Marriage tips

My little sister recently got married, and in the days before her wedding I tried to dig deep and find some gem of wisdom to pass on from my eight years of marriage.

I know eight years is a blip for many of you reading this, but I’ve learned a lot about marriage, myself and my husband in those eight years. I’ve learned how to fight fair, how to read my husband’s cues and that marriage is about a lot more than just romance.

So in searching for the best advice I could give my sister, I settled on two things that have helped me the most in my own marriage.

1. Go to bed together – Make it a priority to go to bed together each night.

Our church leader gave us this advice when we were first married, and I remember thinking it seemed like such a trivial suggestion. But over the years as children get in the way and work adds up, I’ve realized how much of a difference it makes to have those few minutes of pillow talk at night followed by a goodnight kiss. When we don’t make it in bed at the same time because one of us has work to do, I miss it, and I realize what a gift it is to close the day with your spouse.

2. Be anxiously concerned – My favorite piece of marriage advice is from LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley. He said, “I have long felt that the greatest factor in a happy marriage is an anxious concern for the comfort and well-being of one’s companion.”

What a great statement. Most of the rough patches in my marriage are when I was thinking about myself, my needs and how my husband could treat me better. As soon as I flipped that thinking to be anxiously concerned for my husband’s happiness, everything was better. When I’m looking for ways to make my husband happy, I find that I’m happier, our marriage runs smoother and my husband reciprocates my kindness.

What advice have you heard or learned through experience that you would give to newlyweds (or veterans) on how to make a marriage work?