Category: Personal Growth

For the most of my life, I believed that quitters never win. If you quit, you lose not win. My parents often said, “If you start something, make sure you stick to it no matter what.” So, I tried to sign up for activities that I genuinely liked to reduce the likelihood of quitting and giving up. Unfortunately, I miscalculated my actions when I went to college.

I had some hard decisions to make. I had a year to think about my major, but it was tough for me to decide. My parents didn’t want to suggest anything because they wanted me to make up my mind. On the last day of the decision-making process, I chose to enter the university’s Chemistry program.

Why Chemistry, you might ask? I went with it because I excelled in the subject when I was still in high school. The second choice was Creative Writing, but my parents said it might not be ideal for financial reasons, so I didn’t pick it. I know that I will have to think about full payment and all sorts of monetary issues along the way.

During my first year as a Chemistry major student, I must admit how enjoyable it was. I met a lot of successful people and smart folks, and I learned so much from them. I even saw first-hand that having a high level of intelligence couldn’t turn you into a geek automatically. However, things changed when I failed a subject in my second year and had to retake it the next semester. Still, I told myself I wouldn’t quit because I know it means I can still win.

My interest in Chemistry began to wane at that point, but I didn’t tell another soul. I should have taken it as a sign that I should quit and that I was never meant to be a chemist, but I didn’t quit. Instead, I smiled through the whole thing and made my friends and family believe that I was still in the game and winning. I said, “I will make sure to ace it next time around.” I thought I could still win to avoid quitting. The words win and winners has something to do with a positive perception.

And I tried to make it happen, you know. I put in the effort so I can win. I studied day and night; I only rested when I slept or ate or traveled. My parents asked if I was alright, and I always replied, “Yes.” I didn’t want to seem like a failure and quitter in anyone’s eyes, much less to my family. After all, winners never quit.

So, as much as possible, I should never think about quitting because, in many cases, quitting means winning. I should instead spend time understanding new and challenging decisions in life.

Nevertheless, I eventually had to confront reality when I failed another subject in my junior year. It was a prerequisite for an elective subject that I wanted to take later, and failing meant that I’d have to extend my schooling for another semester. It sucked so bad so the point that quitting seems to be the only option and I can’t win this time; I could barely hide my self-disappointment to my loved ones. At the same time, that’s when I felt that majoring in Chemistry was not my destiny. Still, I could not let my parents know that I wanted to quit and find another path for myself because I was afraid of hearing them say, “I didn’t know we raised a loser.” I thought it would be an even bigger waste to quit now. So, for a few months, I forced myself to continue my studies, believing that I still had the means to win. I do believe that winners never quit because, for them, quitting means failure.

Deciding To Quit To Win

‘Forced’ was the most appropriate term to describe what I did because I felt so down and didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to quit. Little did I know, I was going to classes less and less. My life was falling apart. I couldn’t maintain my focus. Sometimes, I would wake up before class and come up with excuses to avoid attending it. Whenever my friends would call and ask where I was, I told them to mind their own business. I lied and told them that I was stuck in traffic or ill. My alibis became so ridiculous that my professors threatened to flunk me immediately if I didn’t go back to school at once.

Well, it wasn’t a huge pile of schoolwork that made me decide to quit studying at that moment. I didn’t care about winning or losing anymore. Instead, it was the fact that I didn’t care if I flunked all my classes. I was too numb to worry about what it would mean for my parents and what would they say once they learned about me quitting to win, too. I knew then that I need to quit with Chemistry; if I forced myself to study further, I might die (literally). Pass, fail, winning, flunk, none of it mattered to me anymore.

When Quitting Means Winnings

I went straight to my parents’ house to tell them what had been happening to me and what I had been feeling for a while. I told them I want to quit Chemistry even if my quitting means not winning. Looking back, I wasn’t sure if talking to them about quitting and winning was a smart move, considering I didn’t come up with any winning plan. I merely thought that it was better if they heard the bad news about quitting from me directly.

To my surprise, my parents started crying and hugged me almost at the same time. They said they felt guilty for not noticing my ordeal. However, I assured them that it wasn’t their fault since I took up Chemistry independently. At the same time, I insisted that quitting school was the best winning decision for me then.

My parents gave me their blessing to quit and win in a heartbeat. On that same day, I quit my current school year, moved out of the dorms and went back to their house. I took a leave of absence from school and decided to try my hand at creative writing for a long shot of winning. It turned out to be the wisest decision I had ever made, considering writing felt more like a hobby than a chore for me.

Because of that, I could confirm that quitting could mean winning sometimes.

I’m a better, healthier person now. The phrase “Quitters never win” doesn’t apply all the time. If you are someone suffering from mental illnesses, and experiences anxiety contributors which prohibit you on doing simple tasks, it is good to take a rest, quit if you must. Whether it is about quitting a job or quitting to win, the seek professional help. If your decision to quit can help, then do it. Remember, even winners do quit sometimes.

Quitting And Winning FAQs

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A life coach comprehends the fact that a family is not spared from problems, including small ones like having trouble dealing with the new teenager, or as tough as coping with the infidelity of a partner. Realistically, it’s not easy to live with other people, even if these people are your family members, those that love and care for you the most. Developing a stable and efficient family dynamics needs time, effort, and patience. You need to keep the whole family happy and mentally healthy.

Family coaching sessions are beneficial to families who need tools and strategies that will help them resolve misunderstandings, come up with agreements, and optimistically change a troubled living situation into a convenient and happy one.

Definition

Family coaching has a similar primary goal as all other kinds of coaching – to provide guidance and direction to someone to get them from where they currently are to where they wish to be. Like the business mentor who is tasked to reorganize a business team or teach the leader better communication strategies, a family coach goes into the home to work ready to collaborate with the members of the family. His goal is to look for ways to identify the family’s issues and problems and then find ways to resolve these problems.

How Family Coaching Can Help

Disagreements and conflicts in the home can be more devastating and stressful than conflicts in the workplace. When we decide to have a family, we typically do so because of love. But despite those feelings of love and passion, these can be broken and damaged through time due to various misfortunes and challenges in life. And sadly, most of them cause permanent scars. Family coaching provides realistic solutions to these personal, financial, and other types of family problems.

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People can reach out to family coaches when they want help with resolving their marriage problems, raising and disciplining children, managing work-life balance, dealing with difficult teenagers, and getting over a separation or divorce.

Primarily, one might not feel comfortable with the concept of consulting a stranger to help them resolve their family issues and welcome him into their home to observe the family dynamics. It’s not an ordinary circumstance, and it could feel rather demoralizing to think that your lives are being meddled and judged, or perhaps you or another family member will be blamed for something went wrong. However, a family coach is not there to condemn or point fingers. He is there to help the family come up with a perspective so that everyone will be able to get the bigger picture and learn to embrace the roles that each member plays. Once everyone understands and accepts that there are things that need transformation, the entire family can now find ways to move forward with positivity and hope.

Common Family Issues

Teenagers. This stage of life is one of the most difficult for parents and even the whole family to manage. Peer problems, stress from school, erratic hormones, and the teenager’s nature to fight for his freedom can swiftly transform the home into a battlefield. Parents who respond to these behaviors in anger and resentment will only cause their teens to talk back and isolate themselves even more. The teen might misunderstand her parents’ anger as hate rather than just a form of worry for them. A family coach works with the parents and the teen to build mutual respect, establish more concrete boundaries, and cultivate more understanding with one another. He helps both parties to be able to see from each other’s perspective.

Separation

There are a lot of causes why couples decide to separate, although separation or divorce is the final stage wherein parties come to accept that the marriage doesn’t work anymore. Most couples say that separation is one of the most difficult experiences that they’ve ever had to deal with. Moving forward can be especially devastating if you need to be in contact with your ex-spouse, such as if you have kids together. A family coach can provide guidance for families to be able to efficiently go through the experience with as little pain and trauma as possible for everyone.

Work/Life Balance

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Getting hooked or having kids doesn’t really mean you need to set aside your career. It only means that you will have to contemplate your work/life balance. Family coaching is a beneficial tool for families to be able to work together on attaining a functional work/life balance because it provides everyone the opportunity to gather together in one room and talk about each other’s feelings and opinions. Coaching sessions are developed to get everyone to open up so that an agreement can be reached without conflict or misunderstanding.

If you feel that your family life needs a little help, you could reach out to a family coach just so someone from outside kick-starts some positive vibes into the everyday routine. Ironically, family coaching is particularly powerful when the opinions of the members are divided. The coach will help everyone understand where each member is coming from so that stability is achieved between tackling realities and enjoying life.

In this time of crisis, there are a lot of things going on. Surely, with your home quarantine experience, you have plenty of time realizing how your life has been. You are often thinking about stuff that somehow causes you to worry and fear. That’s okay. For sure, most people right now are probably thinking the same thing. And given this pandemic situation, I bet you already figure out some of these life lessons you learn too late.

There’s A Lot Of time – If you are often procrastinating and usually say that you have all-time in the world, you might want to reconsider. Just think about what is happening right now. The pandemic is causing a severe problem where it currently restricts you from doing a lot of things. Now that you only have limited time to be out there, perhaps you already realized that time is precious because there’s no way you can predict what might happen in the future. So when this is all over, try not to take time for granted.

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You Can Change Easily – Well, at some point, you might say that there is no greater power than change. However, changing and adapting to things around you is not easy. It does not happen naturally, and you might have serious issues dealing with new things in your life. So you can’t wait around the corner and expect the world to adjust for you because it won’t provide you the life you imagined. The only way to progress in this situation is by taking the initiative. This whole situation is uncontrollable. Thus you need to commit 100% into the required life adjustment.

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Complaining Won’t Solve Anything – Admittedly, you probably have wasted a lot of time complaining about your situation. But does it solve anything? Perhaps right now, you know that complaining will never solve your life issues. It doesn’t even contribute to motivating you to look at things differently. Every time you complain, you are only bearing yourself into the pit of negativity that soon piles up. And one day, you’ll self-destruct.

Regretting Missed Opportunities – Understandably, there are a lot of things you missed due to the pandemic situation. Perhaps you canceled some of the most important events on your schedule. But regretting it and finding things to blame for that isn’t doing you any favors. If you keep whining over the chances you didn’t take when life outside was still okay, you will never focus on the bigger picture, which is keeping your mental state intact.

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Health Habits Are Life-Long Battle – Take a minute to think about your ideal self. Of course, at this pandemic time, you want to be as healthy as much as possible to avoid getting caught with the infection. But how much effort do you put in obtaining your health goal? Surely, you can find a lot of excuses not to eat healthy food, sleep in time, or exercise during this crisis. But if you understand the importance of staying healthy, you will first consider the lifestyle you have right now.

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Expect The Unexpected – No one tells you how inevitable things are. There is no way you can predict something to happen. It is safe to assume that things will always go wrong. That is precisely the reason why this whole pandemic situation is taking longer than expected. Like you, people are trying to live and survive the situation because that is all they can do. Their abilities are limited to options that are only available in pieces. By now, perhaps you realize that nothing entirely beats preparation and planning.

During this global health crisis, people are instructed to stay at home until further notice. With that, some of them lost their jobs because of the worldwide lockdown. But fortunately, some individuals are privileged and allowed to work from home. The whole endeavor is a little bit challenging and complicated. That is especially for those who are used to do their jobs outside their homes.

Working from home requires an excellent routine to become effective. You might need to make some adjustments and considerations so that your work-from-home will not interfere with your life. So how can you manage to develop a good routine? Glad there are some practical ways.

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Start Working Early – A work from home and other errands in the house usually get piled up due mishandling of schedules. If you think that working late is a good idea, you might not like the result of getting too much pressure at night. You might not even get the right amount of rest you deserve. Besides, if you waste a lot of time in the morning doing nothing, you might not be able to complete all the chores by the end of the day. Soon you will end up rushing things and pushing yourself to the verge of exhaustion.

Insert A 5 to 15 Minute Exercise Daily – Yes, not because you work from home does not mean you need to cut back on some of the things you should do daily. A 5 to 10-minute exercise is enough to boost your energy. It will help you gain mental and physical strength that you will need for the whole day of work and house chores. Not all that, if you maintain exercising for the entire quarantine period, you might thank yourself for allowing it from becoming strong and healthy.

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Put Up A Plan – Planning is the best thing to do, especially if you are working from home. Since you will be dividing your time to work and organizing the house, you better make a to-do-list. But note, your list should be realistic and attainable so that you will not bother to skip your task. Start with the essential duty you have to accomplish. Try finishing it before jumping on another. You must avoid multi-tasking. It can lead to unfinished responsibilities, and you wouldn’t want to get back doing stuff over and over again.

Remove All Distractions – Working from home is difficult due to lots of distractions. Since you can access everything in the house with your convenience, leaving chores and duties hanging becomes tempting. So if you want to accomplish both work and house tasks in a day, you need to remove all distractions. You can consider putting segregation of what needs to be present in times of working and not working.

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Allow Breaks – The most challenging part of working from home is giving importance to work breaks. Some people work for straight hours. And since they are at the convenience of their homes, they sometimes extend their working hours up late. It becomes a problem because it starts to interfere with their lives. But then some choose to work under time. These people have this mentality that since they have their office at home, they have all the time to finish their jobs at any time. Unfortunately, it creates a lot of stress and sometimes leads to other health complications.

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Having a work from home is a privilege. You can earn while on quarantine, and not everyone is allowed to do that. But be mindful. Make sure to cuff it off and stop working when you have to. Not because working becomes convenient, that does not mean you need to set aside your home duties.

People think that marriage is about marrying the right person. However, it is much more than that. When things start to go wrong and their fairy tale seems to slip away, they devalue the significance of marriage and think that they accidentally married the wrong person.

Relationships Are A Constant Work In Progress

Whether you know it or not, you and your partner communicate in a way that there is an exchange of responses from each other. It is a sense of doing things that make your partner react to something you do that also makes your counter and so on. The relationship usually creates a cycle of treatment that both of you have for each other. You two begin to build a pattern of habitual responses and actions over time. The change of behavior of one person can impact the behavior of the other, and that affects the entire relationship.

So when things try to change, and both couples make small to huge adjustments, the interaction and response also varies. When you try to become rude to your partner, therefore the response will also be the same. He will develop a coping mechanism that can instantly react to your adverse action. As for the positive side, when one of you acts positively, it will influence your partner to respond in the same manner as well.

Tips for a wife from Karen Ruskin, PsyD: “Giving your husband attention, she says, is powerfully addictive to him.”

Giving Too Much Is Not A Privilege

Too much of something is dangerous. You have to put boundaries in the activities that keep you healthy. You have to set your priorities straight and know the kind of marital relationship that you prefer. However, most couples fail to realize that the act of always agreeing to favors and requests is dangerous especially when it doesn’t support the balance of giving and take relationship.

Most couples are sometimes unaware of their habits, and because they want to achieve a happy marriage, they tend to become more open with their partners when it comes to their demands. However, it creates complication because when couples don’t feel the need to disagree on something, it means they are not developing in all aspects at all. It will trigger mental and physiological alterations that will hinder personal growth.

Fact: “Many couples confuse their loyalties and don’t set boundaries with their family and friends.” – Massey-Hastings, PsyD

Taking Time Off When It’s Needed

It’s natural to feel the need for space when you and your spouse feel like crowding each other too much. Needing space doesn’t have to be a bad thing; it is a necessity that you and your significant other need so you can bring your mature self into the relationship. It will not only give you both a chance to cool down but also help in your marriage in any issue that you’re facing so you can put things into perspective. Sometimes, the only way to resolve your message is by allowing yourself to find your purpose.

You may think that you already understand how marriage needs to be and that you perfectly know how your married life needs to flow, but in reality, you don’t. Marriage is not something you can easily hold on to because it requires tons of effort and learning that could even last a lifetime. You need to experience a lot of heartaches, failures, and stresses before you can finally achieve that marital self-growth.

According to Alicia H. Clark, PsyD, “Couples thinking about marriage can often feel unsure about how to know if their relationship is strong enough to withstand the test of marriage. Knowing what to ask each other can be an important step in sorting through whether you are truly, long-lastingly compatible.”

 Marriage is something that helps you in a lot of ways. It is useful in giving you the potential to know your capability and discover more from your personality. Sometimes, it allows you to become a better version of yourself due to the struggles and experiences that teach you to create positive things. Though not all married life lessons are great, it still gives you the chance to determine your purpose in life.

Focus

When you are married, you tend to understand your needs and wants. Therefore, you set achievable goals that are useful for your overall health. And because you want something that supports the growth of your spouse as well, you tend to focus on your responsibility on doing the right thing that positively helps him achieve for his well-being. You may experience unpredictable negative instances, but it still won’t stop you from doing what you need to do.

Inspiration

When it comes to aiming for something, you develop a will to do things out of the ordinary and deliver it well. You even try to push your limits most of the times because you have the motivation. You value the kind of determination you have because you want to give appreciation to your marriage to be able to make it a place that you can feel safe and comfortable. Your inspiration will provide you with a reason to work hard for something beneficial not only for your personal development, but also for your partner’s positive mental, psychological, and behavioral aspects.

Self-worth

Working on the things that make you happy and satisfied with your marriage is somehow attainable when you tend to value your worth. Giving yourself the kind of love you deserve doesn’t mean you’re selfish but instead allowing yourself to have self-confidence. It only allows you to understand that you can never entirely get everything unless you are capable of giving. You tend to value your self-image, discover a new set of skills, appreciate the things you can do, and become a person that you have to be. In that sense, your self-worth matters because it helps you understand that the only way to love others is by loving yourself first.

Here are some of the words that therapists have to say about self-worth:

• Joyce Marter, LCPC: “Either in the morning or evening, journal about the issues that are preoccupying your mind.”
• Elizabeth Cush, MA, LCPC: “It takes time to learn new things. Practice and patience are needed when working on improving self-esteem.”
• Lisa Neuweg, LCPC: “While we don’t immediately undo or heal damaging beliefs or wounds, we can ease into honoring ourselves.”

Hard Work

Hard work tends to create a difference in all aspects of your married life. Even if you are valuing yourself, focusing on doing what you need to do, and having all the inspiration you need, these will all falter when you don’t work hard for it. Your goals and dreams are useless if you don’t work hard to attain all of it. When you try hard, you tend to enhance your physical, mental, and emotional, capabilities to avoid excuses.

You can benefit from online platforms like BetterHelp to improve your well-being. They also have a social media extension which makes it more accessible. Therefore, the opportunities matter as long as you strive to accomplish what you need to strengthen your married life. If you want to more about online counseling platforms, you check out what people are saying about it in this review.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing in a person’s life. Not only because you’ll have the chance to be with someone that you truly love, but also because it gives you a sense of purpose in living the kind of life you deserve. It is something that will keep you looking forward to the future.

A crumbling marriage is inevitable especially when both parties are not working enough together to fix things between them. A simple marital argument can somehow turn into an idea of divorce if they both agree to stop thinking about the importance of their union. Sometimes, both partners tend to disregard the internal and external factors that affect their relationship and end up losing the interest in continuing the commitment. So in case, you’re one of the couples who tend to experience unfortunate marital situations, here are the things you can do to rebuild your relationship.

Analyze Yourself In The Relationship And Create Progress

It is reasonable that both partners need to make changes to save the marriage. However, there will be a time that your spouse will completely give up on your relationship and you’ll have to be responsible for making sufficient changes that will save your commitment. It may take a while to see the results of those positive changes, but it will make your unhappy partner respond to your positive behavior and appreciate your effort in saving your relationship. Make the initial steps in turning your attitude that can make your spouse respond positively. Perhaps he will soon end up cooperating, fixing your marital issues over time.

Keep the romance alive at all times. According to Bridget Levy, LCPC, ““The mental illness has a way of wanting to direct the movement of the relationship, rather than the individual partners,” said Jeffrey Sumber, MA, LCPCRomance doesn’t necessarily need to involve a dozen roses or a love poem.”

Remind Yourself About What You Are Working Towards Your Marriage

When it comes to marriage, you often know what you want in life and that brings you to the idea of keeping all the positive vibes within your commitment. To avoid conflicts and intense argument, try to break down the issue and create doable steps and begin tackling them one at a time. Think about your marriage as something that keeps both of you in a situation where only the two of you against the world. Look for things that make you appreciate each other and find particular reasons why you start building the marriage in the first place.

Take good care of your loved one, especially if he or she is going through stress and anxiety. Jeffrey Sumber, MA, LCPC said that “The mental illness has a way of wanting to direct the movement of the relationship, rather than the individual partners.”

Revive The Intimacy, Try To Explore, And Allow New Ideas

You and your partner consider marriage because you have a strong connection. You use that connection to become one, and with that, you show how much you mean to each other.  Since intimacy is the first thing that suffers in a marriage when both couples tend to lose interest in their commitment, it is important that you consider bringing back the spark. You have to try and remove the tension from looking at stress as the source of connection and think about it as a driving tool that will make you complete each other. It doesn’t have to be a forceful act but rather a psychological affection that brings your marriage to life.

According to Julienne B. Derichs, LCPC, “It helps you learn how not to take things too personally, which is so helpful in any long-term relationship.”

Be Committed And Let Go With The Grudges

There are tons of ups and downs on marriage that you and your partner can experience. Sometimes, some of them are emotionally and mentally stressful. But when you think about your spouse as someone who is giving you enough reasons to fight for the things you want in your marriage, you can at least let go of the grudges and leave the past behind. Eventually, you will see that forgiveness and appreciation are keys to keeping the commitment on its right path.

A relationship with someone you love is something that you want to achieve in life. You may not have the kind of perfect marriage that you desire, but your effort and commitment to saving it will eventually turn it into one.

Marriage is a bond that requires both you and your partner’s cooperation. When one or both of you can’t seem to handle the situation, there are better options that you can follow so you can continue the course of staying together. There’s no perfect relationship, and everyone handles stress differently. So if you and your significant other are experiencing tons of stressful stuff, you can check out these reminders for a practical marital solution.

Fact: “Another indicator of burnout in clients and counselors can include feeling a perpetual sense of self-disappointment — that no matter what you do, you are always falling short.” says Erin M. West, LPC.

Sex Is Not A Definition Of Love – The kind of stress that you might feel when there’s a lack of sexual intimacy is common in every marriage. It sometimes makes you think that both of you are starting to drift apart. You tend to assume that your physical connection becomes an issue because the two of you tend to focus on the act itself. Though it is understandable that attraction and pleasurable sexual intercourse is a priority in every marriage, it still does not support the idea of love but merely just a factor that connects the both of you in the physical and emotional aspect.

Practice Individual Self-Care – You and your partner are prone to relationship destructions. When one of you tends to stop caring for yourselves, the rate of stress can elevate to a much higher level. From this point, both of you will struggle to see the importance of taking care of one another. You need to understand that relationships don’t stand on their own and require both your contributions. Therefore, when you can’t seem to show self-care, it will be less likely that you can provide care for others.

Rhonda Williams, Ed.D., LPC, NCC said “It has been said that self-care is not a luxury but an ethical mandate.”

Don’t Play With Time – Struggling to have time for everything is a battle you encounter in your relationship almost every day. It is stressful because it affects a lot of things such as communication, bond, behavior, and personal development. So to make your relationship work, you need to manage time wisely. Don’t allow it to decide for your future because it doesn’t stop to support you. Both of you must be ready to prioritize solutions whenever you think that it’s momentarily needed.

Focus On Your Shared Needs – Stress is exhausting, and when you don’t pay attention to your needs, it will be impossible for you to understand self-healing. The only thing that can make you keep track of your marital situation is by knowing the things that keep you and your partner together. When you ignore listening to your emotional, psychological, and behavioral aspects, you’re making it hard for your marriage to continue its course to happiness. You need to put your mind, body, and soul in one place so you can focus on attaining benefits for both your well-being.

Avoid Too Many Assumptions – Your thoughts matter. And when they’re out of control, your thoughts can cause fatal destruction to your marriage. In most situations, those assumptions can give you a wide variety of stresses that can ruin both your health and relationship. Therefore, don’t try to take ALL things seriously and avoid creating meanings on your significant other’s verbal or physical behavior.

According to Jeremy Savage, MA, LPC, “We might experience stress when we fear that we don’t have the right resources to accomplish a task.”

When it comes to the relationship, there are tons of stresses out there that you can probably imagine to experience. But when you know how to deal with them even in simple ways, there’s a slight chance that you can somehow save your relationship.

According to Judy Herman, LPC-MHSP, “One thing you must know about marital growth is this. There’s a difference between closeness and intimacy.”

Being married to someone you love is already a fulfillment, but it doesn’t mean that you have to stop learning things together. Your marriage is the source of your happiness, so it also needs to be the factor that supports your personal growth in life. So how can you say that your marriage makes you complete? Here are the things that you need to know.

Learn How To Communicate

Though communication is always an important factor in a relationship, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you always have to talk to each other. Sometimes, it is the idea of knowing when your partner needs space. It is when you put in mind that gesture and physical touch are also a form of communication. As long as you understand each other’s needs, then you know that you have that strong connection that doesn’t require talking.

Go On Dates

Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you should stop having fun together. The truth is that married life requires more adventure compared to the dating stage because it helps in strengthening the bond that’s already there. When both of you decide to try different things, it will develop your sense of appreciation towards each other. Moreover, it will allow you to discover new things about your partner along the way.

Stick Up For Each Other

Everything about your relationship comes from both your contributions. You don’t make decisions alone and work on marital issues separately. Your marriage makes you a team, so you’ve got to act like it. You need to value each other’s role in keeping your relationship. Don’t try to pull each other down especially in front of others and always make sure that you have each other’s back through thick and thin.

Learn To Apologize

Say it as you mean it when you’re apologizing. Disregard your pride and ask for forgiveness because there are no shortcuts in attaining peace in a relationship. Both of you should realize that accepting your mistakes is the only way towards understanding and apologizing is an essential factor for forgiveness. However, you must remember that apologizing is not enough, so you still need to work on things that help the situation to become better.

Don’t Hold Grudges

When you try to forgive your spouse, don’t ever hold grudges. Don’t look at their mistakes as a tool that you can use against them only to win an argument. You need to forgive and immediately forget everything to avoid a bitter relationship. From there, you can work on your perspective and manage your differences accordingly.

Show Affection

Showing your love towards your spouse doesn’t always have to be a physical connection. There will be that one thing that can make you understand each other’s affection. Try to figure out a love-language that you can use to ideally tell each other how much he or she contributes to your life. A small gesture such as flying kiss, wink, and love letters are somehow practical ways.

Be hopeful at all times. Joanne Ketch, LPC, LMFT said “Families can be a rich source of love, support, and motivation.”

Don’t Change Your Spouse

The only reason why you shouldn’t change your spouse is that you can never do it. Changing someone else is impossible. The only thing you can do is value your partner’s personality and understand him or her in every way. You need to accept all his or her imperfections and encourage positive adjustments.

Avoid Focusing On Too Much Happiness

Happiness is something you and your spouse should aim in a relationship. However, focusing too much on wanting a perfect marriage is toxic. You need to consider acknowledging the fact that your happiness comes from learning to put one’s needs above yours. It’s the only way that you can understand what real satisfaction is all about.

Your marriage is essential in your personal growth. Therefore, when you understand that your connection requires effort to make it work, then you’ll never question the kind of relationship you have.

Did you know? According to Jeffrey Kaplan, MA, LMFT, “Therapists who are licensed in their state to do couples therapeutic work must follow a canon of ethics that is strictly laid out as a part of their licensure.” This is one of the considerations that you must look into if you decide to seek professional help.