Tag: strengthen

Your marriage is sacred. It's something you will spend the rest of your lives working on to ensure that it is strong, healthy, and lasts the rest of your life. So why not start protecting it now by setting healthy boundaries to help strengthen your marriage?

When you think of the word "boundaries" you may feel like you are putting restrictions on you and your spouse, but there is nothing negative about setting some guidelines for your relationship if their goal is to make your marriage stronger. These are five healthy boundaries to provide the framework for a healthy marriage.

One of you has had an affair. Or you know someone in the throes of uncovering one or is dealing with the confusion of the aftermath. What do we really know now about what drives affairs and what is needed to repair? What do we now know about affair-proofing your marriage? This may be surprising—what do we know about how your marriage can actually get better post-affair? Read the fine print: if you take certain clear steps.

As a divorce attorney, I have witnessed the breakup of dozens of couples. Many splits have come as a result of individuals not taking good care of himself or herself and instead getting lost in the relationship. I wish I could count the times a client has said to me, "I want to regain my identity." Losing oneself does not have to happen if you know how to find a healthy balance between taking care of your own needs along with taking care of the needs of your spouse.

The key to taking care of oneself lies in the ability to carve out time that has nothing to do with one’s mate and everything to do with nurturing the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of oneself and doing so autonomously. I believe because we are all trying to fit so much into each day, it becomes difficult to find the time that each of us needs to call our own.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that on many days it’s easier to smile at strangers than at the person at home. However, if you want a better marriage you need to practice certain things every day with total strangers. Imagine that in the course of one day you come across fifty people. They might include strangers you pass in a parking lot, a waitress or a bank teller. What if you looked at all of those relationships as a "pass or fail" exercise?

You pass when you smile at a stranger in the parking lot and say, "Have a nice day" or go out of your way to cheer a grumpy waitress or choose to ignore a driver who flips you off.