Instead, each morning, at the start of the day, they were to thank each other for what the other would do that day. I ordered the couple to take a 10-day vacation from bickering. “What comes naturally in the beginning, at some point you need to make it a habit, ritual, or tradition,” is one of the single best sentences of marriage advice I have ever heard-from Bill Doherty, one of the most esteemed marriage counselors in the country. The fix to their predicament was a simple one. Thoroughly unappreciated, it’s no wonder the wife was so quick to explode. Only one thank you and 100 nagging questions? Here was a great couple that got lazy about the positive side of the relationship. Ever since, he had been asking her why she hadn’t done this or hadn’t done that. He said once, maybe a year and a half ago, when their baby was a newborn. I then asked him how often he had thanked her for her work as a mother. I asked the husband if he thought his wife was a good mother. There must have been a deeper issue underlying her discontent.
He had joined us after working a long day at one of New York City’s many investment banks. Now, I am not an advocate for forgetting to bring your baby home, but I could see the man was no slouch, at least not in the business world. When I asked the couple what was wrong when I met with them the next evening, the wife exclaimed, “He forgot to bring home our baby!” He wrote that they could not take one more day of their marriage. The husband sent me a video of his wife screaming expletives and wildly throwing things at him. I once met with a couple in urgent need of help. We forget to say thank you, fail to greet each other at the door, and show little interest in the other’s day. The first mistake couples make-I call it a silent killer of marriage-is getting lazy about the small niceties of married life. If couples could just embrace the following three “good marriage practices,” their chances of having a happy marriage would be improved. Happily, for each of these mistakes, there is a simple fix.
It surprises me how many couples make all three mistakes. In my experience, three common mistakes conspire to undermine what should be a happy marriage. Time and again, I’ve heard spouses I admire declare, “I can’t take it any longer!” How do these good people find themselves in marriages so sour?
Sounds simple enough, but in my experience working with more than 5,000 couples as a New York-based marriage coach, even the best couples can find themselves drowning in frustration. If you want a happy marriage, you need to nurture the positive side of your relationship-while doing your best to keep the inevitable irritations at bay. When negativity reigns supreme, the marriage is at risk. When positivity in marriage is high, couples are drawn to each other. John Gottman, is determined by the ratio of positive to negative interactions in the relationship. Our happiness in marriage, according to famed marriage researcher Dr.
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