Seven C's of a Successful Marriage

This year my wife and I celebrated 19 years of being together and 17 years of marriage. A healthy marriage is one of the biggest blessings that you can experience. An unhealthy marriage can be one of the most significant burdens you will ever endure. You get to choose.

A hard reality is that your marriage will impact the lives of generations of individuals, some you know and some you will never meet. The question you must ask yourself is what do I want that impact to be (positive or negative), and am I living out my marriage in an intentional way to get there?

I have been working on figuring out what are the elements of a lasting marriage that delivers positive impacts for generations to come. I landed on what I call the Seven C’s of Marriage. Seven factors that if applied intentionally to your marriage, you will achieve lasting positive impact and leave a legacy worth repeating.

Here are the Seven C’s, in no particular order. All must be present over the life of your marriage, but priority and quantity will vary significantly by the stage of life you are in or the life events you are experiencing.

Compromise. The goal of your life in marriage is to achieve the most significant life you can together. A life where both of you feel equally fulfilled, joyful, loved and appreciated. When making decisions, you will at times need to sacrifice one person reaching their goal quickly so that both of you can make progress together even if it means the progress for one of you is slowed.

Community. In your marriage, you will be surrounded by people. Some of whom will have more experience than you and will come offering perspective, and some of whom will be seeking to learn from your experience. Humanity is intended to live in community. We are relational beings. In your marriage, be willing to leverage your community. Seek wise counsel, accept help, offer advice to the next generation, and be looking for opportunities to be generous together. Allow your marriage to be blessed by others and to be a blessing to others.

Character. A person trying to serve two masters will be torn apart. A person trying to live two lives will lose them both. Character is defined as what you do when no one is looking. In marriage, you must add to that definition how you treat your spouse when they aren’t around. Strive to be a loving individual, not just when your spouse is looking but when they aren’t. Strive to love your spouse not just to his/her face but when they aren’t around. Be loving about who they are and how they bless your life. Share that message all the time, in multiple ways and regardless of who’s company you are in.

Communication. Two ears, one mouth. It's that simple listen twice as much as you speak, and you will be fine. Learn to become an empathetic listener who seeks to understand the other more than you speak to be proven right.

The more science teaches us about the brain, the more we learn that the old adage from elementary school of sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, is just wrong. Dangerously wrong. Words have a way of not healing as quickly as physical wounds, and the scars show up in ways you wouldn’t expect, nor that you can easily anticipate. Watch your tongue for from the mouth the heart speaks.

Companionship. In your marriage, you must seek to be best friends, passionate lovers, fiscally sound advisors, wise counselors, and a slew of other roles. You are companions for life, meeting and anticipating each other’s needs as best you can. It's okay to have other friendships, but you must recognize there are things you should only get from your spouse, and there will be times when your spouse needs you to be present, and in those moments, that is more important than your other relationships.

Each role you need to play will come with norms and expectations. Words and behaviors that are acceptable and welcomed in one situation might need to be avoided in another. Learn from the interactions to better recognize the appropriate rules of engagement. Remain flexible; it’s a key to healthy interactions.  

Courage. To have a marriage that thrives and not just survives, you must have courage. The false message of this world is that we are to seek happiness in all things. That we are to define our own version of happiness and chase it. We are to surround ourselves only with people who enable that version of joy, and we are to cancel those that don’t; this includes leaving your marriage because your spouse isn’t working towards your happiness.

Marriage expects the opposite of what this world displays. Marriage is about having the courage to put the other person first, to do the hard things required to help your spouse find their joy, and then to create an environment where your joy and your spouse’s joy can live and grow in balance.

It is the courage to speak the truth, sometimes unwelcomed truth, because you want the other person to grow into the best version of themselves, not because you want them to hurt.

It is the courage to apologize, even when you don’t want to. To share your feelings, all of them, even the ones you don’t really understand yet. To engage in necessary conflict but to resolve conflict in a win-win way. 

Christ  We believe at the foundation of all very good things is Christ. So we have Christ at the center of our marriage. We have found that when we seek first Christ’s knowledge and advice we grow wiser. We have built our home on the foundation of God’s way. We choose God first, and when we do, our experience is everything else falls into place.

If you are genuinely on a continuous journey to grow in your relationship with Christ, I can see no other outcome than growing in your capacity to love others, the most important other being your spouse. This happens as you learn to recognize and love your authentic self, and therefore you are able to appreciate the value and beauty of the authenticity of others. When you experience the freedom in knowing that you are flawed, and so is everyone else, yet despite the flaws, you are still worthy of being loved unconditionally. When you recognize these two truths, you open the possibility of being able to forgive yourself and others when they let you down or don’t meet the expectations you place on them.

 Conclusion

These are the things that have gotten my wife and me through our first 19 years together. No year has ever been without trials, but every year has brought us closer together and deeper in love. It is my hope you are experiencing the same in your marriage and that these things might help you continue on that journey or start a new one. 

 Note: I have a deep personal relationship with Christ that I believe has changed my life, including my marriage. I recognize that not everyone has had the same experience or may come from a different faith/spiritual background. If you have a belief system that you hold personally, I encourage you to figure out how the teachings you follow should be applied to your marriage and your interactions with your spouse.