How To Be A Better Spouse

Being a better spouse in a marriage can lead to healthy interactions, a more intimate and rewarding relationship, and growth in ways and in areas you thought impossible.

Things You’ll Need:

• Willingness to grow
• Open mind

Step 1:

In a marriage (especially with children)your wants, your desires (although important) are secondary to the growth and stabilization of a healthy family unit. Being a better spouse means that everyone doesn't cater to you or seek to satisfy you, it is your responsibility to support, love, and encourage the family.

Step 2:

Having a healthy and growing spiritual center is key in maintaining balance, and getting the "it" that you need to be the good spouse. Understanding that God will supply you with a perfect sense of worth, importance, love, direction and strength means that you don't have to demand and fight for these things from people (family), rather you can be a conduit which enables the family to come together in such a way that just demonstrates all that you already receive (from God).

Step 3:

Our families (and marriage) is meant to be a gift and a treasure. It has to be nourished, and tended to delicately each and every day. We have to be willing to accept that we are putting all of our love, attention, devotion and care into something that may not result in immediate satisfaction. The aim is long term peace, intimacy, joy, affection, etc. The only way to get that is to be willing to make that commitment and to follow through.

Step 4:

To be a better Spouse means accept responsibility for your marriage relationship and your family. Saying and thinking "I or Me" will only lead to discord and trouble. You have to think in terms of, Us and We. This will allow you to think in terms of what's best for the family rather than the individual.

Step 5:

To be a better spouse does not mean to have the individual self absorbed into the "collective family consciousness", rather it is the reason why we seek to grow and evolve individually because it only contributes to the marriage and family in a beneficial capacity. Personal growth and fulfillment are important and need to be pursued, but never at the expense of the family, it should be in support of the family or marriage.

Step 6:

To be a better spouse means to learn an effective way to communicate to your partner and other family members. Do not expect and demand for them to communicate to you on your level, but be willing to find a way that can best get your point, ideas, concerns across to the individual in a way that is not condescending, negative or belittling.

Step 7:

You are the leader of your family. Act like it. Together you have to have a goal, plan and a course for where you want your relationship to go, where you want it to be. (Spiritually, Emotionally, Financially, etc). Once you have this, your responsibility is to help lead your marriage (family) there.

Step 8:

Understand your role. Know what your strengths are and play to them. Support your spouse in every way possible. Encourage them, love them, console them, be there with them every step of the way. Share in the triumphs and failures, in the joys and the sorrows. Never blame each other for any of these and never alone accept responsibility for any either. Together you each play a role. Each of you are responsible for the whole aw well as what you bring individually.

Step 9:

Above all else, remember to always love each other. Remember that all the things we say and do are an expression of the love (or whatever else) we feel on the inside. Be willing to talk, open up, dig deep, bare it all. There is nothing wrong with being vulnerable. It is through that exposed weakness we find the strength we need to accomplish great things.