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How to experience a happy marriage!
Healthy marriage partners are compatible partners
In a marriage that is to stand the test of time, romance is important, but compatibility is critical. By and large, partners in healthy marriages come to agree upon common agendas regarding the directions their marriage will take, and the way each partner will behave. These common agreements may never have been discussed, but they will be present implicitly in how each partner chooses to act.
Areas of agreement that partners will have dealt with will generally include:
- Friendship. Successful partners develop a significant friendship at the core of their relationship. They genuinely like one another, amuse and comfort one another, and prefer to spend time with each other. This friendship and mutual liking is somewhat separate from other aspects of the relationship (sexuality, for instance), and can survive the loss of these other aspects of the relationship. A strong friendship and mutual liking is often the basis for repair of troubled relationships.
- Role expectations. The partners reach agreement with regard to how household responsibilities are divided and how they will behave towards each other. Traditionally, and still dominantly, the male or masculine-identified partner will take on the majority of financial obligations, while the female or feminine-identified partner will take on nurturing roles. Tradition has broken down significantly in the industrialized west over the last century, however, and it is not at all uncommon to find ‘women’ who take on financial obligations, ‘men’ who take on nurturing roles, or to find both partners sharing these roles to one degree or another. Failure to reach agreement with regard to roles can be a major source of conflict.
- Emotional intimacy. Successful partners learn to trust each other, to be vulnerable with each other, to laugh together, and to support one another in times of need.
- Sexual expectations. Partners come to basic agreements as to how they will be sexual with each other. Frequently (traditionally) this means that they will be sexual with one another, and not with other people, but this is not necessarily the case. Sexual expectations may further dictate the kinds and patterns of sexual activities that each partner will and will not engage in. Coming to agreement with regard to sexuality can increase trust that couples feel for each other, and failure to reach agreement can be cause for conflict. As sexual activity is strongly rewarding and bonding for couples, it is best for marriages when partners agree upon sexual expectations and are both satisfied with their lovemaking.
- Vision/Goals. Successful partners agree that they want to pursue the same life paths, values and goals and mutually commit to those paths, values and goals. Examples might include decisions to have children or not, to attend or not attend religious services, to raise a child in a particular faith, to save or spend money, or to live frugally or extravagantly, etc.