{"id":6564,"date":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/relationships-9-smart-ways-to-keep-your-marriage-healthy-at-any-age\/"},"modified":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","slug":"relationships-9-smart-ways-to-keep-your-marriage-healthy-at-any-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/relationships-9-smart-ways-to-keep-your-marriage-healthy-at-any-age\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Smart Ways to Keep Your Marriage Healthy at Any Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes decades of time together strewn with a minefield of potential relationship wreckers. It's a wonder that anyone ends up walking off into the sunset, hand-in-wrinkled-hand, with a silver-haired mate. What do those geriatric lovebirds know that you don't?<\/p>\n
Well, the truth is that even in so-called happy marriages, both partners probably fantasize some of the time—or even much of the time—about throwing in the towel. A Woman's Day<\/i> and AOL Living poll found that a shocking 72% of women surveyed have considered leaving their husbands at some point. But despite the occasional rocky patch, 71% expected to be with their husbands for the rest of their lives. So how do you make it to the finish line with your relationship intact?<\/p>\n
Each decade will have its own drama, be it child-rearing, layoffs, second careers, and middle-aged angst, along with a big helping of the in-sickness-and-in-health stuff. Here's how to have a healthy relationship every step of the way.<\/p>\n
1. Watch your waistline<\/b> RELATED: 14 Ways You Lie to Yourself About Your Weight<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Being aware of the potential fatty pitfalls of marital bliss may be enough to keep your portion sizes in check. Spend couple time checking out local farmers' markets on the weekends in an effort to consumer fresher, low-calorie fare. Or schedule an exercise date to work off some of your hearty, homemade dinners.<\/p>\n 2. Have a financial plan<\/b> Don't fret if you're a spendthrift and your partner pinches pennies. "It's probably not a good thing to have the exact same philosophy about money, " says Ken Robbins, MD, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "But financial issues are best to resolve early on. You want to decide who is going to pay the bills, how much discretionary spending is reasonable, and how you're going to keep track of it all."<\/p>\n 3. Figure out your family rules<\/b> You and your partner may have vastly different ideas about how a child should be cared for and what constitutes family together time. If one of you is working, should the other partner get up with the baby at night, or should you take turns? Is it important for you to sit down to dinner as a family every night? "You need to figure out how you can live together happily while each maintaining your own sense of self," says Dr. Robbins.<\/p>\n RELATED: 18 Habits of the Happiest Families<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n 4. Make sex a priority—but not a chore<\/b> But it doesn't matter whether you're having sex five times a week or five times a year—as long as both of you are happy, says Dr. Goldstein. In fact, a 2008 study found that couples who reported any kind of marital intimacy—everything from holding hands to sex—exhibited lower levels of a hormone produced by stress.<\/p>\n
Now that you're married, you can finally relax and skip the gym, right? Wrong. Wedded couples tend to have fatter waistlines, which can spell trouble in terms of sexual attraction and general health. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/i> found that your chances of becoming obese increase by 37% if your spouse becomes obese. So unless you want "till death do us part" to include chronic health issues like heart disease and diabetes, it's important to establish healthy eating habits<\/a> early on. But warding off weight gain isn't as simple as whipping up a healthy meal together. Eating with anyone—from your spouse to coworker—can cause you to consume 33% more than you would solo.<\/p>\n
Nearly 40% of married people admit to lying to their spouse about a purchase, and money woes can quickly send your marriage south. In fact, money is the number-one reason couples fight, and relationships tend to suffer during poor economies. You should discuss and agree upon some hard financial ground rules, preferably before<\/i> you tie the knot.<\/p>\n
Couples spend the first 5 to 10 years of their marriage butting heads over how their family should work, says Dr. Robbins. "People often don't realize that they come into a marriage with an idea of how a family works based on their own family—whether they liked them or not," he adds. You can end up fighting over something as trivial as how you should hang your toilet paper, but those little issues can add up to big problems, particularly if children enter the picture. A 2004 study found that how a couple manages parenting responsibilities when the child is an infant is associated with the quality of their marriage two-and-a-half years later.<\/p>\n
While you should make sex a priority, you shouldn't pencil it in on your planner. If you schedule sex, it becomes a responsibility—just like taking out the trash, says Andrew Goldstein, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore, and the coauthor of Reclaiming Desire<\/i> ($16; amazon.com<\/a>). The average married couple has sex 58 times per year, or slightly more than once a week. And a recent eight-year study found that 90% of couples experienced a decrease in marital satisfaction after the birth of their first child. Yikes!<\/p>\n