A Recipe for a Disaster-Free Marriage

There is no denying it relationships can be hard work at times. We are spending far too long focusing on external qualifiers.   Successful relationships require something much more profound than just shared interests, age, career, money or physical attractions.

Maintaining a healthy, happy relationship requires you to make a daily choice – Leave your ego behind and act in the best interest of the relationship rather than just yourself.  A healthy functional intimate relationship is based on equality and respect, not power and control.

My Key Ingredients to success:

There are many key ingredients to making and maintaining great, long-lasting healthy relationships.  Here are just a few:

• Communication, Communication, Communication! Master this and you’re in for the long haul. You need to know how to communicate your own needs and wants, verbally and non verbally while being open to your partner’s style of communicating their needs and wants. Take time to understand what the other might be feeling.
• Mutual respect. You respect each other’s values and understand/respect/honour each other’s personal boundaries.
• Trust. You trust each other and give each other the benefit of the doubt.
• Honesty. Honesty builds trust and strengthens the relationship.
• Compromise. You are not always going to get your way. You need to acknowledge different points of view and be willing to give and take.
• Individuality. This one is an important one! You should not have to compromise who you are. Your identity should not be based on your partners.
• Anger management. Anger is an emotion that we all express now and again, but how we communicate it can affect our relationships with others. Everyone argues at some point, stick to the subject and avoiding insults will help you come up with possible solutions.
• Problem-solving. When you are single, you find yourself having to solve problems yourself in your own unique way. But are you able to solve problems and identify new solutions as a couple?
• Self-confidence. You need to have perfected this before you enter into a partnership. When you have confidence in yourself, it can help your relationships with others.
• Being a role model. Being able to model a healthy relationship style.

My golden nugget – perfect those traits in yourself that you seek in another.

What role does change or adaptability play in relationships?

Choosing to change is a personal decision. However, relationships require the ability to change for both people.  No two people fit together like a perfect puzzle, so you are going to have to adjust. Being open to self-growth, adaptability, learning and, yes, potentially change, it’s too important to ignore in a serious relationship.

Men consider marrying a woman hoping she never changes while a woman considers marrying a man she hopes she can change. Don’t assume that you can change a person to meet your expectations.

My golden nugget – Ask yourself: Can you accept each other as you are, warts and all? Don’t marry someone based on “potential to change.”

What is important to assess in finding the right one?

Healthy relationships are the single most important factor in determining our happiness. The first step to finding a suitable partner is to distinguish between what you want and what you need in a partner. Wants are negotiable, needs are not.

Wants include the things you think you’d like in a partner, including occupation, intellect, and physical attributes. Even if certain traits may appear to be crucially important to you at first, over time you’ll often find that you’ve been needlessly limiting your choice. Needs are different than wants in that needs are those things that matter to you most, such as values, ambitions, or goals in life.

My Golden Nugget: Let me ask you this – Would you marry you? Think about it, the time is now to be honest with yourself, dig deep, what would your answer be?

The more specifically you define yourself, your values, your beliefs, your lifestyle, the better chance you have of finding your life partner, your soul mate, the one you are most compatible with. Remember, The perfect marriage does not come ready-made, in fact that is what completes half your deen, your contribution to the marriage, the highs and the lows.

Wajeeha Amin is a Relationship Coach and is on a mission to equip people with the tools that strengthen love and care in all their relationships.  She pioneered the Finding Mr or Mrs Right Masterclass and has been supporting countless singles to go on to marry and Marry well.  She was a finalist for Asian Women of Achievement award for her work and is an Ambassador for Women on the future.

Muzz caught up with Wajeeha Amin, an experienced relationship and lifestyle coach to discuss why planning is key to a healthy marriage and how we can maintain love through it. This is the second in the series of #WajeehaTalks – where we will be unpacking different parts of relationships in the Muslim community.

To find out more about Wajeeha and her work visit her website:

http://www.masterclassbywajeehaamin.com/

DID YOU CATCH THE FIRST TWO BLOGS IN THE SERIES?

MUSLIMRELATIONSHIPS101: HEALTH IS WEALTH? #WAJEEHATALKS

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