The Making Of A GREAT Marriage

"A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers" Robert Quillen

Truth be told, in this age marriage is no longer as wonderful as it should be, divorce is now becoming a trend and no one wants to endure with the man/woman of their youth, at the slightest appearance of difficulty and misunderstanding they want to give up, people now are quick to forget the vow they made to their partner on their wedding day.
I try a lot of times not to make my writings sound religious and i do hope I'm trying well enough, talking about marriage, i believe no matter your religious inclination, everyone wants to have a wonderful and great marriage and no religion preaches intolerance in marriage, the most common concept all religions of the world preaches in marriage is submission, and the lack of submission is one of the major problems a lot of marriages face in this times, be not confused when i say submission, the context in which submission is used here is not in relation to women alone, a man also needs to submit to his wife and i do not mean becoming complacent and accepting folly from your wife. We shall consider what makes a marriage great using the GREAT acrostic, GREAT meaning the following

G---Giving
R---Relating
E---Edifying
A---Allowing
T---Touching

Giving:
You don't stop giving after you have married that partner of your dreams, even if the partner is not as exact has your dream, often times what we want is not what we need. A lot of marriages go through very rough times not because the man is no longer able to provide for his family, but because most men quit giving to their wives and most times its not because the man is doing this on purpose, a lot of men are so busy making money to provide for their family that they forget give time, gifts, love, heart, thought, trust, and self to their wife.
A marriage were there is continual giving is one where there is selflessness, when you think less of yourself and you think more of your partner before you think of yourself, your continual desire will be to give to your partner, a woman will appreciate the time and attention you give to her than the expensive gifts you buy for her, though you still buy the gifts but you must know your time and attention is the best gift you can give to a woman, when your attitude of giving continues after getting married it becomes easy to give to others.

Relating:
Relating means "one person connecting with another in thought and meaning" and by relating here, we also mean communicating, show me a bad marriage and i will show you a marriage with poor relation and devoid of communication, the sole purpose of marriage is to have someone to relate it, a best friend to share your desires, your fears, most men to go macho about communicating their fears to their partners, they keep these feelings inside of them and it manifests in such attitude as touchiness and anger.
Proper and effective relating or communication can only happen when you have studied your partner well enough to know what works for them, some like to keep to themselves when they are down but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to be left alone, the attention you pay to your partner when he or she is down and is feeling alone will manifest in a stronger love when he/she start feeling better.
We live in a time of Internet social networking such that if one is not mindful, one could get carried away with pressing ones phone to relating with ones partner

Edifying:
To edify means to build up, the opposite of edifying is to break down, when you are not edifying, then you are breaking down, yes, there is middle ground on the matter of edifying, see your marriage as a newly built, well graded and tarred road, after a while it starts to wear out from constant use and when you don't build it up, it collapses all together and becomes completely unusable same thing applies to our lives, when we go through life, the very many situations we face, wear us out and breaks us down and its the constant encouragement and building up we receive from our loved ones especially our partners that helps us to regain strength and confidence. The worst thing that can happen to a marriage is when both spouse run each other with nasty words at the slightest appearance of misunderstanding.
Also a marriage were man and wife don't relate will also lack edification, you cant do proper edifying without communicating with your mouth, yes you love your wife, but acting out your love is not enough, acting out your appreciation is not enough, voice it. after all when you receive a raise in the office you don't say thank you by giving your boss a very warm look every morning, but by voicing out your appreciation. Learn to talk the talk, if you really feel it you will voice it. There is a point to which pain gets, that even a grown man will scream. remember to EDIFY your partner

Allowing:
A lot of men place so much unreasonable restrictions on their partners, often times these restrictions are triggered more by insecurity on the part of the husband than true guidance, insecurity because the man feels the woman is becoming as relevant as he is in career or that the woman is climbing faster in her career or perhaps making more money than he is making, truth is if you are truly adding value to your partner, whatever good comes to her, comes to you directly because she would always know and never forget to accrue her growth to you are husband, but when you constantly go into competition with your wife then you will start feeling threatened when she's growing and she knowing you are not being supportive will act out in defiance to you at the slightest entrance of power and position in her hands, so husbands support your wives, she is yours and yours alone, no matter what a woman owns, she remains your wife and that includes all that she own.
So give your wife allowance to grow, encourage her as well, and do this with the mind that whatever comes out of her doing well comes to you directly as long as she bears your name.

Touching:
A lot of men are guilty of this crime, well i called it a crime because its important and so many don't do it, women liked to be touched and i don't mean the kind of touching that leads to the bedroom, no! no!! no!!!, the kind of touching that brings reassurance of love, that warm hug that says "i miss you", holding hands when you walk on the road, placing your hands on her shoulders while you take a walk together, let me ask you this, "How many times did you see your father communicate love to your mother through loving gestures"? more than half of you readers will answer "No" and that is the very reason why you find it difficult expressing love in that manner as well, learn to express your love through touch, even that will communicate something healthy to your children, when children knows mum and dad love each other, they would secured, happy and grow into confident, loving and lovable individuals.

Are you already married?, about to get married?, not close to getting married? whichever category you fall develop the GREAT attitude and see how well your marriage turns out great, hope this was a great reading for you? remember to share, start practicing what you just read by sharing with your partner at least or your friends who are married