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Married with Children
Keeping Your Relationship Healthy
By Kim Seidel
After a couple has children, they especially need to honor their relationship by spending time together alone every day. Build a friendship in your marriage. Nelson recommends going out on dates twice a week. These dates can be simple, such as meeting for coffee.
Nelson and his wife, Kristi, have been married over 30 years and raised six kids together. They established a routine so solid that their grown children still talk about it today. When Nelson came home from work, the first 20 minutes was devoted to talking with his wife. The children learned that was time for their mom and dad. This practice is part of the "Five Magic Hours" from the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Orion, 2004) by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver. Gottman recommends that successful couples spend 20 minutes a day on reunions back home after work to talk. In parting, spend two minutes a day. Other practices of the "five magic hours" include spending five minutes a day expressing admiration and appreciation, and five minutes daily showing affection (holding hands and hugging).
It's all part of keeping communication alive. "Talk, reminisce, laugh, cry," Kerrigan says. "Really, it's when the conversation goes silent that the marriage goes dead. As a couple, we argue, talk politics, share jokes, talk about our day. True, life isn't one big exciting adventure day after day, but it is in the small things – some might argue routine – that we share the majority of the minutes and days of our life."
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