New News

My friends Ashley and Craig share one of their tips for staying happily married in Ashley's words:

"The first couple months of our marriage my husband would ask me if he was still "new news". I realized this was important to him to feel special and loved and I began to make more of an effort to treat him like I did when we were newly engaged. I did this by greeting him when he got home with a hug, kiss, and big smile! By listening attentively to his interests (even when they are technology related and way over my head). Also, I treat him like new news by still kissing him a lot. Craig treats me like new news by bringing me home a treat he got at the store or at work, contacting me during the day to see how I am doing, and letting me plan our weekends. Treating each other like new news has helped us to stay in love and honestly we fall more and more in love all the time."

One Dozen Years Married Together

Today we happily celebrate 12 years married together. We never regretted our decision to get married together. By getting married together in the Latter-day Saint temple, we invited God to help us in our marriage. I recently taught this concept in simple terms to children. I asked them, "who knows you better than you know yourself?" The answer, "God". Then I asked, "Who will know your future spouse better than anybody else?". The answer was again, "God". Then, I asked, "So, if you fall in love with somebody and want to get married and stay married, then,  wouldn't it make sense to invite God to help you in your marriage?". They understood this idea. Then, I mentioned that anybody can ask for help in their relationships with anybody and especially in their marriage. However, if you are married in the temple, then, God promises to help at all times. So, if you love somebody enough to live together, or enough to get married, then why not do it the way God intended, so He can best help you stay married happily. Also, this is the way to be married forever, even after death.

I can think of a time in our marriage, when I wasn't happy with Ryan. I prayed to figure out what to do. I had the prompting from the words of a song sung at church, "In the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye can't see". Then, I realized he must be hurting for some reason, so I approached him much more kindly than I would have. I couldn't have really known about his hurt, without God's help, because Ryan probably was only vaguely aware of it himself. So, I'm grateful to an all-knowing God for teaching me that lesson.

Mother's Day Marriage Musings

On Mother's Day I compared notes with a friend of mine about our mother's day experience. Her husband had bought some presents and was getting ready to cook dinner for her. I thought that sounded like a nice mother's day.
Then, I happened to chat with this friend's husband a few minutes later. He was feeling horrible, because he had forgotten to fix breakfast for his wife. She had had to make it. He was nervous about making dinner, wondering if he'd give anybody food poisoning. I laughed at that part. He was totally focused on helping his wife have a good day, even though it hadn't started great.

This couple has been married close to 30 years. So, I thought maybe I could learn something from them. They'd had the same experience, but they looked at it differently. The husband was recognizing his mistake with breakfast and trying to reconcile by making the rest of the day better. The wife had chosen to look at the positive side of the day, by focusing on what could happen, instead of what did not happen. The husband had bought the presents ahead of time and was willing to tackle the dinner that he really did not feel confident about, just because he thought his wife would like it. I hope their special day ended well.

It seems to me that if we look for the positive things our spouse is doing and sacrifice our comfort zone to help our spouse, then hopefully our marriage can last 30 years and still be strong.

Money, Money, Money - Family economics

We've talked a lot about the impact of healthy marriages on people, but they also have a huge impact on the economy and economic well-being of families. We recently encountered a study that details just how big an impact, and for how long the connection has been known. It's super-long, super-detailed, and cites several dozen earlier studies. We've pulled some highlights for the impatient:

• Multiple studies show that married men have 20-30% higher income than their single peers, with the effect strongest for low-income and at-risk demographics.
• A stay-at-home mom has such a strong economic impact on the family that she would have to earn $120,000/year or more to break even working full time outside the home.
• Married couples file less than half of all income-tax returns, [but] they pay nearly three-quarters of all income taxes paid by the American people.
• It can be argued that the continuing housing market downturn is at least partly due to the fact that single parents (an increasing fraction of all parents) are drastically less likely to qualify for a mortgage, driving real estate demand downward.
• Two-thirds of children born out of wedlock live in poverty at any given time, compared with only 12% of those born to married couples. A child born and raised out of wedlock can expect to spend at least 50% of childhood living below poverty level vs. only 7% for a child of married parents.
• the English term economy originates from the Greek word, oikos, which means household
• Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville both wrote that the strength of the American economy (vs. that of Britain) was partly due to the colonists marrying younger and having more children than their British counterparts

The Kind Words You Say

The Kind Words You Say Can In Memory Lay and Sunshine Forever Impart...

I was just watching an old classic movie, "Johnny Lingo". There's a father that is so mean to his daughter. He always calls her ugly and treats her like she is worthless. The daughter believes him... until one day. The richest man on the island wants to marry her. He offers her the biggest dowry anybody on the island has ever heard of. He tells her how beautiful and wonderful she is. She becomes beautiful and wonderful. It is a cute story.

It's so true in real life. If we treat our spouse how we want them to become, they will become that. We can hurt or help our spouse just by how we talk to them. Let's all say lots of nice things today and always to our spouse. That's the happy way.
 I love Johnny Lingo. You can see what else I wrote about it here

Let Your Spouse Be Who They Are

My friends Craig and Ashley are happy to share what works in their marriage. They have been married over a year and a half. Ashley comments:

"My husband Craig thanks me all the time for "letting him be him". This approach helps us be happy. Early in our relationship when I would make cookies or muffins, as soon as the timer would beep Craig would rush over to the oven with me and as I was pulling out the tray he would grab one of the treats... I would get so frustrated telling him he needed to wait so I could see which one was ugliest and have him take that one in case I was giving the treats away to family or friends. Wow, pretty rude of me. My husband deserves the best, he deserves to get first pick. I changed my way of thinking and grew to love the fact that he wanted one of my baked goods as soon as it came out of the oven! Sometimes now I even tell him, I'm about to get the tray out of the oven, come pick one. This is an example of me letting him be him, letting him live true to himself and not trying to boss him around."

Ryan laughed after reading this. He said maybe I should just let you eat the cooked meat straight out of the frying pan from now on. I said, "Yes, I think that's a great idea!"
We are talking about letting your spouse be who they are in the little things that really don't matter in the end. We are not talking about things that are inherently right or wrong. 

So, how can you let your spouse be who they are?

Science behind a happy relationship

Courtesy of Happify: