In seven days to a happier marriage?

Okay, that's a steep claim: A happier marriage in just 7 days. A week whizzes by in fast motion as I feel like I'm moving in slo-mo. So what can I get done in a week? ...let alone change!?

One week - little amount of time, but an incredible amount can change in just seven days. Every day has potential for something new: good and bad. And let's be honest: it only takes a couple of minutes to end up in a masiv argument...

So: nothing will be perfect in a week (not even in a century). But seven days can become seven steps that can make your relationship a bit happier.

Your "I" from the past can help you to rediscover something: How did you manage to fall in love with your partner in the first place?

At the Registry office

At our civil wedding in 2004, the registrar expressed such a stupid wish for us that it stuck with me: "I hope that your marriage will be like a walk on a beach where the sun always shines and that there'll never be a stormy day .” I don't remember anything else from the speech, apart from this wish.

Utopia is more realistic than that wish! If that were my expectation of my marriage, I wouldn't have had to wait long for the first thunderstorm. And the shock of this thunderstorm is greater, the more exaggerated the expectations towards my relationship are.

Maybe that's the reason why you're asking yourself whether it makes (or made) any sense to get married at all, if sooner or later it's going to break anyway and everything's screwed up?

That's why I want to tell you today: your marriage is much tougher than you might think. A lot can be healed again without your relationship having to break up. And there are some things you can do to make your marriage or relationship weatherproof.

Poorly or poorly maintained?

If you think of your relationship as poorly, it's usually more accurate to say, "My marriage is poorly maintained' - poorly maintained by you, your partner, or both of you. This difference is really important. After all, simply “making your relationship good” in an unhappy marriage might seem difficult. But to take better care of a poorly maintained relationship is something everyone can do! And that has an effect.

The headline deliberately says "happier". The word "happy" is way too static, as if there is one condition a in this world that describes a happy relationship. But the happiest marriage suddenly becomes sad when one or both partners make decisions that hurt the relationship. And a poor marriage can suddenly feel happier when one or both make positive changes.

Happy Relationship: Invest in 7 Steps in the Right Direction!

These following 7 points are like a compass for me in my marriage. When things get a little difficult between my husband and me, I think, alright, which area of our relationship is being neglected right now? And then I or we refocus. Because like with a compass, simply the rough direction has to be right. Staying 100% on course would be terribly tedious and an unnecessary waste of energy. Our relationships are not that delicate.

7 Things You Can Learn From Your Former Loved One

I hope that these seven tips can also help you and your relationship. Are 7 points too much for you? No problem! The former "you" that once was in love knows how to do it! Just remember: what were you like when you fell in love with your partner? One who is madly in love knows how "love" works. Being in love seems like a tutorial from God programmed into our DNA: "Loving for Dummies!", as if he says: "Now I'll show you how it works with love, and then you can carry on yourself". A starter set for loving, so to speak.

7 tips for staying in love:

1. Don't judge your partner for not being perfect (for you). Neither are you.

Lovers are only too good at this: ignoring each other's weaknesses... sometimes against all reason.
Relationship researcher John Gottman describes contempt as the absolute destroyer of love. When he observes contempt in a marriage, he doesn't give the relationship much hope.

If feelings of contempt were a plant, then condemnation or judging is its root. For most roots, cutting off the leaves is of little use. Then new ones grow. The root has to come out.

Judging is easy:
You see your partner's weaknesses and don't understand them.

"I just can't understand why you're like that. I wouldn't be as stupid as you if I were you. And you have no excuse for being like this.” That, I would say, is the essence of judging someone.

With understanding you would say: “That is a problem in you. But I love you anyway."

This is why judgment is so destructive: the more you criticize your partner without understanding, the more you will only see the bad and what he or she is doing wrong.

If you plan to destroy your marriage, do it with judgment! Judgment has a 100% success guarantee. Judgment kills any feeling of love you have for your partner; and in time his love for you will die too.

But change is possible. The solution, however, is not to simply stop saying anything critical. It's more about your thinking. Take some time today to think about what you criticize about your partner.

And this time, take a critical look at yourself! Are you perfect that you have the right to judge your partner? If your answer is "yes," then it's actually "no." Because a "perfect" 😉 person knows that they are not perfect and do not have the right to judge the people around them.

And then take your inner compass and turn from "I judge my partner" to "I don't want to judge my partner anymore".

2. Talks about everything

Don't judge, but still talk. Without taboos. But the basic attitude is important: "We don't fight each other", but: "We fight side by side against our problem!" I find the muzzle for conversations quite exhausting. Don't say: "...", but say it like this: "...". In conversations with my husband (or even with good friends), I don't want to constantly pay attention to every word I say, so that I don't say anything wrong.

The basic setting in your heart is the key. You can say everything correctly with this "mr.-perfect-language" and have a crappy inner attitude. So you are unassailable, because you didn't say anything wrong. But that doesn't get anyone anywhere. We need honest conversations.

Show your heart and be honest - also to yourself. But with a huge portion of mercy for the other - and also for yourself... without judgment, but with a heart that wants to find a good solution for both of you. Because it's not about you just getting your will. You will be happy if you and your partner are happy with the outcome of a conversation.

Conversations with my husband are at their best when I'm no longer angry. When I had time to think a bit and figure out what the or my problem is. Of course, that doesn't always work. But it makes sense to get comfortabe while we argue. Why not have a glass of wine or a cup of tea or coffee while you're at it? Life is too short to argue without celebrating. 😉

3. Have purposeless time together

Lovers know one thing to do: spend as much time as possible with each other. At all (im)possible times. Like running a WhatsApp call through the night while you sleep. Back then you knew what was important to get closer and get to know each other.

Then life happens. And there is a great danger of forgetting:

It is still important to spend enough free time together,
to stay close to each other and not forget who the other is.
You need time to still know each other come next month.

And the time in which you organize, tidy up, work, solve problems... doesn't count.

When you book an expensive vacation where you end up having to non stop work in the hotel kitchen, you feel screwed. The love between you also feels screwed when the time it takes for your love to stay alive is filled with only stress and work.

Learn from your former "you" that was in love . Within yourself lies the guide to staying happy and in love.

Sometimes free time is difficult to find or sometimes even impossible. Of course that's okay. But if "no time" becomes the new way of living, your marriage might suffer. If your marriage is a ship, then its harbour is free time spent together.

It doesn't end well when a ship just keeps sailing on without time for repairs. The sentence "It just wasn't possible to spend free time together" has a bitter echo when you have to watch the ship sink into the depths of the ocean. But the good thing is: the port is only one decision away.

Haven't you had a relaxing time together for a long time? Get started this week! In the beginning it probably doesn't feel very relaxed. But over time it gets nicer. Just don't give up. My husband and me consider one or two evenings a week (or a few hours during the day if evenings are not possible) to be the minimum.

4. Love humor - avoid cynicism

Humor is a divine superpower. Maybe I'm a bit biased as I love humor and have an extremely humorous husband (now also two sometimes overly humorous teenagers...). But humor is like medicine to take life easier. There is so much difficulty in the world and in one's own life. But humor makes things so much easier.

Humor is a person's attitude
who rises above his problems like a warrior and still laughs.

The opposite is persistent "dead seriousness" or cynical remarks about each other's weaknesses. A warrior's attitude is what enables you to stand up and change your situation. Nevertheless, I can't just laugh easily when it tears me apart inside.

Personally, the only way I can do it is: I invite God into the situation that is bothering me. When I make room for God in my mind, it's like He's saying, “Hey, it's not that bad. I'll make things better!"

This phrase above your marriage has a lot of power; especially when you hear it from God's mouth. Then, little by little, the seriousness of a bad argument dissolves and you can still laugh.

Maybe you know other ways. But it is logical to turn to God. He is the inventor of beautiful, liberating humor.

5. Be honest

Honesty is such a thing. I wish the seller would be honest with me. My partner and my children should also be honest with me. But when push comes to shove, one thing applies: I treat myself to a little white lie every now and then. Does that apply to you? Then I want to tell you:

It really makes sense to align your inner compass with honesty! Because: Small dishonesties mean that your partner can never be sure what else is not true between you. For:

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. That's a very simple saying with incredible truth. In any relationship, the foundation of trust is lost without honesty.

But it doesn't stop there when your partner can no longer trust your words.

Lies and secrets simmer in your heart and take your breath away. Because the question remains: "Will everything be over when this gets out?" You could swallow a small dose of poison every day and probably live healthier than with secrets and dishonesty.

But what if a big pile of lies has already piled up?

Perhaps it is impossible to bring everything out in the open. But this one thing a everyone can do: Starting today, set your inner compass to honesty! "I want to be a (loving!) honest partner." And you can ask God to help you bring the truth to light.

Another problem with little white lies is that if I don't try to be honest in unimportant situations, I will be tempted to lie in important moments too.

The other day my husband asked where his old slippers had gone. I'm not sure, but it's possible I threw them away. Because I remember that: They were definitely ready for the bin.

Now I had to make a decision. Do I just say, “I have no idea where you put them?” Or do I tell the truth, “I don't know for sure. But I may have thrown them away.” Well. With being honest I was off worse.

On the outside this seems like a pretty small thing - but on the inside it's not: I've gotten a little bit better at telling the truth, even when it's uncomfortable or embarrassing.

I hear one sentence more often when it comes to lying: "I'm not harming anyone with it". Yes, sometimes that might be true. But in doing so, you forget someone you always harm: yourself. lying changes you, a little tiny bit every time without you noticing. And it doesn't take long until the difference between truth and lie gets blurry.

Us humans are quite good at that – fooling ourselves. A powerful antidote to self-deception is truth. I heard a great saying the other day: "Sow a thought and you will reap an act, sow an act and you will reap a habit, sow a habit and you will reap a destiny."

6. Be faithful

A relationship without absolute faithfulness is like bungee jumping without a rope... There's just something missing. Yes, you have quite a bit of freedom if you allow yourself to be unfaithful, but the freedom doesn't last long. Pretty soon you hit the ground and what once was your family is now broken.

Even if you stay married, it's hard to pick up what's left of the relationship and enjoy it.
Still, it's not impossible to recover from a broken relationship. But it is extremely hard and the price is very high.

My loyalty to my husband and his to me begins with censoring my and his thoughts: Which mental cinema do I allow myself? What am I looking at? Pornography and fantasies about other partners are the beginning of infidelity. This is a door opener that only waits for one thing: the right opportunity to knock.

Personally, I don't get involved in friendships with other men and private meetings. My husband is my best friend. We see that as good protection. An infidelity doesn't happen overnight, but gradually over months by allowing another person to take my partner's place. Well, that's how we do it. ;-)

7. Make intimacy a priority

Imagine a room. This space is your relationship. The way you live relationship sets the temperature in that space, just like a thermostat. Is it hot? Or so cold that you can scratch off the ice from the inside of the window? Or is the temperature set in a way that both feel really comfortable in this room? If no one cares about the temperature, it will automatically become too cold (or too hot).

the intimacy in your relationship is in this comparision more like a thermometer. In bed you find out how your relationship is going. For a period of time, you or your partner can ignore or keep a bad "temperature" between you a secret. But sooner or later it becomes clear that something is wrong.

I've found that it's usually like this (with exceptions, of course): women have to feel loved in order to want intimacy. Men, on the other hand, feel loved when they have physical intimacy. This can quickly become a vicious circle.
Especially when the relationship is burdened by circumstances. But it doesn't have to.

The important thing is that both must try to take care of a well-adjusted temperature.
If it is important to you and your partner to give love to the other and not just expect love, it can work out well. If one only expects and the other only gives, then things will not go well in the long run.

Fulfilled intimacy means that both partners enjoy each other. In marriage you carry each other. In intimacy, you celebrates carrying and bearing eachother.

As soon as one partner feels unhappy in the relationship (rightly or wrongly), the "temperature of intimacy" gets too cold or too hot: Then you have to take care of the relationship again to set things "right".

Sometimes that means talking, "How do I feel about you? How do you think about me? Are we comfortable in our marriage? Do you despise me or do I despise you? Are you interested in my thoughts and feelings? And am I interested in yours?” Contempt and disinterest are guaranteed to put you in a bad mood in bed.

Whatever the conflict, you carry it to bed with you.

Or it's again time to spend more relaxed freetime together.

In any case, there is no point in expecting a good "temperature" between you without setting the temperature for it. If the mood is minus 10 °C, it doesn't do much to tap on the thermometer and pretend it's warm.

But it really helps to talk about the climate: "I can't be intimat precisely because of these reasons (...). But I understand you need this. What can we do that makes it feel right for both of us at the end of the day?”

The decisive factor here is again: if something in your relationship is to be changed to the better, your fight must not be directed against your partner. Decide today to change your point of view: instead of against your partner, stand next to him to fight side by side against the problem that divides you.

Happy Relationship in 7 Steps - Invest in Today your happier marriage:

Take time for change! Your happy relationship takes time!

Admittedly, good changes in a relationship take more than just seven days. But at the same time it's amazing what you can break in seven days.

Seven days of fighting and all you hope might be gone where before you were quite happy. In seven days, however, some things may be healed again, or at least better.

Seven days or seven steps:

1. Don't judge your partner - neither of you are perfect.
2. Talk about everything like a team, not enemies.
3. Spend free time together more than once or twice a week (although it may be hard at first - you've enjoyed it before. You'll enjoy it again!)
4. Enjoy laughing together – also about your weaknesses. Humor says: It's okay, I love you anyway! But avoid cynicism.
5. Be unconditionally honest - set your heart on being honest.
6. Be unconditionally faithful - inwardly align yourself with absolute faithfulness.
7. Consciously take time for intimacy - or time to improve the climate between you.

Which of these points is important to you and your relationship? Are there any points that you would like to change? start today

Anita