[Home]

Marriage Advice for Long Term Success

If your long term marriage is a little stale here is some marriage advice. Keep up the respect and spice up your relationship to keep things cozy with your partner.

While the number of those getting married is rising, the unions ending in divorce in the western world average around 50%.

In long term marriages that fail, 66% are ended by the woman. So what's going on?

Below is some marriage advice to test the temperature of your relationship.

A prominent marriage counsellor says the best predictor of a marriage in trouble is contempt. If one of those in the marriage feels they are better than their partner, a better parent, a smarter person, a more successful individual, then there is trouble. Successful partnerships need respectfulness on both sides.

Dr. John Gottman has made a career of working everyday with married couples on what works and what doesn't.

He says even very good marriages will still have issues; it is how you deal with those issues that makes the difference. If there is a problem and both sides work it through as a joint issue, then that is a good sign.

It is when one partner tries to make it the fault of the other, when there is a perceived flaw or failing in that person that is the root of the problem then there can be no winners. Ongoing communication between partners is key factor.

Another issue is that people get caught up in their everyday lives and just stop courting. They stop spending time together just to have fun. He likens this to not maintaining even a very good car. Eventually if you don't service it, it will become a wreck. Romance won't just happen. It needs to be worked at and nurtured and encouraged.

This goes double for maintaining intimacy.

Partners need to make compromises for each other and make sex a priority, whether you feel like it or not. Not just sex, because one demands it, but because both partners have maintained a friendship of mutual respect and intimacy. It's got to be a two way street.

He says that relationships are a contract of mutual nurturing of each other, communicating affection and respect regularly back and forth. This is a theme that is also expressed by sex researcher and psychologist Bettina Arndt.

If this isn't the relationship you're in, you might want to ask yourself why.

You can get more self help marriage advice at the Dr. John Gottman website.