After making matrimonial vows, both husband and wife need to know that you have entered into a committed relationship. It comes with taking on new roles, new responsibilities, and new challenges not alone but with a partner for life.
Here are some points on how you can be a team player in your marriage:
#1 Share Your Goals with Your Spouse
After having gone through three marriages, I realise that I had underestimated the power of intention before entering a marriage. You have to have clarity on why you choose to get married and why you choose to settle down with your spouse. Different people have different agendas, dreams and goals in a marriage and it is important to paint a clear picture on what you would like to accomplish in the marriage; and be sure to share them with your spouse.
Sharing matrimonial goals together is important so you can support and remind one another to fulfill those goals.
A husband’s aim to marry may also differ from his wife’s; I also need to add that when your partner shares his or her goals and aspiration, do not be quick to judge, question and belittle those goals especially when their’s is completely different from yours!
For example, a wife may want to have romantic travels throughout her marriage and the husband may want to have an early retirement and spend most of his time doing sports with his family.
It is important to acknowledge that when you marry someone, that person have his or her own individuality, hobbies and interests. Entering a marriage does not mean that they have to completely let go of their hobbies or interests or identity.
#2 Be a Supportive Partner
As a supportive partner, your role is to empower your spouse’s goals in fulfilling his or her needs. If there is a hobby that may prove to be risky such as mountaineering, you have to be prepared to accept that hobby and not be quick to expect a sudden change for the interest or hobby simply because he/ she is now married to you.
You might be worried and concerned about his/her safety, the least you could do is to remind your spouse on safety and maybe once in a while share your discomfort without blaming your spouse’s decision to continue pursuing a risky hobby. You see, I am not asking you to agree with his/her hobby.
Being supportive does not mean you are agreeing or encouraging; it means that you are not adding on a burden to your spouse by arguing and forcing him/her to leave the activity.
#3 Understanding your Spouse’s Point-of-View
You are free to disagree and express your feelings and point-of-view.
You must be willing to explore your spouse’s point-of-view to have a better understanding of his/her perspective.
Who knows? You might end up loving your spouse’s ideas and interests too and you would be surprise that after enough of sharing your concern with patience and understanding, your spouse might ended up being willing to let go of his or her perspective altogether because your spouse began to understand your point-of-view.
It takes time, patience and maturity to be able to understand another person’s perspectives.
#4 Do not Micro Manage your Partner
You have chosen another person to live under the same roof with you; and that does not mean that the person have to abide by yours and only household rules. You need to understand that your partner were not necessarily brought up the same way as you did. Probably, you were from a household that had a live in maid to help you with the household and your spouse on the other hand were raised to clean up after themselves.
Take the time to ask questions and be interested to know how both of you would like to have things done so both can manage your expectations of one another or better still come to a mutual agreement and understanding on what to do and avoid. I say mutual, because if your partner is not comfortable adopting your ways, you must be willing to not expect your spouse to do things or chores exactly as you wished for your spouse to do.
Example, where to hang the towels? This is a classic chore that most couples would often bicker about with one another. The husband prefers to leave his towel to dry on the bed frame, while the wife prefers the towel to dry on the railing in the bathroom. Most often than not the wife would usually yell and call out on her husband for not hanging his towel her way and both ended up in an argument.
I notice the towel scenario in my marriage too but being aware makes me choose the other option of moving his towel to dry on the railing every time after he took a shower. I just know that in this matter, there isn’t a particularly correct way on how one should leave their towel to dry so I learn how to choose my battles. Make requests and communicate instead or arguing over a towel.
Surely, I do expect that my husband would eventually do things my way but hey, he might just think the same about me too so I choose not to bring up an unnecessary argument into a marriage because believe me, once you are micro managing and being nit picky, your partner will do the same to you too. It’s contagious and will never end!
#5 Trust your Partner
Trust has always been the epitome of any relationships. Once broken, you lost that trust forever or so it seems.
I find that not trusting a person will only leave me feeling anxious, worried and tensed. It was like anticipating a mistake to be made by another person. I learnt that once I have chosen a partner to live with for the rest of my life, I need to be able to give my 100% trust to my spouse.
I realise that it does not make sense to choose someone whom I want to be with for the rest of my life and at the same time not trusting that person.
The husband has to trust the wife to be a really great partner for him and the wife has to trust her husband to be the best partner she could ever have.
As mentioned, in my previous post, your spouse are allowed to make mistakes and that does not mean that they have to lose your trust; in fact, you should be giving more of your trust simply to empower or cause a change in your spouse.
Trust could also help your spouse to NOT ever repeat their mistakes again because human beings respond well in an environment where trust was given to them and this is proven in the study of psychology.
You must not threaten your spouse to force a change, you accept his or her apology, learn what had caused the mistake to occur and work together and have a common understanding that mistakes are not meant to be repeated and trust is to be given for your spouse to not make the same mistake again. I know some people are constantly repeating the same mistake again and again, trust doesn’t mean that you have to agree or accept, sometimes mistakes such as infidelity could badly hurt a relationship and caused an upset.
Learn to find strength to know that your happiness is from within and not from how others treated you. When your partner continuously err, you know that the problem lies with them and not you. You can speak your mind, make powerful decisions and at the same time give them the trust that they will eventually turn into a new leaf.
Giving your partner trust will only make you happy rather than having ongoing suspicion.
Here you have some points on how you can be a team player to your spouse. I will elaborate more in my upcoming book Being a Happy Mom, Heartfelt Shares of Amazing Moms and Memoir of the Author.
In my next post, I will share about female insecurities and how we can address them.
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