The 4 Pillars of a Happy Marriage

My husband Josh and I are experts at adapting and rolling with the punches. We got married at 21, found out we were pregnant 6 months later, our closest family lived 6 hours away, and we were the first of any of our friends and family to get married or have kids. Over the years, we’ve had a few more kids, lost jobs, moved across the country twice, have been foster parents, and have gotten new opportunities we never would have expected that totally changed our lives.

Every relationship is unique, shaped by the individual experiences and shared moments that define it. However, there are a few helpful principles that I believe any marriage can benefit from adopting. These principles have been the bedrock of our relationship and have seen us through both the highs and lows. Here are four core principles that have helped Josh and me build a strong and enduring foundation for our marriage:

Building a Culture of Forgiveness

Any strong relationship has partners who are ready and quick to forgive. When big things happen that hurt you and it’s really hard to forgive, even if you don’t feel like it, you hope to one day get to a place where you want to forgive your spouse and you can work towards that. And then when little day-to-day annoyances happen, like you need to pick up the dirty socks for the thousandth time, You can roll your eyes a little bit but forgive that quickly, too.And that doesn’t mean you have to shove your feelings about those things, whether annoying or hurtful, under the rug. It’s really important to be clear on your expectations for each other, but having an attitude of forgiveness is like putting Aquaphor on your lips each morning. Eventually, you’ll never need your chapstick again because your lips just aren’t chapped anymore. The Aquaphor’s got it covered from the start. In the same way, an attitude of forgiveness covers both little and big grievances.

Unashamed intimacy

All couples are going to have unique levels of closeness, like what amount of potty talk is TMI or what jokes cross a line. But all healthy couples need a deeply felt sense of safety, security, and familiarity with each other. Otherwise, husbands and wives may be prone to hiding things from each other, communicating poorly, or reacting defensively because deep down they don’t feel secure or safe from judgment in their relationship.

It goes way further than sexual closeness. Unashamed intimacy is the realization that you can be yourself and that you are wholly accepted by the other person, flaws and all. That’s not to say that they can never ask you to change or improve (ie. “Hey babe it would mean a lot to me if you let me know ahead of time when you’re going to be home late.”) but on a deep level, you understand that your spouse isn’t going to abandon you when times get tough.

Mutual self-sacrificial service

I hear phrases like “You need to love yourself before you can truly love anyone else” and while it’s absolutely important to take care of yourself and make sure you’re healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally, I think phrases like this really downplay the importance of self-sacrifice in marriage. For example, my husband is a night owl and would love to sleep in in the mornings, but he often gets up earlier than me and takes care of the kids to let me get some extra sleep. And in that scenario, he’s arguably worse off because he got less sleep and is tired from having to meet the needs of our three kids. But even so, he is loving me well by putting my needs above his own. Marriage relationships truly thrive when husbands and wives both work to put the other’s needs above their own. That way, no one’s needs are truly neglected and both parties feel loved and seen and cared for rather than two individuals who are simply really good at taking care of themselves.

A humble attitude

I’ve found that sometimes couples can look like they’re good at forgiving or caring for each other’s needs, but often one or both parties will feel a sense of superiority over their spouse. Sometimes it comes from a superior sense of competence: ie. “My husband wouldn’t know what a bottle brush was if it bit him on the nose,” or, “My wife could never tell you what she spends at Target but she could always tell you what she saved. That’s why I’m the one who manages our finances.”

Sometimes this sense of superiority comes from a moral high ground where one spouse will think to themselves, “I would never… have forgotten such a special day, have said those hurtful words, have left such a big mess.” And while it may be true that we would never have done something that our spouse chose to do, we often neglect to see our own shortcomings with the same clarity that we see our spouses.

Stephen Covey said, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.” And we often bring this into marriage, forgetting all of our shortcomings, but keeping a little black book of all the ways our spouse has failed us. Healthy relationships need to be able to wipe the slate clean. I think this goes beyond forgiveness and into the depths of our own hearts and how we see our spouse, relate to them, and how honest we are with ourselves about our own imperfections.