So what does make a marriage work?

In this article we are going to give 3 key ingredients that make marriages work.

Before I do that however let me share with you a story of Cranston.

Cranston has always wanted to get married and settle down. However he was scared that the marriage would go the way of his parents, who divorced when he was seven years old.

Cranston is a really nice guy. He gets along with people and is fun to be around. He is also ambitious and rather entrepreneurial. At 30 he had a successful business and at 35 he sold it and had enough money to travel the world. However he still wasn’t married although several good looking and educated girls were interested in him.

At 40 years old he finally decided he had to settle down as he wanted family. He got married to Sue a doctor at the local hospital. They had met at a dinner party and started to talk. After about 6 months of dating they decided they were meant for each other.

Cranston thought he had it nailed. Mature, financially in dependant, and educated and professional woman – what could possibly go wrong?

Well everything went wrong. 3 years into their marriage Cranston realized that Sue had very little time to spend with him because of her demanding career. They were constantly arguing about relatively minor issues.

He thought long and hard about how to make his marriage work.

“What could save my marriage?” he thought

Here are 3 things I would share with Cranston that make relationships work.

Friendship: According to relationship expert Dr. Scott Stanley friendship is a key ingredient to any relationship.
1. “You want to feel that your mate is one of your very best friends in life. That means you feel comfortable with them, you can talk with them and share what you want to share and you feel at ease with them.” Says Stanley.
  1. How do you develop friendship? If you think of the people you are great friends with, you have spent a lot of time together either talking or doing things together. Indeed Cranston and Sue need to really book time together. Time to chill out, go places, talk to each other and do things together. This will help them to bond and grow together.
2. Another crucial ingredient is to be able to resolve conflicts. Every couple has conflict, disagreement and arguments. The key to lasting marriages is not that they don’t have conflicts but they know how to deal with conflicts. Learning conflict management skills in a relationship is rather crucial. Maybe Cranston and Sue can attend some marriage classes that will help them resolve conflicts and disagreements
3. Be committed.
  1. A clear sense of commitment helps to keep the marriage together even when there a very challenging issues to work through. Commitment to the relationship will help Cranston and Sue to sacrifice for each other, invest in the relationship with their time, energy and attention.