Whenever I tell some one how long I’ve been married the question that always follows is what’s your secret. In the past I would tell them what I thought the secret was, the usual answers such as communication, trust, honesty, loyalty and so forth. Now these things are definately necessary for a successful marriage but, they are not the secret.
Through my years of experience with my own marriage, and talking to my married friends who have been married a long time as well I started to notice differences in our marriages. There were things that were working for them that I thought to myself would never work in my marriage, yet they had those core factors I spoke of earlier. That got me to thinking there is not just one way or secret to a successful marriage. Marriage is complicated, it’s hard work and there is not one formula or one size fits all for marriage.
I’ve also noticed in new marriages couples tend to ask other couples what to do about certain situations that have come up in their marriage, that can be good and bad. While seeking advice from another married couple can be a good place to start it can also be tricky because, in the same situation or something similar what worked for them may not work for your situation. Also if you are asking someone who’s marriage is only a couple years older than yours they are still trying to figure things out as well.
In my 29 years of marriage I have learned a couple of things. As I said earlier there is not just one formula to a successful marriage. The key to MY marriage being successful is hard work, my husband and I navigating through each up and down we go through together. We pay attention to each other’s needs and figure out together what works for us and, keeping other people and influences out of our marriage.
One last note, never compare your marriage to someone else’s marriage because people usually are good at showing you what they want you to see. Only the two living in the house know what’s really going on. Also if they truly have a good marriage you don’t know what it took to get there and, you may not want to or even be willing to put in that type of work. Moral of the story if you water your grass, it will stay green.
