Beirut – Many married couples set a list of goals and habits to change during the new year, and each couple is looking for the best plan for this year.
With the daily preoccupations and pressures, the couple feels bored and routine, but in the new year they need to renew, break the monotony, and restore love, understanding and common interests.
This is what some wives are trying to do to maintain the success of marital life and not to deteriorate by making purposeful plans at the beginning of each new year, and following are some of their experiences as they were told to Al Jazeera Net:
Your laughter is a source of happiness
Joel Hayek (public relations manager in a company) believes that the main source of marital happiness is the satisfaction of the partner as he is, and adapting to his shortcomings in a practical way that allows him to overcome them and not change them. She explains, “How many marriages ended in failure, because both parties are trying to change the defects of the other, and the truth is that the nature cannot change, but we can work to correct the behavior, and this approach my husband and I follow every year and we set a plan and goals to deal with each other’s flaws, until we reach to a point of mutual understanding and agreement.
Abandoning selfishness is one of the sources of Joel’s happiness with her husband Danny, and she says, “Before any decision, I think that I am a mother and wife in the first place, and because the nature of my work requires me to travel from time to time, I think about my son and how to take care of him at the time of travel, my husband helps me, who always insists So, before any decision I return to, and if I feel satisfaction and approval from him, I take my decision, especially since the last trip was to the United States of America, and it was a month long, I hesitated to accept it, but he pushed me to it because He is keen to develop my practical skills, and he is the type who listens well and does not neglect any of my notes, and this increases my respect and appreciation for him.”
She adds, “Marital happiness does not require a manual, but is achieved by simple things if there is understanding and keenness on stability between the spouses, and the secrets of happiness differ between each spouse. I’m depressed, then he doesn’t smile.”
Failed to make plans
As for Claudine J., she considers herself a failure in setting plans and goals to improve the things that bind her with her husband, whether in terms of saving money, meeting food dates, practicing common hobbies together, or spending more time together to give an opportunity to remove stress, daily quarrels and fatal routines.
She regrets that she cannot implement even a small part of the goals of the new year, because her husband Musa does not listen to her at all and does not care about this kind of decisions, so she finds herself in the same cycle, and most of the habits that she wants to change do not change to the point of impatience and the start of violent quarrels at home , according to her saying to Al Jazeera Net.
marital leave
Marriage is not without boredom and routine, and love quickly dissipates after marriage, so the spouses must devise different methods to maintain their happiness, foremost of which is the “marital leave” for some time in order to renew the feelings of love and longing, and this leave is followed by travel, even at the end of the week to A quiet place that brings the spouses together, this is the secret of marital happiness for Mira Azzam, and this is what she does every year to renew her relationship with her husband and to improve it for the better, and to feel that her marriage is successful despite all the harsh circumstances and accept any changes and adapt to them together.
Mira says that “the secret to the continuation of the marital relationship with a measure of happiness is for each party to abandon their selfishness and take full responsibility for it, whether it is a responsibility towards the partner, the house or the children,” stressing that abandoning selfishness is the great secret of marital happiness.
The importance of making plans for the new year
For her part, the therapist, psychoanalyst, behavioral and family counseling specialist, Ren Dager, stresses that some steps must be followed for each couple to set goals and follow up on the implementation of the plan throughout the year:
Take a look at the past year
You can ask many important questions, and remember that it is never too late to ask your questions about the past year such as: What is the best thing that happened to you? Or for both of you? What is the biggest challenge you faced last year? The biggest joy you experienced? What is the biggest personal change that has happened to you? What is the most fun part of your job? What is the most difficult part of your profession? What have you learned over the past year?
Create a comprehensive picture of the previous period
The questions should be simple: the best event of the past three months? What is the biggest challenge you have faced? How was your life at work and relationships, as well as financially, healthily, socially and with your family?
Setting goals for the new year
Defining common goals, and also individual ones, meaning that each of you sets a list of his goals at the individual level. For common goals, make sure they are achievable and of actual value to both of you. You may want to discuss barriers that may arise as you work toward a goal together, eg Would it be difficult to coordinate your schedules? How can you overcome that?
You can also keep a list of goals you can’t achieve this year, you might include them in your planner for next year, and you should ask questions like: What brings joy to your life? What is the most valuable thing in your life? Do you feel that there is something missing in your life? what is?
Set New Year’s priorities
These questions to ask: How do I want my life to be during the next three months in work and private relationship, financially, healthily, socially and with my family? How do I achieve my most important goals during this period? What will my life be like 3 months from now?
Continue to work on a specific order
This does not mean torpedoing all the efforts of the past year, but rather what you should do in the new project, but rather take a comprehensive look at the strengths and enhance them, and the weaknesses and address them, for example, you may need more specialized knowledge about this work, for example, for example, marketing management on websites social networking for relationship website content; You need to undergo workshops and training on analyzing data and statistics related to users of social networking sites in the field of your site’s specialization, according to family counseling specialist Ren Dagher.
The importance of evaluating plans
You have to set a date for evaluating your plan in accordance with the goals and the progress of work to achieve them. You both have a joint responsibility to work towards achieving the annual plan.
Tips for creating an annual plan
Dagher stresses that some advice must be adopted to develop the plan, the most important of which are:
Ask more questions with good intentions: You have to ask more questions about the partner’s day at work and at home to encourage communication and break the silence in the marital relationship, sympathy with each other, thinking from the other’s point of view, and turning the complaint in the relationship into questions as well. Instead of asking your husband why he is late at work, ask him to spend time With you because you miss him, and this advice is a motivation to work and make an annual plan for you today by asking each other about his goals for this year.
emotional honesty The task of listening should be developed in the sense that you do not watch football while your wife tells you about her problems at work, and do not wash the dishes while your husband talks about his problems also at work, but you should make time for talking and active listening while you look at each other lovingly.
bad habits: Breaking bad habits and giving up small and annoying things, for example, your husband leaves a cup of water on the table after he drinks, or other life details that seem simple but are annoying to one of the parties, such as the habit of smoking in the bathroom and throwing a cigarette in the toilet, which causes a violent quarrel between the spouses . Therefore, it is necessary to cooperate and agree together calmly and lovingly to change these habits without issuing orders, quarrels or tension.
positive decisions
The specialist reviews some decisions for all couples to help them feel happy and secure and to renew their relationship, the most important of which are:
- Add fun to married life by playing some electronic games or chess and other different binary games that make the couple feel happy together.
- The couple must agree in 2022 to stop trying to change each other and accept each other’s flaws.
- They must divide their roles in their married life to ease the burdens.
- It is necessary for the spouses to go to a psychologist or marital relationship counselor to listen to their problems to maintain their mental health, and to help end marital disputes, if they increase.