How To Have A Happy and Healthy Marriage

A healthy marriage can form the foundation or building blocks to stable family environment. Having a strong partnership with your loved one can well lead to many years of happiness. However marriage is definately something that requires daily effort.  It is not a set and forget arrangement.  To work together and build a successful marriage takes love, devotion, respect amongst other things.

Michael Web (a guest of Oprah) recently wrote an interesting book on the secret to having a happy and blissful relationship.  To get your copy click here!
Certainly when you look at the statistics for modern day marriages, things are not encouraging, however there is a lot you can do to ensure you do not become one of these statistics. To be married to another individual firstly in my opinion, takes incredible courage.  You stand there and pledge your undivided love and complete devotion to this person for the rest of your days! Do we really know when we make this vow what marriage is going to entail?  If not, is it better that way?

Marriage over the years seems to unfold and develop and change and grow along the way.  There will undoubtedly be many many conflicts and differing of opinions. How one deals with those conflicts and how much they respect the other really is an integral part of the solving process.  Always being right, or having the last word really does not work in a marriage as marriage is full of comprimise and not assigning blame and coming to something that is workable.

In a past life I spent quite a lot of time interviewing for new staff and one of my questions was; “What do you think is the single most important factor in clear effective communication”?”  You would not believe the number of people who went on about honesty, being clear in what they say etc, when really it all begins with LISTENING.  If we do not listen to the other person, our conversation can be fraught with all sorts of problems!

Marriages seem full of decisions.  There are always the small ones such as choosing the centerpiece for the wedding table or big decisions such as where you will both live.  A good marriage will require that you know how to effectively communicate your thoughts and feelings with one another and be prepared to understand that input is required from both parties when it comes to decision making.  It takes two to arrive at a suitable effective decision. Try to understand why your partner wants to make a certain decision and remember if it is not something you agree with, do not react rashly but rather take your time to really hear what they are saying before determining your own feelings on the subject. How important is it to you.

I have a few rules in life but one is that we all have what I call our non-negotiables and these are our core values, the ones that we simply cannot move on.  There are generally about 5 of these.  Then there are our secondary values if you like, those ones that when coming together with another individual in a relationship, are able to be massaged into something workable for both people.

I think at the end of the day, and there will be the most challenging of days when you really will ask yourself what you are doing, and these are the days where you must reflect on the feelings you felt when you met your partner, what they said, what attracted you to them in the first instance.  Reflecting upon this is what carries you through.

Lastly remember saying I love you costs nothing.  It is funny that something that is free is so often overlooked yet undervalued and so often forgotten after a marriage.

By MaryAnn Roche.

My Top 5 Ways to Nurture a Positive Relationship

Are you enjoying a wonderful, loving and positive relationship?
Have you been striving to attain a positive relationship with your partner and help it grow stronger?

Having a positive relationship takes effort from both of you, but you can get it started. Your partner will surely enjoy the benefits and follow your lead.

A positive relationship can be one of the most wonderful things in the world, while a negative one can turn your life into a disaster!

Here are my five top strategies you can use to nurture your relationship:
Top Tip #1,
Give 100%. First and foremost, if you want to build a relationship that’s positive, passionate, and withstanding, you need to give 100% of yourself. This is one of the most important things for success, not only in your relationships, but life in general.

* Remember the golden rule. When you fully give of yourself, the other person will see the effort you’re making and soon begin to reciprocate with the same type of behavior.

* There’s no “50/50″ when it comes to giving in a relationship. You’ve got to give freely of yourself if it’s going to work. It’s almost impossible to receive from your partner if you don’t give.

Top Tip #2,
Respect your partner. Always respect your partner in every way to build a lasting and positive relationship with them. Respect is an important building block of any relationship.

* Respect your partner not only in a physical sense, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well.

Top Tip #3,
Build a strong friendship. Your romantic relationship needs to have the stability and deep roots that come from a strong friendship. With a meaningful friendship as its basis, your connection becomes stronger and more lasting.

If your goal is to create a stronger bond with your partner, take the time to think about what it is you’d like from your partner. Give those things to your partner, and you’ll almost always find the answers you seek about how to create a nurturing relationship.

* When you work hard to construct a strong friendship, you can be assured that your relationship is ready to weather whatever life may throw at you in the future.

Top Tip #4,
Use charitable acts. The things you do for your partner make a difference in your relationship. When you love someone, acts of kindness toward him or her come naturally.

* Remember, your actions are more important than your words, so use them to help build up a relationship that’s naturally positive.

* No action should be done just because you feel obligated to do it. The things you do for your partner should be done because you want to do them.


Top Tip #5,
Focus on loving your partner. In order to nurture a positive relationship, your main focus should be on simply loving your partner. Show your love in both your words and actions, in all you say and do.

* Be generous with compliments and mean what you say.

* The expression “actions speak louder than words,” is definitely true when it comes to a relationship. However, your partner still wants to hear you say, “I love you.”


If you can follow these five steps you will see a great improvement in any relationship! Once you begin taking care of your relationship and making a conscious effort to improve it, you’ll see a stronger, more positive bond flourishing before your eyes.

Having a great relationship is one of the best things in the world, so take my advice…it will have a positive impact on any relationship.

Even through tough times these top tips on how to nurture a positive relationship will help!