Marriage Maintenance

Marriage is to be enjoyed, not endured. For the past 20 years, The Parenting Place has been running seminars on all aspects of parenting and family, and more recently; relationships in general – because in a family when Mum and Dad are happy, the good feeling rubs off on the kids.

While all relationships have inevitable ebbs and flows, you don’t have to be experiencing issues to attend a course on how to strengthen your marriage. In fact – by paying regular attention to your relationship, you may be able to avoid major issues.

At a recent seminar, John Cowan and his wife Naomi said that often the advice they give seems simple, because it is. Commitment is key. It is easy to be in love when you first meet someone and are infatuated – the work comes later, once some of the mystery and passion has abated. However, through their work with numerous couples, their research and following the work of others, they say that couples who have stayed together long term and worked out their differences always report that the time and work they put into their marriage was well worth it, and that they have ended up with a much stronger, deeper, more meaningful love over time.

As well as really committing to your spouse or partner, another tip from The Parenting Place workshops is to develop habits that you practice, regardless of your mood, for example something as seemingly simple or routine as politeness. If you’re in a good mood, it’s easy to be courteous to those around you, but in a bad mood, many people default to giving those close to them rather a hard time – a style of behaviour they’d never exhibit to colleagues or friends, which seems rather unfair.

So, decide on some habits that you can and will commit to, regardless of your mood.

The seminar has a wealth of easy tips that you can take away, to strengthen and improve your relationship and family, including how to really get to know your partner and love them in a way that works for them, even that is different from your own personal expectations.

There’s no preaching, no judgement and no absolute rules – just ideas that have worked for other real couples, regardless of their age, income bracket and family background. For more information, check out www.theparentingplace.com