Marriage: It’s what happens after the wedding. Marriage is the life you build together as husband and wife when the hoopla of being “bride” and “groom” dies down. Once the celebration is over and everyone has sobered up, what you’re left with is a blank slate waiting for your future to be drawn out. How you fill that slate is up to you. Everyone always seems to say “Marriage is hard work” but maybe it’s not so hard. Maybe all you need is a little creativity and some give and take to turn that blank slate into a wonderful masterpiece.

Every relationship, whether it’s marriage, common-law, or simply a serious partnership assumingly has an abundance of love, trust, and faithfulness but there are three other, not-so-secret, ingredients that the best relationships also have: Laughter, dedication, and compromise. When you add these things in it’s as though you’ll have the icing on top of the cake.

When you marry someone you can laugh with you’ll be able to smile every day. Even after a fight, if your spouse can make you smile, then you’re on the right track. Being with someone who makes you feel good and who you can be silly with, takes away the pressures from the outside world for that small moment in time. It’s not hard but it seems as though some relationships start losing the laughter once they’ve been together for a while. Get it back. Never stop being silly together and never let the world get so hard that you forget to laugh. Your and your spouse’s laughter should me the music that fills the walls of your home.

Being dedicated to your marriage doesn’t mean that you can’t have a life outside of the home. It means that you are dedicated to working on your relationship and always doing things to make the other person happy. Showing the other person you thought about them that day or doing a chore around the house you know the other person hates doing. It’s really the little things that prove how much you care and how dedicated you are. It’s not about extravagant vacations or expensive date nights (although those are nice from time to time) but it’s about showing your partner you love them, every day. It’s about telling them you care and are committed, through ways other than just words.

Compromise is such a key that so many couples miss out on. Sure there will always be times when you’d rather stay in your pajamas than go to breakfast with the in-laws, or maybe you’d rather watch a Sex and the City Marathon instead of the Super Bowl. But doing things together that mean a lot to your partner strengthens your relationship and when you look back on the little things you guys did for each other, it will create a deeper bond. Just make sure it’s not always just one of you doing the compromising. You both need to put in the effort for it to work, or else the one putting in all the effort may start to get resentful. This truly needs to be about give and take and the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Like everything in life that is important to us, marriage will test us. If it’s worth it, you’ll stick around and if it’s just too hard then maybe you’ll walk away, and that’s okay too. Of course there are always some instances where neither husband nor wife understands why their marriage fell apart, and sometimes it’s events beyond their control which forced them to separate. But in most cases, it’s really just about keeping the love alive and knowing that your marriage is worth it. Sure, it may get tough but it’s not HARD work to paint that slate. After all, they tell us that if we find a job we love, then we’ll never have to work a day in our lives; so why can’t this also apply to the person we marry and the future we paint together?

Working on my masterpiece,

The Love Hawk

Shannon loves love. She has a passion for people and understanding the little things that make everyone unique and similar, all at the same time. She has degrees in Communication Studies, Psychology, and Broadcast Journalism but it’s the school of life that taught Shannon most of what she knows about love and relationships.

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