When You and Your Partner Can Never Agree

It can be frustrating to be married and feel as if you never agree on anything! Yet you wouldn’t be married at all if you had not agreed that you loved each other and hoped to have a long and satisfying relationship together. Most married couples begin as friends and then become lovers. Keeping the friendship alive and well is one of the most important things you should do in a marriage for many reasons.

Agreeing to Be Nice to Each Other

When you think about the people you are friends with the chances are you think about the fun times you have spent together. There may be disagreements and petty differences that have to be ironed out periodically, but the fact is that friendships take nurturing. We are usually willing to overlook those times when our friends are difficult or having a bad day.  This is the same kind of consideration you should give your spouse.

When two people come to believe they have nothing in common the issue is really the fact they have not nurtured the relationship. Marriage should be considered a friendship and the most important one in your life. That means you must give it even more consideration than you give your other friendships. To keep a relationship healthy, it’s important to find commonalities and share quality time together.

When you feel as if you have nothing in common with your spouse, it is likely that you and your spouse have not even discussed your common goals for a long period of time. When first married, setting long range goals is a great way to form a bond. But goals must be amended and altered and new ones created as time goes by. If you don’t maintain your list of goals then it is easy to begin to drift apart.

Being a friend means treating someone you like with honesty and respect. If you are convinced you have nothing in common anymore with your spouse, the first step to restoring the relationship is to re-discover each other as friends with common goals.

Major and Minor Issues

Disagreements on a regular basis in a marriage can be small or large. You can squabble about the household chores or have huge arguments about money. Either way you are going to find yourself becoming more and more distant from your husband or wife. You will also stop trying to find things you have in common, because the disagreements take on a life of their own. Constant arguing can overshadow everything else in the marriage.

When you argue a lot and don’t feel like friends any longer, it’s easy to feel as you have nothing in common anymore. But that is simply not true. You have plenty in common but you have to make an effort to identify exactly what those common things are in your relationship. From there you can begin the process of restoring the friendship to your marriage.

The first step is to talk to your spouse and identify those areas where you never seem to agree. Then you should find a point where there is agreement. Once you get past the first point the odds are more will follow. You can do this for each item on the list. Then you can develop a new goals list. On this list will be what you and your spouse would like the future to hold. You can compare the goals list to the problems list and identify how your problem solutions support your goals.

Holding Hands

After identifying common goals, you can then take a walk and hold hands! You should hold hands and remember once again what it was like to be young and in love and looking at the future with a single purpose. Did you talk about the children you hope to have? Did you dream of the house you now live in? Cherishing the memories and then comparing them to your present reality can help you see that you have a lot in common as a couple. You may argue now over the household finances, but at one time owning the house was a major goal you agreed upon.

True friends are always working to keep the friendship strong.  When you become a married couple, you can’t let the friendship die a quiet death. Instead you should work to make it an even better friendship by taking time out for each other on a regular basis. It’s important to do the things friends do and that includes envisioning the hopes and dreams for the future.

By re-establishing your friendship you will be able to once again find common ground.