Tip One
Train yourself to express gratitude.
It is important to develop the habit of expressing thankfulness to our spouse for who he or she is and what he or she has done for you.
I have observed with many “fly in fly” out workers the effect of ingratitude.
If we take someone for granted it tends to cause us to despise them. To despise means to think little of, to disesteem, to place little value upon. When we do that the end result is we can’t see the benefits of our spouse and we begin to see that, “I don’t need you and I would be better off without you”.
Expressing gratitude inoculates one against that peculiar form of blindness where all one can see is, “I don’t need you and I would be better off without you”.
Tip Two
Develop an implacable resolution – a no go zone.
It would be difficult to entice most adults to take up smoking when they had never smoked before. Why? Because most have already developed a rigid, implacable opposition to harming their body with cigarette smoke.
Strangely the community generally doesn’t have the same view about the pain and harm caused to a marriage and to children by an affair.
To affair proof a marriage does require the different needs of men and woman to be met. However, the starting point for affair proofing your marriage is having an implacable resolution – a no go zone if you like that, “I will not flirt with someone else’s husband or wife”.
Tip Three
A husband’s unfaithfulness with money is a marriage killer.
It seems to me by general observation that many men can live carelessly when it comes to money. They don’t have, or don’t stick to a family budget and don’t prioritise spending for the family. However, such men do tend to keep a stash of their own money for their own secret or undiscussed spending.
A man typically sees this type of behavior as no big deal. He might say “So what, I’m not good with money”, or “I have never cared too much about money”. A woman however sees it quite differently. A husband prioritizing spending for the needs of the family reaffirms to the woman, “You love me, and you will keep me safe”.
The end result, if a man will not discipline himself and put the needs of the family first, is the woman loses respect for the man who has failed to act protectively and securely for the family. The toll of living in dread of the next financial crisis becomes too much and she will look for a way to end the stress.
