Marriage Advice: 12 Essential Tips for a Happy, Long-Lasting Relationship

Marriage isn’t a finish line; it’s the start of a long, winding, and hopefully beautiful journey. It takes intentional work, genuine respect, and a willingness to grow together through life’s inevitable ups and downs. Whether you’re newly married or decades into your partnership, understanding the real keys to a successful marriage can transform your connection. This isn’t about just surviving—it’s about genuinely thriving. This guide shares practical, time-tested advice gathered from real couples, relationship researchers, and my own experiences to help you build the partnership you both deserve.

Be Together for the Right Reasons

Let’s start with the foundation. Why did you get married? So often, people slide into marriage because of social pressure, loneliness, or because it seemed like the “next logical step.” But a lasting partnership is built on something deeper: genuine admiration and love for who your partner is, not who you hope they’ll become.

Trying to “fix” yourself or your loneliness through a relationship often leads to codependency. Love alone isn’t enough to sustain a marriage. It needs to be paired with mutual respect and a shared vision for the future. You have to actually like the person you’re with.

Have Realistic Expectations About Love and Marriage

The “happily ever after” story sold in movies is a myth. That intense, can’t-eat, can’t-sleep romantic feeling you have at the beginning? That’s infatuation, and it naturally fades. Deep, committed love is a conscious choice you make every day.

Unrealistic expectations cause couples to panic during normal lulls. Love fluctuates. There will be days, weeks, or even months when you feel more like roommates than soulmates. That’s normal. The goal isn’t to feel a constant state of bliss. The goal is to be committed partners who navigate life’s challenges together. Remember, a marriage won’t make you happy—you have to bring your own happiness into the relationship.

Prioritize Respect Over Everything Else

If there is one non-negotiable pillar of a healthy marriage, it’s respect. It’s more important than attraction, and it’s even more foundational than communication. Once respect is gone, it’s almost impossible to get back.

What does respect look like?

• You never speak negatively about your partner to friends or family.
• You value their opinions and perspectives, even when they differ from yours.
• You see yourselves as an equal team, with neither person holding power over the other.
• You are transparent and don’t hide things from each other.

Show Respect in Daily Interactions

Respect isn’t just a concept; it’s shown in small, daily actions. It means not resorting to contempt or character assassination during an argument. It’s trusting your partner’s judgment without micromanaging them. It’s giving them the autonomy to have their own hobbies and friendships.

Ultimately, you have to respect yourself to truly respect your partner. When you value your own needs and boundaries, you’re better able to honor theirs.

Communicate Openly About Everything

So many issues in a marriage stem from a lack of open, honest communication. You have to be willing to be vulnerable and talk about the difficult topics—money, sex, insecurities, fears. Secrets create distance. Talking about uncomfortable things, while hard, is what builds true intimacy. If you are struggling, it is essential to learn how to communicate better with your spouse.

This means being transparent. If you have a crush on someone at work, tell your partner. If you’re worried about finances, bring it up. Sharing these things with your partner first, instead of a friend or family member, reinforces that they are your primary confidant.

Build and Maintain Trust

Trust is the foundation that makes open communication possible. Think of it like a china plate. The first time it breaks, you can glue it back together, but it will always have a crack. Each subsequent time it breaks, it shatters into more pieces, becoming harder and harder to repair. That’s why learning how do you rebuild trust in a relationship is crucial, but avoiding breaking it in the first place is better.

You build trust by:

• Doing what you say you’re going to do.
• Being transparent, even when it’s uncomfortable.
• Distinguishing between your partner’s behavior and your own insecurities.
• Addressing issues immediately instead of letting them fester.

Maintain Individual Identities

A healthy marriage is made of two whole, independent individuals, not two halves that complete each other. When you lose your own identity—your hobbies, your friends, your passions—in the service of the relationship, resentment builds.

Your partner fell in love with you, a person with unique interests and a life of your own. Constant sacrifice and codependency diminish the very person they were attracted to. Maintaining your individuality isn’t selfish; it’s essential for a sustainable partnership.

Create Space for Separate Interests

Give each other space. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can offer. This means encouraging separate hobbies, friendships, and even occasional solo trips. This space demonstrates trust and prevents the relationship from feeling suffocating. Having overlapping interests is wonderful, but being identical is a recipe for boredom and enmeshment.

Learn to Fight Productively

Every couple fights. The difference between a happy couple and an unhappy one isn’t the absence of conflict, but how they handle it. Relationship researcher John Gottman identified four behaviors that predict divorce with stunning accuracy, which he calls the “Four Horsemen”: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.

Instead, healthy conflict involves:

• Criticizing the behavior, not your partner’s character. (“I felt hurt when you were late” vs. “You’re always so inconsiderate.”)
• Avoiding bringing up past arguments.
• Taking a break when things get too heated.
• Prioritizing feeling heard over being “right.” This is a key way to learn how to deal with relationship stress without damaging your bond.

When to Take a Break During Arguments

Recognize when your emotions are running too high for a productive conversation. If you feel your heart racing or your voice rising, it’s time to pause. Agree to take a 20-minute break to cool down. Go for a walk, listen to music, and then come back to the conversation when you’re both calmer. This simple act can prevent you from saying hurtful things you can’t take back.

Master the Art of Forgiveness

Here’s a secret: successful couples don’t resolve all of their problems. They learn to live with their differences respectfully. You will never agree on everything. Trying to change your partner is a form of disrespect; it implies that who they are isn’t good enough.

Accepting your partner’s flaws—the ones you can live with—and forgiving their mistakes is where true intimacy is built. Perfect compatibility is a myth. The goal is to find someone whose flaws you can tolerate gracefully.

Let Go of Scorekeeping

A marriage is not a competition. Keeping a running tally of who did the dishes last, who apologized first, or who is “winning” an argument is toxic. When an argument is over, let it be over. Don’t bring it up as ammunition in the next fight. A healthy partnership involves giving unconditionally, without the expectation of immediate reciprocation. Trust that your partner has good intentions, even when their behavior isn’t perfect.

Embrace Growth and Change Together

The person you married will not be the same person in five, ten, or twenty years. Neither will you. You’ll change careers, develop new interests, and your perspectives on life will evolve. A long-term commitment means loving who your partner is becoming, not just clinging to the person they once were. The key is to support each other’s personal development rather than resisting it. Grow together, not apart.

Never Stop Doing the Little Things

Grand romantic gestures are nice, but it’s the small, consistent acts of love that sustain a marriage. Saying “I love you” every day, holding hands, doing a small favor without being asked—these things compound over time and build a strong emotional bank account.

Continue to date each other, especially after kids arrive. It’s easy to let the relationship slide to the bottom of the priority list, but a strong marriage is the best gift you can give your children. It models what a healthy, loving partnership looks like.

Schedule Regular Quality Time

Life gets busy. If you don’t intentionally schedule time together, you risk becoming roommates who just co-manage a household. Protect this time fiercely. It could be a weekly date night, an annual trip without the kids, or even just 15 minutes of uninterrupted talk every evening. These rituals are the glue that holds you together.

Be Practical About Roles and Responsibilities

Forget the myth of a perfect 50/50 split in everything. It doesn’t exist, and trying to achieve it leads to endless scorekeeping. Instead, divide household chores, parenting duties, and life management based on strengths, preferences, and availability. Maybe one of you is better at finances while the other is better at planning vacations. Play to your strengths as a team.

Establish Clear Relationship Rules

Have explicit conversations about the practical stuff. How will you manage money? What’s the spending limit before you need to consult each other? How will you handle holidays with in-laws? These pragmatic discussions, or “relationship reviews,” prevent resentment from building up over unstated expectations. They keep you aligned as you navigate different life stages.

Accept the Natural Ups and Downs

Satisfaction in a marriage is not a straight line. It ebbs and flows like waves. There will be times you feel incredibly connected and in love, and other times you’ll feel distant, frustrated, or bored. This is completely normal.

Commitment means choosing to love your partner even during the down periods. It’s about having faith in the relationship and trusting that the good feelings will return, just as they always have before. While some relationships are worth fighting for, others aren’t—and knowing how to get over breakup when a relationship truly ends is just as important as knowing how to persevere through temporary rough patches.

Marriage is a practice, not a destination. It’s a daily choice to show up for your partner with respect, kindness, and forgiveness.

For more insights on building a fulfilling life and relationships, feel free to explore more at www.notonetype.org.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you keep a marriage strong over time?

A strong marriage requires ongoing, intentional effort. The key is a combination of factors: maintaining your individual identities, continuing to date each other, communicating openly about everything, fighting productively, and consistently showing small acts of love and appreciation. It’s not about the initial spark, but the daily work of tending the fire.

What should you never do in a marriage?

There are a few critical lines that should never be crossed. Avoid showing contempt or disrespect, as it erodes the very foundation of the relationship. Never talk badly about your partner to others, keep significant secrets, or try to change your partner’s core identity. Finally, don’t neglect quality time together or refuse to forgive past hurts.

How often should married couples spend time together?

There’s no magic number, but regular, intentional time is crucial. Many successful couples aim for a weekly date night, a daily check-in (like dinner without screens), and periodic trips away from home and kids. The right amount is about balancing quality time together with enough personal space to maintain your individuality.

Is it normal to have doubts in marriage?

Yes, it is completely normal to have doubts or go through periods of dissatisfaction over the course of a decades-long partnership. Life is stressful, and relationships are tested. The key is to differentiate between a temporary rough patch (normal) and fundamental issues like disrespect or abuse (not acceptable). A common rule of thumb is the 70/30 rule: if you feel satisfied and happy about 70% of the time, your marriage is likely quite healthy.

What kills marriages the most?

According to extensive research, the biggest marriage killers are contempt and disrespect. When partners view each other with disdain, the relationship is in serious trouble. Other major factors include a lack of trust, a refusal to communicate openly about problems, keeping score, an unwillingness to forgive, and losing one’s individual identity to codependency.

How do I stop arguing with my spouse all the time?

First, pick your battles—not every disagreement needs to become a full-blown argument. Focus on attacking the problem together, not each other. Avoid Gottman’s “Four Horsemen” (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling). Learn to take breaks when conversations get too heated, and shift your goal from “winning” the argument to understanding your partner’s perspective.