Marriage Hacks

Presented at The MomCo Meeting on March 2024

Good morning moms! Every month Shantell has been providing us with some excellent hacks. Today I am going to provide you with some Marriage hacks. These are favorite tips my husband and I learned from marriage classes we attended and also from the marriage mentoring materials provided to us by our church.

When we were engaged, wise people told me that in order for our marriage to work, we needed to “work” on our relationship. I had no idea what work they were talking about. My fiance was a good man. Our backgrounds were similar. We had been together for over a year so we knew each other well. We were in love. What could go wrong?

Looking in the rear view mirror 43 years later, I realize love does not cure all problems. I now know what they meant and I want to be specific with you today. Nothing is better at this stage of my life than being with the man who I spent my youth with, who knows me, loves me and has stood by me in good times and bad, when we were rich and when we were poor, in sickness and in health. I want the same for all of you. But this takes work.

Hubby and granddaughter Ella

Before I was married, I thought true love meant my husband would understand me and would know what I needed and how to make me feel loved. This is a big lie. In general, men need to be told what we need and how they can love us in the way we need to be loved. They are bad at guessing. Actually we all are. So we need to tell them. Maybe multiple times. It’s ok. It does not mean they love us any less. They just can’t know what is in our heads unless we tell them.

We all marry with our own expectations of how life will be and it is frustrating when our lives together are not what we expected. Today this is exaggerated by social media because others only post the highlight reels of their lives, not the normal messy parts. We look at others and want what they have, or what they SEEM to have on Instagram!

Often we don’t even realize our expectations until we are disappointed. When we mentored engaged couples, one of our goals was to help them share their expectations on different aspects of life before they married. For you moms, it is more complicated now, but it is still helpful to think about what our expectations are and share them with our husbands. Take some time for personal reflection to clarify those unmet expectations. Ask yourself: What do you want? What do you need?

It is vital to tell our husband how to please us, how they can make us feel loved because they WANT to make us happy. They probably just don’t know HOW. We need to help them out. But HOW we tell them can make all the difference!

So here are four hacks to communicate with your husband in a constructive way:

1. Avoid Criticism: Criticizing your husband is different than voicing a complaint. Sharing our concern about a specific issue is good and valuable to the relationship. However what we don’t want to do is attack our husband’s character. That is criticism. Listen to the examples to hear the difference:

• Criticism: “You never think about how your behavior is affecting other people. I don’t believe you are that forgetful, you’re just selfish. You never think of others! You never think of me!”

• Complaint: “I was scared when you were running late and didn’t call me. I thought we had agreed that we would do that for each other.”

Do you hear the difference? Criticism attacks a person’s character. Instead we want to focus on a specific behavior.

A better alternative is to express your concern or complaint without blame, while being gentle and respectful. Avoid saying “you,” which can indicate blame, and instead talk about your feelings using “I” statements and express what you need in a positive way. A good way to prepare yourself is to ask these questions: What do I feel? What do I need?

Here’s another example:

• Criticism: “You always talk about yourself. Why are you always so selfish?”

• Better Alternative: “I’m feeling left out of our talk tonight and I need to vent too. Can we please talk about my day?”

Notice that the better alternative starts with “I feel,” leads into “I need,” and then respectfully asks to fulfill that need. There’s no blame or criticism so the discussion does not escalate into an argument.

Remember, the relationship is always more important than the issue at hand. Life is complicated and so many issues can seems to have a life of their own. These problems seem to be a huge obstacle between the two of you. Instead put the problem IN FRONT of the two of you, NOT BETWEEN the two of you. Remember, you are on the same team. The problem is the enemy, not our husband. Working together we will have a much better chance to overcome whatever comes our way.

2. Avoid Contempt: When we communicate contempt, we are being truly mean. This is when we treat others with disrespect, mock them with sarcasm, ridicule, call them names, and mimic, or use body language such as eye-rolling or scoffing. When we do this, our goal, whether we want to admit it or not, is to win the argument by making our husband feel despised and worthless.

Contempt goes far beyond criticism. While criticism attacks your husband’s character, contempt assumes a position of moral superiority over them: Here’s an example:

“You’re ‘tired?’ Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic video games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid. Could you be any more pathetic?”

The antidote to contempt is to build a culture of appreciation and respect in your relationship. Start by thinking about things to be grateful about. Consider where you take him for granted. There is always something good if you look for it. Then if you begin a habit to verbalize your gratitude, appreciation, affection, and respect for your husband, you’ll create a positive perspective in your relationship that acts as a buffer when negative feelings arise. The more positive you feel, the less likely that you’ll express contempt. Here’s another example:

• Contempt: “You forgot to load the dishwasher again? Ugh. You are so incredibly lazy.” (Rolls eyes.)

• Better Alternative: “I understand that you’ve been busy lately, but could you please remember to load the dishwasher when I work late? I’d appreciate it.”

Again, put the problem in front of you both, not between you. Your husband is NOT the enemy. The problem is. Solve the problem, attack the problem together, do NOT attack him.

3. Avoid Defensiveness: This is typically a response to criticism. When we feel unjustly accused, we fish for excuses and play the innocent victim so that our husband will back off.

Unfortunately, this strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses tell our husband that we don’t take their concerns seriously and that we won’t take responsibility for our mistakes. Defensiveness can escalate the conflict instead of resolving the issue at hand. Here’s an example:

• Question: “Did you call Jessica and Rob to let them know that we’re not coming tonight as you promised this morning?”

• Defensive response: “I was just too darn busy today. As a matter of fact, you know just how busy my schedule was. Why didn’t you just do it?”

This defensive response also reverses the blame in an attempt to make it the other spouse’s fault. A better response is to express acceptance of responsibility and an admission of fault, even if only for part of the conflict. This will demonstrate that we care by listening and understanding our husband’s perspective:

• Better Alternative: “Oops, I forgot. I should have asked you this morning to do it because I knew my day would be packed. That’s my fault. Let me call them right now.”

Here’s another example:

• Defensiveness: “It’s not my fault that we’re going to be late. It’s your fault since you always get dressed at the last second.”

• Better Alternative: “I don’t like being late, but you’re right. We don’t always have to leave so early. I can be a little more flexible.”

By taking responsibility for part of the conflict (trying to leave too early), even while asserting that we don’t like to be late, we prevent the conflict from escalating by admitting our own role in the conflict. From here we can more easily work towards a compromise.

We must be responsive to his needs as well as expecting him to respond well to ours. This encourages good will in our relationships.

4. Stonewalling: Stonewalling occurs when one withdraws from the interaction, shuts down, and simply stops responding to their spouse. Rather than confronting the issues, people who stonewall can make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive or distracting behaviors.

Unfortunately, stonewalling isn’t easy to stop. It is a usually a result of feeling flooded with emotions to such a degree that we become physically affected and we just can’t discuss things rationally.

If you feel like you’re stonewalling during a conflict, stop the discussion and ask your husband to take a break. Here’s an example:

“Alright, I’m feeling too angry to keep talking about this. Can we please take a break and come back to it in a bit? It’ll be easier to work through this after I’ve calmed down.”

Then take at least 20 minutes to do something alone that soothes you— take a walk, read a book or magazine, just do anything that helps to stop feeling flooded with emotions—and then return to the conversation once you feel ready. It is also good to examine your own heart: what exactly is upsetting you, what your expectations are, what you need, where might you be responsible for part of the problem, etc. It’s crucial that during this time you avoid thoughts of righteous indignation (“I don’t have to take this anymore”) and innocent victimhood (“Why is he always picking on me?”).

After you are calm enough to listen to him and respond with gentleness and respect, make sure to return to the issue and work towards resolving it.

But what do you do if your husband is the one doing these things? The hard answer is: YOU GO FIRST. This is where the hard “work” comes in. Gently and respectfully explain how his method of problem solving is hurtful to you, damaging your relationship and not solving the problem. We can’t avoid complaints. But we can complain in ways that are more loving and therefore more effective. Our goal is a good long-lasting life together and that will involve personal change and growth. And you can be the adult and go first.

The process of working on our marriage is hard. It is humbling to put the needs of others first, to consider their feelings, listen to their needs, and to be forgiving when bad behavior repeats. The good news is this work will make us more patient, more gentle, more compassionate, more respectful. This becomes an inner beauty that does not dim with age but glows brighter. It is good not only for our marriage but it is spiritually and emotionally healing for ourselves. 

So devote yourself to the work. It is good for your marriage, for your children, and for you.