SCL

I heard this advice from a man a couple of months ago:

In marriage, the husband and wife each represent two sides of an hourglass. An hourglass is filled with an amount of sand, which can be transferred from one side to another; however, you have to turn over the hourglass to shift the sand, then turn it again, etc. In marriage, this means that sometimes, the husband is on top, and able to pour himself into his wife's side; at other times, the husband's side is empty, and the wife is able to pour that precious sand right back into him. One side isn't stronger than the other, and one side doesn't always hold all of the sand; there's a constant give and take.

I love that analogy, and remember it daily in my relationship. How beautiful to know that when you are empty, your partner can provide what is desperately needed; even more beautiful, is knowing that you can give so freely of yourself when the hourglass turns over.

There is an "I" in this "Team." You don't completely loose your self in this covenant. That's part of the reason the other person married you. You have a personality.

My mom's sunday school class threw me a bridal shower when I got married a few years ago. They all took turns giving me advice as I opened gifts. The most memorable piece of advice came from an older woman who, with a totally straight face, simply said, "Never cook bacon in the nude" without any further explaination.

One of the best nuggets of advice we got was: "Never, EVER go to your respective parents to vent about your spouse if you've had a disagreement." This may seem like common sense, but being a newlywed (just celebrated 1 year in May) and being quite young (21 and 22) I'm so glad someone told us this before we tied the knot!

Don't hit below the belt. You don't want to crush the one you love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing to a young bride and groom from his prison cell in
Nazi Germany in 1943:
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the
marriage that sustains your love.

Our best marriage advice (after 6 blissful years!) would be: read the book Love & Respect. It will change your relationship absolutely for the best! Men need respect to give love, and women need love to give respect…so it's a cycle.

Read it. Learn it. Live it. I guarantee your marriage will rock!

Don't throw the Ephesians verses at each other. In other words, men, you can't force respect from your wives and women, you can't force love from your husband. Both have to be freely given, otherwise that totally defeats the purpose. Your job isn't to turn your spouse into the perfect person, your job is to, with God's help, be the best spouse you can be. If you're doing your job well, your spouse will have a much easier time loving/respecting you.

Also, figure out your spouse's love language- the ways in which they commonly communicate love to others and like to have it communicated to them.

Here are a few:

1) Don't go to bed mad.

2) Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

3) Never Ever stop dating.

Secret to a long marriage: a short memory.

As I scrolled through the comments I saw a lot of people say marriage is not 50/50, but 100/100. We have always said marriage is 100/0. Just like 50/50 is unrealistic, so is expecting 100/100 because there is inevitably times when your spouse won't give you jack. If you are always putting forth 100% effort and not having expectations of your partner you will never be let down. And on those times you are giving 100, they won't be let down either.

Oh and don't have a TV in the bedroom. Seriously. It kills the sex life.

Second the Bonhoeffor quote!

I think fighting naked is the worst idea I have ever heard. And talking about naked fighting at a wedding is also a very bad idea.

Please, whatever you do, just say something original. As much as anyone can, that is, considering the whole 'nothing new under the sun' thing. You are a clever fellow and I can't imagine you'd ever be guilty of the whole "a man once said" anecdote introduction. Just be you. And make your sister-in-law feel all glowy. Which, in turn, will likely make your wife feel all glowy. Which is the point, of course.

Our preacher did a sermon series on the family, centered of course in Ephesians. His pithy summary of the submission/love thing was the following formula for his marriage with his wife: "I'm the boss, but she's number one"

The best thing we heard was
" A great marriage is not 50-50, it's 100-100. Giving yourself to your spouse, and to God, 100% of the time."

I loved that!

My favorite advice that we received was to only build your spouse up when you're in public. NEVER put each other down or insult each other or even tease each other about your faults. If you're having difficulties, try everything you can to only talk to each other about it first, instead of bad mouthing each other to your friends or family
This advice has been awesome for us – my husband only ever builds me up and compliments me in front of others and I love that.

Here's the advice I'd tell newlyweds if I'd think they'd listen. But it's not the kind of thing you'd say at a wedding.

*SHOCKER*

1) Drastically lower your expectations of your spouse. S/he's not Jesus. Or Romeo.

2) The first year (or two) is bad. It will pass. See # 1.

2) Throw out the marriage books and just work on being kind. See #1 re: Unrealistic Expectations.

3) Don't buy a bunch of nice stuff. The kids will just ruin it. Yes, they will. Even though you are thinking right now that they won't. You guessed it. See # 1.

(*smile*)

(*happily married for 12 years*)

^^ I have to say that I really disagree with the "first year being bad" thing.

We were told that as well (not the most encouraging thing to say to a new couple either) and it was just the polar opposite. It was the best and keeps getting better!

COMMUNICATE!

When you kiss, kiss. When you hug, hug. Never kiss for less than 5 seconds and never hug for less than 10.

Someone might have already said this, but here it goes…

"Always have great sex after church. It will make you want to go to church more often."

Love it, even if it does combat the you-should-want-to-go-to-church-every-Sunday mantra. Hey, the sex afterward is just a bonus!

Touch your index fingers together – "Fifty-fifty marriage doesn't work. If you have a 45% day and your partner is at 30%, there's no connect."
Now overlap your index fingers, each touching the other palm – "Shoot for 100-100% marriage. That way if one of you is 85% and the other is 70% you're still connected."

Looks like a lot of great advice. My wife and I just went through (are actually still, technically in) a point of possible separation.

But God is amazing and things are getting better and I believe they will be better than they've ever been.

My advice is to read Love & Respect and do what it says. The gist of it is, men love your wives, and wives, respect your husband. Always assume that your spouse is on your side, not against you.

check out the marriage book by nicky and sila lee. ideally read it together and discuss after each chapter

The "love and respect" thing is really interesting as it assumes that gender defines personality.
I know my husband and I are very much the reverse of what is assumed there. "Love" is, as he has often said the most important thing to him. He really, in his own words just wants to feel loved and cherished. For me, respect seems much more inmportant. I want to be taken seriously, and seen as an athority in my areas of expertise (not an authority in my marriage of course, when one person decides they have "authority" over another in a releationshi, IMO you no longer even have a marriage.)
I honestly think that theory just relies on stereotyes.
But hey, you know what? If two people just happen to fit those descriptions and that book helped them appreciate eachother more, good for them I guess, but you can't just assume that "every man wants respect more and every woman wants love more", because that is clearly not always the case.

And yeah, I have to agree that "fight naked" is probably the worst advice I've ever seen in my life. And now I want brain bleach.

Best advice:

Wifes responsibilities? Love her husband with all her heart, mind and soul.

Husbands responsibility? Everything else.

Laugh, laugh, and laugh!
100%/100%
Fight naked, and make up naked too!

From the book "Love and Respect" (paraphrased), when there is a problem between husband and wife, the more spiritually mature will be the first to make a move to address the issue and forgive. This also holds true for any relationship.

Read the book "The Marriage Builder" by Larry Crabb.

Best advice we got: Spend more time planning your marriage than your wedding.

Also, praying together is huge!

The best advice we got on marriage was that, sometimes it was like a roller coaster. You have your high moments, when you can see the world for miles around and everything is calm, and you have you low moments where you think you're gonna splash into the fake pond they built just for that reason. Sometimes its a rush and sometimes its cal. But all in all, marriage is often like a roller coaster. It' might not seem stable and ease, and that's a good thing. Because nobody likes a roller coaster that's flat.

THe best advice I've heard, as a single person, is to communicate with one another. First, to realize that men and women communicate differently, and to take that into consideration when you speak to each other. Learn how your spouse communicates. As crazy as it is, "The Five Love Languages" has helped my parents to the endth degree. Second, don't go to a friend or someone else outside of your marriage to talk about problems in your marriage. Unless it's to the point that you need to visit a Christian marriage counselor, don't let your friends tell you what THEY would do. Deal with it together in inside voices, not yelling voices.

60 years ago my dad told my mom, "always remember that a word spoken in haste can never be taken back." 38 years ago this month my husband and I shared the same words. They were words filled with great wisdom and have blessed our lives together.

The stats I heard in a sermon the year we got married was that Christians have the same divorce rate as the rest of the country, but couples who pray together have like a 90+ marriage success rate. We've managed to pull this off so far (many nights BADLY as one of us sleeps while the other prays, or repetitively, or whatever) but it keeps the door wide open for God in our relationship, focuses our marriage on Him, and keeps our intimacy stronger.

I'm also hugely pro-married sex. Have a lot of it, I say.
Erica

"Marriage will bring you the greatest joy and the greatest pain in your life"

Spoken to my husband and I by the pastor who married us. It really stuck with me.

He also reminded us to "always believe the best about your spouse"

Our pastor offered this nugget:
1. Men, every day you need to try to earn points with your wife by doing things for her that you know she'll appreciate. (And you can only know because she tells you; you can't read her mind.) Aside: 5 Love Languages would call this "keeping your spouse's love tank full."

Now, the most important part:
2. All points reset to zero at midnight. Every day is a new day.

I'm writing as a widow whose husband died too young, too soon:

Life is short. Life is precious. You never know what your last words to each other will be, which kiss will be your last.

Walk in gratitude, and the rest will follow.

A woman from my church wrote in a card for my bridal shower, "Remember that marriage is NOT forever (Matthew 22:30), so enjoy it while it lasts."

I frequently pass that advice on to other newlyweds.

I like to remind couples that there's nothing in their wedding vows about doing dishes, cleaning house, staying home with babies, or being the primary breadwinner. The vows are about how you will love each other.

Now it might sound a little cliche, but love isn't simply a feeling. It's not something that you can fall into or out of. In fact, it's something we choose to do, even when we don't feel like it. That's why when Jesus talked about love, it always came out as a command (and you can't command a feeling – another important lesson for most grooms).

Now if we want a strong marriage, you need a strong love – the strongest of which comes from the source. If we are to love each other perfectly, we have to know the love of Christ. Make Christ the centerpiece of your marriage – make him the source of your strength and your love, and you will have a long, happy life together. Do this, and you'll find that even on the impossible days, when your day won't go right and nothing would make life easier than to throw your hands in the air and walk away, you'll find yourself still able to love your spouse.

"We love because [Christ] first loved us." -1 John 4:19

I heard a lady named Jeannette Clift George say that when you take your marriage vows, you really aren't saying "I love you forever" because you don't really know what that means just yet. There will be days where you can't stand that person and you'll wonder what you have gotten yourself into. What you are saying is, "No matter what happens, I will never quit on you." I'll never quit trying, never quit communicating, never quit learning, never quit serving, etc.

My dad has a saying he tells new husbands: "Learn to say the following, 'You are right, I was wrong, I love you, please forgive me.'"

Best marriage advice I ever got:
"if one of you wins, you both loose"
-my Mom.

a piece of advice that hits me a lot lately, [both in my marriage & otherwise]
"When we recognize a fault in others, we recognize a fault in ourselves." -Robert Fripp

Just to wives: Get out of God's way. We want to make our husband's Christianity look exactly like ours. At least MANY Christian wives fall into this trap. Get out of God's way and let God be God in hubby's life.
Learned this the hard way.

If your going to greet your husband at the door wearing nothing but a dress made out of Saran Wrap and stilettos, then make sure its not a hot and humid day. You just end up looking like a sweaty prune trapped in plastic – not so sexy and very hard to remove.

Always say thank you to one another for everything.

Let him open the door for you.

Never criticize each other in public (even in jest). Be one another's biggest fans.

Spend your life together trying to outserve one another, and trying to outgive God.

Received at our wedding: Never yell at one another unless the house is on fire!

Ruth Bell Graham said of her husband, "Divorce is never an option. Murder, maybe…"

I'm thinking an SCL: Happily Ever After Score Card may be a neccessity. As is a post to share with us what you end up saying.

"At the start of any argument, assume you're the one who's wrong and find out why." I know that probably sounds ridiculous to most, but it's incredibly effective. Basically, "Drop any selfishness or pride you have, then talk it through with your spouse."
Really a great reminder (for this very selfish person) to consider your spouse before your self.
…my two cents

I got a couple good nuggets…

One was given via toast at our rehearsal dinner, that you should never forget the person your spouse was when you fell in love with them – nor should you forget who you were, either.

We were also told that sometimes, it's okay to go to sleep on your anger. If it's something minute like being mad because you were the one that had to walk the dog at 11pm at night before bed for the 10,000th night in the row (Do you hear me??! I'm talking to YOU, Mr. B), just go to sleep on it. In the morning, you tend to be more rational and things are worked out 1,000 times easier.

It's the big things that you shouldn't let the sun go down on.

Tim Hawkins has advice for things husbands should not say to their wives – enjoy…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK2OakMoW_c

On a serious note – James Dobson of Forcus on the Family says that we should enter marriage with our eyes wide open, but once we are married we need to keep them half shut.

Ok, well I was going to say that one of the better ones that I had heard (geared more toward the groom) is "Happy wife, happy life."

But, I can't compare with Meaghan's "Fight naked." I really like that one.

Marriage was not intended to take away our aloneness but for us to be known. To become one in marriage is to say to another, I want you to completely know my heart, good and bad, and give me the Grace i need to receive and give love as it was intended. Only when approached from this place can a couple find the deeper meaning of unconditional love which will hold together any God centered union. Oh, and fight naked.

Never buy your bed from Sears–they always stand behind what they sell.