At the most basic level, a husband and wife should be a team in marital life; almost all the couples do not deny this point, but it is easier said than done. You see, many problematic couples often behave more like enemies than teammates in their relationships, for example, they keep score when hurt, they withhold forgiveness when wronged, they always try to one-up each other, and they always want to have the last word… Those couples surely know the importance of teamwork in marriage as well, but they just make a mess of it.
If you also wonder how to be a team with your spouse, here’re some tips:
1 Make more decisions together intentionally:
As we all know, a person’s dictatorial manner is bound to lose his/her allies. Maybe, you are sure that you not so autocratic in your relationship, but you are also not the kind of spouse who is inclined to work collaboratively with your spouse to deal with marital and family issues.
As you stay with your spouse over time, it may be easy for you to assume that he/she will be ok with many things that you do without asking him/her for his/her opinion. For example, you may have ever committed to a certain project or event on behalf of you two, without thought of consulting him/her ahead of time; or maybe you have got used to making swift decisions regarding various family issues on your own, and you have always taken it for granted that your spouse can overcome problems that your hasty decisions may bring about.
However, doing so may mess things up – when you make a decision that impacts your spouse without his consent or knowledge, you are basically acting on his/her behalf irrespective of his/her wishes; it may not only cause him/her trouble but also wreck the team relationship. And you must have ever heard your spouse’s complaint: “Why don’t you tell me about it?” And what goes unsaid in such a statement is “I am a teammate with you, but you don’t treat me as a teammate.”
Given the above, you must have already understood the adverse effects of making solo decisions in married life; the correct approach should be to prefer a mutual decision-making mode than a personal decision-making mode. As long as a decision involves the two of you – even though it only involves one of you indirectly, you had better discuss with your spouse and make decisions together.
Surely, when you discuss a critical issue with your spouse, you may argue and even fight at some point. But that should not be the reason you can give up on cooperation with your spouse. Instead, what you should do is to overcome communication barriers in marriage and then move on.
2 Be an active listener:
When it comes to building teamwork in marriage, active listening is an act of assuring your spouse that you treat him/her as a partner and seriously take him/her. It is always worthy to act as an active listener in front of your spouse. And from talking on deeper significance, it goes a long way towards removing misunderstandings between the two of you.
To develop your active listening skills, you may follow the tips below:
- Keep your eyes wide open:
When you make consistent eye contact with your spouse while he/she is trying to communicate something to you, you both can retain more information, thereby having a smoother dialogue.
- Start on the right foot:
To a great extent, initiating active listening is about verbal feedback. So, you may use some of the formulaic sentences stems like “So what you want to say is…”, “The important thing for you is…”, “You are telling me that…”, and “It sounds like you are…” Using these sentence starters can help put you on track to listen to your spouse rather than take over as a speaker.
- Be patient, trust the process:
It seems like a long way to patiently hear your spouse out. But it is worth doing so, because it greatly avoids arguing, talking over each other, and repeating yourself but getting nowhere. Once you complete a job of actively listening to your spouse, probably he/she is also ready to listen to you in the same manner, because he/she may think that there is also no need for him/her to interject and restate his/her opinion again and again.
- Get more details:
Pretend that you are an interviewer wondering the ins and outs of a matter. So while you are listening, your job is not to defend yourself or solve a problem but to find out the situation. Besides that, don’t ignore the visual cues, maybe you can gain more insight by mentioning those cues in a gentle manner, i.e. “Your face looks so stressed, are you all right?”
3 Share responsibilities based on each other’s talents:
When couples can divide household chores according to each other’s talents as well as personality traits, they are found to have a higher rate of operating a happy family. Rather than attempt to assign responsibilities evenly, you might consider a lopsided arrangement that can be accepted by each other; this is even thought to be fairer than an even assignment of responsibilities because it is more likely that you will both be content and comfortable with your tasks at hand. When you are confident that you can fulfill your tasks, you will have an easier time dealing with things in a productive way. And the same goes for your spouse. When such a division pattern makes you both go into a positive circle, you are inclined to develop and refine the solid teamwork-oriented mindset.
4 Play simultaneously:
A lot of married people feel there is constant pressure for them to play the same activities with their spouses at the same time, but they feel that they often have a leisurely time when they and their spouses are staying together but separately engage in different activities. For example, while one spouse is reading in bed, the other one is sitting on the couch watching TV; they don’t disturb each other but enjoy the together time. Of course, you can come up with other creative ideas to make sure that you two can spend time happily while you two are doing different things.
Don’t overlook this way that you get along with your spouse; when you put in your efforts to seek ways to enjoy your differences and keep each other happy side by side, you subtly foster a sense of teamwork in marriage.
5 Empower your spouse:
In normal times, it may be not so hard for many people to work as a team with their spouses; but once their spouses do something seriously wrong in the collaboration, they start to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their spouses, or even they treat their spouses as their opponents; for example, they may tear their spouses down rather than boost their spouses up, maybe they become cold as charity towards their spouses, maybe they flash a mocking smile, or maybe they make a sarcastic remark to their spouses…
When a spouse feels unable to bear against failures and badly needs the other spouse’s support, if the spouse feels abandoned and rejected by the other one, the teamwork in marriage is bound to be destroyed.
As we see in soaps, the words like “Are you there for me when I need you most?” often appears when a hero or heroine decided to leave his/her partner. In real life, this is also a reason why couples break up. Therefore, it is important to know that your spouse’s happiness and sorrows and yours are inseparable.
Remember, you are in the same boat, you must help each other anytime. For example, when people blame your spouse for a huge mistake that he/she unintentionally made, you should not snap at him/her like others; in this case, encourage him/her to get off his/her butt and take action to overcome failures, help him/her as much as you can, and share responsibilities together. Keep in mind that you are a team; and in many cases, his/her failure can be identified as a team’s failure, because your spouse is also a reflection of you in other people’s view; so never kick your spouse when he/she is down.
In short, when you notice your spouse is in the doldrums, do what you can do to empower your spouse. And you can look at it as a good opportunity to strengthen your teamwork in marriage.
6 Confess your weakness to one another:
Maybe, you have ever heard the “opposites attract” theory – more often than not, people who are very different from each other are attracted to each other. And the biggest benefit of being a team with your spouse is that you can complement each other. In your married life, there are some areas in which you are weak, but fortunately, your spouse is just strong in those areas; and vice-versa. And since a couple is on the same team, a spouse should help the other one strengthen or overcome his/her weakness without feelings of superiority; that is to say, whether you are giving help or asking for help, stay humble.
7 Take one for the team:
Conflict can’t be avoided in marriage, and sometimes both of your thoughts have their reasons and their shortcomings, but you have got to take one for the team.
In such a case, the decision should be based on compromise; after all, sometimes a mutually acceptable agreement on a certain issue can not be reached in time, but you have to make a decision in an emergency.
Furthermore, you may have to admit that you have ever been self-opinioned and refused to listen to your spouse’s point of view for a certain reason, maybe you felt that giving it up will expose your weakness/shortcomings, or maybe you thought that giving it up means that you were a loser (at that time, you competed against each other). And it also seems natural and normal for many people to attempt to gloss over others’ faults/shortcomings in the heat of the moment. But as long as you think about it calmly, you can realize that you may have lost many good times with your spouse while you were clinging to your position during a fierce argument. In fact, if a conflict just arises about something small, it is no big deal to make a small concession.
Yes, conflicting ideas and opinions often result in feelings of dissatisfaction as well as other negative feelings; but if you try to put your spouse’s needs before your own when a conflict or dispute happens between you, it can become a healthy part of your relationship. Being a team requires some self-sacrifice, but it helps maintain a long-lasting marriage.
The final word on teamwork in marriage :
When a man’s and a wife’s minds come together in unity, they can become a strong power to keep the marriage alive and overcome all sorts of marital challenges.
Maintaining a marriage is tough work for couples; and only when the two of you learn to work as a harmonious team, you will both not feel tired and exhausted in married life.
For more tips, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience; it will show you how to work as a team in your marriage even though you and your spouse feel like opposites:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to keep your marriage alive – Maintain a happy long term marriage.
7 basic tips on how to stop keeping score in marriage.
How to have a fulfilling marriage – Make your marriage last.
How to save a failing marriage alone – Try to save your marriage.
What a healthy marriage looks like – How to maintain a marriage.