Pay attention to the five A's of marriage
When I was a kid, family vacations were the highlight of our summers.
Since this was before the days of online motel rating services, we always looked for that oval "AAA" for American Automobile Association when it came time to settle in at the end of the day. The AAA meant guaranteed quality at a reasonable price.
Now, this is not a nostalgia piece about my childhood. I just need to explain why I woke up at three in the morning thinking about the triple A's of marriage -- the things that go into making a quality relationship between marital partners.
The problem was that I had already come up with five such A's before I even knew I was working on this column. Anyway, I still think that my A list is worth sharing.
• Attention - keeping our marriage front and center and attending to it on a daily basis is perhaps the most important quality of a triple-A marriage. We usually do this pretty well before we get married, otherwise we probably wouldn't have gotten married in the first place.
It is easy to get distracted, though, what with jobs, kids, extended family and friends. The longer we are married, the more such distractions can pile up. Intentionally attending to our relationship is a continual challenge.
One way to do this is to treat each other like we're still dating. We can't do this all the time, but we can certainly romance our partner every now and then. An "I love you" when we touch base in the middle of the day, a card, a date every few weeks, can all say a lot about how we are paying attention to our partner and our relationship.
Even how we just talk and listen to each other can be powerful ways of attending.
• Appreciation -- in quality marriages we focus on what we appreciate in our partner. Does she give us a kiss goodbye in the morning no matter how busy she is? Does he handle bath time with the kids as a matter of course? Is it the way our partner looks at us when we talk?
All marriages are different, and our lists of the qualities we appreciate in our spouse will be different, too. If we consistently think about what we appreciate, however, we may find our marriages feel more positive and fulfilling.
• Accommodation -- no matter how well suited we are for each other, we will come across things we just have to accept.
He is never on time, no matter how hard he tries. She just can't connect with our sister. He puts empty milk cartons back in the refrigerator. She snores. After a few years of marriage, we can have quite a list we'd love to change about our partner.
The reality is, a good many of our partner's limits, failings and irritants probably aren't going to change all that much. Rather than getting lost in our disappointment or frustration at this, we want to give our partner the gift of accommodation.
We accept their shortcomings, refuse to take them personally, and figure out how to work around them. And our partners are going to have to do the same for us if we are to have a quality marriage.
• Assertion -- on the other hand, we want to be assertive when it comes to the list of things we can't and won't accommodate.
Things like physical or verbal abuse; drug or alcohol dependency; extra-marital affairs; obsessive involvement in work, hobbies, or with friends; even health and hygiene issues all ought to be on our list.
In quality relationships, we have a caring manner when we confront our partners about the things we won't accommodate. And we do what we can to help them, though we also recognize that it comes down to their willingness to deal with such problems that is ultimately going to make the difference.
• Affection -- in quality marriages, affection is shown frequently, consistently and with sensitivity to the needs and wants of our partner.
We all have particular ways we like to have affection shown to us. In our relationship, we want to learn exactly what our partners find to be most affectionate and become experts showing them affection exactly the way they like it.
There will be some give and take as we accommodate our individual differences. This is especially true when it comes to physical displays of affection. If we can focus on the needs of our partner, however, we can almost always find a way to be affectionate.
• According to my wife, all of the above points would be even better with yet another "A" - Attitude. So much of what makes marriage work comes down to the attitude we bring to our relationship and how we translate this attitude into what we say and do. Enough said.