What many people don’t realize is that life is what you make of it. This is true in a marriage as well. Living with another person is never simple. There are different beliefs, differences in opinion, not to mention the stresses of day to day living which tend to creep into your marriage and cause marriage problems when you are not looking. Some of the mistakes that cause people to seek out marriage counseling can be more simply solved by looking at your relationship and assessing what it really happening. The following is a guide to communication to help you realize and change your communication to better serve a healthier relationship.

1. The parent-child marriage. This is an issue in which one partner is acting as the grown up and the other is acting as the child. Many times the relationship doesn’t start out this way, however over the years one partner may take over the dominant role causing the other to become more submissive. These relationships don’t usually succeed, because one feels the pressure of always being in charge, while the other one feels like the inferior partner, always being told what to do and where to go. This can really hurt your relationship.

2. Parent-parent Marriage - This where both parties take on both roles and there is a major power struggle in these households. Marriages like this tend to involve a lot of fighting and therefore this is just counterproductive.

3. Child-child Marriage - In this marriage, everyone is being selfish and trying to get what is their’s the important thing to remember is that this is also counterproductive, and causes a lot of fighting, but usually is exhibited in passive aggressive behaviors as opposed to actual confrontational fighting.

4. Adult-Adult Marriage - This is the ideal relationship for a married couple, and also prevents more marriage problems. In a relationship in which two people are working together and meeting each other’s needs and their own makes for the healthiest type of marriage.

One of the biggest things that stands out to me as far as marriage problems go, is that most couples spend most of their time functioning as two individuals instead of one unit.  Somewhere along the line, they either stop working together, or have never really found the perfect game plan for working together on the issues.  So how can you really get passed this.  Well, the biggest key is to stop looking at the individuals and start looking at the team.  This does not mean that you need to lose the individuals, but when a team has a problem, it must be carefully thought out and addressed as a team problem.

Work together like your family is your team and you and your wife are co-coaches trying to set up game plans and use everyone’s strengths to the benefit of the team.  Sitting down together and discussing goals and plans and coming up with effective solutions that can be implemented together is the best way to address your marriage issues and avoid blame.  Rather than saying you did this, say I see a problem here, and I think that we should sit down and work out a reasonable solution.

This will take the charge out of the situation and will let your partner know that you want to work together towards a solution.

Stress can be an overwhelming problem in a marriage.  Now we could sit here and go through all the reasons for worry and stress, money problems, jobs, etc. but the bottom line is that if you want to succeed in life and succeed in marriage, then you must find ways to reduce your stress and relax.

The following are some really wonderful ideas for inexpensive things that you can do to bond as a couple and reduce your stress.

1.  Take a vacation from reality.  You don’t need to actually go anywhere to do this.  Simply take some time off from life.  Turn off the phone, TV and computer.  Spend some time together.  If you have kids, send them to grandma’s house.  Give each other massages, take baths, do some reading together (not the newspaper) and essentially just block out everything for a day or two.  This will provide you both with a much needed break without having to spend a fortune on an expensive trip.

2.  Take a walk together.  Hold hands and talk.  The fresh air and endorphins will do both of you some good and give you both a much needed break.

3.  Exercise together.  Pick up a cheap yoga tape online.  There are some really great one’s for couples to do together.  Yoga is not only great for getting in shape, it is also very relaxing.

4.  Talk about what is really on your mind.  Letting go of emotions and feelings can really help to take the pressure off.  Create a time and place to just let go of some of the pressures of the day and share your thoughts, fears and concerns.  Sharing these with your life partner, can help you to feel better and they may be able to help you see solutions that you don’t see yourself.

Working together to help reduce stress is good for each of you as individuals and for you as a couple.  You may ask can reducing stress really save my marriage? And the answer is YES!

Marriage problems are not uncommon, but working together to come through them is truly possible.  The one thing that you must keep in mind is that you need to work through and talk through a problem, however then in order to move past it, you must resolve to tuck it away.  Many people make this mistake and it is perhaps one of the biggest things that can drive a marriage into the ground.  One partner rehashing the past over and over again, bringing it up and then throwing it their wife’s face every chance they get.  Unfortunately, even the best marriage counseling can’t help if you aren’t willing to let go of something.

Take my friend Alex.  He was married with two children, and suspected that his wife was cheating on him.  Once he confirmed it, he confronted her and they talked about it.  She agreed to stop seeing the man and work on their relationship and she told him where she was every minute of the day.  She wanted to make him feel secure, and to some extent it worked over time it looked as if things were going better, but Alex couldn’t let go of it.  Every opportunity, even in front of others, he would make little digs or throw it up in her face.  Finally, over time, they started to grow apart again and they couldn’t get past the affair from over a year earlier.

This is what happens to many people.  It is not that you should forget about it, but you can’t heal a situation if you can’t move past it.  Brining up the past over and over again, will never give your spouse the opportunity to change and grow.  You need to make a choice and decide whether you want to work on your relationship or move on.   Putting in the effort to address your marriage problems means taking the initiative to put the past behind you and move on to a better future.  Throwing the past up in someone’s face over and over again, truly accomplishes nothing, because you can’t change the past, but you can change the future.