Yesterday, Steve and I celebrated eight years of marriage. It’s been eight years of friendship, joy and discovery. It’s included 7 jobs, 5 homes, two kids, and a dog. Countless moments of joy and a few moments of sorrow, but all in all an awesome 8 years together.
We haven’t had a perfect marriage. We’ve had our moments and valleys. But choosing each other everyday has been the key to our marriage. We aren’t experts, but we have learned a thing or two over the last 8 years.
Today I’m sharing with you 5 tips and resources that you can use to strengthen your marriage, relationship or just improve yourself!
1. Know Yourself
Here’s a big lesson I learned after I got married. If you don’t know who you are and why you are that way, it’s really hard to know someone else. I found that when I could understand my own weaknesses, and accept them, it was much easier for me to see Steve’s weaknesses and accept those too.
For me, the best way to learn about myself was through the enneagram. I know I know, some of you are rolling your eyes at me because the enneagram is trendy and some people think it’s silliness. But it has helped me learn a lot about who I am and why I am the way that I am. It’s also allowed me to see where I can improve and how I can become a better person.
If you are unfamiliar, the enneagram differs from other personality test because it not only discusses personality, but it also describes why you think, feel and behave in particular ways based on your core fears and desires. Because of this, the enneagram allows you to see yourself and others differently.
From a religious perspective, I’ve found that the enneagram allows me to worship more authentically. The 9 points of the enneagram also point to 9 characteristics of God. The more I am able to see Christ in the people around me, the better I can love them and serve the Lord.
The key here is that we all need one another. Whether thats as people in community, or church together, or in a marriage, we need each other’s strengths and weaknesses so that we can serve God wholly.
Steve is an enneagram 1, The Reformer. He exemplifies the goodness of God. He yearns to do things the right way, because it is good. But this can sometimes look like perfectionism and his inner critic can be cruel.
I’m an enneagram 9, the Peacemaker. We bear the image of God’s own peace. I long for harmony and healing. I hate conflict and often find myself “numbing out” to avoid it.
If you look at the differences between us, it becomes easy to see why things wouldn’t work.
Steve has a quicker temper and sees things as black and white. I shut down when I’m angry and become passive aggressive. Before we knew these things our fights looked pretty one sided. Meaning, I would get angry and shut down, and Steve would continue to get angrier because I wasn’t talking about my feelings.
Once we were able to see our weaknesses, we were able to fight well. Meaning when I would start to shut down Steve would point it out lovingly so we could discuss the issue we were having. When Steve’s inner critic was paralyzing, I could help him find peace. When we use our knowledge of each others strengths we become a force to be reckoned with and I love those moments.
If you don’t know anything about the enneagram, or want to know more about your number, check out this resource.
If you are looking for more information on you and your spouse’s relationship, Becoming Us has a wonderful FREE marriage type quiz which generates a marriage plan for you and your spouse based on your enneagram numbers. It is Biblically driven and a great tool for anyone’s relationship. You can check it out here.
They also have a book and online trainings available which I will link to at the bottom of this post.
2. Know your love languages
I learned early on in our marriage that I didn’t know my love language, and Steve didn’t either. This meant that neither of us could really love each other the way the other person needed. After some time, we found out that Steve receives and gives love through acts of service and I appreciated words of affirmation. This has helped me immensely over the last several years.
Steve has always been the one who has done the majority of the cleaning at home. I used to get so annoyed because he would want to clean or pressure me to clean and surprise him with a nice clean kitchen. I now know that is because his love language is acts of service, and he feels loved and valued when I do those things for him. It means more to him than a gift, or quality time together.
So, do you know your love language? When I realized my love language is words of affirmation, so many parts of my life made more sense. Even if you aren’t in a romantic relationship, this is valuable information in many aspects of life. I realized part of why I love my job is because I have had leaders and bosses who continually affirmed me and spoke truth over me. Those words make me feel more appreciated than all the gifts in the world.
If you don’t know your love language (or your spouse’s) check out this great app called Love Nudge. It uses the knowledge of the 5 love languages. It allows you and your partner to take a quiz to find out your love languages and then reminds you of ways to show your partner love in the best way for them to receive it! You can find more out about the app here.
If you are more of a book person check out The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Dr. Gary Chapman. This is the main book which discusses the love languages, however, he has other options applicable to everyone! Check it out here.
3. Strengthen your Friendship
Something I love about my marriage is that it is truly based on friendship. We love to have fun together, and when we lose sight of that we become irritable and annoyed with one another much more easily.
I can’t express how much having fun with my spouse has strengthened my marriage.
For Steve’s 28th birthday we took a trip to Cedar Point. Friends, I am not that person. I don’t do roller coasters or thrill rides. But my husband is. So I promised him I would go and that I would ride whatever he wanted and wouldn’t complain.
I was TERRIFIED. Steve was patient and kind and loving as I tried my best to enjoy the amusement park. After a few hours of anxiety attacks and stomach pains, I finally thought “maybe I am this person. Maybe I do like roller coasters”, but the reality for me was that I liked my husband. When I was having fun with him, it didn’t matter what we were doing. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself let go and just have fun.
To this day 2.5 years later, that trip is one of my favorite memories. We had more fun than I could’ve ever imagined.
Part of having fun together means trying things the other person likes, even if it scares you. I’m so glad I went out of my comfort zone and was able to explore and enjoy that time with Steve.
Sometimes that means investing money into a trip, or making sure to celebrate your spouse in a new way. It means being their biggest cheerleader, and not speaking badly of them.
If you are looking for a great way to connect, check out The Daily Grace Co.’s Together journal. It gives you space to encourage, pray, and facilitate good communication! Check it out here. You can use this journal independently to remind yourself to pray and encourage your spouse, or you can use it together!
4. Serve Together
I’ve found that some of my favorite moments with Steve come when we are serving God together.
For us this looks like a lot of different things. We lead worship together, run events together and run businesses together.
I don’t know what you and your spouse are gifted in, but I would encourage you to find a place to serve God together as often as you can. Maybe that looks like greeting on Sunday morning together, or running a booth at a fundraiser. Whatever it is, do it together and you will be blessed.
5. Talk about your money
When we talk to newly weds or engaged people, the number one piece of advice we give them is to talk about your money.
We believe that part of being married means combining finances and handling finances jointly. It takes stress away since we are transparent with one another, and it allows us to see each others physical needs, priorities and dreams clearer.
For us, the easiest way to communicate about our money, is through our budget.
We use Every Dollar which is a free app through Dave Ramsey. We list out our income and our expenses for the month and adjust accordingly. Now that we’ve been doing this for a while, Steve generally will create our budget for the month, and I review it to see if anything needs to be added. At the end of the month we look over it to see how we did.
The app makes it super easy to track what we are spending, and make sure we are staying within our goals. This allows us to save for our dreams and take care of our responsibilities.
There are times I don’t want to talk about money. Days when I just want to buy something without thinking, but by remaining open about our money we find it makes it easier to be open about other things too.
When we first had Ellie, my sister and brother in law gave us the book, Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. We both read it and it changed how we saw and communicated about our money drastically. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take control of their finances. Check it out here.
Thanks for letting me share about the last 8 years as we celebrate our anniversary! We aren’t experts in any way, but hopefully these tips can encourage you in your relationships today! I’d love to hear what you are doing to keep your marriage healthy, and how long you’ve been together! Let me know by commenting below!
Resource Links
Note: We use affiliate links to support our blog. That means if you purchase a product using one of these links, we could receive a small commission. But even if we weren’t, we would still recommend these items!
Enneagram
- The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery
- https://www.becomingus.com
- Becoming Us: Using the Enneagram to Create a Thriving Gospel-Centered Marriage
- The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth
- The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types
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