25 Tips to Staying Married 25 Years

Yesterday, we celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary. We can’t believe we are old enough to have been married for 25 years. Recognizing the importance of building a successful marriage, we want to share with you our top 25 marriage tips. The following points are not listed in any specific order. It is our hope that these tips will help you enjoy a more rewarding marriage.

We recorded the podcast version of this post and we’ve added commentary that’s not included in the written post. Click here to listen to this podcast.


1. Marry the right person. There is only one way you will know if the person you are dating is the right person to marry and that is by spending time together. We recommend dating at least one year before getting engaged. We dated for four years before getting married. Once we got married, there were no surprises.

2. Make your marriage your top priority. If you are married, there is nothing that should take precedence over your marriage and that includes your children and career.

3. NEVER say the word divorce. If you are committed to building a long-term healthy marriage, make a vow to each other that you will never say the word divorce or anything else that would leave the other person to believe you are not 100% committed to your marriage.

4. Don’t argue over petty things. When we first got married we argued over every little ridiculous thing. It made our lives miserable. We then made the decision that we would no longer argue about meaningless things. Now when one of us bring up an issue, the other person takes it seriously.

5. Make a weekly date a priority. This is HUGE! Dress up, get out of the house and enjoy a special time together. During these times together show an interest in the things that are important to each other and avoid talking about subjects that could create tension.

6. Find at least one 30-minute block of time to spend together each day. It could be in the morning before work or in the evening. During this designated time, discuss what’s going on in each of your lives. We all have a lot going on, but if your marriage is a priority, spending time together should take precedence over all other activities.

7. Serve one another. Be intentional. We are both very thoughtful about the little things we do to serve each other. This is about putting the other person’s needs before your own. The more your serve and meet the needs of your spouse, the more your spouse will serve and meet your needs.

8. Communicate. Effective communication is critical for any marriage to last. This is especially important during difficult periods. Learn your spouse’s communication style and the way he or she needs to hear what you have to say.

9. Freedom in intimacy. You know what we mean. Make it a priority.

10. Take care of yourself. This includes everything from your physical appearance to the clothes you wear. Do your part to be an attractive mate.

11. Don’t use absolutes. This means not saying things like, “You always…” and “You Never…”

12. Be considerate. This means everything from cleaning up your mess to specifically avoiding doing or saying things that you know irritate your spouse.


13. Understand it takes hard work. Building a marriage of 25 years is not easy. We have had some very difficult periods. We have even had to go to marriage counseling to work through difficult periods. Know there will be challenging times and when they occur, work through them with a genuine desire to improve your marriage.

14. Be Encouraging. When your spouse is going through a hard period of time, starting a new endeavor, or working on an important project, be there to encourage and support him or her. You should be your spouse’s number one fan.

15. Always show respect to each other. This includes the way you communicate to each other, they way you talk about your spouse to others and the way you treat your spouse.

16. Make family decisions together. We are a team and we make all family related decisions as a team.

17. Leave your work at work. When you come home from work, resist the temptation to talk about work, unless your spouse wants to hear about it. Instead, focus your time together on subjects of interest to everyone.

18. Be the best parent you can be. We make all parenting decisions together. We are intentional about our parenting. Your spouse’s love and respect for you will grow when he or she sees you loving and parenting to the best of your ability.

19. Give your spouse freedom. We give each other the freedom to do things that give us pleasure independently. Of course, we don’t take advantage of it, but giving your spouse the opportunity to do the things he or she enjoys is important.

20. Stay out of debt. Financial stress is the number one cause of divorce. Sit down together and create a budget that you will both stay committed to and don’t allow yourselves to justify spending more money than you make.

21. Continue growing as people. We are both committed to learning, growing and achieving our personal best. This includes growing as a spouse, parent and individual. As one of us gets better, it helps the other person get better, just as iron sharpens iron.

22. Love your spouse according to his or love language. Read Joy’s post titled, Loving People the Way They Need to be Loved to learn more about the significance of love languages.

23. Show your appreciation. In a marriage, it’s easy to take things for granted. Tell your spouse how much you appreciate the little things he or she does for you. Cleaning the house, picking up the dry cleaning, walking the dog, doing the laundry, cooking dinner for the family, and fixing the leaky faucet are just a few examples. Don’t let one good deed go unnoticed.

24. Be honest with each other. Once trust is lost, it is difficult to regain and this adage is especially true in marriage. Being honest also includes being honest with your feelings.

25. No holding grudges. After you work through an issue, move on and don’t harbor ill feelings. We also strongly encourage you to not bring up past challenges. The past is the past. It’s been years since either of us has brought up a negative issue from the past.

For those of you who are married, we want to encourage you to review this list with your spouse and discuss the steps you can both take to make to improve your marriage.

If you are reading this post and you are not yet married, we strongly recommend pre-marital counseling. We suggested this to both of our married children and their spouses and they will readily tell you that it was valuable, enlightening, and set the foundation for the marriage they now enjoy.

How long have you been married? Do you have some tips you can share with the LTM community? Please tell us in the comment section below this post.

You can enjoy an amazing marriage, if you will focus on the little things that go into building a successful marriage.

SOURCE: LITTLE THINGS MATTER

How Bad Do You Want To Succeed?

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A Lion That Hugs

Your Problems Are Small Compared To Others

A Story Of DETERMINATION - The Brooklyn Bridge

In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.


Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.


Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.


The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.


"We told them so."
"Crazy men and their crazy dreams."
"It`s foolish to chase wild visions."


Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.


He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in his hospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.


It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife.


He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.


For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man's indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.


Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.


Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realized with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.


Even the most distant dream can be realized with determination and persistence.


SOURCE: Inspiring Stories

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1. Radiate Joy

Smile at everyone—yourself in the mirror, your boss, your family, strangers, co-workers, the clerk at the store.  Smile, just because. Smiling creates friendship, acceptance, understanding, and it’s more fun! (Kalama Hochreiter )

2. Take a Risk

Do something outside your comfort zone. Whether it’s talking to someone outside your social circle at a party when you’re shy, offering to help someone with a project that will require learning new skills at work, or trying a new ethnic restaurant instead of the usual Pie ‘n Burger, you’ll expand your horizons and, with them, your ideas about who you are and what you can do.  (Liz Pruyn)... READ MORE