Marriage is filled with challenges.  However, working past your challenges with your spouse to maintain a healthy, strong marriage requires a determined effort by you and your spouse.  A solid sense that both parties are committed to making the marriage work is a key ingredient to making a marriage last forever. If you and your spouse commit to implementing the following tips, they will likely help you carry on through the years, growing stronger as a couple:

1. Build trust into your marriage. It takes hard work and effort to build trust in a marriage. Building trust in a marriage often requires being respectful of your spouse’s fears and concerns and making sacrifices.  This may include limiting your relations with people of the opposite sex, agreeing to stick to a budget, or making your call log available for your spouse’s viewing.   This may seem somewhat overbearing, but a happy marriage requires sacrifice. Sometime those sacrifices includes letting go of past friends and losing privacy.  Trust is the foundation of a happy marriage and it’s something you need to work at and make sacrifices for.

2. Show respect by paying attention. Listen to your spouse when he or she talks to you. Mutual respect is vital for a happy marriage. When you give your spouse your undivided attention it shows your spouse that you respect them and value what they have to say. If your spouse talks to you when you’re in the middle of something important, explain that you want to hear what they have to say and suggest a time when you’ll be able to pay better attention.

3. Do fun things together. Find thing that you enjoy doing together and then make time to do them. Exercise together, go on walks, or take on mutually enjoyable projects together. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you both have fun doing it. Spending time together enjoying each other’s company will help strengthen your marriage and add another meaningful dimension to your relationship.

4. Learn from your experiences. Figure out when to do, or not do, certain things. For example, if you find that you tend to be tense and cranky when you’re hungry, minimize your conversation with your spouse during those times. Similarly, if you see that your spouse gets worked up whenever you mention the name of a certain person, don’t mention that person’s name unless absolutely necessary. Build a happy marriage by being smart enough to learn from the past.

5. Be polite to your spouse. I know this concept may seem somewhat elementary, however, remembering to actively be polite is often taken for granted amount people who have been married for a while. When you speak with your spouse, remember to use phrases like please and thank you. Being polite should not be viewed as a formality. It is a way that we honor our spouse and it helps them to feel appreciated and respected.  Being courteous is like the oil that helps a marriage run smoothly and reduces unnecessary friction. If you can be polite to a stranger, then it should be even more important to be polite to your spouse.

6. Never say “I told you so.” Strike the phrase “I told you so” from your vocabulary.  They already know that you told them so, why rub it in? Saying so only creates ill will between you and your spouse. We all mess up from time to time. And when we do having it rubbed in our face doesn’t help. A little support and encouragement will do a lot more toward building a happy marriage than taking a shot at your spouse when they are already feeling bad.

7. Don’t keep score. People tend to go into marriage with the idea that it is 50/50.  However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Marriage requires each party to give 100% of themselves.  Marriage is not a contest so don’t walk around with a watchful eye making sure your spouse carries their share of the load. Instead, take the view that it doesn’t matter if you end up doing more than half of what needs to be done. Trying to make your relationship a fifty-fifty proposition will cause a lot of unnecessary tension and you don’t need that. So unless your spouse is a total slacker, recognize that in order to have a happy marriage, both spouses will need to try to help each other carry the load.

8. Try not to sweat the small stuff. As a divorce attorney, it is not uncommon to see couples divorcing over seemingly very trivial things. Wouldn’t it be ironic if a marriage was strong enough to stand up to all the big challenges, but couldn’t get past the minor irritations of daily life, such as your spouse leaving their dirty clothes on the floor? In marriage, it is important to work on viewing your spouse’s little quirks as entertaining rather than irritating.

9. Greet your partner with a smile. We all want to know that our spouse is happy to see us. Well, when they greet us with a smile it reassures us of that, and our smile does the same for them. A smile can do so much and requires so little effort. It has the power to lift someone’s spirits and it sets the stage for a pleasant reunion after a long and perhaps difficult day. If you want a happy marriage, lead with your smile and let that be the first impression you make when you greet your spouse.

10. Respect your spouse’s privacy. Don’t go through your partner’s things out of curiosity or in an effort to check up on them. We all want our privacy to be respected and when someone violates that it feels offensive. Don’t let a sense of insecurity cause you to become overly suspicious of your spouse. On the other hand, being secretive can create suspicion. A marriage should be built on open and honest communication. So, if there is something you need to know, ask, don’t snoop.