In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
Marriage is not the fairytale you’ve been dreaming of. Best friend or not, sooner or later, you’re going to notice all the little flaws and annoying habits of your spouse. You’re not exempt either, they will come to know yours as well. You’ll notice quite quickly that day to day married life doesn’t look anything quite like all those lovely curated social media pictures. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying marriage isn’t filled with joy or that you shouldn’t be happy, sappy and romantic with your spouse. I’m simply saying, we have to acknowledge that it’s completely normal to have bad days as well. Anything with true value takes time, effort and commitment and that includes marriage.
In our society today, we want what we want, how we want it and when we want it. We want things to come preassembled, delivered right to us and quickly! When things turn out to be difficult or not exactly how we envisioned, we want to discard or return it and get something different. Marriage doesn’t work like that. You’re bound to find out quite quickly that as you and your spouse get more comfortable with one another, you let your true self shine through – the good, the bad and everything in between. The whole entire person. You have to be able to focus on the good and support one another in replacing the bad. You have to be able to accept and love your spouse as they are, not how you wish they were. The good thing is you can expect the same from them. You’ll grow together and build a beautiful life. Marriage requires hard work.
Don’t get me wrong, marriage is truly beautiful. It’s a labor of love as one would call it. When I say hard work, I don’t mean the stuff that you dread doing or the stuff that makes you start filling out new applications. I’m talking about the everyday effort that comes as a part of your journey in learning your spouse and learning you. Let’s face it, figuring out our own selves is tough and takes time – add to that, figuring out another person… That’s a tall mountain we’re climbing. But once we get to the top, we’ll get to enjoy the beautiful view, the feeling of accomplishment and you’ll have a wonderful partner beside you.
When you put in the time and effort and you don’t shy away from the struggles, you’ll eventually reach a place where most of the work feels effortless. Not that it won’t require giving from yourself but you’ll do it with love and joy and it’ll hardly feel like work. Most of the tough stuff is the daily practice that is required to build a great marriage. The little tasks that make or break relationships. Things like improving the way we communicate, making sure we are showing love according to our spouses love language, and expressing gratitude for one another. If you keep practicing each day, eventually you’ll get pretty close to mastery.
10 Things To Practice Daily For a Happy & Thriving Marriage:
1. Praying together (and for one another).
I am in full agreement with whoever says that couples who pray together are the ones who stay together. Praying together as a family is one very important indication that you have, at least to some degree, chosen to prioritize Allah in your marriage and in your life, with your life partner. Even if you are only able to pray one daily prayer with your spouse, make it a habit and never let it go. It can be tough to keep up with that habit when you’re upset with one another as well but this is potentially one of the more important times to be rock solid with this habit.
We also need to make sure we’re praying for our spouse. We are probably familiar with how the angels say ‘ameen and upon you as well’ when we make du’a for a person without them knowing. When there are certain things we are having trouble accepting about our spouse or perhaps they are struggling with some bad habit, this is a perfect opportunity to pray for them. But don’t only pray about their mistakes or things you don’t like, pray for all the good things you’d love for them to have – Allah’s happiness, acceptance into paradise, etc. It doesn’t hurt to ask our spouse to pray for us as well although most likely, they already are.
2. Effective communication.
Effective communication is a steep topic. It is so crucial for pretty much every aspect of our lives. In a previous post, I honed in on having difficult conversations, one aspect of effective communication, as one of seven necessary skills to have as a married person (ideally before marriage). There are so many aspects of being an effective communicator that are important to develop to create an epic marriage! I think the key here, to sum it up, is to make sure you are consciously being aware of the mistakes and bad habits you have when it comes to communication and practicing on a daily basis to improve in this arena.
It’s important for us to keep in mind that communication isn’t just about the words that we are speaking, it has a lot to do with our tone of voice and body language. In order to have effective communication, you must work on the full package! One way that is helpful to gain insight on where we could use a little improvement (and it also let’s our spouse know that we are putting in some hard work) is to simply ask our spouse to give us some feedback on how they feel about our communication with them.
3. Active listening.
Obviously active listening is a part of effective communication but I felt like it deserves its own category as well. Even when we are able to convey our own messages perfectly well, it can be hard to simply listen to others. Truly listening and letting your spouse know that they are being heard goes a long way in making them feel cared for and validated within your marriage. It also shows that you respect your spouse and value what they have to say.
When we take the time to actually listen to our spouse, whether we agree with what they’re saying or not, we are much better equipped to work toward being on the same page. Not only will you more fully understand your spouses point of view, you’ll be able to understand more about how they’re feeling about that and also what they’re expecting from you. This way, even if you disagree, your spouse will still feel heard and understood. When you are able to get a little deeper than just hearing the words from someone, it helps build a stronger bond and actually it greatly affects the way you communicate.
4. Skillful negotiation.
I was listening to a video on Youtube from the channel ‘The Parenting Junkie’ and Avitol was talking about how most people talk about how marriage requires compromise but she rathers the idea of negotiation. I loved her perspective on that – think about it, when we feel forced to compromise, we oftentimes aren’t fully satisfied with the results. That’s because we’re having to give up, even just a small portion, of what we feel strongly about. If this happens often enough or about important things, it is easy to feel bitter and let resentment build up.
When we choose to negotiate instead, that is when we work with one another through meaningful dialogue and active listening, to provide the information necessary to allow our spouse to come to see things our way or perhaps for us to see things their way. Yes, this still means that some of the time we won’t be doing things in the way we had originally decided but unlike when we compromise, we are choosing to take a different route because we have decided it to be a better alternative for the given circumstance. Unlike compromise, we are making a choice from a place of information and power rather than giving up on something we feel strongly about.
5. Being vulnerable.
When we are with our spouse, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable in ways that we aren’t able to be with anyone else. This is one of the special things about a marital relationship. I once read someone’s reflection that it often takes much less time to be comfortable being physically naked with our spouse than it does to allow ourselves to be emotionally bare with them. In order to experience true intimacy with your spouse, it is necessary to be comfortable being vulnerable with one another.
The difficulty of being vulnerable is different for different people. Some people see it as being weak, some people are afraid of being hurt if they open up too much… It is crucial within your marriage, that each of you participate in creating an environment that feels safe to share from the deepest darkest places of ourselves without being worried about being taken advantage of, exposed or hurt. The more vulnerable we are with our spouse, usually allows them to feel more comfortable with being vulnerable with us. We both must practice being open and trusting with our spouse.
6. Setting and maintaining boundaries.
Part of creating a trusting relationship is to be able to set and maintain boundaries. This means having boundaries within your marriage and surrounding your marriage. This will obviously look different for every couple. Having a healthy set of boundaries is an important part of a great relationship. Getting clear on boundaries gets rid of a lot of ambiguity and blame. When each person knows what the other is expecting and is comfortable with, each spouse will be able to live within their values and also honor their spouse and their marriage.
Once we have come together and defined the boundaries we would like to set for ourselves and for our marriage, we need to stand by them firmly. Boundaries are not cages that shackle us but rather they are like airplanes that allow us to soar to great heights. Boundaries allow us to be very clear with ourselves, our spouse and those around us about what our responsibilities are and what our priorities are. This allows us to live on purpose and in accordance with our values. They allow us to live in such a way that protects and preserves the integrity of our spouse, our marriage and ourselves. I highly recommend this book by Henry Cloud and John Townsend if this is the tough thing you’ll be practicing next.
7. Accepting our spouse as they are without expecting them to change.
It is important when we get married, that we choose a person we love and accept exactly as they are. Yes, people should be growing and improving as we move through life and you should support your spouse in becoming the best version of themselves. However, if your spouse stayed the same way, more-or-less, as they are today will you still love and accept them? We often enter relationships with wishful thinking and grand ideas of our loved one’s potential. This sets us up for a real shock the more we get to know our spouse and ultimately leads to disappointment.
A big part of being able to accept our spouse, flaws and all, is being able to truly accept ourselves. A lot of times when we are unable to accept something about our spouse it is stemming from our own insecurities and judging them based on our expectations for ourselves. Another thing that leads to difficulty in accepting our spouse is feeling like if the two of you disagree on something one of you MUST be wrong (and it’s certainly not you), which is not the case. Needless to say, truly accepting someone fully is something that requires practice. It is not something that comes natural for most people. Accepting – ourselves and our spouse – requires us to be able to be mature and truly own our feelings (even the uncomfortable ones).
8. Giving of ourselves without expecting in return.
Truly loving your spouse is being able to give them – your time, your effort, your heart, your vulnerability, your resources, etc – without expecting anything in return. When we act with the expectation of getting something in return, not only is it not truly an act of love, it also tends to leave us with some bitterness and resentment. A lot of times, expectations (especially the unspoken ones) go unmet. The beautiful thing is that when we give our love to the right person, it does come back to us but that shouldn’t be a reason for our love.
Marriage isn’t 50/50. When one spouse is feeling low, the other should pull the extra weight and vice versa. When both spouses are focused on serving and loving their partner, that will pretty much guarantee a win-win situation. You’ll be happy, your spouse will be happy and you’ll be on your way to a thriving marriage. When you’re able to let go and give of yourself fully without holding back, without expecting anything in return, that is when you are able to experience the true beauty of love.
9. Accepting and offering feedback.
Marriage is a garden of growth if we allow it to be. Our spouse becomes like a mirror to us. They are able to reflect back to us certain things that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to realize about ourselves. Some of that will be good things but of course, since we’re human, some of that will be things we need to work on and improve upon. It can be painful at times and who really wants to hear about their flaws? But at the same time, that’s how we get better. It’s essential and it’s a healthy part of a relationship.
A lot of times we respond to feedback by being defensive. We have to break through whatever emotions are causing us to clam up and realize that our spouse has our best interest at heart and they are doing what they can to help us grow into the best version of ourselves. When we foster an environment where each of us are able to offer feedback without worrying about backlash, we create an environment of trust and growth.
10. Forgiving and letting go.
As humans, we make mistakes. This carries over to our marriage as well. Sometimes we say the wrong thing, do something we really shouldn’t have or perhaps it’s that we didn’t do what we we’re supposed to. When our spouse makes a mistake and they make the effort to make amends, we should do our best to be as quick (or even quicker) to forgive them as we would hope they would be to forgive us.
It’s also important to let things go. Don’t let the burden of keeping count of your spouse’s mistakes weigh you down. Once it happens and you guys move past it, really move past it. Don’t hold onto it for the future. It didn’t serve you now and it’s not going to serve you later. Learn from it, grow from it and move forward.
When we’re able to implement each of these into our daily interactions with our spouse, we create an atmosphere of harmony. We nourish ourselves, our spouse and our marriage. We show that we are willing to work hard to reap the fruits of our marriage and we are showing that we truly value our spouse and our relationship with them. As you enjoy the fruits, you are able to use that as energy to power through when tough times come around. Couples must be able to bear with the growing pains and the change that occurs from two people coming together and building a life with one another.
The thing about getting to enjoy the sunset is that you also have to embrace the darkness that follows. The truth is, there’s beauty in the darkness. You might have to search for it but it’s there. Maybe you’ll find the moon or perhaps just a star. As you continue to look for the good in your spouse, that’s what you’ll find. Not only will you be able to enjoy the sunset on the horizon, you’ll also be able to get through the darkness with a mindset of gratitude, joy and growth.
Question for the comments: Do you agree that it’s normal for marriage to require hard work? Why or why not?
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