Christal and I have been married for over 12 years.  I was recently asked to give marriage advice to someone who was about to get married.  There are no real secrets and every relationship is different.  There is however one common theme with all successful relationships and it’s a tall order to ask of anyone.  It takes patience, understanding and the ability to go beyond your mental programming.  

Don’t keep score.

Each person’s perception of the relationship is always skewed.  Marriage, in each person’s eyes, is 70-30 with you always feeling like you are the one putting in the 70.  Don’t feel bad if your feel this way because chances are your spouse thinks they are the 70 as well.  Those who say that it’s 50-50 are full of it and living a lie perpetuated by some cliche phrase they once heard.  At the end of the day it might really be 50-50, but that is hardly ever anyone’s perception.  

If you mentally put a value on everything you do….STOP.  “I did this for you, so I’m the better spouse.”  “You got to do this, so you owe me this”.  Marriage is not a barter deal.  Sure there are trade offs and “deals” brokered from time to time, but you can’t continue to harbor hate, jealousy, guilt or anger in your heart for the other person because you didn’t get to cash in your chip or your favor wasn’t the magnitude of theirs.  

Think about all the score keeping you do in life.  Stop.  You should always want to give more than you receive.  You should never give something-expecting the same in return.  In the long run, in healthy relationships,  you get back what you put in.  Just make sure that you are giving in the purest sense and not with hidden motives.  

Relationships are not games.  Don’t treat them as such.  Stop keeping score.

#relationships #marriage