Pretend your marriage is a house

In Dr. Gottman's book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, the afterword has this small, but profound statement: "Remember, working briefly on your marriage every day will do more for your health and longevity than working out at a health club." There will be things to work on with regards to your marriage no matter how perfect you are. Many of these things, once worked on, will also require periodic maintenance, which reminds me of owning a home.
A house is often considered your most important investment. Unlike many other things, you can buy a home and work on it to increase its value over time. Some of these things, such as mowing the lawn, clearing the driveway of snow and vacuuming the carpet will happen frequently. Other things, such as constructing a shed, adding a new portion to your home or buying adjacent property. After you finish one major project, you will continue to move onto the next until you have the home of your dreams. Of course, the larger projects also require the homeowner to invest more time into regular maintenance.
Coming back to marriages, there will be things that are regularly done. Some of these might include kissing when one partner leaves for work or regular date nights. Bigger, less frequent things could include buying a home, having a child or going to marriage counseling. As you work on and solve your big marital issues, you can move to smaller and smaller ones, but the need to improve is constant. Like how the elements take their toll on a home and the property surrounding it, so do outside influences take their toll on a relationship.
Above all else, a happy and grateful attitude will go a long way.

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