Save your marriage

I could not believe it when I first heard that my friends, Tom and Jeanne, had separated. They had a picture-perfect marriage, a stylish home, and three beautiful children. Tom is a successful executive working for a multinational company and Jeanne has become a dedicated and highly efficient housewife.

Like most couples, Tom and Jeanne found the perfect mate in each other and decided to spend their lives together till death do them part. But something went wrong along the way. Death isn’t even a mile in sight and they’ve already decided to call it quits and go their separate ways.

Being the curious and nosy pry that I am, I pulled Tom aside and forced him to reveal what went awry. He confided that after living together for 20-plus years, they realized that what was actually just keeping them together was their children, and now that the kids have flown out of the nest, staying together made no more sense.

Reality Bites

Ellen, one of my luckier friends who has managed to keep her marriage smooth and strong, comments, "Something happens after the babies are born. The mother devotes time bringing the children up, her priorities change, and she starts to live for her kids. If you are not careful in this kind of scenario, you can lose your marriage."

"Married couples tend to drift away from each other," declares Rod, who almost lost his marriage due to a demanding career, "especially when the man advances in his profession and the wife gets stuck in a routine world of diapers, milk bottles, budgeting, and supermarkets. The mental and social gap between them grow wider year after year until they realize they no longer match."

The Missing Factor

When couples pursue their lives separately, they ultimately tend to lose the most important thing that binds their relationship: intimacy. Soon, the husband would regard the wife as a fixture in the house, and the wife would see the husband mainly as a provider. Slowly, they lose sight of the fact that both have emotional and sexual needs that need to be satisfied.

When wives seriously take their role as mothers, they tend to forego prettying themselves up for the husband. Most feel there is no more need to be attractive for sex since they have already graduated to the status of motherhood. A married woman must always remember that she is not only a mother to her children but a wife to her husband, too.

Most couples get so exhausted after a grueling day at work that they feel they have no more time and energy for a little talk and intimacy. When the wife initiates a conversation about the husband’s work, he dismisses her saying, "It is office stuff. You won’t understand!" Days of no talking, touching, and sharing can easily stretch into years of silence. And the more they don’t communicate, the more estranged they become.

Gain Back The Intimacy

Married couples should remember that there once was a time when they could not keep their hands off each other. When they could talk sweet nothings all day and not get bored, when they could stare into each other’s eyes and feel high and ecstatic. A time when sparks of magic ignited the air as they touched and embraced. That is the kind of intimacy couples should aim at reviving to unite them once more and help maintain their relationship.

Here are a few tips that might just help save a marriage on the slack:

• Talk often. Communicate daily on an intimate and concerned level. Take time to show you care with your questions and anecdotes. Be pleasant and cheerful, and avoid nagging and invasive language.

• Touch. Strive at physical proximity. Utilize every chance you get to reach out, be near, and touch. Hugs and kisses keep you close and connected. Physical distancing is a sure sign that something needs fixing.

• Keep romance in your life. Husbands and wives should be lovers, too. Keep the courtship on. Go on dates, watch movies, give each other gifts. Romance doesn’t just happen – it is something you have to work on.

• Involve your partner in your work and activities. Keep your husband or wife abreast of the things happening at work or at home. Involve him/her by relating interesting experiences or asking possible solutions to problems at the office. Their answers might just stun you!

• Schedule a private time for just the two of you. Keep a fixed day in a week away from everybody else, including your children. Send them off to your relatives so you can have the privacy and intimacy you desire.

• Time your discussion of problems. When bringing up problems or negative news, time it properly. Carefully weigh your partner’s mood and disposition. And never bring up anything unpleasant before breakfast, lunch or dinner.

• Keep your sense of humor. Life is already problematic as it is. Focus on the lighter, positive, and more amusing side of things so that your marriage won’t be a valley of heartaches and tears. Laughter cures all maladies!

• Don’t shy away from sensitive topics. Tell your partner that you have something important you must both discuss. Make him/her relax and ease the topic in.

• Don’t be afraid to open up and explain your concerns, especially regarding finances and a less-than-satisfactory or diminishing sex life.

• Be warm and loving in front of your children. Kids grow up with emotional security in a house where parents display love and affection for each other. The showering of love that they experience in their homes becomes their model behavior in adult life.

• Seek professional help. In case you have advanced impaired intimacy problems, ask for professional help or guidance. Don’t wait until the distance between you becomes unbridgeable. There is nothing more chilling than a house with people who have become strangers afraid to talk, touch, and love.

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