The truth about marriage, the skills needed for team stay together

To be in a successful marriage takes a particular set of skills. The list of skills run far and wide. Some of us are able to learn, adapt and apply these skills easier than others. Some of us have to be hog tied and gagged in order to understand the skill involved. Either way, anybody who thinks that marriage will be so simple is in denial. Marriage is work, but it's worth it. Here are just a few skills needed to stay on #Team Stay Together.

Communication- I can't say this enough. There are way too many ways to get your point across in today's day and age for there to be any confusion about how your spouse feels. Whether you say it, text it, email it, DM it, or write it subliminally in a post (although I don't recommend it), you better say how you feel when you feel it. There is nothing worse than letting everything build up and then the next thing you know, somebody gets put out over french fries. It can happen- true story.

Patience- It definitely is a virtue. Being able to show kindness while waiting on your partner is a true sign of love. It is not easy and it is a very valued skill in any relationship. Showing a great level of patience pays off in the end, and it shows your partner that they are worth waiting for.

Integrity- Why lie? Why be someone who I can't trust or count on? Really? I don't understand why grown people choose to lie, or tell half truths when they know they are going to get found out anyway. The tripped out part is that most times, if someone asks you a question straight out, they already know the truth. They are just trying to see how far you will go to keep it from them. So the first rule should be to not do anything that you need to lie about in the first place, but if you do, the second rule is to be honest, admit your wrong and try to work it out with your partner.

Sense of humor- They say that laughter is the best medicine, and that is definitely true when it comes to marriage. Laughing makes you feel good and it creates a bond between people. You want to aim to have the type of relationship that you can laugh about the argument the next day instead of getting mad about it all over again.

Positive Attitude- Who wants to be married to a Negative Nancy? Nobody. You want to be the type of spouse that can look to the bright side of any situation, someone who can motivate and uplift. And someone who is not considered a spirit killer. 

Confidence- We all have insecurities, but they have no place being in the forefront of marriage. You have to be able to exude confidence even when it's not an easy thing to do. Having confidence in yourself, confidence in your spouse and confidence in your marriage will help you along the way. 

Thick Skin- Conflict in a marriage is inevitable. Sometimes during conflict, things are done or said that may hurt your feelings. You have to believe that your spouses intentions were not to hurt you, so being overly sensitive will not help. 

Problem Solver- Problems come in many different shapes and sizes. Some are easy to solve and some seem to be irreparable. But, no matter the size of your situation you have to put your problem solver skills to the test daily from figuring out what's for dinner to figuring out how to pay all the bills on time and still have some left over for date night. You can make any challenge look like a quick fix when you are a natural at problem solving.

Unconditional Love- This should be a given, but often times people don't realize the depths of this type of love. Unconditional love means loving someone despite their flaws, despite them getting on your last natural nerve, despite them buying you the perfect anniversary gift. It means loving someone beyond the conditions you have unconsciously set up in your mind. That kind of love can get you through the hard times and it can make the work and struggle of marriage a little easier to bare.

So, now that you have been given some of the important skills needed to have a successful marriage, take them, work on them and actually use them to make your marriage work...good luck.

 

Wishing you Love, Peace and Soul Deep Beauty,

Rhonda

Love and Marriage: Marriage Advice for #TeamStayTogether

This is a re-post, originally posted on April 24th, 2015. Enjoy!

As my husband and I come up on our 10th Anniversary, I can't help but think about our relationship when we first started out as newlyweds. We were the first of our friends to get married and all we had to go on was instinct and the advise of our parents and grandparents. Did we listen to them all, of course not, but I still wanted to share a few that are definitely worth sharing and incorporating into your relationship. #TeamStayTogether can be challenging, so I'm doing my part to keep hope alive.

1. Don't go to bed angry. It took me a long time to get with the program on this one. I thought there were only 2 options: 1- stay up to un-holy hours of the night arguing talking to my husband till we worked it out or 2- just shut it down and be mad that night and again all morning the next day. Then one day I realized that my beauty sleep and my sanity had taken too much of a beating and I learned 8 magical words: "We gone have to agree to disagree. Good-night." Will we discuss it the next day, probably. Will I worry about it at 10 o'clock at night- nope.

2. Kiss everyday. There is research out there somewhere that shows that kissing is good for you. It releases those feel good endorphins, amps up the romance and helps remind you of the reason you got together in the first place. You may not have time, or privacy for those teen-age makeout sessions, but make sure you smooch it out with your sweetie.

3. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't nobody have time to argue over every little thing. Yes, I know you have asked your man a thousand times to replace the bag when he takes the trash out (one of my pet peeves), but when he doesn't don't trip. Just continue throwing the garbage in the can as if he did, so the next time when he has to empty and clean the can out, he'll make sure he replaces that bag. It's a little passive aggressive, but it beats fussing about it again. I'm just saying.

4. Say I love you everyday. I am not a very affectionate person. Don't know why, I'm just not, but it wasn't until I got married that I realized how much weight these 3 little words really carry. We can get on each other's last good nerve, not talk all day and roll our eyes when the other person talks, but at the end of the day "I love you" pretty much means that all is forgiven and everything is all right.

5. The 80/ 20 Rule for Relationships. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married put me up on this rule saying that in most healthy relationships, we only get 80% of what we want and it's in that search for the 20% that either drives us crazy or causes people to stray. Remembering that life is not perfect, and neither is your spouse will help you get things back into perspective.

6. Forgive and forget. It's nothing worse than having what I like to call the "forever" argument. This is when couples who have been together forever start bringing up stuff that happened forever ago just to make a point. You may have forgiven, but with that you have to at least pretend that you forgot. We are no longer allowed to bring up things that happened pre-marriage, pre-kids or pre-marital counseling. We try our best not to bring up things that happened last week, let alone last year. You know that you have truly forgiven someone when you don't use it and throw it up in their face.

7. Learn to live in the grey area. I can be very cut throat at times: you're either right or wrong, you're going to do it, or not do it, I either like you or I don't. I don't leave much room for interpretation. So, I had to learn that with marriage, everything isn't always black and white, we will not always agree, we will not always get along, there may be times where we just can't get it together. But, it's in those moments, when we are pushed to our limits that our faith in each other is tested and we come out the other end stronger than when we started.

Those are my tips, please share yours.

Forever Loving My B.A.D.D. Kids (and my Husband),
Rhonda

Girl, let it go

 

When I tell y'all that God has been working on me the past few week-ends, I mean it. I feel physically and mentally drained from fighting against myself. But, since  I am absolutely sure that there's a blessing in the pressing I will continue to press on. 

Here's a little back ground. For the past few months my husband and I have been arguing like clockwork every Friday evening and basically ruining the whole weekend for everybody. I mean, it had been without fail. If we managed to slide thru Friday night unharmed, Saturday morning had something waiting on us. Why? Who knows. What would we argue about? Everyhing. Was it worth arguing about? Of course not. I remember one day being all hot and bothered and was waiting for him to come back home so I could give him a piece of my mind and for the life of me I couldn't even remember what I was originally mad about. That's when I realized it wasn't nothing but the devil.

I live for the weekends, especially Friday's and Saturday's because those would be our date nights. But, who wants to spend quality time with someone they arguing with? Not I. 

Lucky for me, I stumbled upon a book that was featured on the Bible app and it has been opening my eyes to the myths that we think are true about marriage and how to come to terms with dispelling them.

In addition to that, my church has started their Fight For The Family teachings again and they had a couple come in and tell their story at bible study. Listening to their story, I left really inspired to make my marriage work. Now, we are and always will be on #TeamStayTogether, but I had kind of excepted our relationship the way it was. In all transparency, sometimes it was just miserable. 

So I made the decision to just let it go. This is a hard thing for me y'all. I can not- not say what I am feeling. I tried it, it don't work. I am adult enough to admit that the reason why it doesn't work most of the time is because I'm not just trying to make a point, I'm trying to make THE point of all points in time. Ok, there I said it. But, I was determined to pass the test this time. 

I will admit, I failed the first time though. Long story short my husband popped a pimple on my sons forehead. Fact #1. This was his first pimple. Fact #2. I bought him a whole skin care line of stuff to start taking care of his face because I saw it coming. Why? Fact #3. I am a licensed skin care professional, hence the blog and former business. So I felt a certain kind of way about it. And in true Rhonda fashion I had to address it. That conversation went something like this:

Me: Why you do that to his face? You could have asked me about it first.

 

Him: If I want to pop a pimple on my son face, I'm gone pop a pimple on his face

 

.

Me: .....

 

Him: .....

 

After a 20 minute discussion, we finally concluded that all I was asking for was a little communication. 

If you come to a peaceful conclusion, that's called winning. Lol.

 

Most of the time when an argument happens over something so small and trivial, it's usually about a deeper situation. This one happened to be about the lack of communication, but instead of me going from zero to 100, I've been asking myself what I'm really mad about and if it's really worth the argument. 

I'm still a work in progress. Pray for me, y'all. 

What is something you struggle with in your marriage?

Wishing you Love, Peace and Soul Deep Beauty, 

Rhonda