The good news is that you don’t have to be a divorce statistic. You can build an inseparable bond that will become increasingly hard to break.
A strong, remarkable marriage is one in which each person inspires, praises, encourages, supports motivates and promotes one another daily. In addition, the couple has committed to a high degree of trust in each other.
Relational Success in Marriage
For a marriage to reach great heights, each partner must first be committed to the goals they have set for sustaining the marriage. But if you haven’t set goals for the relational success of your marriage, you and your spouse are walking on dangerous ground. Any degree of difficulty or misunderstanding can put your marriage on the rocks if you don’t have any idea of where the marriage is headed.
Relational goals in marriages can range from committing to a degree of affection and intimacy each day to going on small monthly vacations. The biggest mistake couples make is to get marriage, have children and work a job to support the family. However, marriage is much more than this.
Couples must grow and discover the newness that is waiting to be shared inside of them. Otherwise, the relationship will be in danger of becoming routine, predictable and boring.
When marriages lose their luster, the door is opened for outside influences to come and pull couples further away from the bonding quality of intimacy and affection.
For a marriage to grow stronger and stronger, couples must commit to the bonding activities that build a remarkable marriage. These bonding activities include:
Daily Rituals of Affections
Touching, hugging, teasing, and paying attention to each other even though you are at home and have been marriage for several years. Never walk around in the house for extended periods of time without acknowledging one another.
There is always an indication that something is wrong when your partner is unusually silent for a prolonged period. The behavior doesn’t have to be something as serious as cheating. It may just be a fixation on completing a high-level project at work or trying to determine how to find money to pay the next month’s mortgage.
Nevertheless, affectionately acknowledging the other makes them feel appreciated and that everything is going to be OK despite challenges.
Playing Youthful games with one another
A big mistake couples make after marriage is to become too serious about life. They never think about regaining that sense of youthfulness they once had before the marriage. Playing games can create everlasting bonds. Chasing one another, playing hide and seek, seeing who can skip the longest, and wet each other with water can bring back romantic sparks which you thought was long gone.
If you think you are too old for youthful games, then bring out the card games or board games and challenge each other for fun. When you win or he wins, then romance begins. Play the game repeatedly until both of you become irresistible to one another.
It takes courage to be youthful again after years of stiffness. However, to increase the remarkableness within your marriage, don’t hesitate to embrace youthfulness.
Getting away on romantic nature tour
A romantic tour doesn’t have to be far away. It could be just around the corner on a park trail, depending on where you live. Take your spouse by the hand and lead him or her on a tour through a path through the woods. Try to open their awareness to things they have never seen before.
For example, if you are a nature person, you can walk along a nature trail and show your partner a set of blooming flowers or a frog setting on a lily pad. Be creative. Try to find some way to relate such beauty to some aspect of your marriage.
Walking in the peace of nature and simply getting away from the chaos of society can rejuvenate your marriage and inspire ways to improve it further.
Going on a far away on vacation
Going on far away vacation on a yearly basis is a very transformative experience. What it does to the consciousness of couples is extraordinary. Neither person is the same after a good vacation away from all that is familiar.
Not only is the marriage renewed, but couples gain a sense of newness regarding one another. Perceptions of each other can change for the better as new aspects of personality and character emerge. It’s like: ‘Another time, another place and a different marriage.’ Each person recaptures the newness of life.
Therefore, do all in you power to take yearly vacations far away. If you just can’t go out of the country or across the country choose to make some distance between the place you live now and the one to which you can afford to travel.
Getting away with one another is vital to helping to create inseparable marriage.
Surrounding Yourselves with Positive People
Make friends with other couples. Remarkable marriages can flourish when surrounded by other positive marriages. Couples can learn wonderful things by interacting with other couples on a weekly or monthly basis.
My wife and I often attend a social club designed for marriage couples to get to know and learn from each another. Couples meet twice a month to interact and discuss various aspects of the married lifestyle.
Many marriage problems are solved when couples come together and discuss various solutions for tuning a relational situation around. Coming together with other couples is an empowering event for all involved.
Acknowledging the Downside
Building a remarkable marriage is acknowledging that sometimes things will go wrong, despite our best efforts. A perfect marriage is non-existent. That is an illusion of fairytales. Many divorces occur simply because the person doesn’t live up to such an illusion.
Once again, the good news is that you don’t have to be a divorce statistic. We know that you can avoid the likelihood of a serious challenge to your marriage if the problem is quickly handled and conquered.
The dynamic experience of a remarkable marriage isn’t for people who just want to get married and live in comfort. A marriage must be earned every day.
According to the National Center for Family Research, in 2015, 16.9 % of every 1000 marriages ended in divorce. Even though that number has slightly declined, still the conclusion remains a reality: “Nearly half of all marriages in America end in divorce.”
Why is the Divorce rate so High?
Divorces occur due to several reasons. Here are a few causes I know from counseling various couples involved with Infinite Visionary Training Center:
- Loss of intimacy
- Loss of attraction
- Criticism and arguments
- Cheating
- Ruined expectations
- Alcohol and drugs
- Abuse
- Growing apart
- Long distance: too much time apart
As we can see, a few of above reasons for divorce are quite understandable, such as getting out of an abusive relationship. The bottom line is that divorce is a major epidemic in the United States.
