Reason #2: You’re Undermining—Instead Of Building—The Happy Marriage YOU Want!
We all want happy marriages. You want to love hanging out with your husband every day. But for that to happen, you need to completely change how you speak about him every day—not just to him but to others.
Why? Well, most of us have a subconscious idea that we feel a certain way and it is what it is—we can’t change it. But it turns out, neurologically, our feelings FOLLOW our words and actions. As mentioned before, what you SAY will actually change how you FEEL! So say the good!
Seriously, try it: resist the temptation to share in the negative gossip about how your husband never does the dishes or is always after sex. Instead look for and talk about how he is patient with your kids when they are squabbling or how sweet he was to spend all that time Saturday installing the blinds in the living room or that you love how he always holds the door open for you. Suddenly, you’ll WANT to hang out with him a lot more—and enjoy it! You’ll be closer together as friends. We found in our study of the happiest marriages that the secret sauce of a great marriage is, first and foremost, to be best friends with each other. And looking for those things that are (as the Bible puts it in Philippians 4:8), excellent and lovely and worthy of praise—rather than the things that are worthy of driving you crazy—is crucial to getting there.
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