Each of us has a unique set of ingredients that need to be in the mix for us to consider our own marriage a success.
Did you catch the unique part?
What works for your friends might not work for you.

And what works for you must also work for your spouse.

Marriage is a Lifeboat with two passengers who will sink or survive together.

I have a brand new ‘personalized’ definition of marriage for 2014.

Marriage is the challenge of making one life that two people can live happily together.

Each partner’s idea of a successful marriage has to encompass the others’ necessary
ingredients or it can’t be considered successful.

Think of your marriage as something unique the two of you are crafting and creating.

Let’s face facts, we change a little over time.
What was important five or ten years ago may not rank as important now.
I’ve changed in a few significant ways over the last several years and so has my husband.
I think that’s a good thing, but it may mean we have to make some minor adjustments.
We might have to tweak a few things to keep the boat from rocking!

Today I decided to make a list of the things that I think
would be necessary for my husband to feel our marriage was a success.
We’ve been married almost 29 years so it wasn’t too difficult.
I came up with five essential ingredients on his list.

Then I made my own list.
The places where our lists overlap are what I call the Sweet Spots.

Those areas are easy for us.
Our values drive those areas and so there’s little, if any change.

The challenge is to make the outlying areas work.
The places where our circles diverge instead of converge.

For example, my new interest in writing.
Some of you that read this blog are also writers.
You get this. You know it requires alone hours.

But I’ve noticed that my husband feels a little abandoned.
I prefer writing to watching a movie; something we used to do together several evenings a week.
Today I put that on his list of necessary ingredients.
I’m willing to make some changes in my writing schedule simply because it’s important to him.
So tonight we’ll watch a movie and enjoy being together.

It’s such a little thing.
But it’s the kind of thing I’m tempted to ignore or just be selfish about.
Twenty-nine years of marriage have shown me though that the little things can add up over many many years.

It’s not the big grand gesture that convinces in matters of the heart.
In a marriage the small considerations do the real talking.

A thousand ways of saying I love you, I care about your happiness, and I want you to know it.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined…to strengthen each other
…to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
George Eliot