Married Monday: Balancing Act

   I was reading some articles on Family Circle and found this one on balancing personal needs and marriage. It has some good points, some that I have hit on before about setting boundaries in your marriage and keeping personal time.


   I love how she talks about why it is important to set boundaries both individually in your marriage and as a couple for outside of the marriage. A marriage only works when agreements and compromises are made. Agreeing on how you will deal with conflicts ahead of time is a great approach to help there not be a knock out drag out argument. Almost against what you would think keeping quiet on something that bothers you a lot, so that your spouse is happy will not make life better, those repressed emotions will come up one day all at once and no one will be happy then.

  For each area of your marriage there can be a conflict at some point. But there never needs to be a winner and a loser, neither of you should feel that your giving up all you were fighting for just to make it go away. Remember that you are both human, will make mistakes and that you both can do things differently and that is okay. You married your spouse for all of his good qualities choosing to ignore the ones that bug you a little, they did the same for you. Give them some room to be themselves in the marriage and not feel like they have to live up to a perfect image in your mind.

  I like her idea of setting a rule where no big decisions were made without consulting the other, that way there is never a shock to something they did. You both are now one and should act as such. Every conflict should be resolved by some sort of compromise that leaves you both happy. If it is over something like purchasing a new tv and you both can't agree on how or when to do it, then it needs to be put on the back burner until a mutual decision can be made.

Article: Yours, Mine, Ours: Balancing Personal Needs and Marriage Go check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below?

Do you have any rules set up to avoid big conflicts? How about any on spending time with friends? I would love to hear from you and see how your marriage is built.