Even though I am not married I feel that this is good advice to have going into any relationship. When looking at my parent’s marriage and how they interact with one another, I feel that communication isn’t their strong suit. Though they’ve been together for almost 20 years, I don’t think try to put much effort into their marriage anymore and just sort of go through the motions, which is the case for a lot of people. A lot of people I know have parents that are divorced or they have been divorced themselves and it seems more and more common. Many of my friends now are 20-25 and already getting married for numerous reasons, but a lot of those unions seems rushed. With divorce becoming more common and a lot of outside influences from social media, couples focus more on “keeping up with appearances” rather than focusing on the little things in their marriage that you mentioned. Out of this list I think “Laugh Together” is probably the most important to me, because you can never take each other too seriously.

I agree with all of these fundamentals for having a strong marriage although everyone has a different personality that wouldn’t require half of these essentials in a relationship. If I had to choose three fundamental secrets to keeping a strong marriage they would be communication, happiness, and laughter. The reason I chose these three are because they are what create and allow the interest between the relationships to last. I didn’t choose love because I feel that the love should be effortless and natural; instead of trying to force and portray your feelings towards another person. And finding happiness with oneself allows nothing but positivity for the future of a relationship. Being able to understand one another falls under the category of communication, as one is able to “read” the other persons mind without them saying anything. Although, there may be a disagreement with my three fundamentals for having a strong marriage, people have different personalities that require different needs and wants.

I will start off by saying everything listed hear is such great advice, it seems simple yet many couples have a hard time following through with it all. I would like to add that I have been mostly happily married for almost 10 years now (10 years in August =]). All of these points play hand in hand, especially learning to communicate with each other and having fair fights. Without knowing how to have a mature conversation and LISTENING to one another it will be hard to communicate or compromise. Laughter never gets old and it is important to laugh together about anything. Also, by building a relationship based on compromise and communication, it contributes to a healthy YOU and ultimately a healthy marriage by keeping both partners engaged with others as it does get boring when it’s just you and your spouse spending every moment together. Personally I know its not a bad thing, as a mom to 4, going to school, with a husband who works 40+ hours, I enjoy every moment I can get ALONE with my husband, and he enjoys it as well because we both can enjoy drinking a beer together or watching a movie because it is so rare to get time alone with just us. The most important thing I take away from this is compromise, it’s not about you or them losing something, its about 2 people working together to make sure both parties are genuinely happy. It took us 5 years to get to where we are today (but I am sure having kids immediately after marrying made it just a bit more challenging) and we follow this philosophy to ensure we are both happy and want to look forward to many more decades together. This may not work for all, for example my parents had a ‘toxic’ marriage and are still together, fighting and arguing, but they do have moments where they don’t completely despise each other. For any couple of any age soon to be married or just contemplating the idea of marriage, this is something to learn and live by.