How to Make Your Marriage Great with One High Octane Tweak

With one, simple tweak you can take your marriage from bad to good and from good to great.

You’re reading the right article if you want a great marriage. If you’re not wanting a great marriage, it’s time to stop reading and do something else.

Maybe you’d rather check out a Free eBook I have for you called, “3 Easy Communication Skills That Can Improve Your Marriage By 80% Within 14 Days.”

The tweak I’m talking about will help you improve any important relationship, not just your marriage.

Have you read “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts,” by Gary Chapman? If you haven’t, it’s time to get busy and read it. I’m providing an opportunity for you to check it out and read it right below this paragraph.

As you read on I’m going to tell how to TWEAK what Gary Chapman teaches in his book. He doesn’t mention it in the book and I’ve never heard anyone else teach it. It’s a total game changer.

I’ve read his book and have personally worked with hundreds of others who have, too. They’re all as impressed as I am. Just applying what you read in his book can make a big difference in your marriage.

However, I’ve noticed that most of them (especially men) have a problem.

Here’s an illustration of the problem:

The 5 Love Languages that most people have are Gifts, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Let’s take the love language of gifts as an illustration.

Hubby learns that Wife’s love language is gifts. So, he gets her a new drill for her birthday. He can’t believe how wonderful of a husband he is. He actually did what the book said! This isn’t hard at all.

His wife is a kind person. However, he’s stunned when she opens the box, looks at him in disbelief, and politely asks him if he saved the receipt so she can return it. OMG!

Hubby is thinking how ungrateful she is! There’s just no pleasing this woman. He also might be thinking that he’s just not good enough as a husband and feels hurt.

So, what’s the problem? He got her what he wanted her to have. After all, it’s a Cadillac of a drill! And, they needed a new drill after all. What’s not to like about it? He would have been thrilled if she got it for him.

His 3 basic choices are:

Choice One: Get her what he wants her to have; which is probably what he’d want for himself. We all know how well that works.

Choice Two: He can get her what he thinks she’s supposed to want. He reads a book about what women like. He learns that “All women like flowers and diamonds.” Cool. He gets her a nice diamond necklace.

Sometimes that works. No guarantee. If I got my wife diamonds she’d politely ask for the receipt. She’s not interested in diamonds. Never has been.

Many hubbies would react to that by assuming there’s just no pleasing her. She doesn’t appreciate me! What’s wrong with her?

If that’s you, then here’s a little hint: It’s not her.

Here’s the TWEAK.

Choice 3 is the tweak most men never even think about.

Choice 3 is: Get her what she wants to have. Hmmm. At this point almost every man I’ve told this to just looks at me like I’m an idiot. They tell me that the biggest objection they have to making this choice is that it would “ruin the surprise.”

Oh, my. That will NEVER do.

Get her what she wants. What a concept. It’s my belief that the number one need that most women have is to be accurately understood and acknowledged to their satisfaction.

Giving her what she wants is a high-octane version of accurately acknowledging her.

When I describe this tweak to women, they agree so emphatically I’m afraid they’ll sprain their neck.

What  if what she wants is a new sewing machine? Not a drill; not diamonds; a sewing machine.

If her love language is primarily or secondarily gifts, and hubby gets her the sewing machine she wants, her marital satisfaction will sky-rocket! Women tend to do this naturally for their spouses. Men have a little harder time with it.

So, the TWEAK is to speak the love language of the other person in the way THEY want it.

Let’s look at some of the other love languages:

Quality Time- Choice One is to give your spouse the quality time you want them to have. There’s statistically a chance it might be the same. Not too likely, though.

• Choice Two is to give them the quality time you think they SHOULD want. All women want to go to a fancy, high-priced restaurant and have a candle light dinner. Right? Maybe.
• Choice Three is to give them what they want. What if they just want to sit on the couch and snuggle while watching some ‘B’ movie and eating pizza? If that’s what they want and that’s the quality time you give them, then you’ve just practiced high-octane loving.

Words of Affirmation- How do they want to be affirmed? Do they want to be affirmed for being beautiful, smart, or doing a good job? If none of those, then how?

Acts of Service-What would they like you to do for them? I could go mow the lawn for my wife and come in and act like Superman because, “I did it for you, hon!” She’d say, “So? The lawn needed to be mowed, anyway.”

• I could replace the carpeting in the living room. She’d come in with her hands on her hips and say, “What are you doing?” “I’m doing this for YOU, hon.” She’d reply, “I was happy with the carpeting we already had.” There’s just no pleasing this woman.
• Or, I could empty the dishwasher of the clean dishes, put the dirty dishes in, then run the dishwasher. She lights up like a Christmas Tree! Gee. I wonder which one was an example of high-octane loving?

and Physical Touch-How do they want to be touched? Do they want to hold hands? Have their back rubbed? Have their feet rubbed? Is there anywhere or anyway they don’t want to be touched?

When you touch them how they want and when they want, then you’re practicing high-octane loving.

It’s tempting to think that when things aren’t going well in your marriage you might need a counselor. Stop! Before even thinking about that, learn the difference between counseling and coaching.

Counselors are usually ineffective in helping people improve their relationships. Check out this blog post about the difference between a Coach and a Counselor. Click Here.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a line at johnmason@dayjobtodreamjob.com.

Very sincerely,

John Mason