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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 1967146" data-attributes="member: 5100">I feel like I've learned a few things after 10 years of marriage and a couple of kids. The best advice I ever got was, "Love is not an emotion.  It is an act of will."  Sounds cryptic and cute, but it's very valid.  You've made a decision that you will occasionally question.  Not every moment will be a longing gaze.  You will get madder at your spouse than you could have ever conceived of being at anyone.  You've set a priority and you will be tested on it.  You need to decide to stick with it.  Period. Always communicate with your spouse.  There is an understanding among my friends that if the husband knows some secret, the wife will, too -- and vice versa.  Anyone who objects to that can take a hike.  Secrets poison both communication and trust.  Avoid them, no matter what (surprise parties/gifts are the only exception to this).  It doesn't matter whether your spouse find out about the secret or not -- it creates a divide in your mind and contributes to the way you think about your spouse. Kids:  If kids are ever part of the equation, you must place the marriage relationship as a higher priority than the parental relationship.  The way a marriage functions impacts the way you raise your kids, and a good marriage can only help.  Never ask the child, "What did your mother say?"  Go find out yourself.  Communicate about how you raise the kids.  Be consistant between the two of you.  A rule is a rule whether it's mom or dad talking.  If you disagree with a call your spouse makes, talk about it in private afterwards.  Let your kids see you kiss.  Let your kids hear you compliment your spouse often.  Let your kids hear you tell your spouse that you love him/her. My wife and I sit down for about an hour every Sunday night and plan out our week.  We are aware of what each other wants to get done and what our priorites (mutual and individual) are.  We schedule time for us and for the kids (these two are too easy to forget while putting out fires).  Time is scheduled for me to do my DM prep work.  And time is allocated for whatever else may need to happen.  I cannot recommend this enough.  It's a time devoted to communication, planning, understanding, and prioritizing and that is the sort of thing that builds a strong marriage.  My wife and I can always tell when we have missed a Sunday night plan because we just feel out of joint for the whole week and we have more fights. Different people express love in different ways.  Find out what makes your spouse feel loved and do it, no matter how forced it seems or how weird you think it is -- and do it joyfully and without resentment (remember "act of will"?).  For example, my wife is huge on me helping around the house.  I tend to be the sort of person who assumes people will ask if they want help.  Not that I'm lazy, just that I'm naturally a "oh, she's got it handled" mentality if I see her working on something and expect to be left alone if I'm working on something.  I've had to consciously change the way I think, just to be able to recognize ways I can lend a hand -- and it's paid off rather well.  I'd recommend picking up the book "The Five Love Languages". That brings up another good idea.  Keep trying to learn more about how to strengthen your marriage.  Especially, read some books about marriage.  My wife and I have a shelf filled with books on marriage and we've read every book on it -- multiple times.  Those books are highlighted, too -- actually I read them more actively than I did my college texts.  It's not a marriage book, but Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" isn't a bad place to start -- and it has numerous other benefits.  Make sure that anything you read shows respect to both members of a relationship -- if it tears down your spouse in any way, shape, or form, throw it in the trash. A related caution.  Never try to change your spouse.  They are what they are, and you've agreed to love them that way.  If something needs to change in your marriage, the only safe thing to change is you.  Hopefully, your spouse is on board with the idea of actually working on your marriage, too.  Oh, and I'm not saying that you should be a bootlicker, either, just that you should seek to hold up your end of the marriage as well as possible. Finally, never say anything insulting to or about your spouse.  Always, always, always build them up as much as you can.  Whether you are speaking well or poorly of them, it will reflect similarly on you.  And it will contribute to the way you think about them.  This goes doubly for conversations you have with your kids (or your parents).  Men should never call their wife, "The old lady", "the boss", or anything similar.  Wives have similar expressions to avoid.  And a want to deck anyone who talks about a "honey do list" -- you should be setting priorities as a couple. Yeah, I talked about problems a lot.  Mostly, marriage is fun, though.  You'll figure most of that out on your own, though.  Just treat your spouse like their are your center of gravity and you'll never lack for strength.</blockquote>

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