Turn Your Marriage Into a Successful Business

Have you ever considered your marriage to be a business?  Even a profit making business?

Today's excerpt from my upcoming book Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth takes a whole new look at marriage. In fact, consider your marriage to be a top-notch business plan. 

Once you’ve found the love of your life, keep your relationship healthy by making time for each other. In 2006, six percent of couples who filed for divorce said it was because their spouse was a “workaholic.” Having a solid work ethic shouldn’t mean you have to sacrifice your home life. In fact, some of those skills you use every day on the job could help save your relationship! So start applying your on-the-job abilities at home. The following tips come from Rodale Publishing.

Treat your loved one like a client. When an important client has a problem, you probably bend over backward to make them happy, right? So why would you treat your spouse worse than a business associate? Dr. Emily Nagoski, a psychologist at Indiana University, says people lose track of their problem-solving skills once emotions get involved. She says if you act as if your point of view is more right than your partner’s, you’ll never find a solution. So the next time you’re in an argument at home, take a deep breath and ask yourself, How would I react if this were a client?

Be punctual! You don’t show up late to work, because you don’t want to get fired. So treat your partner with the same respect. If you make plans for dinner, movie night, or a walk in the park, don’t break your promise!

Set goals. Your boss gives you goals at work so he or she has a way to measure your success. So think about your relationship the same way. Just as you have sales quotas or project milestones at work, come up with some goals you and your spouse can work together on: save for a down payment on a home, or work toward a special vacation. Dr. Nagoski says this will create a sense of teamwork in your relationship.

Monitor your in-box. You know that stack of paperwork on your desk at work? Sure, it’s annoying to fill out invoices and to follow-up on emails, but you do those anyway, because it’s your job! Relationships require the same kind of maintenance. Nobody really wants to do chores, spend holidays with the in-laws, or have those long, drawn-out state of the romance talks, but you should do them anyway. If you don’t, your obligations will start to pile up, and so will your partner’s resentment. So do the tasks in your relationship in-box to avoid arguments.

Along the same lines, some of the best marriage advice I’ve ever heard is that you should think of your marital union as a business—actually, the most important business that you’re involved with for the rest of your life. Call it Marriage, Inc.

If you don’t put time into your business—say it’s a store or a computer company—then you won’t sell products, you’ll flounder, and you’ll go out of business. If you don’t put time into your marriage then it will flounder, too, and you will be out of the marriage business. So many people think, “Okay, I’m married now. That’s settled. I don’t have to put too much work into it.” Not true. Marriage is work, but that doesn’t take the romance out of it—not if you’re creative.

John   

Email John:  johnsblog@teshmedia.com

You can pre-order my new book Intelligence For Your Life: Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth, at half price plus you'll receive a free John Tesh Alive Music&Dance DVD by just clicking here.

Comments

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This is so true. Sometimes we tend to take advantage or take each other gor granted but in fact for the ones we love the most we should be on time etc. Good info- thanks for the kind reminderThanks John.