Marriage: A Gift You Give Your Children

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Maintaining a happy marriage is among the greatest gifts you give to your children. When you prioritize your life, remember:

• God first
• Marriage second
• Children third

It is not easy to nurture your marriage while raising young (or even not-so-young) children. Here are some ideas to help you make the happiness of your partner and the unity of your marriage a high priority:

Pray together as a couple daily.
Maintaining a spiritual bond between you helps keep disagreements at a minimum and sustains a spirit of unity between you.
 

Be friends and do social activities (“dates”) together.
It is wise to have regular times together for adult conversation, laughter, enjoyment, and building positive memories. You will return to your children refreshed and renewed.

Acknowledge one another’s character qualities.
As parents, you have a primary responsibility to raise your children to have excellent characters. One of the best ways you accomplish this is to grow as individuals and model positive qualities to the children. As you see one another practicing qualities such as patience, honesty, and courage, acknowledge each other sincerely and directly. Your children will also hear you sharing such positive words and follow your example.
 

Know what is important to one another.
Ensure that you keep current with what is going on in each other’s lives and how incidents and changes are affecting each other. Talk through challenges and share ideas for coping with difficulties. Share your successes and triumphs and celebrate with one another. Invite your children to participate as appropriate.

Meet one another’s most important needs.
Explore with one another what you vitally need the other to meet. It could be such areas as conversation, sex and intimate touch, affection/love, domestic support, financial support, laughter and humor, variety and spontaneity, service, or something else. What is important is knowing what each other’s needs are, how to meet them, and then taking regular and consistent steps to meet them. This helps you to depend on and trust one another.
 

Apologize, make amends, and forgive.
Marriages (and any relationship) tend to work best when you keep them “cleaned up.” When you hurt one another, be quick to admit the error and take steps to change words and actions and make amends. Asking for and giving forgiveness brings spiritual healing to a difficult situation and allows you both to put it in the past. Forgiveness helps you to have a resilient marriage that responds effectively to difficulties and bounces back from them. Your children will learn the importance of this practice from you, too.

Be of service to one another and to others.
Service calls you to speak and act your very best. You selflessly put others’ welfare before your own comfort. It helps you to be outward focused instead of focused inwardly. Of course, moderation and balance are vital, particularly as you engage in service outside of the family. Maintaining your marriage and family are also vital ways that you serve the unity and well-being of the whole world.

Practice equality and cooperation.
Marriages and families are transitioning to a new model of practicing equality between husbands and wives. The more you respect one another’s minds, bodies, heart, and souls as equal, the stronger will be the bond between you and the better example you will set for your children. Of course, this does not mean that your roles are identical. Parenting and taking care of a home are among the most honorable tasks that someone can do, but one (or both) of you may need to work outside of the home as well.

You will notice that maintaining your marriage for your children gives you the gift of living in a happy marriage and household as well. Married couples tend to have healthier lifestyles, live longer, have more satisfying sexual relationships, have more economic assets, be more productive at work, and have children that tend to do better academically and emotionally. It truly is a gift to you and others.

 

Susanne M. Alexander is a Relationship and Marriage Educator with Marriage Transformation®: https://marriagetransformation.com and www.bahaimarriage.net. She is the author of Deciding in Unity: A Practical Process for Married Couples to Agree on Practically Everything; Pure Gold: Encouraging Character Qualities in Marriage; and A Perfectly Funny Marriage: A Humorous View of Creating a Successful Marriage among other books.

 

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Updated on 6.20.13