John the Baptist answered, “It’s not possible for a person to succeed. I’m talking about eternal success-without heaven’s help. You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready. The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom’s friend, his ‘best man,’ that’s me, in place at his side where he can hear
every word, and is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows
that the wedding is finished and the marriage
is off to a good start?
John 3:27-29
Over the past four decades, marriage specialists have researched the ingredients of a happy marriage. As a result, we know more about building a successful marriage today than ever before.
For example, most all happily married couples will have:
- Healthy expectations of marriage
- A realistic concept of love as a verb
- A positive attitude and outlook toward life in general
- The ability to communicate their feelings so that each can hear and be heard and understood, cared about and effect behavior changes
- The ability to make decisions and settle arguments amicably with a firm commitment for apologies and forgiveness when needed
- A common spiritual foundation and active participation
- A deep and abiding commitment and covenant together that one of the partners has to die to get out of the marriage.
In order to get to that happy state, it has been our experience that couples need to add some new skills, have some time to practice them in a safe environment and then be held accountable to transfer those new skills to “home.”
It begins with information about:
- The impact of romantic love on our choices
- The subtle impact of unfinished business from our families of origin on our choices
- The subtle skills of behavior modification recognizing that in order to feel what love feels, you must do what love does
- The importance of learning how to listen to understand rather than respond
- The imperative of developing servants’ hearts
- How and why to give Random Acts of Kindness to each other
- Building traditions, celebrations and dates into a relationship
- Defining financial responsibilities
- Making agreements about sexual expression and affection
- Defining roles and responsibilities in the home
- Committing to a strong mutual spiritual experience
Taking the time to understand these issues is like investing in an insurance policy against divorce. Marriage doesn’t have to be a gamble. Living happily ever after is less a mystery than it is the mastery of certain skills. Most of the couples who come our way these days have already discovered the hard way that doing “what comes naturally” just doesn’t work very well. Most of them go away renewed and refreshed because these skills are not rocket science. Once couples get the basics on board, it’s all about repetition.
That’s why we hope you might tell married couples you know about what we are doing at 24k Gold Marriage. Remember that the only thing that we cannot help you resolve is an unwilling spirit. As one of our reluctant recent clients said, “Well, that wasn’t so hard after all.”
One Final Note
How can we help you? Of the various indicators for predicting a happy marriage, which ones of them do you resonate with most and why? Love to hear from you.
