MO AND PHINDI | Tips for newlyweds on how to start marriage on right path

The first years of marriage are critical for any couple: they’re learning more about one another, and themselves, individually.

One important lesson is that it’s a mistake to assume that being “in love” will make any problems go away on their own. Taking steps to protect your relationship can and does ensure a healthier relationship.

Being on the very tail-end of the festive season, a period when more than 70% of weddings take place in SA, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to speak to our new audience – the newlyweds.

So we continued the previous column about some of our unconventional tips for newlyweds.

Conflict is necessary

Don’t be scared of it. In order for your marriage to thrive and be healthy, and in order for you to grow as an individual, you do need to be challenged, especially by someone who loves you. What’s unnecessary is for conflict to lead to damage – physical or emotional. It’s more important how you resolve or manage conflict, than the frequency of it.

Silent treatment will kill your marriage softly

Silent treatment is a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse. It is the refusal to engage in a conversation and is used as a punishment or control tactic to exert power in a relationship.

Silent treatment is immature, toxic, unhealthy and abusive. But, if being silent means simply taking timeout to think things through and then address the issue again later, that is not at all the same thing.

If you see their socks on the floor

You have three choices: look the other way, scream at your partner or pick them up. There is no fourth option. Yes, you’ll feel like nagging, but don’t. Not worth it. Your spouse has been dropping their socks for years. They throttle the toothpaste from the top and you squeeze it from the bottom, 

Everyone has annoying habits, including yourself.

When you have sufficiently registered your discontent about the socks, you’ll do well to simply look the other way. Better yet, sit down and ask them to identify one of your most annoying habits, then each of you can work on a practical plan to unlearn them individually.

Pride goes before a fall

In marriage, the root of most challenges is found in an over-estimation of ourselves. It’s pride that prevents people from seeking help when they need it, and that can make your marriage fail.

Pride creates dissonance between couples and makes it hard for intimacy to flourish. It doesn’t allow you to talk about your struggles, seek help, work out problems, or connect through vulnerability. It also whispers in your ears that you’re right (and they are wrong), and that you know everything. You can be full of pride or have a healthy marriage, but you can’t have both.

Never threaten your partner with divorce

This is abusive and controlling. It creates insecurity but you also teach them not to take your words seriously. In effect, there may come a time where they will literally take you at your word, and leave when you least expect it.

As much as possible, stay out of debt

Don’t begin a marriage with debts from your previous lives. Actually, your relationship with money is one of the most important conversations you should have had before your marriage.

An unhealthy relationship with money has a very real potential to cut your marriage short. Watch the itch to swipe that card. Be completely transparent, and hold each other accountable.

Comparing your spouse

The fastest way to demean, devalue and eventually kill a marriage is to compare your spouse to someone else. Left unchecked, comparisons lead to replacement.

Chasing happiness will kill your marriage before it begins

Our obsession with “happiness” often exalts hedonism at the expense of what really matters in marriage. It further seeks to cancel out the sacred truth that marriage is for better or worse.

In a world filled with thorns and thistles, happiness is short-lived. And bad things do happen to good people. The world owes us no great marriages. Such marriages are diligently and patiently worked on.

Peace and satisfaction, instead of happiness, are far better pursuits in marriage. Happiness will then be a by-product of that pursuit.

Be intent on developing family traditions

Your family will develop unique family rituals and traditions to add to your individual positive and healthy family cultures. Rituals and traditions create a sense of belonging, provide a sense of meaning, pull you together, and reinforce important family values and beliefs.

Allow yourselves to be mentored

This is perhaps the most important advice you will ever get. And we see no need to explain it.