6 Ways You May Be Sabotaging Your Marriage

You don’t tell your spouse you appreciate them. It’s one of the common mistakes people make. Everyone wants to feel appreciated, but we often take our spouses for granted. Lack of appreciation eventually leads to resentment. How often do you acknowledge your spouse’s efforts or point out things you like about them? If you feel like you don’t do it often enough, it’s high time to change that.

You treat your spouse wrong when you’re in public. A healthy marriage is built on mutual respect. Criticizing your spouse in front of the others, complaining about them publicly or making hurtful jokes at their expense shows your lack of respect towards the person who is supposed to be one of the most important people in your life. Keep your disagreements private and remember that you’re a team.

You’re too sarcastic. Using humor to avoid a minor argument is okay, and so is bantering playfully. Humor can help keep your relationship healthy as long as both of you find the situation funny. Making fun of what your spouse feels, deliberately making jokes that hurt them or being overly sarcastic undermines your marriage because hurting your partner’s feelings on purpose shows your lack of maturity.

You’re afraid to communicate openly and honestly. Communication is the basis of any successful mature relationship. If you can’t talk to your spouse about things that are important to you or bother you, you probably aren’t ready to be married. Avoiding problems doesn’t make them eventually go away, it only makes resentment grow.

You make too many assumptions. You think that you know your spouse inside out. You always know that they will say or how they will react when you bring up a certain topic, so you don’t even bother bringing a lot of important things up. And that’s a wrong thing to do. You can never know what another person is thinking. Even if your assumptions are right most of the time, it never hurts to double-check.

You’ve got your priorities all wrong. When you’re married, your spouse should be your top priority. We aren’t saying you should forget about everyone and everything but your partner, but you absolutely mustn’t put everything else before your spouse. Do you spend enough quality time together? Do you make all important decisions together? Are you eager to come home to your spouse at the end of the day? If your answer is “no” to at least one of these questions, you need to rethink your priorities ASAP.