Marriage prep pop quiz

Question: When is the best time for a couple to start preparing for married life?

A: Before getting married.B: After getting married.C: Who needs preparation? Just take each day as it comes.

While we would agree that having the skills and attitude to “take each day as it comes” is valuable, we think that any couple wanting a happy, fulfilling relationship has one answer — A. Prepare for married life BEFORE you get married.

An article in Time magazine reminded us that many couples–and perhaps you’re one of them–focus only on the wedding before they get married and are a bit flummoxed after the nuptial adrenaline wears off. According to “Postnuptial Depression: What Happens the Day After“:

“Postnuptial depression may not be a clinical diagnosis, but it has entered the lexicon of marriage in the past few years, and newly hitched couples will tell you it’s real. The blues typically hit early in married life, psychiatrists say, as newlyweds begin recognizing that expectations of how their partner or relationship will change postwedding are unrealistic. Worse, once the Big Day has come and gone, couples are forced to step out of their much-cherished and often long-lived ‘bride and groom’ spotlight and just get on with real life.”

Although planning for your wedding can be fun, so can planning for your life together. What better way can you truly spend an afternoon than in having an honest, intimate conversation with your lover talking about your visions for your life and what’s most sacred to you about the connection you have?

We’re not saying that you need to pop your party balloons or ditch your dates with caterers or florists — having a wonderful wedding day is a great way to celebrate your love. We simply invite you to consider what’s more important (and therefore what most deserves your time and attention) — one awesome day or one lifetime of meaningful memories. Once you know the answer to that question, you’ll ace the marriage prep pop quiz for sure!

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Marriage — Is it about you, me, or we?

An article from the New York Times recently got Bruce and me talking about “who” a good marriage benefits. Do you think a happy, sustainable marriage is good for you? How about for your spouse? Does it do you both good? Gather your initial thoughts then read the original article on marriage research. Then you and your mate might want to each take the Sustainable Marriage Quiz and see how you evaluate your own partnership.

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Keeping Marriage Good for Your Health

A New York Times article titled “Is marriage good for your health?” recently caught my attention. It detailed the history of research into the effects of marriage on personal health as well as some of the most recent findings, such as:

couples who were more negative and hostile when they argued or discussed contentious topics had the weakest immune-systems during the research periodthe most hostile couples (during arguments) had wounds (skin wounds inflicted for the study) that took two days longer to heal than those of “couples who had showed less animosity while fighting”divorced or widowed people had worse health than people who had been always been single

So the question is, how do you create and maintain a marriage that benefits your health? Here are a few tips that we’ve seen work over the years.

Prepare for a healthy marriage. While it may sound obvious, many couples don’t build a strong foundation of love, support, and partnership before they tie the knot. Using tools like the Marriage Vow Workbook can help you put your relationship on strong footing before you head down the aisle.Learn to communicate effectively. Again this seems like common sense to most people, yet few take the time to actually do it. Whether you see a counselor, take communication classes, or use books like Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, find tools to help you and your partner communicate with compassion and honesty.Take time to heal wounds you inflict on each other. No matter how good our intentions or developed our skills, we will do things that are unloving and harmful to each other. Practice forgiveness and other ways of healing old hurts rather than letting them fester. Based on the research it seems this will be good for your physical health and well as the future success of your marriage.

Do you have specific ways you keep your marriage healthy? If so, we’d love to have your comments. Let’s learn from each other and make all our relationships even better.

“If you learn to how to manage disagreement early, then you can avoid the decline in marital happiness that follows from the drip, drip of negative interactions.”

~ Linda J. Waite, University of Chicago sociologist and an
author of one of the studies cited in the NYT article

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Marriage Vows And Wedding Vows

Offers Marriage Vows And Wedding Vows For Couples Getting Married. 50% Payout.

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