5 Ways Preparing for Marriage Can Make Your Relationship Stronger
Your wedding day is approaching. You’re looking forward to all the benefits of a fun, stable, vibrant marriage: deep intimacy, unbreakable connection, and unconditional friendship. Taking the time to prepare for your marriage can help you mix all the ingredients necessary for a strong relationship and satisfying marriage. Here’s how – and why preparing for your marriage and make your relationship stronger!
Fewer surprises.
You’ve probably imagined what married life will be like. You think about what you’ll do for each other, the late-night talks, the early morning rendezvous. You have developed the “perfect” expectations of married life and of your soon-to-be spouse. But, there’s one problem—your future spouse wasn’t in on those conversations. They’ve only been formulating in your mind.
Talking honestly about your expectations helps you enter the marriage with eyes wide open. You may get an even better sense of the person you’ve fallen in love with. Do you uncover every single expectation in the process of preparation? No. You learn how to recognize expectations and become more attuned to verbalize them… which leads us to the second benefit.
Communication becomes a strength.
In high school, if I gave you a good study guide several days before you had to take the actual test, you’d have a better chance of doing really well on that test. It’s those students with no study guide who would be at a disadvantage. Part of preparing for marriage is getting the study guide, the keys to communication in marriage, prior to getting married. Preparing for marriage means putting yourself at the head of the class when it comes to communication and feeling good about being heard, understood, and valued.
Plan for transforming conflict into intimacy.
It’s not uncommon in marriage for one spouse to want to avoid conflict at all costs, while the other spouse thinks of it more like a sport, which can lead to some super awkward moments. For the prepared couple, learning to dance together through conflict can be the springboard to unbridled and passionate intimacy. There will be disagreements. How can this make your relationship stronger? Disagreements and conflict are often the prerequisite for increased intimacy, unbreakable connection, and a fierce security.
Gain clarity on some of marriage’s biggest topics.
Money, in-laws, parenting, intimacy. What to do with her bonus check? Letting his mom know you’re not visiting for Sunday dinner. If and when do we want to have kids? What makes each of you feel most intimate with one another? These are all topics that can bring joy to the marriage if you can get out in front of them as a couple. Receiving advice and guidance on dealing with key topics prior to marriage can help you be on the same page and eliminate unnecessary surprises.
Gives you a better chance of a stable, satisfying, lengthy marriage.
Everyone who gets married wants a stable, satisfying, lengthy marriage. In preparing for life after the wedding, you’re actually doing something about it. Research found that relationship satisfaction and success is more about each person’s perception of the relationship and less about choosing the “perfect” person for you. Intentionally preparing for your marriage can improve how the two of you perceive and interact with one another. As a result, you are giving yourself a better chance of a committed and fulfilling relationship.
Preparing for your marriage can make your relationship stronger, and it can take many forms: premarital education and premarital counseling are the most direct and intentional methods. You’ll discuss each of the topics mentioned in the most effective settings. Research from Scott Stanley and others has shown that couples who receive premarital preparation are less likely to divorce. In addition, inviting healthy, married couples for coffee and dessert to pick their brains on how to have a strong relationship can be invaluable as you prepare for your big day. Preparing for your marriage will not only give you a head start to a thriving marriage, just as importantly, it will also strengthen your relationship in the process. A strong relationship is just the ingredient you need for a thriving marriage.
Image from Unsplash.com
OMG! It finally happened! I’m engaged! There are so many things to do:
- Venue
- Bridal Party
- Flowers
- Wedding Dress
- Ceremony and Reception
- Honeymoon location
Once you’re engaged, the focus turns to make sure that the “Wedding of Your Dreams” occurs. Yes, your wedding is important, and there are many details that go into making your wedding an event to remember. I couldn’t wait to plan the wedding of my dreams. I didn’t stop to consider that the wedding is not the destination. It is, however, the beginning of your marriage journey.
Have you considered what comes after the big day?
What about the marriage of your dreams?
What are you doing to prepare for your marriage?
Here are some of the things I wish someone had shared with me.
It’s not all about ME anymore, but about WE:
Once you get married, you and your spouse are a family. Decisions and expectations are no longer one-sided. It is important to consider the thoughts and feelings of your spouse.
Ask The Right Questions About the Big Topics.
- Children: Are we hoping to have children? When? How many?
- If we do have children and both of us are working, how will we handle that?
- In-Laws: How involved will they be? What are expectations regarding holidays, family dinners, birthdays?
- Money: Do we have a budget? Separate or joint bank accounts? What about debt? (Student loan, credit card, etc.) Who will pay the bills? What are our goals?
- Friendships: How will our friendships be the same or different? Opposite-Sex Friendships? How much time do we spend with separate friends?
- Goals/Dreams: What is your dream job? Where do you want to live?
- Legacy: What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? Family legacy?
Be open for change.
Even when you have talked about the “big-ticket items,” be ready and open for opportunities you don’t expect to come up. One month after our wedding, my husband made a career change that changed our lives. We moved 800 miles away from friends and family so he could attend graduate school. He hinted at the change during our engagement, but I never truly considered it a possibility. I decided to make the most of the adventures and opportunities represented. Looking back, that was one of the best things for helping us build a strong marriage.
Friendships might shift.
You might see some friends less and see some friends more. As a couple, you might become friends with some other couples. Getting married doesn’t mean giving up your friendships, but you might have to be intentional about maintaining and caring for those friendships. You both still need friends, but make sure they are friends that are for your marriage.
Be prepared to go all-in.
Being married is not something to do half-heartedly. It requires you to give your time, energy, and effort. Go all-in for your marriage not because you have to or are supposed to, but because you CHOOSE your spouse and your marriage. It takes Intentionality.
Realize your marriage journey will not look like anyone else’s.
In the first five years of our marriage, my husband and I moved five times between three different states. When I looked at the marriages of other friends and family, none of them looked like mine. I compared mine to theirs and felt mine lacked stability. I had to realize my marriage journey was MY marriage journey. As a result of the many moves, we learned to lean and depend on each other. Wherever we ended up was fine because any place with the two of us was HOME.
Seek Premarital Education.
There are a plethora of opportunities to seek premarital education from a variety of sources. You may choose any or all of these options to help you prepare for marriage.
- First Things First has an online premarital course.
- The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman.
- Mentor Couple—find a married couple with whom you can talk, ask questions, and has the marriage you would like to have.
- Religious /Spiritual premarital counseling.
The day of your wedding is the beginning of your MARRIAGE JOURNEY. Making time to strengthen your relationship during your engagement will prepare you for more than a day. It will prepare you for a LIFETIME of marriage together.
Image from Pexels.com
8 Things No One Tells You About Being Engaged
*Clink!* Champagne flutes (or rocks glasses if it’s your preference) meet to toast the “Yes!” you just said. Before you even have the chance to sit down, enjoy the butterflies and process what just happened, the congratulations come serendipitously. People begin to ask ALL THE QUESTIONS, poking at what’s next—
Have you picked a date?
Do you know where you’ll have the wedding? Surely a place easy for out-of-town guests to get to?
What kind of dress do you want?
Being engaged is a whirlwind. Do yourself a favor and set aside your expectations while you call upon every easygoing/adaptable fiber in your being.
Things No One Tells You About Being Engaged:
1. You’ll have to tell the proposal story over and over and over—probably even on your wedding day.
It’s sweet to relive the question you’ve waited for… maybe the first 10 times. But you’ll tell it more than 10 times, so don’t let it surprise you if strangers who notice your ring ask about the intimate details of your proposal. *Take a deep breath* and give yourself a break. You don’t have to feel guilty if it gets old! The magic or relief you felt during the proposal is not dimmed because you don’t feel like narrating your own life. Consider an engagement party where you tell it in-person to a group of your closest friends and family. Or, make a post to a social media or wedding website with the story for all your virtual friends to read on their time and not yours.
2. Your parents may have way more opinions on the wedding than they’ve had on your relationship.
Sometimes those endearing parents of yours blur the boundary between being helpful and being controlling. If your parents are trying to control the wedding, talk with your fiancé about how you want to address the situation. Then sit down and talk with your parents. *Some pro advice I got while engaged: If it’s your parent, you‘re the spokesperson for that conversation and vice versa (aka blood talks to blood). This advice keeps the us vs. them mentality from creeping in.*
If you’re in a situation where your parents are paying for the wedding, you have to find the balance of respecting their wishes and making some compromises but still making it feel like your day. If you’re paying for the wedding yourselves, there’s a lot more room for saying it isn’t what you have in mind. Of course, in this situation, you want to honor your parents. Delegating some tasks is a great way to show you need them and that they are important.
3. Friends who have recently gotten married are self-proclaimed wedding planning experts—and they’ll impart their wisdom without you even having to ask!😅
I love how The Knot puts it: Take it in stride. “You should/shouldn’t do this” can come across as telling you what to do and not suggesting what you two could do. At the end of the day, you and your fiancé decide what advice to take and who to listen to. If you take some of their advice, wonderful! But if not, just say thank you and move on.
4. One of you may be more ready to jump into planning than the other.
Sometimes it comes down to a difference in personality. Try not to take it personally if you suspect that may be the reason.
Be sensitive to each other. Talk about what you two need from this engagement season. Then decide together (this could mean compromising sooner or later than you wanted) on when to start the planning process. You two are on your own timeline. Talk about some of the logistics like when both of your leases end, are you still in school, are you having to move for a job, etc., to get an idea of whether or not there’s an urgency to start this process.
5. It’s not all sweet; planning can cause a lot of tension and stress between you and your fiancé.
The movies make it look like everything perfectly falls into place like a rigged game of Tetris or everything somehow falls apart like the last move in Jenga. The truth is, many people (yourselves included) will ask you questions. Date, location, guest number, food, color scheme, theme, photographer, first look, where are you getting the dress, can I have a plus one… trust me the list goes on and on. I think it’d be silly to say there’s not a chance of it being overwhelming—for one or both of you.
The reality is you aren’t just planning a wedding, you’re preparing for marriage. The questions start off with wedding day talk but lean seamlessly into your future together. You have finances to consider, serious conversations about kids or no kids, how you want to handle conflict, expectations for who takes care of what in the house, etc. With so much on the table, tension can grip tightly. You may feel like you and your fiancé are fighting more now than ever. If you’re fighting nonstop, take inventory on what it’s about. Is it understandable? Are you spending enough quality time together outside of decision-making? Prioritize your relationship over the planning, because your relationship is going to be around much longer than a day.
6. It’s hard to enjoy the engagement season.
For some reasons listed above plus the busyness this season brings, it can be hard to soak in any of the joy. I know I was so excited to be engaged and thought I would feel how I felt when my husband proposed throughout the whole engagement. Some people do. If you’re finding it hard to enjoy, you’re not alone and it’s not a reflection on your excitement to marry the love of your life. If you can, consider delegating some of the responsibilities you have. Spend quality time with your fiancé and find excuses to introduce each other as fiancés because a little recognition of importance goes a long way.
7. You may consider changing how long you thought you’d be engaged: shorter or longer!
Sometimes just when you think you have it figured out, everything changes! It’s neither better nor worse—it just is what it is!
Life happens and circumstances come up you just don’t expect. Maybe it’s something like a job change or a death in the family. Perhaps it’s acceptance to grad school or a lease opening up at your dream apartment. Whatever comes along, you and your fiancé’s main goal should be a willingness to be flexible for changing up the plans if it’s best for your relationship in the long run. You two may find yourself like me who only had a 6-month engagement and eloping sounded more and more tempting as the days slowly trekked by. On the other hand, you may realize there’s much more to do than you two initially thought. Having a longer engagement would give you the space to make stuff happen without the stress of being rushed.
8. Your relationship feels different.
Even though you’ve anticipated this milestone, it feels different. It’s sweeter looking down at a promise of forever and wearing a symbol to everyone that someone wants you now and whoever you grow to be in the years to come. There’s a comfort and confidence with being engaged (it feels even better when you’re married).
Sure, there’s some pressure, too. But stay true to who you are (the person they fell in love with) and work on being the best version of you there is.
Hopefully with these 8 things on your radar, you have a better idea of what to expect. I wish you and your sweetheart all of the love, a stress-free (as possible) wedding and most importantly, a beautiful marriage.
Consider these blogs for some additional resources:
- 5 Common Misconceptions You Should Know About Marriage Before You Say “I Do”
- Conversations Every Engaged Couple Should Have Before They Say, “I Do”
- 7 Things You Need to Know Before “I Do”
- We’re Getting Married And Everyone Is Giving Us Advice… Who Do We Listen To?
- Premarital Class!
- How Long Should a Couple be Engaged Before Getting Married?
How Long Should A Couple Be Engaged Before Getting Married?
How long should a couple be engaged before getting married? Great question! There isn’t a “magic number” and it doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing. What matters is how well you both really know each other and if you are both ready—individually and relationally—for that big “forever” next step.
To help guide you through this thought process, let’s see what some experts have to say and what conclusions they’ve gathered from research.
The average engagement length for U.S. couples was 15 months. The study represents feedback from more than 25,000 couples married in 2019.
Different factors can play into having a longer or shorter engagement. It boils down to what is best for you two. It’s important to know the difference between having a reason for a long engagement or one of you not wanting to commit and pick a wedding date.
Reasons for having longer engagement:
- Are you still in school?
- Are you long-distance or living abroad?
- Do you have commitments that are presently keeping you busy and you need time to plan?
- Are you saving money for the wedding to pay for it upfront?
- Most importantly, are you still getting to know each other?
John Van Epp, author and relationship expert, believes that within “three to six months you can begin to know someone, but like looking through a microscope at its lowest power, you can only see certain things in that amount of time.”
Dating someone for an extended period allows you to see certain things that may not become evident right away. Having history together provides understanding into who each person really is. It allows you to see how each person handles different kinds of situations. So, you may not need a long engagement if you’ve already put in the relationship work to get to know each other well. The important thing is that you are ready for marriage.
“A relationship needs time for things to normalize. Many people are very flexible in the infancy of a relationship, but as time goes by they become less flexible. By taking things slow and easy you give your relationship time to grow up and you get to see how the person will really treat you,” says relationship expert, Julie Baumgardner.
One study found that couples who dated for more than two years consistently scored higher on marital satisfaction than those who dated less than two years.
According to research by John Birtchnell and John Kennard, at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, “Couples which are better acquainted before marriage have significantly higher rates of marital quality.” Couples who are less acquainted experience greater problems when they face the inevitable difficulties of marriage.
“Long engagements are helpful when individuals are at significantly different places in their lives,” says Scott Haltzman, author and relationship expert. So, if you or your partner are in the midst of some of those things listed above, it might be better to take some time on the front end to sort it out before the wedding. It also allows time for premarital education.
Haltzman also says that a prolonged engagement gives couples an opportunity to engage in premarital education to learn skills to help them navigate the marriage journey. Premarital education is incredibly important—no matter how long you‘re engaged.
In addition, Scott Stanley, a marriage guru and research professor at the University of Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies, argues that one of the primary reasons premarital education has value is because it slows couples down and fosters greater deliberation. In Making a Case for Premarital Education, Stanley says the lack of time in a premarital relationship correlates with higher rates of divorce in the subsequent marriage.
However, there is a growing love for shorter engagements.
Remember, it doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing. Maybe you’ve dated a really long time and gone through premarital education. Perhaps you’ve seen each other respond to problems, differences, and stressors over time. If so, you might not need a long engagement.
Being engaged feels separate from dating because of the mutual desire for commitment for the future. But there is some overlap in this limbo. You aren’t married yet and you’re more than a girlfriend/boyfriend. Nonetheless, you’re still dating and your goal is to continue getting to know each other so there aren’t any big surprises after you marry.
It boils down to figuring out what is best for you both based on where your relationship is right now. Have you laid a strong foundation? Are you rushing things? Are you listening to other people’s opinions versus making a decision that is right for the two of you?
It’s a case-by-case basis, so don’t feel like you have to find a perfect equation. Figure out what works for you.
Consider these blogs for some additional resources:
We’re Getting Married And Everyone Is Giving Us Advice
“I just want to do it right, I want to know what I’m supposed to do.” I kept saying this to myself while I was getting ready to be married. Plus, I wanted to prepare myself for anything that could come our way. I wanted a rock solid marriage with a foundation no earthquake could tear down. But when everyone started giving us advice, it was overwhelming.
My parents divorced and my amazing mom raised my sisters and me by herself. She taught me unconditional love with her selfless giving and consistent encouragement, but I wasn’t around a marriage relationship.
Luckily, the tantalizing lie that I would mess up or something would go wrong was put to bed once Tyler, my husband, and I took inventory of the relationships we admire.
His parents’ marriage was stronger than ever, a close family friend had been married for almost 50 years, a couple who were our small group leaders, and the list went on. Tyler and I were surrounded by people who loved us and would jump at the opportunity to support us.
☆ There are people in your life with good intentions who will give you lots of marriage advice before and right after you say “I do.” However, there are some people who might not necessarily be the right ones to speak into your marriage. Or it might be better to say that they may not be qualified to give you that kind of advice.
How can you decipher what marriage advice is solid, who to listen to, and who’s a friend of your marriage?
Checklist:
- Do you or your fiancé have a good relationship with the person giving advice?
- Is this someone who you trust?
- Did this person/couple know you and/or your fiancé before the engagement?
- Is this a person who is where you want to be at in life?
- Do you like how they handle conflict?
- Have they already been through what you’re going through?
- Are they supportive of your marriage?
- Will the relationship with them continue in your marriage and not just before it?
There’s no better place to seek marriage advice than from someone who is in the place you want to be. Most people will give advice from the baggage they have had to carry and what they’ve already been through. There is wisdom in asking questions, and pure gold from listening to those who have done marriage well who know you well enough to be open and honest about their experience. Talk to couples who did not let trials cripple their relationship but used the challenge as an opportunity to grow from it.
Ask them questions like…
- What is the most challenging and most rewarding part of marriage?
- What did you all do that has helped you get to the place you are now?
- How do you solve problems that seem irreconcilable?
- What would you have done differently with the experiences you have been through?
- What grace do you wish you had given each other in the beginning of your marriage?
☆ There’s always room to grow – more in love, closer together, and into stronger versions of yourself. Lean into the support system you have and keep the door open for conversations throughout your marriage.
In addition to talking with your trusted people, here are some resources…
- Conversations Every Engaged Couple Should Have Before They Say, “I Do”
- 3 Things I Wish I Had Done Differently While I Was Engaged
- 5 Things Every Engaged Couple Should Know
- Engaged Couples and Expectations
☆ If you want to take it a step further, check out our online premarital program!
P.S. There are a few other organizations we have found helpful, like The Gottman Institute, LoveThinks, and the work by Michele Weiner-Davis to name a few. Hope this helps. <3
Conversations Every Engaged Couple Should Have Before They Say, “I Do”
While you’re engaged, conversations tend to hover endlessly around the wedding day, and naturally so. Though working out the details and planning your celebration is exciting, having conversations about other topics is important, too.
You and your fiancé are stepping into something beautiful—a promise of commitment, a proclamation of loving each other now and falling in love over and over again, a 24/7 best friend, and a person who wants to love you at your best and through the worst. You owe it to each other to take the time to appreciate what you have and to continue the pursuit.
One way to pursue each other is to sit down and have important conversations. Continue to learn about each other, find a middle ground for things you may not have the same opinion on, and keep the door open to come back to these conversations down the road. As time goes by, things can change, and so can you.
5 Conversations Every Engaged Couple Should Have Before They Say, “I Do”
1. Talk about the importance of marriage, what it means to you both and what you hope for it to look like.
Being on the same page about why marriage is important to you helps you both take ownership of your relationship and establishes its value. When you take the time to lay out your hopes and expectations, you invite your spouse into the opportunity to make those happen. If you don’t voice what you expect from your future spouse, you’ll set them up for failure and yourself up for disappointment.
2. Do you want children?
If one of you does and the other doesn’t, this could be quite an obstacle to get over. It is important not to assume the other’s answer in this particular conversation because it intimately affects what the future looks like. Talking about this as an engaged couple is a really big deal.
3. How do you handle conflict and what rules do you want to establish on how to fight when you do?
Conflict is inescapable for any relationship, says Psychologist Dan Wile, but some of the best news is that conflict handled well actually brings you closer instead of pulling you apart. You have to find what works best for you both. For my husband and I, we have two ground rules: 1. No yelling and 2. No cussing at each other. This works for us! If we feel like we are going to start yelling, we call timeout and revisit the conversation after we have had time to process.
With more than 40 years of love and relationship research under their belt, The Gottman Institute says that whether love will last is more about how couples address their differences and support one another’s needs and dreams. Here are some steps they suggest to handle conflict better.
4. Talk through your finances.
What are your financial goals? Have you talked about a budget and about savings? This topic can take a turn for the worst pretty quickly if you don’t find a middle ground. Here’s some guidance on automating money in your marriage and saving thousands by The Gottman Institute.
5. Intimacy in your relationship.
It’s an often underrated conversation. Being intimate isn’t limited to being physical, though that is an important part. In fact, there’s emotional and spiritual intimacy, too. Each of these plays into each other and helps create a deeper bond with your partner because you are learning about them in a way that others may never experience. Spending quality time together is a great way to increase intimacy. Talk about what your dreams are, your spirituality, your feelings and what’s on your heart as well.
Get personal with your sweetheart. Start out your marriage with the muscle memory of talking through tough conversations, how you want to love each other and what’s important to you. The more you communicate, the richer the potential for a lovely life together. Now who’s ready to say I do?
Check out some other great blogs for engaged couples:
My Fiancé and I are Fighting All the Time
Fighting with your fiancé all the time, aka, the person you are planning on spending forever with, can feel just exhausting. Planning your wedding, fear of job loss, or navigating unemployment while trying to secure a future together… uncertainty can definitely stir the dust in the air. Just when you think the dust is going to settle, one of you kicks it back up again!
“I have seen far too many people fall into the trap of marrying a person thinking that they knew them, but in reality, they only knew about them,” says Dr. John Van Epp, relationship expert, and author.
So, for starters, if you find yourself in constant conflict with your fiancé, what exactly are you fighting about?
- Finances around the wedding?
- When you will actually get married?
- What the celebration will look like in the midst of “RONA?”
- One of you is messy and the other is a neat freak?
- Your mother?
- Quarantining during the Pandemic?
- The dishes in the sink overnight?
- Money in general?
Fighting about things that matter is one thing, but if you find yourself fighting with your fiancé about Every. Little. Thing, that’s a whole new ballgame.
It might be a good time to take inventory of your relationship and see if it’s unhealthy.
An important thing to consider—if you are fighting about everyday things that you will for sure continue to encounter, and you are thinking that once you marry things will simmer down and those issues won’t be such a big deal or you will be able to “work on your spouse” to get them to change… Do not be fooled. If you see things that you need to work on individually or as a couple, the chances of change happening before the wedding are far greater than after the ring is on your finger.
The hopeful news is that conflict is inescapable for any relationship. Some of the best news is that conflict handled well actually brings you closer instead of pulling you apart.
✦ You for sure are not alone in this. Psychologist Dan Wile says it best in his book After the Honeymoon: “When choosing a long-term partner, you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unresolvable problems.” It’s true. Every couple has around 10 things they will not necessarily agree on for the duration of their marriage. Despite this, relationship expert Dr. Gottman, who has studied couples for the last 40 years, has found that about ⅓ of conflicts can be resolved with the right approach.
Even for those things that you might disagree on for forever, Gottman found that how you approach each other is the key.
Dr. Gottman’s Approach:
Step 1: Soften Your Start-Up.
Are you beginning the conversation where you left off in your head? When your fiancé gets to your apartment you say, “Why should I ever be ready on time? You’re always late.” They respond with, “I got stuck behind an accident. I’m working on my timing.” Then maybe you go on to say, “It’ll be something else next time.” Soft Start-Ups don’t include the Four Horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling). Instead, you and your partner start the conversation gently and with intentions of understanding each other and coming to a resolution.
Step 2: Learn to Send and Receive Repair Attempts.
“Think of a repair attempt as slamming on the brakes when you see a red light. You do this to avoid a collision that could harm your marriage,” says Kyle Benson from the Gottman Institute. In the example above, acknowledging that your fiancé is working on their time management could have de-escalated the situation. Practicing sending and receiving repair attempts can help improve the quality of your relationship.
Step 3: Soothe Yourself and Each Other.
If you know you’re too upset to have a conversation at the moment, take a 20-30 minute break. Try and “focus on the positives of your relationship by yourself.” When you’re “Flooded, ” as Dr. John Gottman refers to it, your brain is flooded with stress hormones and chemicals that make it nearly impossible for your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for complex problem-solving, to function. As a result, you can’t physiologically function as you normally would. You can’t communicate as you normally should. Acknowledge what makes you feel flooded. Talk about the best way and time to bring up issues to each other, how your partner can soothe you and what signals you can give each other to clue the other into how you’re feeling.
Step 4: Compromise.
When you negotiate, you accept each other’s imperfections while recognizing your relationship is more important than the argument and being right.
Step 5: Address Emotional Injuries.
Sometimes how you fight is what hurts more than what you were fighting about. Be open to talking it out and processing what you two went through. Accept responsibility and learn from your fights.
Fighting with your fiancé doesn’t have to be all bad—it can be an area for growth and an opportunity to understand each other’s differences better. A great way to fight for your relationship is by preparing for marriage. Consider premarital education or counseling to set yourselves up with the tools you need to thrive in your relationship.
Some other blogs you might find helpful!
10 RULES TO “FIGHT NICE” WITH YOUR SPOUSE
TOP 10 POTENTIAL MARRIAGE PITFALLS
10 GREAT DATES BEFORE YOU SAY “I DO”
10 RED FLAGS IN A DATING RELATIONSHIP
***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear that someone is monitoring your computer or device, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***
How to Spend Quality Time with Your Fiancé While Planning a Wedding
I just want to feel our love – the love we are spending time, energy, and money on celebrating. I miss the lack of urgency in answering questions and exchanging our ideas to spark conversations instead of polite compromises. When I was in the midst of planning my wedding I didn’t prioritize quality time with my fiancé. When we saw each other it was business. We sat in the tension of wanting romance but not knowing how to be both productive and passionate about each other. Learn from my mistake and get you and yours on a date!
The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia did a study on how date nights affect couples. According to the study The Date Night Opportunity by W. Bradford Wilcox and Jeffrey Dew (University of Virginia, 2012):
“In these data sets, husbands’ and wives’ reports of couple time were associated with higher relationship quality. For example, Figure 1 shows that husbands and wives who engaged in couple time with their mates at least once a week were approximately 3.5 times more likely to report being “very happy” in their marriages, compared to those who enjoyed less quality time with their spouse.”
You are preparing for marriage as you prepare for your wedding.
You will be someone’s husband or wife. Take what you see from the research and practice this habit so that it becomes muscle memory for your marriage! Don’t let the quantity of time you’re spending together blur with the meaning of quality time with your fiancé.
How to Spend Quality Time with Your Fiancé While Planning a Wedding:
- Go over both of your schedules together. If you are making time to plan, to grocery shop, or to hang out with friends then you can surely make time to be intentional with your future spouse! Re-allocate your time and try to spend time together at least once a week. P.S. Try your best to refrain from talking about the wedding during this time—unless it’s about how excited you are!
- Be intentional with your time. Now that you have carved out some precious time together, don’t waste it! Put up the screens and put in the effort. Talk about how you two can love each other well. If you don’t know what your love language is, take the test and find out. Enjoy falling in love with each other over and over again (as well as learning to love each other better and better.)
- Cultivate intimacy. To have intimacy you have to spend quality time together. Communicating your desires, thoughts, feelings, and needs effectively and often are a sure-fire way to keep your connection with each other close. In this same vein, pursue each other. There’s nothing like the feeling of being worth someone’s time and effort. When you pursue your spouse-to-be, you are communicating to them they are valuable and deserving of your love. And for goodness’ sake—kiss! “A daily 6-second kiss will increase your emotional and physical intimacy.” According to author Dr. Kory Floyd, physical contact releases oxytocin (the bonding or trust hormone), can improve your mood (for days at a time), and can help you stay calm. To top it off, something as simple as holding hands, hugging, getting close, and yes, making out, can lessen your stress hormones (cortisol) and enrich your sense of relationship satisfaction.
You have your life together ahead of you. Let’s start it out with some healthy habits and making sure your relationship is the priority.
If you’re having trouble figuring out how to get the most quality out of your time set aside for each other, here is a link to date nights that perfectly mix together fun, romance, and facilitate natural connection… Pro-Tip: They’re free! (Which I know is a plus since weddings aren’t always cheap.)
