How to Maintain a Great Marriage - The Key to Lifelong Happiness For Couples

Today I'm wrapping up my how to date properly for marriage series in providing you with these key tips in maintaining a great, lifelong union.

Many people want to get married but they have concerns about winding up divorced. Many times they witnessed their parents get divorced and it was a very heartbreaking and painful process.

And one major problem I've noticed is that most people that get divorced never had a truly great marriage to begin with.

Their marriages failed because:

• They weren't having enough sex (often because they married people they ultimately weren't attracted to).
• They had no honest communication and thus, emotional safety and security was lacking.
• They were never truly compatible with the person but allowed their family and others to pressure them into marriage because "it was the right thing to do".
• They grew apart because they didn't put in enough time and effort on maintaining the marriage. They stopped communicating, dating and sharing emotional and physical intimacy.

I liken marriage to a lush garden. The more you tend to it and nourish it, the more it will grow and flourish and produce more plants.

And one of the more beautiful aspects about maintaining a garden is, once it's well-situated, growing and expanding on fertile ground, the maintenance and work involved is much less arduous. You pick the few weeds that pop up and toss them, water the plants, and do some trimming. And it's clear your time and investment in the garden pays for itself with 10x compounding dividends in the long run.

That's what you want to accomplish in your marriage. Staying on top of the more and less frequent problems, both big and small, as they arise where you tackle them head on together. This will keep your marriage on a more solid footing where you won't be inclined or susceptible to divorce.