5 More Love + Marriage Lessons

Last week, I shared five love lessons I’d learned by my fifth wedding anniversary. Today I’m back with five more marriage lessons, from the perspective of (almost) 10 years of marriage.

1. Relationships ebb and flow. They change over time and we must be willing to accept and flow with them. Somehow Brian and I knew this before we got married. At our wedding, our friend Connie read from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, which explains this phenomenon better than I can:

When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom…
…Relationships must be like islands. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits—islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

2. All marriages take work. In case you still believe in happily ever afters, let me disabuse you of that notion. After 10 years of marriage, I can safely say that there is no such thing. That’s not to say that you can’t have a happy, healthy, fulfilling marriage; I believe you can.

However, life requires constant learning and adaptation from us. In relationships, that growth and change is multiplied because there are two or more people involved.

A while ago, I wrote about fixed vs growth mindsets. One of the hallmarks of a fixed mindset is the belief that things should come easily and so folks with fixed mindsets may give up an imperfect relationship, thinking it or their partner is irreparably flawed, instead of working to solve any problems.

Five years ago I would have told you that nobody was perfect, but someone might be perfect for you. These days, I’m not sure I even buy the perfect-for-you ideal. We humans are imperfect beings and thus our relationships are imperfect as well. A better question is: Is your relationship worth the work?

3. You have to show up. Both parties to a relationship have to be willing to show up and do the work. Neither can make it—and in this case, I’m talking marriages, friendships, or any other kind of partnerships—work alone.

Showing up begins by making time for each other. Even when life becomes hectic or stressful, you can’t be on the same page if you’re not writing in the same book.

Just like the ebb and flow mentioned above, sometimes one partner may pull more weight (or in a different form) than the other. Maybe one is primarily in charge of the home life while the other is building a business but, for the relationship to work, both parties have to prioritize the relationship in the way they can at the time.

Another facet of “showing up” is that each of you is individually responsible for cultivating your own mental health so you can bring your best to the relationship. You are not responsible for your mate’s peace, happiness, or self-esteem, just showing up and contributing to the relationship in the best way you can.

4. Be kind. Of course, showing up is easier when you see the good in your partner. That, too, is a choice. All people have good and bad in them. It’s your choice whether you see your partner’s foibles as amusing quirks or annoying eccentricities.

When you chose your mate, you saw the good in him/her. Barring any enormous changes in character or the introduction of significant new information, that good is still there. If you want to be a marriage master, Psychologist John Gottman says kindness is one of two essential choices. Generosity is the other.

“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have,” Dr. Gottman explains, “which is this: they are scanning the social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes.”

Other ways to practice kindness include:

• Respecting your partner for who s/he is
• Prioritizing your partner’s happiness equally to your own (even if you’re not responsible for it)
• Forgoing game playing and mind trips
• Refusing to push buttons
• Trusting your partner and acting worthy of his/her trust
• Assuming s/he has the best intentions
• Fighting fairly

5. Learn their love language. After listing all of my hard-won marriage lessons above, I feel like this last one is almost a cheap trick because I got it from Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages. However, #5 wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think the message was important.

Dr. Chapman’s work outlines five ways that you might prefer to express or receive love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. While most of us appreciate all of these exchanges, we generally prefer one or two over the others. Brian and I took Dr. Chapman’s online quiz and it helped us better understand each other and our relationship needs.

Let me give you an example: My top two love languages are quality time and receiving gifts. If you know me well, you could probably guess that because I love quality time with my husband and close friends and I’m generally known as a good gift buyer among friends and family. However, until I took Dr. Chapman’s quiz and discussed the findings with Brian, I had trouble explaining why thoughtful gifts are important to me.

Brian sees stuff as stuff. He didn’t realize that I put such emphasis on the thought behind gifts and so, when he gave me something bought last minute or with little thought, my feelings were hurt.

By the same token, Brian’s top love languages are quality time—which works well for us—and a second-place tie between words of affirmation and physical touch. Thus I make sure to praise and touch him often. Although acts of service are less important to us both, we both still practice them by cooking meals and taking out the trash (him) and washing laundry and dishes (me).

So there you have it, five more love and marriage lessons I’ve learned from being married almost 10 years. If you like this post, please like it or share it.

For more love and marriage lessons, check out Marc and Angel’s 20 Habits Happy Couples Have (But Never Talk About.)

Cheers,