Marriage can be such a beautiful life-long journey, but it can also be an extremely difficult one. Two unique people combining their lives into one can be a challenge, but the reward is overwhelmingly fulfilling!

These are the Top 8 Marriage Must-Haves to help you enjoy marriage and have the best life possible!

I never want to give off this persona that marriage isn't hard. It can be. It can be super challenging to put someone's needs above your own, to selflessly think about the other person when you want to look out for your interest.

Opening your heart for that level of intimacy and connection can be a risk many don't want to take. However, the rewards can and should far outweigh the risk. To be known and loved is all a part of God's great plan for us. Having a healthy marriage can provide the tools we need to fulfill our dreams.

I'm by no means an expert here; I don't think anyone my age can be. What I want to share with you in this article are the 8 things my husband and I have discovered to be critical components to a beautiful connection and marriage! I hope that they will help you to embrace the idea of hard work for a fantastic outcome, a life-long happily ever after.

Here are my top 8 tips for a successful marriage.

Top Marriage Tips

1. marriage needs communication

Communication in a marriage is vital. Without it, marriage will begin to slowly degenerate into nothing. In stark contrast, though, with excellent communication often comes a great marriage!

Over the last nearly 15 years, I've learned a lot about a healthy marriage! I made a lot of mistakes and had some victories along the way. I've discovered that communication in marriage has to be done well and done often to be effective!

Depending on your love language (see the link below to find out yours), negative communication can cause more damage to a marriage than many realize.

Here are a few tips I have to communicate effectively with your spouse; these are all based on my personal experience. My love language is perhaps the most communicative of all, words of affirmation; because of this, I value it more than most.

If you have kids, make sure they are either away or asleep so that you can be fully open and honest with one another without having to edit your words in such a way that it's confusing for you and your spouse!

My husband and I talk on our daily walks around our neighborhood. It's perfect because our oldest daughter is playing with her friends and it is the ideal time for us! Do whatever works best for you. Maybe it's after the kids are asleep or before they wake up.

Perhaps the most difficult for me, lol. I've had to become well adapted to the fact that not every problem will be solved right away; some issues require deep and intentional thought and care to work out.

You must become ok with a pause or create a time to revisit important topics. Make the rescheduled time is specific; "later" is not a good option and will lead to stuffed-down feelings.

I wish this were my idea, but it wasn't. In his book "Keep Your Love On," Danny Silk taught me much of what I know about valuing connection with your spouse. I highly recommend his book to get a better understanding of the topic.

Often our alone time with our spouse that we set aside for communication is there because we want to address an issue. Be sure that every time you meet together isn't about a problem you are having. For this reason, I encourage you to meet daily or at least weekly with your spouse. You must dream together and connect well.

2. marriage needs friendship

For years my husband and I had commitment and intimacy without true friendship. I would always look at couples that had years of friendship before dating and become envious of the connection they had.

The truth is, most of us don't have years of friendship with our spouse before dating. Usually, attraction comes first, and later friendship can develop after you're in a relationship. This is particularly true of couples who are sexually active during the dating part of their relationship.

When I refer to friendship, I'm not talking about enjoying each other's company and laughing together; that can happen in an intimate relationship and a friendship. I am talking about the type of relationship where you prefer one another over others, where you are incredibly loyal (as to that of a friend), and where you look out for each other's best interest at all times.

When you are in a marriage relationship, without friendship, it's easy to bash the other person when they do something wrong. To constantly pick them apart and to devalue their successes as small. 

However, when you are in a marriage relationship (or any relationship for that matter) with friendship, you have more grace for mistakes. You look out for each other and defend one another even if you are mad.

Being loyal feels like the only option. The thought of tossing a ten-year-long deep friendship out the window for a "fling" is much less appealing than just dumping one relationship for another.

Becoming friends with your spouse is the kind of love we all dream of, but somehow think it will just fall into place. It won't. Just as any friendship takes work, so does building your marriage into a friendship. It takes dates, long talks, movies, walks together, etc.

When you're married to your best friend, it makes all the difference for the long-haul.

3. marriage needs Intimacy

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory but can be challenging at times. We all know when a marriage lacks intimacy, it's generally not good. We must take time to understand and value intimacy for what it is, connection with our spouse.

If our view of intimacy is performing our "marital duties," we have missed the whole point. Intimacy is physically connecting with your spouse while also spiritually and emotionally connecting. It's so much more than a "duty." Intimacy can be holding hands, forehead kisses, and even cuddling on the couch for a long talk. We can have intimate encounters physically and emotionally.

If our view of intimacy is performing our "marital duties," we have missed the whole point.

For years I struggled with this aspect of marriage. I felt a bit shy and embarrassed to embrace or talk about it- even with my husband.

One year, we won tickets to a marriage conference, and ALL they did at this conference was talk about physical and emotional intimacy with your spouse! My face and neck stayed in a constant state of red the entire time, lol.

Being around people who weren't ashamed to talk about intimacy broke something in me that day. It began to repair my view of intimacy. Suddenly I realized my struggles weren't my own; they were a lot of people's struggles too. It made the journey to true intimacy a lot easier.

If you are anything like me and struggle to get past the sigmas of physical intimacy, a few resources that might help you are linked below.

Putting a high value on intimacy is critical to a healthy and happy marriage.

Book Options for Intimacy in Marriage:

Sexual Intimacy in Marriage

Emotional and Sexual Intimacy in Marriage: How to Connect or Reconnect With Your Spouse, Grow Together, and Strengthen Your Marriage (Better Marriage Series)

His Needs, Her Needs: Building a Marriage That Lasts

4. Forgiveness is a must in marriage

The late Ruth Bell Graham said, "a happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers." There is so much truth in this statement.

Bitterness and unforgiveness have no place in a marriage, yet we love and live with imperfect people. How do we reconcile the two? Forgiveness. Constant and unwavering forgiveness.

The biggest key to forgiveness in a marriage, for me, has been humility. Realizing and reminding myself that I, too, am not perfect and am in constant need of forgiveness.

Marriage can never be genuinely its healthiest without a consistent application of forgiveness around every corner.

I've written two excellent articles that will help you on the topics of emotions and forgiveness. Here are the links to those for further info on this topic!

5. Spouses need empathy + Compassion toward one another

This point plays right into the last one on forgiveness. However, empathy and compassion go far beyond that. It's an attitude of our heart. Are we constantly pursuing the ability to understand our spouse and to see their side of things?

We were all designed uniquely by our creator. No one person thinks the same or has the same cultural context. This is especially true for how differently men and women are hard-wired to handle emotions. 

Though some disagreements, misunderstandings, and frustrations are unavoidable in marriage, one thing we can seek to do within them is become more empathetic and have compassion toward one another. 

Seeking to understand where your spouse is coming from in a disagreement and desiring to help them when they are struggling spiritually, mentally, or emotionally should be one of our top priorities in marriage. 

Also, for clarity's sake, this doesn't mean that you should stick it out with an abusive spouse (in any form) because you feel sorry for them. Some extremes need counseling and not co-dependency. (If that's you, I'll link some resources below!)

Online Counseling Options:

BETTER HELP (CLICK HERE)

TALK SPACE (CLICK HERE)

6. A partner should always celebrate the INDIVIDUALITY of their spouse! 

Celebrating individuality is perhaps one of the most valuable points of all. One that many overlook in the pursuit and embrace of marriage. Marriage is never about us losing our identity and individuality, as some may assume.

Marriage is about joining two unique and beautiful people into a partnership that only intensifies the beauty of each person's uniqueness.

We should support our spouse's dreams the best we can and vice versa. Too many marriages fall apart because the support of goals is one-sided. One of the most harmful things we can do to anyone, even more so our spouse, is to dismiss their dreams as "silly," "stupid," or "way too big." We do this frequently when their goals interfere with ours.

God created us all with unique personalities, passions, and callings. It should be our pleasure to support our spouse in whatever their life's work will be, and they should do the same for us in return.

Celebrating your uniqueness is important, but do you know what it is? Wondering how to find your purpose in life?

Here's a great article to help you discover your unique purpose.

HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE

Here's Latest Articles from Goodbye Anxious!

7. sacrifice

Loving is a sacrifice. For us to love well, we must be willing to give up our way at certain times to the success and benefit of our spouse. Likewise, they should be doing the same.

Many women and men around the globe give up many aspects of their lives to become parents, and though exhausting, they do it with great pleasure, knowing that outcome far outweighs the sacrifice. How much more should we be willing to sacrifice for our life partner.

In recent years we have seen an uptick in men willing to sacrifice certain aspects of their lives and careers to see their wives pursue some of their dreams during critical parenting years. It's so refreshing and encouraging to see that.

If we enter marriage with the idea that everything will be amazing and we will never have to sacrifice anything, we are only fooling ourselves. Marriage is a union. It's saying to the other person, "you are my life partner, and I want to be yours!" Partners sacrifice and put a high value on their significant other's success too.

Some additional info on Sacrificing

for others: 

The Pros and Cons of Sacrificing for the Ones We Love

8 Sacrifices You Have to Be Willing to Make in Marriage

8. COMMITMENT IS THE BOOKEND THAT HOLDS IT ALL TOGETHER

In my personal opinion, commitment is what holds everything together. All the love, friendship, sacrifice, and intimacy it's all held up by commitment. When everything else falls, loyalty can be what keeps you saying "yes" to your marriage over and over again.

I remember when my husband and I first got married at the ripe age of 18, LOL. We were just two babies in love, having no idea what we were doing or the journey we were about to put ourselves on. A well-meaning minister told us something to the effect of, "take divorce off the table, and you'll be fine."

It only took me a few months to realize what he meant. If a divorce were an option, it would always be the easiest one. I'm not saying that's true for everyone, but it always felt like the easiest one for me. At 18, I don't even think I knew myself well enough to love anyone else with the kind of love that seems to be a requirement for marriage.

A few months into my marriage, I remember having a huge disagreement/argument with my husband (we had those often), and I went to my room to pray. I asked God if I could divorce him, and I remember as clearly as ever God whispering to my heart that I could, but if I stayed, he would give me the most beautiful marriage I could've ever dreamed of.

That day, I finally committed. For good, for life. For richer or for poorer, and in sickness and in health. It seems so far off now, but God made good on my whisper. The commitment I made helped me see the fulfillment of that, a beautiful marriage - the one I've always dreamed about. Not because it's perfect, but because it's fought for.

I realize that isn't everyone's story, and I don't write this to shame or discourage others if it's not. I pray this article helps you see the beauty of marriage, whether you are currently married, thinking of getting married or starting all over. Everything you should be as a spouse is also the things you should expect in a spouse.

finally

Marriage is the joining of two people, unique, different, and lovely. It's a journey made up of both beautiful and challenging times simultaneously. It's a fantastic journey that can lead to the best life if we selflessly pursue the good of our mate, if we love them endlessly, and fight for our marriages with warrior-like endurance.

Let me know in the comments below how this article helped you! What are your top tips for marriage?

These were the 8 Marriage Must-Haves that can lead to a successful marriage and the absolute best life!

Saying Goodbye to Anxious,

Kristina G.