The basics of marriage improvement
Consider the fact that you could have an absolutely delightful marriage. So, it’s sort of silly to settle for a mediocre one. All it takes is changing some mindsets and studying the greatest marriage manual of all time. So, let’s begin to study the basics of marriage improvement.
Sit down and decide that you are going to figure out how to improve your marriage. Keep in mind that you may have to change some of your mindsets.
The greatest marriage manual is the Holy Bible. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus commanded us to love your neighbour as yourself. Your closest neighbour is your spouse. So, be as kind and unselfish to your spouse as you would be to yourself. Matthew 5:16 says Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven. So, you want your marriage to be so delightful that your neighbours will think, “I want what they have.”
Ephesians 4:26 says Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Work out your differences before you go to sleep.
Reading the Bible out loud together daily can help you discover those verses that will help send your marriage to a new level.
High stress & serious health issues
Dr. Caroline Leaf says, “Thoughts do cause illness … . They have the power to make us sick.” Read that web page. If you are causing your spouse stress, you could be making them very sick.
The most important concept I took away from my university Industrial Relations course was as follows. Negative emotions can reduce a person’s ability to think logically. So, not only can high stress product health problems. High stress can reduce your ability to do your job well and make money.
Consideration & respect
If you paraphrase 1 Peter 3:7, it says Husbands, treat your wives with consideration & respect so that your prayers will not go unanswered. Change a mindset. You and your spouse should both agree to try to treat each other with consideration and respect at all times. Then the quality of your marriage can shoot through the roof.
Learn your spouse’s love languages. It will help you to treat them with consideration & respect.
Money
Money issues is one of the big three problem areas that destroy marriages. (The other two are communication & sex.) If money is a problem, decide that you are going to just figure out how to solve the problem. Be realistic. If self employed, it may be unrealistic for you or your spouse to earn more. In that case, you have to figure out how to spend less.
Some cities have free credit counselling services. Search online for: [your city] credit counselling services. You may find a website such as this one belonging to the Credit Counselling Society.
They will give you very valuable little tricks for removing the stress from your money management issues. That will include a suggestion that you make a spreadsheet of your monthly budget. After one month, you may be shocked at how much you are spending on some of those categories such as eating out.
Your spreadsheet will have two sections. The top one will have one line for each expense. The bottom line will subtract your total expenses from your total income to give you closing cash.
The second section of your spreadsheet will have a number of categories. These are the categories that may have more that one entry per month. The running total of each category will be automatically added to the top section.
At the end of each of the first few months sit down and calmly discuss how the expenses can be reduced. Be open to changing your mindsets. Changing your mindsets can be a first step towards marriage improvement.
Summing up
In this blog post we have discussed a few marriage improvement issues that can change your marriage from mediocre to delightful. Remember these points:
- Be open to changing some mindsets.
- Read the Bible together.
- Decide that you are going to figure out how to improve your marriage.
- Wherever possible, remove the stress from your marriage.
- Always treat each other with consideration & respect.
- Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
- Calmly discuss your differences as soon as reasonable.
- Make a monthly spreadsheet of your income & expenses.
- Stress can cause health problems and reduce your ability to earn money.