Fatima Barkatulla – Love #10 – My 10 Tips for a Strong Marriage

			salat wa salam ala Rasulillah.
		

			Okay, SR os
		

			10 tips for a happy marriage.
		

			Okay, how much time do we have? Okay, I've made a little list. And I'll just go through it quickly.
Obviously, there's so many things that could be said about this, but just 10 tips that, I guess I
would say 10 points, maybe I would give to my own children, you know, when they're getting married,
		

			that I've tried to instill in them.
		

			Number one, have a vision for your family, you know, have a vision for your family, and make that
vision together, create that vision, and, you know, like some kind of mission statement if you can't
even Okay, together as a couple, when you get married. And what that does is it gives you both
		

			like a guiding star to aim towards, and it keeps helps you to keep bringing each other back to that
vision. Right. So that's number one,
		

			formulate a vision for your family. And a great book that talks about that is the seven habits of
highly effective families. So it's a great book, I love it.
		

			You know, in the same series as the seven habits series, Stephen Covey, but he has one for families.
And I think online, he even has a family mission statement tool, you can look up, if you look up, I
think it's called, if you just type Stephen Covey, our family mission statement tool, it should come
up.
		

			And at least gives you some kind of guidelines as to, you know, how to write something that will
inspire you both as a couple.
		

			So that's number one. Number two,
		

			figure out each other's love languages.
		

			Figure out what each other's love languages are and love, if you go to www dot five. Number five,
love languages.com. Okay, that's the website from the author of the book
		

			about the five love languages, and what the love languages are, is basically
		

			each of us has set like, so he's, what he puts forward, the author is that there are five kinds of
ways that we feel and express love. Okay. And for each of us, there's probably one or two of those
five, that other most significant,
		

			right?
		

			And
		

			if you if you know what your love languages are, right, and if you figure out what your spouse's
love languages, then
		

			it's gonna really help you to fulfill each other's needs, you know, for love, I mean, you to feel
loved and that kind of thing, right?
		

			Let me see if I can find a quick list of what the love languages are. You can you can look it up.
But
		

			I just know off the top of my head, one of them is like,
		

			giving gifts for some people gifts are like a really important love language. Like if they don't get
gifts, they really don't feel like you love them. Right?
		

			Maybe for a lot of women, that's the case. You know, that's why we have the kind of thing in society
that you know, women like to receive flowers, right? There's something symbolic that sometimes your
spouse might not think is very important, but for you, it signifies love, right? Another one is
like,
		

			I think physical touch, you know, could be a love language.
		

			And words, I forgotten what the five love languages are. But if you if you just look them up,
		

			figure out what your spouse's love language is.
		

			And
		

			you know, try to meet
		

			the love languages. I'm just trying to quickly get it in front of me. Yeah, so the five love
languages are number one, words of affirmation.
		

			Number two, physical touch. Number three receiving gifts. Number four quality time, like undivided
attention sort of time.
		

			And so that was number four. Now number five is acts of service
		

			So for example, if your love language is acts of service, it really means a lot to you that somebody
serves you food, you know,
		

			like if if they don't serve you food you don't feel
		

			properly loved by them. For example, this is just an example.
		

			If your love language is quality time, then you crave uninterrupted and focused conversations,
right? You want to have like, special one to one moments getaways. That means a lot to you, in order
to feel loved.
		

			If your love language is words of affirmation, you need not just somebody to
		

			assume that, you know, you know that you're loved, but for them to keep verbally communicating that,
for example, or through actions, you know, saying appreciating, affirming, encouraging, praising,
you know, so I think when you know your love language, and you know, when you know, your love
language, and you know, your spouse is it, it really helps.
		

			Okay,
		

			number two, number three, do your best to satisfy each other's intimate needs sexual needs. Okay? I
would say that's an important tip, whether you feel like it or not,
		

			just just do your best. And that goes for for either spouse, right?
		

			Number, what was that 1234 be feminine. If you're a woman be as feminine as you can be. And if
you're a man be as masculine as you can be. Because
		

			opposites attract, you know, when the more the more polarized your masculinity and femininity is,
the more attraction, there tends to be.
		

			Anyway, I don't have time to go into that. But
		

			yeah.
		

			Number five,
		

			your spouse is not responsible for your happiness.
		

			For me, that's an important tip. You know, as soon as you start thinking, you know, my spouse is the
one who should be making me happy. Then every time you're unhappy, you, you, you project that onto
your spouse, when actually it's your job to sort yourself out, you know, if you've got, I don't
know, self esteem issues, if you've got
		

			whatever issues, right?
		

			You've got to find out what needs need to be met in your own life and what things you can take
responsible for to fix that.
		

			It's not a case of expecting your spouse to
		

			fill the hole that is in your life.
		

			That's
		

			number six.
		

			Don't become complacent in your marriage. You know, it's really easy when things are high, and
things are going really well especially, you know, early on, and even when you have kids, and you're
so busy with young kids, you know, it's easy to be really together.
		

			But it's also easy to become complacent, the more you've been together.
		

			So don't become complacent. Complacency is the beginning of you know,
		

			can be the beginning of a negative spiral.
		

			Don't become complacent.
		

			The next tip, be positive and optimistic.
		

			And try to solve problems as they come. You know, people sometimes they they brush things under the
carpet, something that's bothering them
		

			in something their spouse has said or done, and they will just keep quiet about it. But actually,
it's building up a lot of resentment. It's better to just have the discussion. Have the discussion,
however, obviously, respectfully, but also even if it gets heated, you know, the point is, if an
argument helps you both to understand each other and get closer at the end of it, then it's worth
it. But if you just keep brushing things under the carpet, then they tend to grow. When you brush
problems under the carpet, they tend to get bigger and bigger.
		

			At the same time.
		

			You know, I've written here be willing to ignore an overlook.
		

			So you got to pick your you know,
		

			I don't want to call them battles, but yeah, pick your battles, pick the things that are really
important and don't sweat the rest. You know, if you're gonna,
		

			if you're gonna hang on every single word, if you're gonna analyze every single movement, if you're
		

			everything that annoys you, when you're living with somebody, especially if it's going to be
something you're going to bring up, then you can't live with anyone, you just can't you just not
it's not going to work with anyone. So there's a certain level of let it go. Right? But if it's
important, deal with it, face it, have the discussion, solve the problem, right? If it's something
		

			if it's small things, you know, try to overlook them just as you want your spouse to overlook your
mistakes. Right, your little stuff.
		

			idiosyncrasy, idiosyncrasies,
		

			Okay, the next tip, forgive one another and move on. So if we can learn to have conversations where,
you know, inevitably, you if you live with somebody long enough, you're gonna annoy each other,
right? You're gonna do things that
		

			hurt one another as well. It's going to happen at some point or another, right? Any to human beings.
I mean, just even having flatmates that happens, right? So can you imagine if you're married to that
person as well, and you've, you know, your lives are so intertwined in so many ways.
		

			So, once you've had the discussion, once the person's apologized, or you've apologized, try to
create the culture in your home that once the air has been cleared, and you have said, your stories,
that you then move on, and you don't allow that thing to hang over the marriage, right for the next
argument. It doesn't keep coming up in the in future arguments, you let it go now, you know, cuz you
forgive them. That's what forgiveness means you don't keep bringing it up.
		

			Right?
		

			Especially, and I would say going along with that is learn how to give an adequate apology, write an
adequate apology, not just not just a little sorry, but an adequate apology, and create that culture
in your home. The ninth point is the ninth tip is have regular weekly meetings as a couple. Right?
Running a family is like managing a project sometimes, you know, in some ways, it really is, of
course, like we'd like to just do it on the fly. And you know, just just go with the flow. But a lot
of the times when arguments happen, I think you can trace them back to the fact that you had a lack
of communication, or that you didn't discuss and your expectations didn't match. And sometimes it's
		

			operationally like on a day to day basis, right? Somebody booked something and the other person
needed them on that day, and blah, blah, blah. And then there's an argument. If you have a regular
weekly meeting, where you just catch up with each other, what's your week going to be like
		

			to have people's expectations met, and at least, to know what the spouse your spouse is doing and
what you're doing, you can better meet each other's needs in that way, right? So have regular weekly
meetings. And
		

			make sure you have regular,
		

			regular private time, you know,
		

			that's easy when you first get married. But believe me, when you have kids, it's very easy to put
regular private time to have romantic, you know, I don't know dinners or just even just time
together, you know, romantically.
		

			Sometimes it's easy to put that on the backburner. And if you do that enough times, then that area
of your life can suffer.
		

			So protect and keep up the sort of romantic aspect of your relationship by investing time into that
and maybe carving out time for that. So those are my 10 Quick Tips.