You Need These Powerful Essentials For Proven Marriage Success

the second installment in a two-part series on the seven essential ingredients for long-term marriage success

Before we discover the remaining three essential ingredients for lifelong marriage success, let’s quickly review the first four from the previous installment.

The First Four Essential Ingredients for Staying Lifelong Marriage Success

• Number 7: Ditch the 50 and put in 100! Your spouse doesn’t want your half-hearted attempt at loving them.
• Number 6: Embrace Change and Bend Together! Give each other permission to change and evolve, and embrace it together.
• Number 5: Learn to Fight Well! Establish boundaries, show love even in the heat of the moment, and forgive.
• Number 4: Make Respect Habitual! Stop the nagging and micro-managing. Show respect. Offer encouragement, and support, consider the other person, give them time and space as needed, and build them up publicly.

Now, as we continue this continued evaluation, let us embrace the wisdom gleaned from the women who responded to the question, “What makes marriage work? Please take a moment to share your 1-3 ideas about what you believe makes for a successful, lifelong, generally joyful, and fulfilled marriage.” Let’s allow ourselves to be challenged in new ways. I encourage you to integrate these essential ingredients into the fabric of our marriage relationships.

Join us as we uncover the remaining components essential for a marriage that withstands the test of time.

Number 3 – Marriage Success: Quality Time Keeps the Heart Close!

When we go about our days not taking time to engage with our spouse, it can break a relationship up faster than we know. Not everyone’s Love Language is quality time. And yet, we still need quality time together. If we don’t get enough quality time with our spouses, we will begin to grow further and further apart from them.

We can easily become strangers living under a shared roof.

Not surprisingly, quality time is essential in building a relationship and growing fond of one another. Renee Marie suggests that our “spouse should be [our] best friend”. If that is true, we should have a natural desire to spend time with them.

It is inevitable that we will do day-to-day life together with our spouse. However, day-to-day life should not replace quality time with our spouse.

As busy as life can get these days with all the professional and social demands on us, quality time with our spouse needs to be intentional. Below are some suggestions gathered from a few women. These women are experiencing success in their marriage, having been happily married for more than a decade themselves. Please use this list to get your own brainstorming sessions started. If you aren’t already, you can begin making quality time with your spouse a priority.

**Appreciating the Simple Things, Together.

Karlie Rawnsley suggests married couples “always make time to appreciate the little things together.”

Those little things can be as simple as a morning of sleeping in or enjoying a cup of coffee together while sharing your plans for the day. A brief walk in the neighborhood, or even something as simple as a smile exchanged lets you both know there was a moment of connection with each other.

**Dreaming Together & Growing Together Paves the Way for Success in Marriage.

Take a moment to read and soak in what Keli Buck says. “Prioritize togetherness. Dreaming together, learning together, growing together – all important.”

It is so important that we spend time dreaming, learning, and growing with our spouse. It’s important because our spouse is intended to be with us for life.

We need to be able to share our dreams, combine them somehow, and support each other through them. After all, we are our spouse’s closest teammate and will inevitably end up living out our partner’s dream. But if we don’t combine those dreams, one of us (if not both) will end up bitter and unable to fully support our spouse through them.

The same is true for learning and growing together. If we aren’t moving forward with our spouse, one of us will end up either getting left behind or eventually choosing the opposite fork in the road.

**Never Stop Dating

On a personal note, my husband and I laughed at the idea of having a regular date night. That is…

Until we had a baby.

Honestly, when there are no children in the picture, every night is a date night, whether in or out, whether fancy or casual. There is a lot of time to spend together.

However, once those kids start coming into the picture, date nights are an absolute MUST if you want quality connection time with your spouse. That is why we make it a monthly priority, and why we need to step it up again now that the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror.

**Enjoy a Shared Hobby Together to Increase Success in Your Marriage

Having a shared hobby can certainly help increase fun, connection, and companionship between you and your spouse. Grace Ventura also suggests, “Have at least one hobby you do together.” For her and her husband, that hobby is bike riding.

Thankfully, my husband and I have plenty of shared interests. We both love camping and hiking, bike riding, music, adventure sports, and tennis.

Not only do shared hobbies increase fun, connection, and companionship, they also serve as a great starting point for planning your next date night. If you want more variety for your dates, check out this fun little write-up on how to keep date nights from becoming boring and mundane.

**Talk and Laugh Together

There is nothing like a good conversation. And if you’ve been married to your spouse long enough, sometimes it might feel like there is nothing left to talk about.

However, you may find that even a simple starter conversation can lead to a whole world of other topics. It is as simple as sharing a comment that a coworker made to you earlier, or telling your spouse about the last podcast you heard. Megan Terry Deers agrees, “We always have much to talk about. We love laughing together, so the conversation is good.”

**Celebrate Things Together is a Marker for Marriage Success

Throughout any lifelong marriage, there will be more than a handful of milestones and other special moments to celebrate. Belinda Hearn suggests that couples should “celebrate things.”

I absolutely agree!

Celebrating things doesn’t have to be stressful, romantic, or elaborate. It is simply a way to spend quality time together while also joyfully acknowledging an accomplishment made by either one of you (or both of you).

To keep things simple and low-stress, just find a way to celebrate together by doing something that hits each of your love languages. For example, buying a small but meaningful gift you know your spouse will love, or getting a bottle of champagne to share after the kids go to bed. Even going on a little walk, or a simple dinner out together to celebrate an accomplishment will do the trick.

But What Should We Celebrate?

Celebrating together is a way to mark milestones made throughout your marriage. These markers demonstrate your commitment to doing life with your partner and having marriage success. Here are some examples of common things that are worth celebrating in marriage.

• Wedding Anniversaries (every year)
• The birth of a new child
• Each other’s birthdays
• Any holiday whether small or large
• A job promotion
• A large purchase (such as a home)
• A medium-sized purchase (such as a car or booking a vacation)
• Your children’s milestones (such as the first day of kindergarten, or graduation)
• Hitting a financial goal related to your future and/or savings
• Winning a competitive sport in any of your adult leagues

By now you’ve read a lot! I hope you are taking this all in and finding ways to implement these essential ingredients into your daily habits. Remember, we have to be intentional about our marriage success.

We are down to the last two ingredients. I promise you they are worth another three minutes of your time, especially Number 1!

Keep reading below for the last two ingredients for staying in your marriage for the long haul.

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Number 2 – Marriage Success: Consistent Communication!

You may have been waiting for this one! Communication is by far one of the leading answers I received. Nearly 47% of the responses suggesting communication was one of their top three. Nearly 58% of those who mentioned communication in their top three mentioned it as the MOST important ingredient for lifelong marriage success.

You might be asking then, “Why is Communication not the number 1 thing that will help my spouse and I stay married for the long haul?” That is a great question to ask. The quick answer is that communication, while important, is simply not the end-all-be-all of a relationship.

To find out what is the number 1 thing that will help you and your spouse stay married to each other ‘till death do you part,’ keep reading below.

But first, let’s talk about how communication is crucial for long-term marriage success!

I believe consistent communication is pretty well understood already, especially if you’ve been married for any number of years. So rather than offering my commentary, I am going to just share some highlights from the answers I received.

Check them out below.

My Personal Favorite Responses about Communication

“What is always, and constant is communication. More simply put, get over the embarrassment and communicate. Fears, joy, sexual desires, thoughts on money, raising kids, whatever. Say the thing! Your partner is not a mind reader…even after 17 years I still have to remind myself that. Even though we have been together 20, married 17 he doesn’t know everything.” – Brittany Houghton

“Loads of communication.” – Vasu Padmanaban

“Learn each other. How does he communicate? How do you hear what he is saying? And vice versa.” – Kelli Buck

“Communication is by far the MOST important. If you’re struggling with communication, it is OKAY to seek outside help to build your communication skills.” – Nicole Samantha Morin

“Communication. Talking about the hard things. Being open with each other and letting each other in.” – Alli Beck

All right friends. You have finally arrived to learn the final, number 1 thing necessary to building a happy, fulfilling, lasting, lifelong, and successful marriage.

But before you continue, let me just take a moment to encourage you to read thoroughly through the entire final section. I know this has been a longer read than typical. However, I cannot stress enough just how important this last ingredient is to sustain a successful, lifelong, generally joyful, and fulfilling marriage. So please, don’t skip out on this final one as it is the most crucial.

It is…

Number 1 – Marriage success: Trust Each Other Implicitly

It honestly took a minute of being married before I came upon this revelation. Speaking for myself, I don’t even have any trust issues with my husband. So I don’t fully know how I figured this out, except maybe that I took a little time to think about it during a time when our relationship was rocked in a big way. And this one thing made the most, perfect sense.

I love what Tracey shared about trust, “TRUST is really [the] greatest foundation. If you don’t have that, communication means zilch. He’s still my BFF and we have fun together but are perfectly fine with each other having friends without worry of a cheat or whatever.”

It’s true! And Tracey would know because she’s been married for 32 years. Trust sets the foundation for everything else, including communication. Trust is the single most important thing necessary for a relationship to be healthy, to be nurtured, and to grow. And while Tracey says it so beautifully, I believe it’s important to expand the idea even further. Trust is about much more than trusting each other’s level of faithfulness and fidelity.

Everything, really, everything in our marriage relies on a foundation of trust to have success.

Check this out!

**When we don’t trust our partner, communication breaks down.

Whether communicating about household management and responsibilities, or (especially) communicating in a more vulnerable way such as sharing our hopes, dreams, failures, and fears, if we don’t trust our partner to listen, hear, and provide the support, we will more likely choose to keep quiet and handle things on our own. And this will inevitably lead to feelings of loneliness and unfulfillment.

**Quality time suffers when we don’t trust our partner.

If we have a difficult time sharing openly because we don’t trust them, quality time also suffers. Good conversation is often a huge part of quality time. Unless you’re talking about the weather all the time, a lack of trust might keep you from being true to your partner. This is particularly true when it comes to shared interests and desires. You might believe you have to win their approval by pretending to enjoy the things they enjoy. It will eventually lead to bitterness and resentment. You will feel like you’re always having to make compromises and do things you don’t exactly enjoy with little to no payoff.

**It sure is difficult to respect someone we don’t trust.

We might have contempt for them and that makes it so hard to publicly honor them. In fact, we may often find we want to do the opposite – publicly humiliate them. That contempt also gets in the way of considering their needs and supporting and encouraging them. Giving them time and space to enjoy some of their own interests apart from you is also hard without trust. When there is a lack of trust, you may find yourself anxious about who they are with and what sort of conversations they may be having apart from you.

**There is no good fight to be had with someone you don’t trust.

Again, you won’t be able to communicate your hurt openly and honestly because you don’t trust them. So instead, you may find yourself in a toxic environment that is escalated by previous wounds and resentments all stacked on top of each other. Like a ticking time bomb, they are ready to explode. And because you don’t trust your partner, you don’t believe they have your best interest in mind. Rather than trying to resolve the conflict, you spend the majority of the argument on defense. You start blame-shifting, name-calling, and bringing up unfair accusations from the past.

**It is hard to move forward with someone you don’t trust.

You do things your own way and live life as roommates instead of marital partners. There is very little changing, growing, or evolving together. Whether physical, spiritual, financial, or mental/emotional, you may not trust their decision-making and planning skills or their strategies. This makes it difficult to move forward and grow together in nearly all these facets in life. So instead, you do life separately and with little to no compromise.

**Where is the effort when you don’t trust that they have your best interest in mind?

It takes a lot of thought and effort to put in 100% to something you don’t believe will benefit you in the end. If you don’t trust your spouse, it makes it hard to put in all that effort. You just don’t believe it is worth it, and you don’t believe they are putting in their all either. This leaves you feeling cheated and alone in the marriage.

You see. These are all examples of how a marriage relationship can so easily break down in the absence of trust. Whether your partner deserves your trust or not, the lack of trust will very likely affect your communication. Additionally, it may possibly affect one or more of the other underlined points in the above list. Without trust, it is difficult to achieve marriage success and fulfillment.

If your marriage lacks trust on either your part or on the part of your spouse, please, don’t sit on this blog for long. It is okay to acknowledge the issue and get the help you need (whether support from others, your spouse, or professionally). It is time to start fresh and build on a foundation of trust in your relationship.

Final words regarding marriage success

These last two blogs have completed a very thorough evaluation of the seven key ingredients necessary to having a lifelong, joyful, fulfilling marriage “till death do you part.” If you missed the first blog, you can read it here. Below is a brief summary of each of the seven essential ingredients for how to stay married for the long haul.

• Number 7: Ditch the 50 and put in 100! Your spouse doesn’t want your half-hearted attempt at loving them.
• Number 6: Embrace Change and Bend Together! Give each other permission to change and evolve, and embrace it together.
• Number 5: Learn to Fight Well! Establish boundaries, show love even in the heat of the moment, and forgive.
• Number 4: Make Respect Habitual! Stop the nagging and micro-managing. Show respect by offering encouragement, and support, considering the other person, giving them time and space as needed, and building them up publicly.
• Number 3: Quality Time Keeps the Heart Close! Finding ways to carve out time to spend together daily is crucial in maintaining the bond and companionship within marriage.
• Number 2: Consistent Communication! Talk about everything and don’t be afraid to say the hard things. It matters.
• Number 1: Trust Each Other Implicitly! Trust is the foundation everything else is built. Without it, everything else will eventually break down.

Now that you have read it all, I hope you can evaluate your marriage. Which one or more of these seven essential ingredients for lifelong marriage success might you and your spouse need to practice more intentionally?

Please leave your comments below. I would love to hear any additional thoughts. What do you and your spouse believe have been the key ingredients in your marital bliss.

Unveiling the Essentials: A Deeper Dive into Ingredients for a Lasting Marriage