Friendship is the bedrock of your marriage, when you want to build a house, you need bricks and cement. Friendship is the brick while sex is the cement.
I’ll like to share tips on how to remain friends, be friends or build friendships in your marriage.
Be exactly what friends are, what are friends? Friends are gist partners, people you don’t hold back anything from. You tell them things as it is. You’re honest with them. You want to spend time with them so you spend time with them.
Think about everything you do with your friend and pass it on to marriage. It is funny that this seems so easy but a lot of us are not doing that.
1. Transfer all that you do with your friends i.e. your boyfriends and your girlfriends to your spouse
As a husband what do you do with your friends? Do exactly that with your spouse and that’s how you would become friends. Do you know why? Because you will always need friendship. Friendship is one of those tools that would walk you all the way through the marriage season. One thing you would need in the marriage season is a friend. Find a friend in your partner, it is crucial.
2. Stop having bad fights
When I prepare my engaged couples for marriage, I always give them an assignment on how they will have good fights in their marriages. I tell them “Write me an essay, talk about how you will have good fights in your marriage”. Because we would always have fights, there will always be a reason to differ in opinions, stances and all of that but what is important is that you have good fights. You don’t have those fights that make you resent each other, that make you not want to come back home later in the evening, that make the other person feel like you shouldn’t have married that person, avoid your fights getting to that point. Ensure that your fights are not bad fights. Disagree but as soon as you can make up.
Attack the issue and not the person, the moment you begin to attack the person you’re entering the bad fight mode and that ruins the friendship.
3. Spend time enjoying each other
This is so critical and important because we are all on a journey and there’s a lot we are doing. There are goals ahead of us. As a husband, you’re looking to give your family the best. Even as a wife, it’s the same thing, we are doing all that the Lord has put in our hearts to do, we are getting our job done. We are trying to get on top of our career. What you should ensure happens whilst all of that is going on is that you’re spending time with each other.
Spend time with your wife when she’s cooking in the kitchen, spend time with your man when he’s watching football. You must prioritize time with your spouse, it’s very important! Even in the car when you’re driving, avoid being on the phone, have conversations, build intimacy, ask questions, update yourself on what’s going on in their life. Don’t be that spouse who only makes time for his or her partner when it’s time for sex.
4. Develop Love and Intimacy Rituals
I want you to build a habit for intimacy, what are the things we do as a couple to ensure we remain connected, and we are in love? You should want to have rituals whether it’s a date night, whether it’s a regular spa session, whether it’s a weekend getaway once a month. Have a ritual or something to keep both of you connected. Your “us” time is very important, don’t treat it with levity.
5. Schedule Romance
There are simple things you can do in your marriage that you don’t have to break the bank for, If you want to build friendship, you have to schedule romance. Put it in your diary that you want to do something this week to sort of be romantic. You want to send him a poem, you want to drop him a letter, you want to send him an email, you want to send her a gift, send a WhatsApp message “I love you, I miss you”, write a note and put it in his suit. Just put it in your diary and actually create time to do it. That’s how you build friendships because you’re always in touch.
6. As much as you can, make sure you’re always giving pleasure to that person
People always want to come around and spend time with people who give them pleasure. People don’t go around people who cause them pain, who make them feel bad, who make them feel less than they are. Be that spouse who makes your husband, or your wife have pleasurable times, enjoy themselves, and feel good about themselves. Be that spouse, boost that atmosphere.
7. Forgive before they offend
If you want to be friends with your spouse then you have to know how to forgive. It’s one of the things if you have a good friend that you’ve had for a long time. One of the things that you would say is that you forgive each other. It’s not like you guys haven’t offended each other but you let it go. It’s something that a lot of couples don’t seem to practice in their marriage but we practice with outsiders, we forgive our colleagues, we forgive our family, our siblings. But sometimes we hold on to the offence of our spouses. Today, if you want to build friendship then you want to begin to forgive. Even before they offend, forgive so that when they offend you, it’s easier to let go.
8. Remain a team for life
You and your spouse must understand that you’re in the same team. So there’s no need for anyone to feel like they are being attacked. You must remain a team for life. Whatever issues, whatever things are happening, go against such things together.
In my book Marriage on Purpose, I talked about the fact that it is both of you against the world. It is not you against your spouse. You are a tag team, a team for life.