouse's good qualities rather than making a fuss about their faults.
- Write down your expectations of how it has been affected by your parents’ relationship.
- List events, experiences, or relationships that have shaped your expectations.
Goals for a Successful Marriage
Focus on achieving your goals, starting with the end in mind. Be clear about what you want to improve in your marriage.
Examples of Specific Goals:
- Develop a loving relationship with your spouse :
By understanding what makes both feel loved, set up a regular quality time together that both can be excited about, and ensure that You always give your spouse priority for your time and attention.
- More Romance in Marriage :
Take action to create romance. Leave love notes, set up surprise lunch dates, and buy gifts for your spouse regularly.
-Improve communication with your spouse:
Address concerns without judgment and develop problem-solving skills with maturity.
- Raising Children:
Work on the common goals together, discuss your dreams and aspirations for how you would like to raise your children, decide on your discipline methods together and set up a plan of action for your family.
- Plan more family time together :
Set up scheduled family vacations that leave positive loving memories for both, and your children.
- Setup a good health and fitness plan :
To keep fit and healthy, plan outdoor activities and workouts together.
- Work on your spirituality together :
Set up a plan both agree upon, to increase Islamic knowledge while making sure that you accept each other's current spiritual level without judgment.
- Grow intellectually together :
Find a course, coach, or program that both can join and work together so, you can grow emotionally, personally, and spiritually that will bring you closer.
- Give back to society :
To help develop a new closeness in marriage. Volunteer together in the community for a cause that both believe in.
-Write down five long-term goals.
-Write down five short-term goals.
key actions to success | principles to follow
Principles to Follow
Here are the rules that you must follow, this will help you to get the best results for your marriage while watching these videos.
1 - Don't blame. Focus on correcting yourself and not your spouse.
2. If you're working on this program alone and watching on your own, it will be easy to just focus on yourself. If you're doing it as a couple, be sure to make this a positive experience and create a positive association with each other, between these sessions.
3. Be respectful of each other when you're watching this together, don't yell, don't do name-calling, and don't use sarcasm.
4. While going through the program many issues and problems from the past may come up. Maturity is needed, in a step-by-step manner, you can resolve your problems without hurting each other.
Keep Issues Aside
Focus on each other instead of the problems. Focusing on problems at this stage simply triggers negative emotions, which prevents you and your partner from connecting. Before you address any problems, you will learn to develop an emotional bank account that both of you can draw from.
Once you have a good relationship, then you will be able to address and resolve your problems.
Self-improvement
You can positively influence your marriage and any relationship by making positive changes within yourself. As you develop yourself, you begin to contribute to the marriage positively.
It is important to look within and ask yourself these questions with complete honesty :
-What skills and qualities do you need to develop in yourself?
-What do you need to improve and change in yourself to become a better spouse?
-How to handle problems with grace and maturity?
-How to analyze your behavior, and try to identify if you have been encouraging or rewarding the very behavior you dislike in your spouse?
-You need to develop and work on yourself before being able to work on your marriage and mastering your relationship.
By following this program you will be able to:
-Invest emotionally in your relationship
-Learn proper problem-solving methods
-Effective communication skills
-Techniques that develop understanding and a healthy relationship
key actions towards success | how to rekindle your relationship
#howtohaveromanceinyourmarriage
#focusonyourspouse
#howtohavefuninyourmarriageagain
Put Your Spouse First
Friendship is the number one reason, that couples stay together and have lasting marriages. Cultivate friendship with your spouse. Couples tend to become disconnected after a few years of marriage. Focusing on your spouse and trying to please them, helps you reconnect.
Every relationship has an emotional bank account, in which you need to make regular deposits. Compliments, showing empathy, and simply forgiving are great ways to invest in your relationship. Finding ways to fill your partner’s emotional bank account each day can help ensure that the negatives in the relationship don’t cause your relationship to dip.
Support them emotionally.
Give them a gift
Give your spouse a compliment
Show your spouse physical affection.
Spend quality time with them
Show genuine interest in your spouse
Focusing on your spouse will allow you to get to know them again and begin developing the needed friendship.
When you make an effort to look your best and act lovingly and respectfully, you’re sending a very strong, positive message to your spouse that you value and desire them. Make the effort to look your best, greet your spouse at the door with a kiss and give them compliments.
Keeping the romance alive, safeguards your marriage against infidelity. Remember if you put in the effort needed to make your spouse feel special, appreciated, and valued, they will want to spend time with you.
Spending quality time together needs to be a priority in your marriage. Positive associations are formed when you and your spouse spend quality time doing fun things together. Negative associations are formed when the time you are together is spent fighting, insulting, and complaining.
Start with baby steps. If your relationship is in a difficult place, spend 10 – 15 minutes of quality time with your spouse. Designate one night to spend alone with your spouse to connect and rebuild those positive associations.
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 1 : way to lasting change
# highly effective ways to stay motivated
# how do I stay motivated all day
# how to keep going when you want to quit your marriage
# change motivation into discipline
# how to keep working when are not feeling it
Lasting Change
Lasting change is most successful when you focus on creating habits. Habits are making lifestyle shifts versus quick wins. You incorporate the changes you want to make into your daily routine. You focus on changing how you think about the things you want to change, which affects the actions you take.
Pain & Pleasure
The pain-pleasure principle, developed by Sigmund Freud, suggests that people make choices to avoid or decrease pain or make choices that create or increase pleasure. The pain-pleasure principle is the core of all the decisions we make. Beliefs, values, actions and decisions are built upon this principle.
Change is hard, even when you’re motivated and know where the problem lies. The key is to learn how to make lasting change. People usually can make an initial change but it’s not lasting. The key to making lasting change is to have perseverance. Making lasting change means asking the right questions, the pain it’s going to cause you if you don’t change then linking a lot of pleasure to the behaviour that you want to achieve. Applying the pain and pleasure concept is one of the tools to help change bad habits and behaviour. Even the hardest to change habits like weight gain and smoking can be overcome permanently by applying the pain-pleasure concept.
Design Goals, Not Chores
The trick is to focus on the elements of the work that you do find enjoyable.
Find Effective Rewards
You might promise yourself a vacation for finishing a project or buy yourself a gift for losing weight.
Sustain Progress
Change the way you think about the progress you’ve achieved. When we’ve already made headway, the goal seems within reach, and we tend to increase our effort.
Harness the Influence of Others
Humans are social creatures. We constantly look around to see what others are doing, and their actions influence our own. Even sitting next to a high-performing employee can increase your output. But when it comes to motivation, this dynamic is more complex. When we witness a colleague speeding through a task that leaves us frustrated, we respond in one of two ways: Either we’re inspired and try to copy that behavior, or we lose motivation on the assumption that we could leave the task to our peer.
Write down areas in your life that you would like to improve on personally.
Write down your strengths & weaknesses.
Write down the habits you want to change and apply the two principles of pain and pleasure.
Write down what it would cost you if you continue in your behavior.
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 2 : self respect
self esteem
Low self-esteem is when someone lacks confidence about who they are and what they can do. They often feel incompetent, unloved, or inadequate. People who struggle with low self-esteem are consistently afraid of making mistakes or letting other people down.
If you don’t feel good about yourself, no one can make you feel good. You can’t go into a marriage expecting your spouse to make you feel good. Self-esteem is formed very early on from the way your parents and caretakers treat you and care for you. The things you have heard growing up establish your self-esteem. When someone has low self-esteem, they always feel down, they don’t feel capable and sometimes lack motivation because they don’t have enough belief in themselves. You build self-esteem through self-talk (how you talk to yourself about yourself), your body image, how you feel spiritually and emotionally. We’re going to address each of those individually and give you the tools to start building your self-esteem. Regardless of the past you had, you can have a brighter future. You can always make a change!
Self-Talk
Self-talk is your internal dialogue. It’s influenced by your subconscious mind, and it reveals your thoughts, beliefs, questions, and ideas. Self-talk can be both negative and positive. It can be encouraging, and it can be distressing. Much of your self-talk depends on your personality. If you’re an optimist, your self-talk will more hopeful and positive. On the other hand, if you are a pessimist, your self-talk will be negative.
Positive thinking and optimism can be effective stress management tools. Self-talk could be about your physical appearance or capabilities, your circumstances, or your relationship. Like high-achievers, we need to learn to program ourselves for the positive. If you already are aware of this internal dialogue, you need to stop the negative self-talk. Learn to replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk. You can learn to control your self-talk by following these steps:
Identify negative self-talk traps.
Certain scenarios may increase your self-doubt and lead to more negative self-talk. Work events, for example, maybe particularly hard. Pinpointing when you experience the most negative self-talk can help you anticipate and prepare.
Check-in with your feelings.
Stop during events or bad days and evaluate your self-talk. Is it becoming negative? How can you turn it around?
Find the humour.
Laughter can help relieve stress and tension. When you need a boost for positive self-talk, find ways to laugh, such as watching funny animal videos or being a comedian.
Surround yourself with positive people.
Whether or not you notice it, you can absorb the outlook and emotions of people around you. This includes negative and positive, so choose positive people when you can.
Give yourself positive affirmations.
Sometimes, seeing positive words or inspiring images can be enough to redirect your thoughts. Post small reminders in your office, in your home, and anywhere you spend a significant amount of time.
Is your self-talk negative or positive?
Are you critiquing yourself?
Are you encouraging yourself?
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 3: self improvement
Personal Development
# stay at home mom self growth
# self development and achievement for women
# self improvement motivation
Personal Growth & Improvement
Women often stop learning and growing after marriage. It is important to be compatible with each other to have a good marriage. Make sure you don’t grow apart but are constantly meeting and connecting on all different levels. Focus on improving yourself.
To grow intellectually, we must continue to learn. The more consumed you are with self-growth and self-development, the less time you have for gossip. Find ways to contribute.
Volunteering, giving back to the community will make you feel great about yourself. Plan a weekly schedule for your self-development and learning. It is equally important for the husband to grow intellectually in all these different areas of his life, as the wife does. It’s very important for the husband to continuously work on himself emotionally, spiritually and continue to grow and set an example for the household. Some men may be excelling in their careers and growing intellectually but lagging when it comes to reading up on parenting, self-development, or religion, very critical areas of their lives. Both spouses need to be responsible for their inner growth, spiritual growth, and intellectual growth.
Here are some suggestions for self-improvement:
Volunteer with an organization you care about to find like-minded people with whom you can connect.
Build a network for giving and receiving support.
Challenge yourself to learn and do new things.
Understanding both strengths and growth areas.
Social connectedness.
A network for giving and receiving support.
Optimism/hope/belief in the future.
Time for yourself.
Watch News.
Take courses.
Read Books.
Work on your growth mindset.
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 4 : time to renew your relationship
Being honest and congruent to your beliefs
When you’re trying your best to follow Islam and be a better Muslim, you will be very mindful of your actions. You are going to be careful about giving everybody their rights; that’s how relationships will improve.
Prioritize Allah in your life
Once you give everyone their rights, you’re going to be a happier person and everyone else is going to be happy with you because you’re giving them their God-given rights. Growing spiritually means correcting yourself, purifying your heart and changing your character to be a better person and being congruent with your beliefs. It means to be true to yourself and understanding who you are and what’s important to you. Congruence between your beliefs and your actions is what creates self-esteem. Acting against your beliefs leads to anxiety and guilt.
Beware of destroying your internal moral compass
There’s a correlation between happiness and the level of congruence between your beliefs and your actions. Be committed to gaining Islamic knowledge so that you’re always reminded of the consequences of your behavior and your choices.
Next, Initiate asking forgiveness from your spouse, putting your pride aside and making an effort for your marriage. Make eye contact with your spouse and ask for forgiveness for any hurtful words you may have said, any hurtful acts you may have done.
1. How can you improve spiritually?
2. List your behaviors that are not congruent to your beliefs.
3. Use the principle of pleasure and pain to motivate change and achieve congruence.
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 5 : Be mindful
Maturity is the ability to love unconditionally and to adjust to certain circumstances, people, and times when necessary. Emotionally mature people take full responsibility for their feelings, their reactions, and their lives.
Mindfulness is the watchfulness of our actions, It leads to a higher self.
When mindfulness and spirituality are practiced together, the amount of influence on maturity is significantly greater than the amount of mindfulness and spirituality each alone had on maturity.
The number one problem people have in their marriage is a lack of maturity & mindfulness. Regardless of how wise, fair, understanding, and educated a person is, they lose it as soon as they become angry.
Mindfulness is all about being in the present, engaged and attentive.
It’s about being, Attentive, Accepting, Appreciative, Affectionate, Allowing.
Attention:
Let’s be mindful in your relationship and shower your spouse with attention. Make eye contact, listen with your heart and let them feel your attentiveness.
Acceptance:
Accepting and loving the person as they are. Accepting their uniqueness by accepting their shortcomings. Continuous Criticism and comparison will make them feel suffocated. Show acceptance through your facial expressions, and also by listening to your spouse without criticizing or passing judgment.
Affection:
It means physical and emotional attachment. The key to showing affection to your spouse is finding out how they want to be loved.
Appreciation:
It is one of the most important human emotional needs. When your spouse feels appreciated they will be motivated to give you all their love. For every complaint, you need to balance it out with 5 compliments or words of appreciation.
Allowing:
Allowing is when you make your spouse feel safe enough to be themselves.
1. Write a list of areas in your relationship where you act immaturely.
2. Write 5A's and make a list of changes you need to make to improve your relationship.
first step towards a happily married life | personal development - 6 : beautiful inside and out
It is important to have an upright character to have a good marriage. Four characteristics that are pillars of a fulfilling marriage are:
Maturity
Maturity is the ability to love unconditionally and to adjust to certain circumstances, people, and times when necessary. Emotionally mature people take full responsibility for their feelings, their reactions, and their lives.
Some of the qualities of a mature person are:
1. They can keep long-term commitments.
2. They are unshaken by flattery or criticism.
3. They possess the spirit of humility.
4. Their decisions are based on character, not feelings.
5. They express gratitude consistently.
6. They know how to prioritize others before themselves.
7. They seek wisdom before acting.
Trust:
Trust means being open about your activities and whereabouts and not lying to your spouse. Once trust is broken, the marriage is heavily tested and can be destroyed.
Respect:
Respect means being respectful and worthy of respect. Interacting respectfully with your spouse builds a strong bond, mutual understanding, warmth, and compassion.
Love:
Love is a verb and it shows in behavior. When there is love, people tend to be more understanding, overlook the flaws and, empathize with their spouse.
If you have all four characteristics, maturity, trust, respect, and love, your marriage will be solid. If anyone, of the four, is missing, it will make the relationship less stable. It is possible to have 2 out of 4 characteristics and have a working marriage as long as you are working, to obtain the rest.
It is equally important to care about your appearance. Look your best.
When both husband and wife take care of themselves, It shows that they value the other person and want to look their best for each other.
Be realistic when setting workout goals and do it regularly. Allah loves consistent deeds.
Looks play a huge role in your self-confidence and feeling confident will affect every aspect of your life.
a) Write down three ways you can improve trust, love, and respect in your marriage:
1.
2.
3.
b) Write a list of areas in your relationship where you act immaturely.
1.
2.
3.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 1: restore your friendship
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Friendship is a purposeful act that occurs through an emotional and psychological connection, linking two people together. Developing a healthy relationship occurs when we show interest in our partner. “Developing and maintaining healthy friendships involves give-and-take. Sometimes you’re the one giving support, and other times you’re on the receiving end."
Love Map
Regularly updating love maps can be as simple as sitting down and catching up. Keeping your "love maps" updated helps you learn more about each other and yourself.
Couples with healthy love maps are in touch, not just with the outlines of each other's lives, but with each other's deepest longings, beliefs, and fears.
Conversations must reach beyond the superficial to sustain real understanding. Love maps should be both broad and deep so that you can hear and learn about your spouse.
Ask your spouse these questions to see how well you know them. Let them do the same and see how they score.
Love Map Exercise:
1. What are my spouse’s biggest achievements?
2. What are my spouse’s goals and dreams?
3. Who is their favourite family member?
4. Who is their best friend?
5. What stresses your partner right now?
6. What are your spouse's dislikes?
7. What are your spouse's hobbies?
8. What is one of your partner’s favourite ways to be soothed?
Trigger Points
Avoiding trigger points is a great way to avoid conflict. Trigger points are what sets your spouse off, all the things that make them angry or emotional. Once you know what their trigger points are, you can avoid them.
It’s also important to know your trigger points as well and work around them. Being sensitive to each other’s trigger points will strengthen your marriage by helping you avoid conflict. Through this knowledge, you will both strengthen your bond and protect it in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
Trigger Point Exercises:
Make a list of your spouse’s trigger points
Plan for ways to get around them.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 2: effective communication
Criticisms, defensiveness, silence, and feeling misunderstood are just a few signs of communication problems in a relationship. A lack of arguing isn't necessarily a sign that you're communicating well. Instead, it may mean you are holding back in order to avoid conflict.
The biggest communication problem is that we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply. To communicate effectively, you should pay attention to your body language and convey the same message both verbally and nonverbally. Don’t suppress your emotions; learn to communicate them effectively.
Try a few of these techniques:
Make sure you give your partner your full attention.
Be sure not to interrupt your partner.
Create a neutral environment.
Make eye contact with each other.
Use “I” statements when problems arise.
Communicate honestly with your spouse.
Talk about the little things.
Follow the 24-hour rule.
Make physical contact.
Make communication enjoyable.
Avoid being sarcastic or critical.
Refrain from attacking and blaming one another.
Repeat what they say.
Hopefully these techniques will help you communicate better. Let's take an example, your partner did something that was hurtful and wrong. Instead of going to them and fighting over it, look for a time when you both are in a good mood, generally mention that incident and say when this happened I felt a bit hurt. It felt a bit wrong to me. Focus on how you felt hurt instead of telling they how wrong they were. Don't blame them. This way they will realize their mistake and act carefully the next time.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 3: SPENDING MEANINGFUL QUALITY TIME TOGETHER
There is a difference between just spending time together and spending quality time together.
Quantity time is the amount of time spent between two people. It can involve working near each other, doing chores, reading in the same room as your partner is watching TV, etc.
Quality time is the undivided attention between two people to produce positive interactions. It is all about mindfully spending time together to show your appreciation & affection for each other, and increase connection and intimacy in your relationship. It means not just sitting in the same room at the same time, but actively choosing to make time for each other. It is important to make that distinction when looking at the time spent with your partner.
Most people believe that quality time is much more significant than quantity time for building healthy relationships, meaningful interactions and bonds.
Having quality conversations with your spouse is one way to improve your relationship. Quality conversation is when you can connect with a person without the fear of being judged, moralized, corrected and criticized. This kind of dialogue will make your spouse feel heard, understood, loved and valued.
Another way to improve your physical and emotional connections is when you synchronize your eating and sleeping schedules. Synchronizing your sleep schedule reduces distrust and suspicion. It also gives you shared closure for the day.
To have a good relationship, you need to be flexible and willing to compromise. Create a memory bank from which to draw later in life.
Write down some activities you and your spouse could do together to create a memory bank.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 4: BUILDING TRUST IN A REALTIONSHIP
BEING TRUSTWORTHY AND RELIABLE
Trust is a combination of moods and emotions, faith in our judgments, trust in others, and the ability to forgive when someone breaks an agreement. It is not possible, to build trust between two people if one is willing and the other is not. Two people sharing a successful relationship will demonstrate trust in many ways, including the following ways:
Listening and supporting each other.
Showing mutual respect for boundaries.
No matter what comes up you can feel safe.
A matchup between words and actions.
Not controlling or monitoring each other.
Having faith in each other no matter what.
Be completely honest with each other.
Be there when they need you.
Be consistent and committed.
Respond to their needs.
Follow through on promises.
Resolve issues as they happen.
Take responsibility for your actions.
When a couple has built a solid partnership on trust, they are free to be their authentic selves. Gaining trust takes time. Life is full of uncertainties. If you have been hurt, either in the past or with your spouse. You have to continue to trust yourself and trust your instincts. It is quite common for one person to transfer their lack of trust onto a spouse in fear that history will repeat itself. In the past, people around you have made a choice, but you can move forward and take responsibility for your happiness.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 5: re-establish respect
Re-Establish Respect
Healthy relationships are built on mutual respect, which you can exhibit through positive behaviors. Some of these are listening to your partner's feelings, honoring their boundaries, supporting their passions, and talking kindly about them to others.
When you respect someone, you hold them in high regard through your actions, behaviors, and words. To respect someone means to love them and give them space to be who they are.
Here are some ways to build respect in your relationship:
Be mindful of how you communicate.
Communication is one of the most important parts of a relationship, and one of the hardest. When you have respect in a relationship, you will always sit down and talk to each other about the problem you’re facing. Disrespect looks different for everyone. Give each other permission to open up freely, without judgment.
Don’t expect your partner to be a mind reader. If you’re upset, it’s important to talk openly about it. One of the most common reasons for separation and divorcing partners is the lack of communication or misinterpretation of their feelings, words, and actions.
Appreciate your differences
Do not try to change your partner or let them change you. Respect them for who they are. There will be differences but do not try to force your opinion on your spouse. Understand that you both can have a difference of opinion. Partners have different interests, passions, and hobbies. If your partner values something, it's important to respect that, even if you don't particularly enjoy it. Don’t criticize your partner for their ideas or interests. You can disagree with someone and still respect their opinion. Your partner can help you see the world from a new perspective.
Get to know yourself and your partner
In a relationship, you’re not just getting to know another person. You’re getting to know yourself too. Being in a relationship can help you figure out what you want and need from the people you are close to.
We can’t respect someone if we don’t understand where they come from. This is why it’s important to be patient with your partner and allow them to express themselves. Get to know their personality, as the more you know them, the more respect you will have for them.
If you sabotage your relationship at the very start by not allowing them to open up, by not giving them a chance to express their true self, you are just wasting time & energy.
Validate each other
Validation is one of the most important things couples can do for each other. Having your partner hear what you’re saying, appreciate you, and understand you, is a basic need for connection. It’s okay to disagree, as long as you can respect each other.
Don't be obsessed with winning
The compulsive need to be right can be incredibly destructive in a relationship. It creates fear and resentment between couples and will wear the relationship down over time. When couples respect each other, they can accept not being right in favour of maintaining a healthy balance. Successful couples have learned how to choose their battles knowing that being right sometimes doesn't matter as much as being close.
Be honest
The truth can be uncomfortable, but a couple that has mutual respect isn't afraid to put it out there. They can deal with the feelings of anger that might come from discussing harsh truths because they have the bigger picture in mind. If you want respect, then don’t be scared of the truth. Honesty in a relationship is extremely important because it is the fundamental thing that makes a person feel safe. Even if you think the truth will be hard for your partner to hear, they will appreciate it in the long run.
Do little things for each other
Small gestures carry a lot of weight, and for couples who have mutual respect, those small gestures are second-nature. A simple love note, a slightly longer hug or a goodbye kiss can make your spouse feel validated and appreciated.
Give one another space
It’s important to be supportive and engaged with your spouse. But you also can’t hover over them and try and solve all their problems for them. Couples who have mutual respect believe in each other’s strengths and have enough faith in each other to know when to step back and let them handle something on their own. They know when they need to let go of control and let their spouses figure things out for themselves.
Good models for their children
When couples have respect, they set good examples for their kids. They don’t argue in front of them or talk badly about the other person to the children or try and manipulate the children against the other.
Respect their feelings
You have to understand each other’s feelings. You have to respect opinions and look after each other’s emotions. Work together and find common ground to respect emotional values. You have to accept and respect the fact that you and your partner are two different people with individual differences.
Respect them as an individual
The bare minimum threshold for respect in a relationship is that you have to respect your partner for being a human. Treat your partner with the amount of respect you will want any other human being to give you.
If one of these is missing, you’ll likely have a hard time overcoming this issue in the future, and it might be a good time to sit down and address how you feel about showing respect in relationships.
Appreciate your spouse
Nothing beats encouraging words from your Spouse. Respect in a relationship can either make or break one’s confidence and self-esteem. How you treat your spouse will influence how well they do in life.
Support your spouse
Mutual respect in a relationship is important for both partners because It means that they have their biggest support right by their side. Respect your partner, and you will see how he/she will have your back all the time. It’s a great, reassuring feeling to know the love of your life is there to back you up and help you at any time.
Respecting your partner will improve your sex life
Nothing better than making love to a confident person who feels valued and appreciated. They are not afraid to open up and share what they want in bed. They will only do this if they feel respected and loved. The overall quality of your relationship will improve, and this includes a better sex life too.
Respect and relationships come hand in hand for some, while others have a hard time respecting each other. Maybe they came from a dysfunctional family or they have been abused and feel abandoned. Whatever the reason, whether it’s past trauma in relationships or just a lack of social skills, respect in a relationship can be built if there is a willingness to change and grow.
Self-centeredness is not a desirable characteristic in humans, and those who can’t see further than themselves are usually the ones who end up alone.
Consider the following questions:
What does respect mean to you? Your partner?
If you have different definitions, how will you manage this?
What are your boundaries? What are your partners?
Do you feel comfortable opening up to your partner about your feelings?
What are clear signs of respect and disrespect? Discuss specific examples.
What happens if a partner is disrespectful? How will you handle this?
What behaviour is considered non-negotiable?
What are you willing to compromise on?
Which qualities complement your own?
What are the core values that you can’t compromise on?
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 6: explore your love languages
The original concept of love languages was developed by Gary Chapman, Ph.D., in his book The Five Love Languages. Discover your spouse's love language and get to know them a bit better.
Words of Affirmation
This love language is all about verbal acknowledgments of affection. When this is your love language, compliments, words of appreciation, encouragement, and frequent text messages. They value verbal acknowledgments of affection.
Quality Time
This love language is all about spending time together.
People whose love language is quality time feel the most loved when their spouse actively spends time with them and has meaningful conversations. This love language is about giving your undivided attention to your spouse, without any distraction.
Acts of Service
If acts of service are your love language, You prefer acts of affirmation, including small acts of kindness such as doing chores around the house.
If your love language is acts of service, you value when your spouse goes out of their way to make your life easier.
Receiving Gifts
This love language means that the individual feels loved when people give gifts. It's not about the monetary value but the thought behind the gift. People whose love language is receiving gifts enjoy being gifted something meaningful. The key is to give meaningful things that matter to them.
Physical Touch
This love language is expressed by physical affection. These individuals feel the most loved with physical gestures, like hand-holding. They value the feeling of warmth and comfort that comes with physical touch.
Physical touch is the love language that you should be most mindful of if you and your partner differ in your preferences. People with physical touch as their love language feel loved when they receive physical signs of affection, including kissing, holding hands and cuddling on the couch. Physical intimacy and touch can be incredibly affirming and serve as a powerful emotional connector.
Second step towards a happily married life | building trust & understanding - 7: dont let anger control you
Anger is often confused with aggression. It is important to note that the two experiences are quite different. Anger is the mild frustration one might feel when someone forgets to fulfil any commitment. People get angry under predictable circumstances when faced with situations that they see as unpleasant and unfair.
Aggression, meanwhile, is a behavior where the intention is to harm someone or something. Aggression can be physical, such as hitting, slapping, or pushing someone. It can also be verbal, such as name-calling, the use of foul language, or other sorts of insults.
One of the most common misconceptions about anger is that it is damaging. Anger is a valuable emotion as it helps people confront injustice. Anger motivates us to respond to confrontation and unfairness.
The best way to express anger is usually through prosocial, problem-solving behavior. In other words, the best approach is usually to try and resolve the issue that caused the anger.
The way people process and express their anger varies from person to person. All of these can appear at different times and for different reasons.
Righteous ( I am right, you are wrong)
Some are always MR. Right. It is often an ego-driven feeling. It can escalate quickly into throwing past arguments and mistakes as ways to hurt each other.
The feeling of outrage (How could you?)
The underlying message is that the other person feels bad for whatever they said as the victim did not deserve this behavior.
Revenge (You will pay for that!)
Often, this shows up as You are going to pay for that! or I will remember this and get you back. or you may forgive the other person, but you will never forget it.
Distraction or Deflection
It is a way to get out of taking responsibility for your actions by diverting the attention to something else. It may also show up as an extreme of saying something like “You never trust me”.
Justification (You had it coming!)
It is another form of blaming someone else for your emotions.
Short Tempered
The Short-tempered is someone who goes from stimulus to expression very quickly. On the plus side, this can mean that they don’t shy away from discussing a problem immediately. But they may not have time to feel all their feelings and might get angrier if their partner isn’t ready to talk it out yet. People tend to have a shorter fuse when they are under more stress in their overall life.
The Anger-Provoker
The anger provoker seems to embrace anger and conflict, firing off snappy comebacks and personal attacks to provoke the person. This anger style is usually symptomatic of a highly stressful and traumatic life.
They grew up in a family where anger was the most common emotion expressed, or they may have been bullied at school.
Here are some tips for managing anger more constructively:
As mentioned earlier, anger can be a helpful emotion only if you make it so. If you let your anger take control of you, it takes a toll on your mental health and makes you do and say things you regret later.
You can choose to take control and use this emotion productively. Here are a few tips for anger management.
-Consider anger as a symptom:
Remember that anger is a symptom of other underlying issues. Try to understand what your anger is communicating to you. For instance, you might be upset because of a sarcastic remark your partner made five minutes ago. Try to understand where your anger is coming from and take corrective steps.
-Reflect on your thoughts:
Have you ever felt upset at your partner for no reason at all? Maybe unhelpful, negative thoughts were running in your head that caused anger. If you feel angry without reason, try to observe your thoughts and get rid of the negative ones.
-Use relaxation techniques to reduce stress:
When you’re in a fit of rage, it’s easy to become tense and irrational. Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, stretching, walking, and progressive muscle relaxation can help you become grounded and calm down.
-Accept responsibility for your actions:
It’s equally possible that you’re at fault too. Examine the situation closely and identify where you might have messed things up. Acknowledge and accept responsibility for your actions. Apologize to your partner for the mistakes you made.
When things have cooled down a bit, sit down together and discuss how both of you can avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.
-Do not give advice:
Another big mistake many of us make in relationships is offering advice when the other person is angry. You might do it with the best intentions, but it doesn’t help your partner and only adds to their frustration. You should listen to and accept their anger as it is.
-Changing your environment:
Sometimes our immediate surroundings give us cause for irritation and fury. Give yourself a break. Make sure you have some personal time scheduled.
-Changing your Timing:
If you frequently argue with your spouse at night, maybe because you're tired, or distracted. Try changing the times you discuss important matters so these talks don't become arguments.
-Avoidance:
If something makes you furious every time you walk by it, then don’t look at what infuriates you. The point is to keep yourself calm.
If you find yourself getting angry easily, learn anger management techniques to help calm yourself down. If you’re on the receiving end of an angry partner, keep in mind what you should and shouldn’t do. With a better understanding of anger, you and your partner can experience better physical and mental health.
Try writing down the things that frustrate you. It can be challenging to sit through anger and feel the emotions it evokes, which is why journaling can be a helpful way to process the anger and the emotions it evokes.