Marriage Counselling 101

You don't have to actually know me to judge that I'm not exactly a perfect husband. First off, there is no such thing (nor a perfect wife). But more importantly, you'd only have to frequent this blog for a week or so before you'd be saying, like anyone who actually does know me, "the man's wife must be a saint!" So what follows is not the mad ramblings of someone who's deluded himself into thinking that he's beyond reproach in the husband category... although it may, in fact, be mad and rambling. It's just an observation that came to me out of the blue.

What occurred to me today was the question, "Would more marriages last if the people in them spent time on a regular basis making their partners feel like they're something special?" Put another way, what if your goal, as a husband or a wife, was to do what you could to ensure your significant other always felt like they were better off than any of their friends? I don't mean that you would try to convince them that they're financially superior, because that can be pretty hard to control; nor am I talking about "sexier," or "prettier/more handsome," because now you're talking about Nature's roll of the dice. But just suppose you focused on everything within your control:

• how appreciated you make them feel for everything they do within the relationship;
• how often little treats are done for them for no particular reason;
• how frequently you remind them of how attractive they are to you;
• how much you show affection toward them in public;
• how proud you seem to be whenever you "show them off" to friends and family;
• how much you respect them for their best characteristics, like intelligence, sense of humour, or judgment;
• how sensitive toward, and interested in, whatever matters to them, you are;
• how happy you are whenever you're within them; and
  
• how often you think of their feelings ahead of your own.

Are most of those even topics many husbands and wives think about? And if they did, would they maybe try harder, or possibly realize that they shouldn't be together at all? (I'd argue that, if you don't have those positive feelings toward your mate, then you're probably in the wrong relationship.)

For all our respective flaws, the above approach is something Vicki and I seem to do pretty well at, without having to think too much about it. In fact, what made me realize this were comments we've exchanged over the past little while about how so many of the couples we know have this issue or that one, while we have nothing nearly so 'interesting' going on. At the same time, there's no one I know who I'd rather be with than Vicki, and I get the impression she feels the same way about me. But that sort of feeling doesn't just happen... especially after nearly twenty years together!