Transcription
10 qualities of a good marriage. That a quality marriage is the responsibility of a wife because good men are natural at creating equality. Marriage, it's important to them. They take their vows seriously. They're stable. They're reliable. They're pragmatic. They want to solve the issues. They want the marriage to work and be the best it can.
But as women, we are the problem in our marriage because we don't want to take responsibility. We want everything handed to us, and we don't want to be exposed and have to look at ourselves in our shortcomings and take responsibility and change. It's up to you, ladies. So the 10 qualities of a good marriage fall on your shoulders. That if you can follow this as a road map, again, your husband, as a good man, will be right there waiting for you, saying, "Thank goodness," and we'll be in that dance with you. And you can be a team in the marriage and fulfill your roles and what you do best and have a quality marriage.
Number one: Let your husband lead. Good men are natural at creating good marriages. He has different aspects and roles that he's really good at as a man: problem-solving, embracing conflict as a way to solve the problems, having tough conversations, having reasonable and fair solutions to the issues, understanding the important aspects of a marriage and what it takes for it to be good. It also follows God's plan for marriage for us and our different roles as women and our different roles as men. The dance I talk about can only happen when a woman lets a man lead because that allows us to be in our natural role and being nurturing, being soft and feminine, and focus on the things that we do best.
Number two of what it takes to have a quality marriage: You must take care of yourself and make yourself important to you as a woman. Means stop putting yourself last and focusing on everyone else and committing to a thousand and one things you don't have time for, saying yes to everything, and running through life at warp speed, never slowing down to consider yourself and what you need to care for yourself so that you have a full cup and plenty of energy for your responsibilities and roles as a wife or as a mother. When we put ourselves last, it makes us a martyr, feeling sorry for ourselves, "Poor me, look at everything I have to do for everybody else. No one ever takes care of me." That is created by us not putting ourselves first and caring for ourselves, and it makes everybody miserable because we are miserable. When we put ourselves last, we feel like we have nothing left to give. We're running on empty. It's not what your husband wants for you. I hear this all the time. I've had to catch it in myself too, of like, "I can't go do that thing for me I enjoy because my husband will be upset with me that I'm not home and doing the things I need to do." No, stop. It's just a story. A good man wants you to care for yourself so that you're pleasant and happy and enjoyable to be around. He knows when you're not doing the things to care for yourself and make yourself a priority, not in a selfish way, but in a way to give to yourself and make sure you're replenishing your cup and not running on empty. He knows that's important. So that's number two. And good men aren't martyrs. They're not martyrs. They're not looking on to take on everything for everyone and then saying, "Poor me, I have it so hard." They step up to the plate. They do the things they need to do. They don't complain about it. They're hard workers, and they just do what needs to be done because it's what needs to be done. So they're not going around being martyrs.
Number three of what it takes to have a quality marriage: Manage your emotional state. Which just means be a grown-up adult. Be a grown-up adult. Be in charge of your emotional state so that everyone in the family isn't on pins and needles and walking on eggshells. Your husband, your kids are terrified of your emotional moodiness and who they're going to get when you walk through the door, or who they might get one moment and then the next moment is somebody totally different. It's like, "Whoa, what just happened?" It's because we are not in control of our emotional state. And it just takes understanding. We are emotional, but recognizing that and learning to be in control of it, not stuffing it and suppressing it, understanding it for what it is, and choosing to do our best and be a grown-up adult. Men are grounded emotionally and stable and pragmatic. And if you're saying, "My husband's the opposite of that, he's emotionally volatile," it's a projection of your own emotional state. And also, how are you showing up that's poking and prodding him and provoking him that we actually have control of to change by managing our emotional state.
Number four of what it takes to have a quality marriage: I shouldn't even have to put this down or say this, but I do. Regular and engaged sex and showing affection, meaning physical touch. It is a healthy part of a marriage. It is a critical part of the foundation of a successful marriage. There's no way to have a healthy marriage and a successful marriage if you're not engaging in regular sex and showing affection and physical touch. Tell yourself all the excuses you want, but this is part of a healthy marriage, and it's part of the foundation. A healthy sex life is part of the foundation to have a quality marriage. So instead of living in your excuses about why you can't or why you won't and withholding physical touch, affection, and sex, it's re-engaging and understanding it's part of your role and responsibility when you chose to get married.
Number five of a quality marriage: Stop being the fun police and being rigid and controlling. It sucks all the joy out of the marriage, and you must learn to have fun again and take the stick out, as I often say, not just for your husband, but for you. It's not fun going through life rigid and controlling and shut off from fun. Good men are playful and want to have fun. They don't take life so seriously that it's got to be serious all the time. They enjoy having fun. It's another wonderful place to let your husband lead, if the marriage isn't too far gone and he's not, you haven't made him scared to lead in the fun by the rejection that he gets from you and denying and taking all the fun away.
Number six of what it takes to have a quality marriage: Be open to constructive criticism about your behavior. You want to stop making your husband's attempt to discuss and solve the issues that he sees as a problem in the marriage as a personal attack on you. When your husband brings up something that is an issue he sees in your behavior, or how you're showing up with the kids, or how you're not caring for yourself, or how you're treating him, he's fighting for you, and he's fighting for the marriage. He's not trying to attack you and make you wrong and bad. That's our perception as women because if we're anything less than perfect, we make ourselves wrong and bad and attack ourselves. So we project that onto our husbands that they're attacking us, but that's not what's happening. He's fighting for you. He's fighting for the marriage. Again, he sees what needs to happen for the issues and problems to be solved so that you can have a successful marriage. Good men are always the first to admit their mistakes or where they messed up or where they know that they can improve and need to do better.
Number seven of how to have a quality marriage: Stop venting and complaining to your husband. Venting is not healthy. I don't believe in healthy venting because venting does not solve problems. It is a way to regurgitate our emotional volatility internally, spew it out, makes us feel better temporarily, but nothing ever gets solved in a marriage. It's not fair. It's not fair to expect your husband to listen to you vent and complain often about the same problems over and over and over again and not have him try to solve the problem and just have him listen. It's not fair. It's extremely frustrating, exhausting, and draining to a good man because, again, they are natural problem solvers. And if you're going to be sharing about a problem to them, they're going to want to give a solution. And to make them wrong and bad for that is extremely unfair to them because it goes against their wiring. And as women, we actually want to step up again, follow their lead to solve the issues and problems. What's even more fascinating, and I hear this all the time too, is that often times the problems and issues we vent and complain about is women are often about other people and what they're doing. And what we fail to see is that we do the exact same things. And that is just crazy-making to a man of like, "She's complaining about her friend doing this and treating her this way and saying these things. Can't she see that that's how she shows up?" But they can't dare say that, or the wrath comes out. So again, good men are different, and they're problem solvers, and they don't want to stay in the problem. Venting, I might need to share a frustration about something, but then they want to dive in, and they want to get it solved. They don't want to dwell in it and run in circles. And venting, venting just enables us in our victimhood and being in camp victim and enables our emotional pain. So it's a really, really destructive pattern. And when we live in camp, take responsibility, there's no need to vent. I can't tell you the last time that I vented or felt the need to vent. I don't enjoy it. It doesn't feel good because now I know it's absolutely coming from a place of being a victim, which feels awful, especially when you know you are doing it. And I'm a very healthy, well-adjusted, emotionally stable woman. Doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes, because I am still a woman, as I often say. But I don't feel the need to vent. It's a relief to not vent. That's all I'll say about that one.
Number eight of how to have a quality marriage: Apologize. Say you're sorry and mean it. What it means to mean it in an apology is to follow through and change the behavior. And if it's one that you struggle with and it's very difficult for you to change because it's very ingrained and it's just a bigger issue for you in your life, communicate that when you apologize. "I am so sorry that I cut you off while you were speaking and just ran into what I wanted to talk about and dismissed you. I know I do that often. It is harder for me to change, but please know I am trying. And if I make a mistake and stumble, please be patient with me." And to genuinely mean that, and then do your best, be committed in changing that. As women, if we say that we are sorry, which most of us never do because we can't admit that we are wrong, but if we do say we're sorry, it's typically to get it over with. It's done from a selfish place. "I don't want you to be mad at me and have to feel what I feel because you're mad at me as a consequence of my behavior." So I'm really sorry, but we're doing it to get it over with and just move through and have no intentions of changing. Whereas a good man genuinely feels guilty for his mistakes, genuinely says sorry, and wants to change his behaviors. Doesn't mean he's perfect or doesn't make mistakes or have behaviors that are difficult for him to change, but he sees his responsibility in needing to apologize. I can't tell you the times as I have learned to apologize in my marriage where I'll catch myself in something, I will apologize genuinely, that then my husband will say, "Hey, I'm sorry that I X, Y, or Z." And then again, it's that dance.
Number nine in how to have a quality marriage: Keep your word and follow through with what you say. The problem for us as women is that our word means nothing. Just empty words, empty promises. We do this with our husbands. We do this with ourselves. We make promises to ourselves all the time of what we're going to change and what we're going to do differently, and then just leave ourselves behind and never follow through to do what we say we are going to do. And ultimately, the reason for that is we don't want to change because we want to stay stuck in the problems and have an excuse in life and have someone or something to blame for why we are so unhappy. What this does in a marriage is it causes our husbands not to trust us. There are sometimes a woman will take my happiness course, and the marriage is really not in a good place, and the husband is at the point that he's throwing his hands up like, "Doesn't matter." And she's made so many promises to change and has tried so many things that he doesn't have a lot of faith that she's going to take my course seriously and it's going to do any good. And then women can be upset about that, and I have to help them see, he doesn't trust you. And it's up to you to follow through and make this work and to make the changes and step up for yourself. And over time, he will see that you mean it and you're consistent in your change. But until then, you have to embrace the consequence that he doesn't trust you because your words have been empty and there's been no follow-through for you to change. For good men, their word is their bond, and it's a very serious responsibility to good men when they give someone their word, and they will follow through. If I know women are listening, "He never follows through with what he says he's going to do for me." You're not following through, or you're constantly trying to get him to change, and he's rebelling against you. If you change that, he will follow through on his word to you, guaranteed.
And number 10 of how to have a quality marriage: Let him lead in parenting. The problem is, women, they take all of their fears of life and project it onto their children, and then their children become fearful of life. Women often become helicopter moms. Helicopter moms. Women often become helicopter moms and are so fearful that something will happen to their children and become very, very controlling and take away their child's ability to understand life and do life constructively and face fears and face challenges and adversities. Women also get upset when their husband tries to discipline the children and hold them accountable and see the husbands as being mean or too rough or laying the hammer down. But the truth is, good men know that children need consequences, and that for them to grow into successful, responsible adults, they need to be held accountable for their actions and not babied and coddled. As women, we want to be babied and coddled, so we project that and do that with our children, and baby and coddle them.
So those are the 10 qualities of a good marriage. I have some bonus ones that are good reminders of things I have talked about, and I'm not going to elaborate on these, but stay in your lane. Be responsible with money. Be on a budget. Plan for the future. Provide a safe space for communication with your husband. Be willing to look at yourself and change. And it kind of came up in what we talked about. And also have hobbies and interests that are just for you that make you feel good about yourself, something that you enjoy doing. I was just talking to a gentleman this week where he was like, "Oh, my wife has no hobbies, no interests. She is constantly needing from me, and I feel drained because she doesn't have any kind of her own life." So it's really important we have some hobbies and interests that are just ours.
Hello again. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch today. For those women listening who know you are the problem and you want a path forward to change your woman ways and truly be happy in yourself, I have a course for women called The Happiness Program. And The Happiness Program teaches you to resolve the unhealthy relationship you have with yourself so that you can be the solution to the issues and challenges in your marriage and your life. You can find the link in the description below to learn more about the course and apply to enroll.
For the good men listening who want a way to take back the power you've unknowingly given away to your wives, I also have a course for you called The Marriage Rescue Course for Good Men Only. And the course teaches you how to rebuild your strength and confidence so that you can navigate the relationship with your wife in a healthy, constructive way. Again, you can find the link below in the description to learn more about the course and apply to enroll.
Again, thank you so much for watching today, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.