Best Marriage Advice EVER: 6 Tips for Newlyweds

SIX MARRIAGE TIPS FOR NEWLYWEDS

1. Put intentional effort into your marriage every single day

I have a goal to encourage couples to make their marriage a priority every day, throughout every stage in life. There are going to be times in your marriage when it will seem almost impossible to give your spouse any attention at all some days. If you start now, making little efforts every single day to spend quality time with your spouse, it will be easier to continue to do the same down the road. You don’t have to spend hours together each day, be intentional with the time you do have and make every moment count.

2. Continue to go out on dates regularly

A few years into our marriage, we realized that we’d been taking the time that we had together for granted. Date night was like every other night of the week, there was nothing special about the time that we spent together, and we weren’t making any effort to connect. Keep weekly date nights on the calendar, even if every night feels like date night early on. Continue to pursue each other daily, the way that you did when you were dating. If you don’t keep up these habits, you’ll wake up one day and realize that you’re more like roommates because you aren’t making extraordinary efforts to spend as much quality time together as possible, unlike when you were dating.

3. Look for ways to help each other out

Being selfless in your marriage will take you a long way! Set a goal to do something to make your spouse’s life easier every day. It can be something simple like taking the garbage out or putting their clean laundry away. Or you might do something bigger like taking their car to fill it up with gas, vacuum it out, get a car wash and come back with a drink in hand for both of you. If you can’t find something to do or if it doesn’t seem like your choice of kind gestures is making a difference for your spouse, simply ask them what they need. At the end of the day, when you’re getting ready for bed, make a habit of asking, “What can I do tomorrow to help your day go smoothly?”

4. Talk about everything

Communicate!!! Share your thoughts, your feelings, your challenges and your successes. The more you share, the easier it will be to talk about more difficult things throughout your marriage. Tell your spouse if you get in a car accident, when you get a raise at work, if you overspend the budget, when you run into friends. Make them part of your life, and make sure that they are the first person you think to tell when something happens to you. By communicating about everything and communicating often, you will build a level of intimacy that brings you closer as a couple and makes it easier to deal with tougher topics when the need arises.

5. Laugh together

This is an important one! Once you get married, your life together will take on a lot of responsibilities that you might not have had previously. There are bills to pay, jobs to show up for, etc. Life doesn’t have to become completely serious and responsible however, you can still enjoy your time together. Find a reason every day to laugh together, whether it’s over a meme, a funny video you find online or something that happened during your day.

6. Don’t be afraid to set boundaries

When you start a new life together, you have to decide what is important to the two of you as a couple and what things you want to commit to doing for the rest of your lives. If you have friends or family or work responsibilities that start getting in the way of your time together and the things that are important to you (like date night or family mealtime), don’t be afraid to set a boundary. Don’t wait until that situation you don’t totally love becomes a problem. Address issues as they arise, make sure you are on the same page as a couple, communicate your boundaries and enforce them.

Congratulations on your recent wedding! I have loved married life, the adventures I enjoy with my husband and the life that we have built! There are a lot of things that I wish we’d done differently early on in our marriage and other things that I’m grateful we started doing after we got home from our honeymoon. I hope these tips help you create a strong foundation for your marriage and future family and that you enjoy a lifetime of happiness together!

For more tips on keeping the spark alive in your marriage, visit aprioritizedmarriage.com.