5 lessons learned from 18 years of marriage

My comment is to Deborah, sometimes, words are cheap. If you TREAT your partner in a way that displays love, caring and respect.... while the actual words are nice.. your partner will FEEL the love, caring and respect you are giving.

Not once did she say in this article that she told her husband she Loved him every morning & every night. No wonder she had hum drum anniversary celebrations until the 18th year! To keep a marriage alive you need to act like every day you see each other it is your first date!!! What happened to the romance after the children went to bed? Or communicating about each other's day or where you would like to plan a week-end trip just the 2 of you. Or how wonderful it is to be his wife & how blessed you are. She didn't say in the article that she was proud of him or that she thanked him for providing for their family since she home schooled I assumed she did not work outside of the home unless she worked nights but it did not seem so. Being positive, supportive and working as a team keeps a marriage strong and you always know you have each others back. Being happy is a plus in a marriage, and throw out the negatives because it does either of you any good. Dwell on future plans if the previous chapter of your marriage was not so good. Think of things to do that you both enjoy or compromise, one weekend you do what he likes & the next weekend outing you do what she likes and include the children. Just a little touch to your spouse will tell him/her how much in love you are. Helping with dishes after dinner is so nice even if the wife does or doesn't work outside of the home. Being respectful to your spouse and the way you speak to him is so important! Treat and speak to him the way you would want to be treated,your spouse is your best friend as well and you wouldn't treat your best friend ugly. Lastly, do the little things that you know make each other happy and Love each other with all your Heart & Soul and always be there for each other through the happy, sad and in-between times and your marriage will be wonderful forever......

I laughed when I saw someones comment... don't get married until you meet your inlaws... I say, dont get married until you have lived with your inlaws... my marriage failed after 17 years... the inlaws weren't the cause... but if i had it to do all over again... i would not have married her because of how crappy her parents treated me... i'm still in love with her, but she's gone... and shes the type that wants me to chase after her... and i'm not going to do that... her folks treated me like crap the entire marriage, always putting me down, every chance they got

I'm not trying to diss the author but aren't these obvious? Either I'm way ahead of the curve or some people are just really lost.

As a man, just say "Yes".

My husband and I are going to have our 20th in Feb. When we first met, his mom interduced us, a week later he ask me out on a date, that night he ask me to marry him, we are still so much in love, I feel as if I fall in Love with him over & over again, everyday. :)

Been married 22 years last month, and I will agree with your list. Curious about the comment about your son and his smile and the home schooling experiment. How old is he and why did you home school? It's something I thought I would never consider, but now I'm not so sure as mine is in 7th grade.

I couldn't agree more. Meet the in-laws.

NEVER laughing at Jon Stewart and been happily married 30 years.

I knew my husband in the 8th grade of school, we began dating in the ninth, we graduated together, been married for 49 years, no problems and no regrets!! I saw that he treated his mom with love and respect, and I knew I had picked a winner!! ((:

This is amazing. I've been a marriage and family therapist for more than 20 years (and a nurse for 7 but that's for another time), and I have never seen this wonderful practical advice put out where anyone could see it. Thank you, thank you!! And thank you for noting that extended family are important to a marriage. Notice the increased divorce rate with the increase in our mobility as a culture. Hmmmm..... Thanks!

Don't have children with other people...or marry other people :)

Man, I should be writing this stuff, learned nothing new here. I am currently in Baghdad, sent my family on a little vacation and had 18 roses waiting for her when she got there... for our anniversary (since I couldn't be home) Is everyone just lost, this just seems like the normal things you should do in a marriage?

Well, I've only been married for 23 years and the one I would add is:

Never go to bed mad at each other...

I've been married over 16 years and the best piece of advice is to stop reading crap like this.

Good advice! I sure didn't learn these tips from watching my parents as a child. In fact I was determined to be single and never have kids. My husband came into my life when I wasn’t looking for anyone, which is good because I wasn’t LOOKING for someone to complete me. ( In fact, you should never get involved because you think you need someone to make you whole. If you aren’t happy with yourself how can anyone else be? ) I agree with the person who said don't let your job get in the way of your marriage. You really should find a way to leave work at work or at least minimize how much you talk about it at home. My husband and I have been married almost 11 yrs. We fit together so well in the beginning. We have a 9 yr old now who is a wonderful child…who sees all the strife now, much to my heartbreak. We have failed there. His job is very stressful since he is on call 24/7 and its dangerous at times and he doesn't always get to work with familiar faces. He claims to love his job, but doesn’t want to quit complaining about it. He has lately taken to being so critical of our child and me. I think its because he can't control work and other people so he tries to control everything at home. We have been thru so much in our marriage that we couldn't control ( moves, illnesses, layoffs) and I really thought that getting to be in the same home, in the same town, without any more layoffs, would be so great. That's when he began to stress out more. I have tried to be patient and understanding, but its driving me to the funny farm now after a couple years of his constant stress about work and constantly unloading his anger about work on me and our child. He even ruins vacation because he’s counting down the days till he has to deal with it again. I resent his complaining about work so much. We are starting counseling, and yes he agreed willingly, because I can’t be his all ALL the time any more and its tearing us apart. We still love each other but there are so many times we just can’t get along and get on the same page any more. I hope my husband reads this article but doubt that he will. He doesn’t like to be offered advice. We’ll see how that works with counseling… I really hope that expanding our supporting cast to include a counselor will get us back to happier, easier times and teach us tools to deal with each other when we are having rough times.

I just spent the day going through all the comment, well over 500. Wow.

I had to learn this in my later years, and this anniversary will be 15 years in 15 minutes

One of the things most important in marriage has really not been addressed by women and when it was mentioned by most men it was not mentioned in the best light.

A man loves a woman who loves to love him physically.

(God said this was good and there is a book in the bible that goes on about it too…see the Song of Solomon even if you do not believe in God)

Make the time for each other, give each other more pleasure than you get, do it with joy.

I could not agree more. First off, my wife is without doubt my best friend. Our personalities are salt and pepper, but our long term life goals are the same. After 8 years together and 4 wonderful kids, i embrace each day with her more then the day before.

You are so right about the kids seeing the way you treat each other. I am (and always will be) scared to death about how my daughters will be treated later in life, so I have adopted the idea that she will have to compare her future relationships to hers and mine, and her mothers and mine.

At the end of the day, I really think it all comes down to respect for one another. You can always agree to disagree on anything, but do it respectfully.

reality check,so true, so it happens. Take a look or two at every glance of the to be inlaws,follow trough because u'll be stuck with them wanting or not! the way fatherinlaw looks or sounds thats how huby will be,16yrs and the same like father like son!!love my huby but wished he didn't act so much like his dad,thats creapy!

Nice post of musings, if not really definitive or comprehensive. Also reflects on the author's values, which is no surprise.

Truth is what works and what doesn't is different for everyone. In America we generally tend to sharre similar values, but even those have myriad nuances, if not outright polarisation.

Of more important things to mention are the needs not to be too petty or calculating, I think.