I found an article by Nicole Yorio titled, “Four Secrets to Having a Spectacular Marriage.” She writes about Terri L. Orbuch, Ph.D., who followed 373 couples for over 22 years as part of a marriage study funded by the National Institutes of Health. I thought that since the chapter this week talked about spousal abuse, it would be nice to know how to make a marriage work. The first secret that Yorio talks about is to understand each other’s needs. If we understand what the other person wants then we can learn to do those things, so that way they can be happy also. The second secret is to show him some love. Yorio states, “Husbands whose wives give them affirmation…are twice as likely to describe themselves as happily married.” My only problem with this is that it should say, “Show each other some love,” but I guess it is easier to show women love. Terri says that men may need more affection than women. The third secret is to take ten. Meaning, we should take ten minutes a day to talk about anything. The only rule is that you can’t talk about kids, responsibility or chores. I think that this is harder for men than women, because my husband doesn’t really talk to me about personal things. I think that he is embarrassed about what he wants to talk about, but all I want is to know what he is thinking. The fourth secret is to focus on the good. This is a no-brainer. If we constantly are focusing on the bad then we won’t want to talk to each other anymore. Orbuch says that we need to look at it as if we were weighing our interactions on a scale. If we want to be happier then the positive needs to outweigh the negative. I think that this is very good advice because I think couples today tend to focus on the negative aspects of a relationship and they think, “Well, if this doesn’t work out at least we can get a divorce.” That is not the answer. Couples need to learn to understand each other and learn about each other. This way they can live happily ever after. At least most of the time.
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