So yesterday was my 29th wedding anniversary. It looks like the number of those who are married for that long is in the 20% range. Now getting to this place was not easy. There have been multiple times my wife and I have discussed divorce. There were times when we hurt each other and times when we felt this isn’t what we signed up for. Over the years we have had fights, communication problems and arguments. We have at times lacked commitment. There has been distance and lack of physical intimacy in our relationship at times. Guess what in the 29 years both Eve and I have found that there are other people on this earth that we are attracted to. None of these things were abnormal for us and maybe not for you. None of these things stopped us from being married! Each time we hit a speed bump and talked about separating and didn’t as we worked on the relationship it deepened and became richer. It took us both to make changes and strengthen our marriage and keep it together for the last 29 years.

To create a healthy relationship there needs to be boundaries. In episode 223 about how we talked about setting up rules on how we wanted to be treated has been part of our relationship. We started setting them up when we were dating and we have renegotiated them as we have changed. But the most important thing is that we are following the rules that we set up.  Boundaries help you and your partner to feel loved and accepted. They tell others what makes it so that you can feel appreciated. Boundaries are for the protection of all involved. They can be set for physical, emotional, sexual, Intellectual, and financial needs. You are qualified to set up borders for each of these types of needs.  Boundaries have helped our relationship extensively. In setting up these boundaries' communication is key. 

Talking about building an amazing relationship. What else besides boundaries are needed? The first thing that must happen is you must accept your partner as they are. There is nothing I want Evelyn to change because of me. She is perfect for me just the way she is. This is one of the things I choose. I choose to accept her and want her the way she is or the way she chooses to be.  It is not that this is always easy, sometimes I have to check my expectations. My unmet expectations destroy whatever part of my life that I have the expectations about. So, I then choose to let go of expectations and accept Evelyn as she is. Accepting her also means loving and supporting her in her ways and beliefs. I am so grateful that she does this for me. Because of her acceptance there is no need of nagging because of her acceptance of who I am.

One of the things we learned at around 11 years of marriage, this was during a difficult point in our marriage, was to express appreciation often. This saved our marriage at this point in time. What it does is help you to see each other's helpfulness. It helps you to assign value to their contribution. They strengthen romantic connections. It makes people happier. Signs that you need to work on helping your partner feel appreciated may be that they don’t share their opinion. They are quieter than they had been. They make plans without consulting you. They appear more distant. These things all show that your marriage is lacking appreciation in one another. You can control only yourself, so choose to act differently. Start to show appreciation for your partner.

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