John answered, “It’s not possible for a person to succeed—I’m talking about eternal success—without heaven’s help. You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready. The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom’s friend, his ‘best man’—that’s me—in place at his side where he can hear every word, is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows that the wedding is finished and the marriage is off to a good start?
John 3:27-29
Over the past four decades, marriage specialists have researched the ingredients of a happy marriage. As a result, we know more about building a successful marriage today than ever before.
For example, happily married couples will have:
- Healthy expectations of marriage
- A realistic concept of love
- A positive attitude and outlook toward life
- The ability to communicate their feelings
- The ability to make decisions and settle arguments
- A common spiritual foundation and goal
- A deep and abiding commitment and covenant together
In short, the indicators of a healthy marriage form the basis of the seven questions we pose in our newly updated book, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts.
Taking the time to understand these issues is like investing in an insurance policy against divorce.
Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (SYMBIS) is based on the fact that marriage doesn’t have to be a gamble. As a psychologist (Les) and a marriage and family therapist (Leslie) who counsel hundreds of married couples, we have learned that living happily ever after is less a mystery than it is the mastery of certain skills.
When we first published SYMBIS, we never dreamed that more than a million couples would read it. We never dreamed that we’d receive notes and emails from couples every day of our lives thanking us for this book.
It hit a nerve.
That’s why we hope you might tell an engaged or newly married couple about this brand new updated edition. But more importantly, we hope you’ll take inventory of the items on this list and consider how the two of you are doing with each one of them.
Reflect and Respond
Of the various indicators for predicting a happy marriage, which one of them do you resonate with most and why?
Go ahead, tell us in the comments.
Related Resource
With more than a million copies sold, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts has become the gold standard for helping today’s engaged and newlywed couples enjoy lifelong love. This expanded and updated edition has been honed by years of feedback, professional experience and the latest research, making it more helpful and informative than ever.
This entire list resonates with me! Mostly because I had none of them with my first husband (mentally ill and abusive) and all of them, to some degree with my now-and-forever husband. One of the things I love most about my husband (God’s biggest gift to me) is that he chose to be happy in whatever circumstance he found himself. Before we ever met. I learned to be happy in the bad circumstance that was my first marriage and so together, we are optimistic and get along very well!
The ability to communicate feelings is a major predictor of a successful marriage. When couples can communicate well, the other factors like healthy expectations and a positive outlook become much easier. Not all communication is created equal. The ability to communicate about emotion is by far the most impactful skill healthy couples display. The couples I see for counseling gain lasting change in their relationship only after developing skills to experience the intimate connection of understanding the emotion of their partner.
Having a positive attitude and outlook toward life, and I would add, leaning on God and not our own understanding, resonates with me. Without it, everything seems cloudy.
Hi I am on my 3rd Marriage and God is teaching me how to be the wife He need’s me to be. I’m trying just to work on my part. My other two husbands passed away.