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I have a good marriage. We’ve been married for more than 25 years. My husband is a wonderful man, husband, and father. But I’ve been feeling ready lately to have a great marriage. I am all about improving myself and I want to improve my marriage.
I believe that great marriages take effort and intention. And the thing that I’ve been learning from all the self-development research that I’ve been doing whether it’s specifically geared to marriage, parenting, wellness or anything else is:
Any change that you want to make in a relationship begins with you.
It doesn’t really have anything (or almost anything) to do with the other person. If you want to improve a relationship, it’s up to you to decide to do it and then do it.
In browsing YouTube, I found a really interesting video that touches on the importance of doing what you can do to improve your marriage. I think the target audience was more for troubled marriages that might be on the road to divorce or separation, which I am not, but I think the concepts are helpful for any marriage.
How do I improve my marriage?
The whole premise of the video is to improve your marriage by trying a five day experiment.
This video asks you to consider that the marriage is 95/5, not 50/50. As in marriage is a 50/50 proposition, you do your half, I’ll do my half and together we are 100%. To decide that the success of improving the marriage is 95% on you.
This might sound like a lot and that your spouse is getting off easy here. But my philosophy is “keep your eyes on your own paper” and you’re the one interested in learning to improve your marriage, so suck it up and do it–at least for the 5 days of the experiment.
The next step is to write 25 things you’re grateful for every day for five days. A new list every day, no repeats and at least half of those things need to be about the marriage or spouse. I am a huge proponent of gratitude journaling so this is just an extension of what I already love to do.
The last step is the daily triple play, each day of the 5 days give your spouse each of these three gifts: give, send and serve. This part is the most intricate but basically, it’s giving your spouse the gift of appreciation or connection, sending the message that they’re important to you and serving by doing some small task or service that’s outside your normal daily responsibilities.
For more detailed info, I highly recommend watching the video, there was even more useful information that I found worthwhile than what I detail here.
The challenge to improve your marriage
Challenge accepted. Especially since my honey has been traveling a lot for work the past few weeks and he’s finally going to be home for a bit before he has to leave again. It will give me the chance to experiment on him.
Stay tuned for the results of this experiment. If you are interested in trying a five-day marriage experiment yourself and improve your marriage, watch the video and drop a comment below. If you feel like sharing the results of your experiment I’d love to hear from you!
