Yes, I mean the physical act of being hand in hand when walking together, but also the idea of as the 1950s song says traveling ‘Side by Side.’ By that I mean, are you working together at your marriage? Are you working as a team? It makes a huge difference to the way we cope with the pressures of life, when we can share the load and when responsibilities aren’t left to one person. To me that’s one of the secrets to a successful marriage, traveling ‘the road, sharing our load, side by side.’
No matter what happens and tragedies and hard times come to us all, so long as we weather them together. That means not cutting ourselves off from the together person at such times, but supporting and encouraging and helping each other.
In This is Your Brain on Joy, Dr Henslinpsychologist stresses how important body language is. He maintains ‘when a couple doesn’t walk side by side or turn toward each other, it can be symbolic of the lack of partnership.’
Our marriage is definitely a partnership. We make decisions together, we talk things over together, we pray together, (though I admit we’re not always as good at that one as we should be) we share household tasks together, we’re traveling the road ‘side by side.’
No, we’re not exactly the same people we were when we were first married. Back then, some of our likes and dislikes were very different. Over the years we’ve grown closer though there are still same areas where we will never agree, we simply choose to disagree. However these are not major issues, just minor likes or dislikes in regard to music or TV shows etc. On the major issues and core values we are united.
Marriage is about being equals. It is not about one person dominating the other. It’s not about one person playing more of the parent role while the other acts the child. It is about two responsible adults working together to make their marriage the best it can be. Is this a picture of your marriage? If not how will you change that picture?
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