30 September 2022
Marriage is one of the most beautiful things in life. Having someone to love and someone to hold, and be your husband or wife is a wonderful feeling. But in marriage, it is not always sweet in the journey, there will be lots of ups and downs, a mixture of bitter-sweet day-to-day happenings between the spouse and even the whole family.

In the end, what keeps a happy marriage lies to both the husband and the wife, it is a give and take process in everything. I am not married for a long time, but my few years being married, plus our boyfriend and girlfriend stage is what made me/us makes our marriage happy. For me, these are the 5 things that keep a happy marriage.

1. Keeping the love burning. How to keep the love burning? It it through gifts, touch, quality time, sex, words of affirmation, money, etc. So what exactly? yes, knowing what is your partner’s love language is important because in this way you can fill each others love tank. But honestly, it won’t easily apply to everyone, why because not everyone is open for communications like this, the knowing each other stage. I believe that everyday is a know your partner process, it is a continuous process in the marriage by this you will know each others thoughts and feelings and fill each other with the right love she/he is needing.

2. Know your partner’s strength and weaknesses. Each of us has our own strength and weakness in life. Our strengths maybe the weaknesses of our partner, or vice versa. We cannot have it all. But marriage is design for stronger bonds between the husband and the wife, and these is by accepting that we are not perfect. We have our shortcomings, we failed in some aspects, on the other hand we are winning on the other. The most important is be your partner’s strength, fill-in together the inadequacies of the other. By that, it may not be 100% smooth sailing in the relationship but at least something that make your marriage stable.

3. Learn to sacrifice and compromise. It will not always be favorable to you or favorable to your partner, it’s always a compromise and a sacrifice. For example, you feel like spending your weekend over Netflix and chill. On the other hand, you spouse would request you to help her clean the house and do household chores. You know that it will take two to make things better, so now you decided to help your partner. With that you lose your time to relax, but you have a tidy home. See, there’s always opportunity cost, but will also have a return on investment (hahahaha, must be kidding). But it’s true, sacrifice and compromise pays of.

4. Be faithful. Faithfulness is the key, it is connected to trust, the faithful you are the stronger the love is. Never allow anyone to break your marriage, always go back to the first time that you fell in love to your partner. What have changed that made you possibly fall-out of love? Is it her appearance, her fashion, maybe she/he forgets herself/himself just to provide for the family. Reward your partner with a babe-time, a quality time to talk about anything, dream together, plan things together and fall in love over and over again.

5. Pray for each other. Always, prayer is ALWAYS powerful. God is always a loving and merciful God, He knows all we have gone through and sees us everyday and knows our core. Pray and lift up to God everything that worries you, pray for your partner. I have read this wonderful prayer from a website thoughts-about-god.com, and this prayer goes like this:

“Dear God, thank you so much for bringing us together as a couple. We know that you have a plan and a purpose for our marriage, and we invite you, Lord Jesus, to forgive the past self-centeredness, and come into our lives and relationship. Direct our steps from now on. Please give us the grace to put You and each other first every day. Make our relationship a blessing to others. But most of all; make it a blessing to You. Amen.”

I pray for everyone’s happiness in your marriage. May the good Lord continue to bless you and you being a blessing to others as well, and be glorifying to God, Amen.

Cheers for a happy and blessed marriage!
Mira