The Happy Homemaking Blog

My husband and I are coming up on two years of marriage in a couple months. It’s been a wonderful time in our lives that has absolutely flown by. In the grand scheme of things, I know that two years isn’t a long time to be married, but I have learned a lot in the last two years. And given the fact that last week I talked about marriage advice I don’t agree with, I thought it would be fun to give you a few marriage tips of my own this week. 

Anyways, take it or leave it, here are my seven marriage tips from the first years of my marriage. 

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1. Pray for your spouse every day.

This will probably always be my number one piece of advice for everyone, married or not. You can be praying for your spouse throughout your entire life. You can pray for them before you’ve ever met them, throughout your dating/engaged process, and every day of your married life. It is such a wonderful, purifying practice. 

Pray for your spouse both when you feel tremendous love for them and when you’re not feeling a ton of love for them. It is infrequent for my husband and I to be upset with each other, but the times where I was angry at my husband and I humbled myself enough to pray for him, it reminded me how much I love him and how grateful I am for him. And it brought me to tears each time. It is powerful and it is purifying. 

2. Take advantage of whatever time you have.

This tip was very prevalent to us during a certain period of our marriage in which my husband went back to school for a semester. He would get up in the morning, do his school work until noon, eat lunch, and go to work his second shift job until eleven o’clock at night. We had very little quality time together, as most weekends were also completely taken up with school work.

Having limited quality time together caused us to be very intentional with the time we did have together. We would take little walks whenever we could, cuddled whenever we could, and talked on the phone during his breaks at work. Each of these activities may have only given us a 10-15 minute spurt of quality time here and there, but they carried us through that difficult time. We are out of that busy season now, but I’ve tried to carry the mindset of using time intentionally with me to this day.

Always try to find time for your spouse, even if it seems like there’s barely any time to go around. And try to see the beauty in the little amounts of time you have together, even if it’s only five minutes. 

3. Try to have the same schedule.

Over the course of our marriage, we’ve had several changes of schedule. When we first married, my husband worked third shift, thus he would be getting up at 2:00 a.m. most mornings and going to bed at 8:00 p.m. Eventually he got a different job, and during the training for that job he worked first shift, which required him to get up quite early in the morning, though not as early as before. Once his training was completed, my husband was moved to second shift at his job, in which his work hours were from 2:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. He then got a different job, which he works at now, and his general work schedule is from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

That’s a lot of change in under two years. But all throughout, I have moved my schedule along with him. This allows us to maximize our time together and it simply keeps us in sync and not feeling as though we’re living separate lives. 

I understand that it’s not always possible to have the same schedule as your spouse, especially if there are children involved. But if you have the ability to do so, I think it would be very beneficial for your marriage. 

4. Have frequent, good sex. 

This tip is my husband’s contribution to this post. 😉

A healthy frequency of sex in a marriage can look different from couple to couple, and the different stages that a couple is going through. But do your best to come to a mutually agreed upon, mutually satisfying amount of sex that works for the both of you.

The reason I include the word “good” is because I think it’s important for the majority of your sex life to be geared toward emotionally and spiritually bonding with your partner. The passionate quickie can be fun and a good release, but sex that includes loving foreplay and intentionally helping your spouse have a good time will bring you much closer together. Good sex can help you to heal while going through difficult times, it can resolve arguments, it can often say what words can’t. 

It’s a beautiful, wonderful part of a Godly marriage. 

5. Take showers together.

This is a piece of marriage advice that was given to me at my bridal shower and I now think it was some of the best advice I got. There’s just something about taking a cozy shower with your spouse and being completely comfortable with them. It’s a great time to talk and just be with one another. 

My husband and I always end our showers together with a long hug under the stream of water. It’s so calming and bonding. 

6. Recognize and praise the things your spouse does for you.

In my husband’s and my marriage, my husband provides for our family by going to work and bringing in income while I take care of our home and make our meals. These are the roles that each of us happily occupy and it is expected that we both fulfill them each day. But even though it is expected and necessary for both of us to fulfill our duties each day in order for our life to function properly, I still believe we should show gratitude to each other for all the work we each put into our marriage. 

I try to thank my husband often for going to work each day and for working so hard to take care of me. My husband often thanks me for the fact that he is able to come home to a clean house and a hot meal. Even if it is necessary that we each do these things for each other, why not show gratitude for it? I am so grateful for my hardworking husband, so I do my best to make sure he knows it. 🙂

Putting this practice into place greatly reduces the possibility of resentment building up and it’s so beneficial. 

7. Always learn about each other.

On our first dates, my husband and I went back and forth asking each other get-to-know-you questions. Some were deep and serious, others were light-hearted and fun. We continued to do this throughout our dating and engaged relationship until it came to the point that we thought we’d run out of questions to ask each other. But then our questions slowly just became conversation. We now talk about everything under the sun and we still ask questions when we think of them. I believe that we’ll still be learning about each other decades down the road. I also believe that, while you can know someone like the back of your hand, there will always be little things you can discover about them. It is the wonderful mystery of marriage. 

Learning about your partner doesn’t have to just be with questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” You can ask them how their day was, how they are doing right now, whether or not they’ve had any interesting interactions with their coworkers recently, or whether or not they enjoyed the event you went to on Saturday. I guarantee that even if you know your partner inside and out, they’ll have an answer that surprises you every once in a while. Plus, asking about your partner regularly will let them know that you care about them and that you’re interested in hearing their thoughts.

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There you have the 7 tips from my first couple years of marriage! I hope to learn many more as time goes by. And I hope that you enjoyed reading this post. I’d love to hear your tips in the comments!