Mindful Husbands Learn To Use A Winning Approach to a Happy Marriage Over the Long Haul
Did you know that women initiate the majority of divorces in the United States? How about the sad reality that half of all marriages end in divorce? Or that the average marriage duration only runs about eleven years before a permanent breakup takes its toll? This doesn't mean you have eleven years to figure out a way around it, but that you need to start on an effective solution for a better marriage now!
When you consider that most of those marital collapses are put out of their misery by women, it appears that men in this country have a serious problem when it comes to a committed relationship and being good husbands (been that way for decades). Conversely, it also means that if you find your way out of the herd, your marriage has a far stronger chance of success.
For that reason, your first and best move is to make sure that you are not like tens of thousands of clueless husbands at risk of losing everything. To save yourself time and frustration, begin executing the best strategy for immediate, life-changing results.
Your #1 Strategy Is To Fix Yourself, Not Your Wife.
Taking 100% responsibility for the state and direction of your husband role concerning your vows and your duties is vitally important. Many guys bypass this most obvious approach in favor of trying to control their wife's behavior; however, with wives ending nearly two-thirds of all broken marriages, that has proven to be a losing effort on a grand scale according to the numbers.
So, rather than taking the losing tack, husbands who want to win at marriage take the time to work on themselves, first and foremost. The best husband learns to stop trying to control, manipulate, and badger his wife; instead, he focuses on the one thing he has a real chance to control: Himself!
To fix yourself, you must be willing to take a closer look at what tends to get in the way of you being a better husband to your wife.
Whereas your first thought in that regard might be about money, status, or sex problems, those are not where the fundamental problem arises. They are results that come from neglect of the fundamental, which is the need for self-analysis and self-change.
As you make a study of how your habits of thought, feeling, emotion, and behavior impact your relationship with your wife, you can enjoy the freedom to act by removing self-inflicted, entirely unnecessary obstacles to a consistently smooth marriage.
Mindful Husbands Embrace Self-Change as Their Premium Strategy
"As men, we're more susceptible to stonewalling because we're just not as well-equipped as women to handle the ins and outs of a relationship." ---David N. Johnson
As men, we're more susceptible to stonewalling because we're just not as well-equipped as women to handle the ins and outs of a relationship.
David N. Johnson
One of the fastest strategies a husband can adopt to ease the path to a long-term, happy marriage is to learn to be more self-aware, or 'Mindful' for the sake of easier self-growth.
As a mindful husband, your habit will be to daily summon the courage and patience to look at and observe yourself (as well as your results) so that you can be better today than you were yesterday.
This habitual 'self-check' is performed often, objectively, honestly, and dispassionately so that you can make adjustments for fast improvement.
By being dispassionate (emotionally detached and non-judgmental) about what you discover during the time you set aside for your contemplation, you can 'let go' of and dismiss painful emotional reactions to what you see by concentrating on your task. By not getting caught up feelings, you can focus on solutions to apply.
For example, one husband finds managing frustration or anger difficult when discussing money and sex topics with his wife, and rather than feeling strong or in control, he ends up feeling weak, cruel, and embarrassed.
This sense of weakness in her presence typically causes resentment within himself because he loses control, resentment towards her for 'making him mad', all the while stirring up matching discontent in her. Thankfully, he knows that he needs to do something about it. Knowing the national statistics, he logically decides that the best odds lie in resolving his personal reactionary weakness.
Let's say you sometimes find yourself in that same situation and want to make a change so that positive emotions come out in that scenario. The 'mindful husband' approach might include you setting aside time for 20, 30, or more minutes to reflect on the behavior you display when feeling frustrated with her, and in this effort you may experience feelings of embarrassment, but not to worry.
This unpleasant realization sends lots of men running and hiding from the truth because it feels lousy. Yet, the only way to fix the pervasive 'masculine overreaction' problem over time is to face your flaws so that you can resolve them. That is where mindful attention provides an advantage for you by giving you the power of calm to displace unmanaged negative feelings.
The Mindful Husband Does Not Run From Unpleasant Truth About Himself - He Dares To Face It!
The big advantage that mindful attention brings to the marriage is that it gives a loving husband the power to instantly - INSTANTLY - release his attention from a nasty mental experience (dark thought, angry emotion, whining self-blame, etc.) and center himself again on solid mental footing by refocusing on what matters in the present moment. Quiet reflection allows him to step out of his sometimes punishing thoughts.
20 to 30 minutes spent in direct reflection about your negative behavior (or irresponsible acts, lazy, selfish, or rude treatment, etc.) while considering better options is more productive for a husband than thirty minutes spent arguing over bad behavior and trying to defend your position.
Quiet self-reflection, prayer, meditative silence (or actual meditation), note-taking, and journal writing are tools you can use to mitigate numerous flaws that can lead to marital strife, distrust, and cold distance. Because these daily moments do not shift the burden to your wife, it frees you up to deal with your part of touchy topics without things spinning out of control into conflict.
Mindful self-work is like walking into an exclusive mental workshop where you won't be bothered. There, with nobody to answer to, you can get real inner work accomplished, tinkering around with ideas, plans, tactics, and quick relaxation methods to bring impractical behavior and habits to a halt.
In these moments you can learn to deepen your breathing, release muscular tension, and slow down your rapid-fire worries until your mind is calm like the surface of a lake. From that perspective, disturbing thoughts are more like distant special effects, because your attention is not tied up with wrestling or fighting the mental content. Instead, you may be focused on the relaxed feel of your breath or giving attention to an affirmation you want to learn.
​
Private Moments of Self-Repair Help Bring Balance To You and Your Relationship
Because you took on 100% self-responsibility to hash out your own impractical thinking and emotional reactions, you can resolve many personal impediments to an easy-going relationship with your wife. A bonus benefit is how often she will be pleasantly surprised at how easy you make it for her to love you. After all, if she gets to spend less time wrestling with you over your flaws, it means more time spent enjoying her husband.
