Tools Every Young Couple Needs for a Successful Relationship

Photo Credit: Austin ampersand Zak

The Marry Blogger is a great guy with a great blog on, what else, marriage. Recently, our posts seemed to complement each other. He wrote about the amazing marriage milestones he had recently witnessed. At the same time, I was dispelling the idea that your marriage can survive using the same tools your grandparents used.

The Marry Blogger asked in the comments of my post what some of the tools were that relationships of today needed, and I’m going to “merrily” (I crack myself up) answer that question now.

• Active Listening – Oh my goodness, if there was a skill I could magically give every couple it’s this one. The ability to not just hear the sound waves that your partner is emitting, but to actually LISTEN and COMPREHEND and UNDERSTAND what your partner is saying. Active listening is staying engaged with what your partner is saying, NOT planning how to respond to what you THINK your partner will say. Active listening is repeating back to your partner what you heard so that you know you’re talking about the same thing. Active listening is being open and available for your partner, without the defensiveness and stonewalling that normally happens.
• Community – Very few of us have roots. We grew up in one town, went to college in another, and started our careers in yet another. Our constant moving means that no matter where we are we feel like ‘outsiders’. Unfortunately, belonging to a community is insanely important to our well-being. We were designed for community. Part of what makes marriage so attractive is that community, the belief that this person will be a constant, a family for life. What makes it difficult, though, is that we now expect to have all of our social support provided by this one person. This is not realistic. Or healthy. Together join a community, whether it is a church, a wine tasting club, or simply making a point to find friends so that your relationship won’t be overly burdened with each other’s social needs.
• Fight Regularly – It is absolutely essential that married people today fight and fight regularly. Our grandparents “never fought a day in their life” because there wasn’t a point. You were going to stay married no matter what so fighting was useless. Divorce is a reality for us, and we need to quit acting like it isn’t (hello, “Divorce is not in my vocabulary” people). People get divorced for tons of reasons (finances, sex, parenting, etc.), and the underlying problem is that many of us are so terrified of conflict that we hold it in. We hate the idea of “rocking the boat”. We hold it in until we get so fed up that we blow up. Hello, Jon Gosselin. Once we reach that point we aren’t able or willing to work on what used to be a small issue. Learn to fight regularly so that those small conflicts don’t turn into massive deal breakers.

Those are just a few of the tools the modern marriage needs to succeed today.