Everything Beautiful Needs Attention or it Withers and Dies
Your beautiful marriage is no different. Life changes and stuff happens. You, your partner, and your relationship change along with it.
You need to reset to get back in sync. What that means is that you both stop for a moment – it can be as simple as taking a long lunch at a local restaurant – and talking about what’s happening in your lives. It might be pregnancy, parenthood, a new job or loss of a job, illness, or the death of a loved one… any one of those things changes you and the way you think and feel.
Be Mindful Together
While you’re both sharing how you feel & think in regards to recent events, you need to be mindful, together. If you aren’t mindful together, one of two things will happen.
- You’ll each go in a different direction or
- One of you will move forward and the other will be left behind.
Either option isn’t great, and it’s going to drive you both apart. But there is a way to prevent that from happening. It’s called the Five-Year Marriage®.
Rethink, Reevaluate and Reset Your Relationship – Regularly
In The Five-Year Marriage®, resetting every five years is part of its DNA. It’s a natural break when couples reevaluate, rethink and reset – usually with new understandings, new goals, and new (spoken) agreements. It’s a welcome fresh start for any marriage.
4 Tips for a Successful Marriage
- Plan your marriage before your wedding. Marriage planning isn’t nearly as sexy as wedding planning. But think of it this way – your wedding is over in a day, but your relationship will last for years.
- Build your Partnership. Marriage-planning helps you develop the value structure and communication skills you need for a long-term relationship.
- Plan for five-years. ‘Til death’ is obsolete in this fast-changing world. In reality, your marriage will play out in chapters. Chapter 1 is about getting to know each other. It will have lots of excitement and good experiences, and at least one big challenge. How you “write” chapter 1 will set the stage for chapter 2 – and will provide the foundation for the next five years of marriage.
- Learn to problem-solve. The Five-Year Marriage explains a problem-solving formula that couples can turn to as the basis for identifying and resolving differences.
Why Choose a Five-Year Marriage®?
I decided to have a Five-Year Marriage® because:
- I watched so many of my once-happy girlfriends turn into wives who gave up their personal power for the sake of the relationship and I didn’t want to go down that same road, BUT
- My then-boyfriend, with whom I was living in the house we owned together, wanted to get married…and it was really important to him.
Isn’t this Just a Constant Threat of Divorce?
Not at all! My first Five-Year Marriage was in 1988. I’ve had 7 marriages since then. So far, all to the same man! The Five-Year Marriage® is…
EMPOWERING: You each have your own voice, stay in control of your life and lend that
strength to your partnership, as a couple.
AGILE: Life moves fast and change is around every corner. The Five-Year Marriage® is
flexible so you can adapt to life’s changes quickly, stay present, and not miss
“the good stuff.”
COMMUNICATION: It’s a message-based relationship for managing married life and personal
changes with honesty, flexibility, and shared accountability.
AN EQUAL PARTNERSHIP: Paying attention to mutual fairness and rooting as much for your partner as
you do for yourself, resulting in an ability to pursue personal goals while sharing and managing everyday responsibilities
together.
Want to learn more about Five-Year Marriage®?
- Learn about the book
- Get started transforming your relationship or marriage with The Curiosity Conversation. (get your FREE copy now!)
