Death of a spouse, marital separation and marriage are among the top list of the Life Stress Inventory, a well-known tool for measuring the amount of stress someone has experienced.
In fact, being in an unhappy marriage seems as if you are stuck in an impasse where nothing proceeds unless the initial problem is solved. There is always a vacuum in your heart that tells you things are not going well, and the situation is stressful moments.
In the Book, You can be RIGHT or You can be MARRIED, written by film director Dana Adam Shapiro, he actually argues that very few married people are happy.
She argues that 17% of married couples are only happily living their marriages.
For a country whose culture is based on marriage institutions, lack of communication, dishonesty, and adultery are the top causes of divorces.
In this way, you can choose to either just let the ship sink but if you are to save your marriage. Here are the things you can try to move forward and live a happy marriage.
Practice Forgiveness
To live a happy marriage, according to Creative Expert Adit Shukla Fozdar, one needs to be influenceable and flexible in order to avoid challenges in marriage. "Even if you are right, you are not really winning, and any art of forgiveness must start with you. This is because when we punish ourselves, we also unconsciously punish our partners too." Shukla argues.
Also, according to Psychological Councilor Sabatima Sangina, when we forgive someone, we release ourselves from past pain; therefore, it is a point to ponder all the time for us to live a happy marriage.
Support your partner
Showing support to our partners in whatever they do is one of the major factors in preventing the possibility of living an unhappy marriage. We can do this by taking an interest in their work even if they do something that does not interest us. By doing this, we are making our partner feel respected and valued and then creating a condition to live a happy marriage.
Appreciate them
A lot of couples complain about unhappiness in their marriages, but according to Shukla, this can come to an end when the two starts to appreciate the little things that they have. She argues that true love is actually not meant to be easy and that avoiding comparing our marriage to those of our friends would make our marriages better.
Build shared interests
Sharing goals and interests in marriage enable us to walk the journey together. For marriage to work, partners must both invest in each other's life. This is not rocket science that couples are essentially required to work on a million-dollar deal, but focusing on a simple thing together can bring impact. It might be something simple such as having an evening walk together or sharing dinner.
Complement your partner
Couples, who are starting to date each other, tend to complement each other often, and these compliments are likely to get cold after marriage. Yet, this is a good sign that shows couples are unhappy in their marriage and in most cases, they will forget to acknowledge their partners.
Experts say compliments like "you look beautiful in that dress" and "blessed to see you in a white dress" complements are enough to make couples happier.
Practice active listening
According to Sabatina, active listening is very crucial in marriages because it shows a partner that they are attentive to what we are saying and that we respect their perspective. This becomes more crucial.
Honesty
There are always partners who always constantly check their partners' whereabouts all day, probably because of the behaviour they have recognized in them. Sometimes, hiding things from your partner leads to heightened suspicion. Your partner may feel unimportant to share things with you.
Give surprises
Couples are not happy in marriages anymore because things become routine, but experts argue that surprises can relight everything and make the partner live happily again. It could be simple as buying a flower, it could go for the movie when he or she least expected it, and the chances are they will do the same.
Be happy from within
No one has the capacity to influence your state of mind unless you give them a chance. You can do this by engaging with people and activities that offer happiness to you. When your partner can't bring happiness in a wholesome, it is advisable to find other small good things about him or her.