Most couples must work to find similar interest. Companionship doesn’t happen automatically, even for the so-called naturals. So how can you keep your marriage growing even if you aren’t a “natural”?

Marriage researchers Evelyn and Paul Mischetta decided to find out. They researched healthy marriages and published their results in their book, Caring Couples. What do healthy marriages look like? Here are some of the results of that study.

The Mischettas found two distinct groups of couples.

• The first group they called the “naturals.” These couples were equipped for intimacy in marriage because they, like Greg and Megan, had very positive childhoods. They grew up in families with positive role models and with a spirit of cooperation.

• The second group, more like Katie and Walt, were the “learners.” If you’re in this group, you’re in the majority. Learners have to work harder. They had less favorable childhoods and less favorable life experiences before marriage.

Now get this — the learners achieved the same high levels of marital growth as the naturals, but they used every means possible to grow in a positive way. Like the naturals, their marriages remained vibrant, alive, and exciting.

But it took hard work for both the learners and the naturals. Good marriages don’t just happen. The Mischettas emphasize that too many couples have a survival mentality which is characterized by an attitude of self-interest, self-protection, and self-expression. So the challenge to couples who want to make their marriages succeed is to set aside that survival mentality and develop a couple mentality. Think about what is best for the couple — not the individual. You can be a winner in your marriage.

Well, there’s another epidemic that is sweeping the country. Shopping, overwork, stress, and debt — all are symptoms of a communicable disease that is threatening your marriage and your family! It’s “affluenza.”

How is your marriage and family impacted by this disease? Fueled by advertising, priorities have becomes skewed. For instance, more people visit a mall each week than attend church. The average shopping time each week is six hours yet the average time spent playing with children is only forty minutes. And from our observations, marriage partners are even more neglected!

Is there a cure for “affluenza?” Yes, but you have to take aggressive steps such as:

1. Place yourself on domestic quarantine. Stay away from the shopping malls.
2. Read a good book instead.
3. Call your spouse and plan an activity together that doesn’t cost any money.
4. Be more critical of commercials and advertising.
5. Reprogram your thinking. Picture the Jones’ as the thriftiest people you know and then try to keep up with them.
6. If all else fails, bake a couple of your little plastic cards at 350 degrees F. for ten minutes!

Do your part today to stomp out “affluenza.” By spending less, not more, you’ll have the energy and resources to invest in your marriage.

Do you want to be good to your marriage?

Children who grow up in happy, intact, functional families with parents who love each other unconsciously learn the roles they will later need in marriage and parenthood. So as you build your marriage, you’re mentoring your own children. Here are 10 ways to be good to your marriage:

1. Call your spouse just to say “I love you!”
2. Scratch your partner’s back.
3. Get up with the baby, and let your spouse sleep.
4. Let voice mail collect your calls or turn the phone ringer off so you can concentrate on each other.
5. Light a scented candle.
6. Eat a bowl of ice cream together after the kids are in bed.
7. Turn off the TV.
8. Put on your mate’s favorite music.
9. Write a letter and tell your mate why you’d marry him or her all over again!
10. Get out your wedding pictures, look at them together, and rejoice that you married each other!

If you’ve been married several years, boredom and flatness may threaten your marital bonds.

Sometimes couples hesitate to reveal personal concerns that might trigger a conflict. But if you don’t discuss what’s bothering you, you perpetuate your dissatisfaction or emptiness. In one sense you become a “married split.” Let us encourage you to express how you really feel about things. Open expression will build an emotional investment in your marriage and keep communication alive. Even if some pain is involved, you can view it as a marriage face lift.

So whether you’d like some changes in menus, love making, or the way you spend Sunday afternoons, express how you feel rather than avoid each other. Just do it in the right way. Try using “I” statements, and let the statement reflect back on you: “I feel a little bored when we spend most Sunday afternoons watching TV. Could we plan to do something different and creative next Sunday?”

In this way you can express yourself without attacking your mate as if you’d said, “You don’t every want to do anything but watch TV on Sunday afternoon!”

You’ll probably always need to practice some give and take in living the everyday events. But being willing to live on the growing edge and to take a few risks will help eliminate boredom and flatness in your marriage. So take the risk . . . start working on your marital face lift today!

Do you want to energize your marriage? Then upgrade your communication skills.

Is your communications like our old computer programs? It works but it could be better? Then our advice is upgrade it! And you do just that by learning new communication skills and retooling the ones you already know!

Upgrading your communication will energize your marriage, but be prepared for some surprises and new insights. You may discover that:

• Energizing communication is more that chatter. We all chit chat daily–from “How was your day?” to “Where’s the remote?” — but if that’s all you do, then you probably have a low-energy, low-fun marriage. When you upgrade your communication, you will learn how to share your deeper feelings and have heart-to-heart talks that pull you closer together. So start telling your mate what you are really thinking and feeling.

• Energizing communication is non-confrontational. When we confront each other, we de-energize our relationship. Resist attacking the other or defending yourself. Then it will be safe to talk and you’ll be more willing to share your true feelings with each other. Remember to start your sentences with “I” and let them reflect back on you. Avoid, “Why” questions and “You” statements. They tend to be attacking and zap your energy — and your marriage.

• Energizing communication is companionate communication. Really listening and expressing how you really feel in specific yet positive words will help you become close companions and best friends.

Upgrading your communication skills can open new opportunities for growth and intimacy. As you’re in the process of learning new skills remember to be honest, yet never unkind. You can be direct, yet positive. Remember, you’re developing healthy skills that will enrich your marriage through all your conversations of life.

How do you look at change? Change can be positive or negative — depending on how you look at it.

Change can be risky, but we’re convinced that no risk equals no change, and no change adds up to no growth and a boring relationship. Plus, being willing to adapt and change can add zest and excitement to your marriage.

Start by thinking about how you’ve adapted and changed in your relationships in the past. We’re certainly different people than we were back when we were married college students. Over the years, we’ve had to change and adapt to each other. And then each stage of marriage offers a different challenge.

The first years of our marriage required many adjustments. It’s not easy to learn to think “we” instead of “me.” When we disagreed, we could no longer just go home. We were home. So we had to adapt.

After the early years come the active parenting years. Of course with blended families, many start marriage with the complication of a ready-made family and this requires even more adaptability!

With young children, the “no time, no energy” factor required all the creativity we could muster to adapt and to stay close to each other! Then when we had three teenagers, the physical exhaustion gave way to emotional exhaustion!

The next stage — the empty nest — may be an erroneous term as many nests never empty or quickly refill with adult children, grandchildren, and/or older parents. When our sons began to leave home, the challenge was to refocus from our role as parents to our role as partners. Our children had been our pacers and we had to learn (okay, we’re still learning) not to work all of the time!

Presently, we’re dealing with an increased travel schedule. Since we can’t put our marriage on hold until we get home, we’re looking for ways to enrich it on the road. From time to time we tack a short getaway on the end of a trip.

Where are you in your marriage? What changes may be just up the road for you? For an interesting discussion, talk about these two questions:

1. Over the years in your marriage, how have you changed and adapted?
2. What ways do you presently need to adapt and change?

Go on and take the risk. This marriage builder will help you keep your marriage on the right path and can produce a change for the better for you and for your mate!

Warning! A flood may be coming — especially when your communication gets washed out.

Did you know you can drown your spouse with no water at all? It’s true — it can happen when you feel flooded — a condition that is usually preceded by washed-out communication!

In the closeness of a marriage relationship, from time-to-time we all exchange negative communication. But sometimes we go too far in expressing our negative feelings. Dr. John Gottman, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, coined the phrase, “feeling flooded.” It’s when your spouse tells you something, and then tells you again and again.

Here’s how flooding works. Dr. Gottman suggests we each have a sort of built-in meter that measures how much negativity accumulates during our conversations. How much you can handle before “flooding” occurs depends on your own personality and is also affected by how much stress you’re already under.

What are some symptoms of flooding? You may feel defensive, hostile, or just want to withdraw and go into your shell. So what can you do when you begin to feel flooded?

Just knowing the term can help. Simply saying, “I’m feeling flooded. Let’s deal with this later!” can help the waters to recede. Then after emotions cool, you can revisit the topic or issue that you need to talk about.

And anytime we can focus on the problem and attack the problem and not each other, we are on the right path to better communication. Simply agreeing to not attack each other or defend ourselves is one communication life preserver we all need. We wouldn’t wade into deep conversations without it!

If you have trouble saying no, you have trouble! Let’s look at the perils of over- commitment and how to avoid them.

We don’t know about you, but we’re both activists and it’s hard to say no. Then we get over-committed and find ourselves fatigued and stressed. It’s especially hard to say no to people who need our services. But we’re learning. Just this week we were asked to take on another commitment — and we said, “Not this time.”

Over-commitment is an enemy of strong marriages. It’s amazing that so many sensible and reasonable people become involved with so many other activities that they become strangers to the people they love. People who are over-committed continue to take more customers or clients, more committee work, more administrative responsibilities, more moonlights, more classes — you get the picture!

Stop and take a serious look at your lifestyle. Are you over-committed? If the answer to that questions is yes, decide to start saying no before the enemy – over-commitment – eliminates you. Believe it or not, this is one battle you can win!

Did you realize that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the time spouses and family members are most ignored?

Are you mutually devoted? Then declare it! There is nothing quite as wonderful as being in a mutual admiration society with your spouse! Just knowing that you chose the other above all others will help you weather the holidays.

Think about how good it feels when your spouse lets you know he or she wants to be with you. Maybe through a twinkle in the eye, a gentle caress or a loving compliment, your mate let’s you know he or she is mutually devoted to you.

It feels so good to be affirmed, but don’t assume your mate knows you love him or her, declare it. Here are some ways to demonstrate your devotion to your partner:

• Present your mate with a long stem rose.
• Take a picture of the two of you. (You could frame it for a Christmas present to your spouse.)
• Write a love note on the steamed bathroom mirror.
• Send your mate an email or text declaring your devotion.
• Invite your mate out on a date that you totally plan. Keep the location a surprise.

Take our tips and don’t just assume your mate knows you admire him or her. Form your own mutual admiration society today! It’ll help you stay “mutually devoted” and will add to your holiday joy.

Take the next step:

5 Tools to build a more intimate marriage
Take a lesson: Bring the romance back
Any questions? Come talk to a mentor

You can’t change your basic personality, but you can change your behavior. In reviewing our marriage history, we realized we really have changed and adapted to each other over the years. What about you? Why not look back in your memory archives and see how you’ve changed and progressed toward compatibility.

1. Take two sheets of paper and each list the ways you were similar when you first were married. You might list attitudes, belief system, interest, desires and so on.
2. Write down the areas in which you were different — the areas you were less compatible.
3. Think about which of your differences have given you the most trouble over the years. Have you made progress in resolving, or positively accepting, these differences?
4. What changes have you made in adapting to each other?
5. What reasonable changes do you still need to make?

Take some time to share your lists with each other. Discuss how you have worked on your differences over the years. Have you grown and changed for the better in the process?

You may find that while your similarities provided a foundation for your life together, real growth has come mainly from working through your differences. The key is to remember that wherever you are now, you can keep adapting and moving closer to your mate. Remember, compatibility is not a state of being, but rather a goal to work for!

Reprinted with permission from the ZONDERVAN PUBLISHING HOUSE E-MAIL ALERT SERVICE newsletter.