How Do We Keep Marriage Fun Around the Home?

By Paul Brandt, LS, LCSW

Keeping any relationship fun is not an easy task – especially in Long Term Relationships.

Jodi Hann-Ring says:

Fun as part of our home life… Well it only took the first half of our marriage for me to figure out, “don’t sweat the small stuff!”, which is hard when you’re newly married and then add children. You want things “perfect”, uhh…  not gonna happen!

I found and Von found, laughter is the best medicine. Things are gonna happen, you’re going to argue, but what’s more important?…  getting the dishes and laundry done or snuggling up together watching a movie, remembering funny stories and just enjoying each other?

There are always going to be dirty dishes and dirty laundry, there won’t always be the two of you laughing and enjoying each other so take the time to love each other. That’s what we try to do on a daily basis. A quick kiss, a hug, a compliment. When you feel the love you don’t sweat the small stuff because you have so much bigger and better things to enjoy and look forward to.

Jodi’s observations are packed with the wisdom that she and her husband, Von, have accumulated over years of experience. It’s the kind of wisdom we wish had had from the beginning.  It’s the kind of wisdom that other people might have tried to convey to us in words but that we could only gain through experience. From Jodi’s entry I get the following (and maybe you’ll get more):

• When she says, “it only took the first half of our marriage for me to figure out…”, she’s acknowledging that when we get married, we might have fallen in love, but we didn’t really know how to love.
• When she says, “for me to figure out”, it’s obvious that Jodi takes a lot of personal responsibility for the quality of the relationship, as opposed to blaming Von, her spouse, for the quality, or lack of quality, of the relationship.  Real positive change in a relationship happens only when the partners take personal responsibility for growing in love and becoming the most loving people they can be.
• What Jodi figured out was, “don’t sweat the small stuff”, and don’t expect things to be perfect. “Small stuff” is inevitable and it conflicts with our wish that things could be perfect.  That’s really frustrating and disappointing for us as we learn that, as much as we want our marriage and family life to be perfect, small stuff is going to get in the way.  And add to that harsh reality the fact that our idea of perfect usually conflicts with our partner’s idea of perfect.
• Jodi and Von discovered that “laughter is the best medicine”.  If you read Jodi’s  and Von’s “Bingo Night” date idea, you might have gotten the impression that I got.  Jodi and Von are fun people.  They are naturals at having a good time, being playful, laughing and kidding around.  Playful, light interaction and activity while tolerating disagreement or disagreeable circumstances, helps to affirm the fact that, as tough as things might get our marriages are still more important than whether or not the house is as clean as we want, or whether or not all the bills get paid on time.
• Jodi makes it clear that there is always going to be more work that needs to be done than can be done in a day and that there are always going to be disagreements.  She also makes it clear that none of those things are as important as taking the time for a quick kiss (I actually recommend long kisses), a hug, and a compliment.
• Jodi also lays it out there.  We won’t always have the opportunities to snuggle, to play, to show love and affection.  Now is the time to do what is most important, to prioritize love over our fantasy of perfections, to accept personal responsibility for becoming more loving as individuals and for making our marriages the best that they can be by choosing to initiate and create loving situations.

“Small stuff” and disagreements are inevitable. They don’t preclude love and affection. By tolerating the small stuff and disagreements AND proactively initiating affectionate words and behaviors, we affirm the relationship, we affirm the importance of our partners, and we nurture and even create the feelings of love.  Keeping the feelings of love alive and well, actually choosing to nurture feelings of love by initiating loving actions, makes life more enjoyable and helps us not to “sweat the small stuff”.

Paul Brandt is a psychotherapist specializing in individual, couples and family therapy.  He has maintained a private practice in the Salt Lake City area for thirty years. To find out more CLICK HERE