There have been a lot of posts about marriage and qualities spouses should have and since I LOVE talking about marriage and relationships I thought I'd put my two cents in.
First off these articles had some good ideas. For instance this article talks about looking for good qualities in a potential wife and not be so focused on her being blonde and curvy. Or his wife's article about husband qualities. Both of these articles are both great because they encourage people to focus on something more than just looks or things that will eventually fade. What they don't talk about though is about yourself. People are so concerned about finding the one for them they don't stop to think if they'll be the one for that someone.
Growing up in the LDS church I have noticed it seems to be a standard in Young Women's to make a qualities list that you want in your future husband. Most girls will put "musically inclined", "good with kids", "honest", "cute", etc. Then we're taught how important it is to find a mate with high qualities so that we are able to lead good lives and have a good marriage overall. What doesn't seem to be stressed enough though is that we will only marry as good as we personally are. We need to develop those qualities ourselves first.
You want someone with a strong testimony? Get your own first. You want someone who will serve others? You better learn to want to serve yourself. You can't just assume that these qualities will rub off on to you when you're dating, engaged or married. You have to either be working on them already or have them. People tend to gravitate towards those that they are comfortable around. So if you want to be comfortable around someone awesome, you better become awesome yourself.
When I was single I, of course, had a list in my head. But my list had things that were things I had or standards I already kept. For instance, I wanted someone who was honest. Honesty to me was a huge priority. Not bluntly honest, but honest where you know they have a good heart. You know when they ask them a question they'll be honest, but in a loving way. Sam has that quality. Many people have told me that I had found someone who was good and had a good heart. Of course he's not perfect (because then I wouldn't have even had a chance), but the intent of goodness is always there.
Another thing I had on my list was he can't like watching sports on tv. This one was a big one for me. I got a lot of guff for it too. People thought I was being super picky and that I would never find someone like that. But I felt this quality was very important to me because I wanted a marriage where our relationship would grow based off spending time together doing interests that we each had. And since sports were not of any interest to me I knew it would be difficult for me to be interested in it for someone. Luckily, I held out and Sam doesn't have interest in watching sports :)
Another article that has been going around called "Marriage isn't for you" I thought was also really good. And I agree with what he was saying 100%, but I saw a lot of people were against his opinion. I realized that he may not have expressed his view entirely. A lot of people felt that he was saying that marriage is entirely for your spouse. And that's true to an extent, but marriage is a two way street. You should be happy in your marriage too. The problem is that most people think that marriage will make you happy because yours spouse will be the one to make you happy. Expectations and thoughts going into marriage shouldn't be about how your spouse should be doing this or that. You shouldn't base your happiness on "If only my spouse would give me a back massage I would be happy". You will be happy when you love and serve your spouse. Which is what this article was trying to say. Marriage is for you too, but if you focus it all on you, then you're not going to be happy.
I admit there have been times in my marriage at the beginning where I felt unhappy. Not because I wasn't satisfied with my relationship with Sam or because he loved me any less. My expectations were not ideal. I felt that in order to be happy, Sam should be doing everything I thought husbands should do. And that he should do it without knowing that's what I wanted, like clean our apt before I got home, do the laundry, leave me love notes. Those things surely would make me happy. And they do, but I realized (and still keep having to realize) that if I want to be happy I have to work at making Sam happy. Sam will not ever stop serving me even if I decided to stop serving him. But I wouldn't be happy because I would know deep down that I wasn't giving back. It's strange how when you only receive your heart is less empty than if you continually give back.
So I agree marriage is for your spouse, but it is also for you.
Now I thought I jump on board and give my own list of what you yourself should focus on to have a happy relationship with not only your spouse but anyone.
1. Forgive and forget-Time and time again I have seen people hurt because they hold onto the pain that someone caused them. Whether it the person mean to hurt or not, holding onto that pain can cause a domino effect in your relationships. I'm sure you've heard before that you choose how to react to a situation. But make sure how you're reacting is healthy. It's ok to be sad or hurt about something, but understand that if someone like your spouse really loves you, they probably didn't mean it. So lashing out at them will do nothing but cause more pain and hurt.
2. Serve-There is no better way to show your love for someone else than by serving them. People naturally want to be loved, but tend to fight against people helping them. But when you serve and you allow people to serve you not only is your heart open to them, but they can open their heart to you.
3. Don't judge-More than once I have jumped to a judgment about someone and realized how wrong I was. People are imperfect but that doesn't give anyone the right to judge them and write them off. You more than likely do not know the situation. When you judge someone you also can bring up other negative feelings towards them and try to get others to stand by your opinion of that person. It's not right. Especially don't judge your spouse. They are imperfect just like you. I'm sure you have plenty of "undesirable" qualities that you don't want to be judged on, so don't pick at your spouses.
4. Don't bring others into your disagreements-I put this one up because I feel that it's so important for you to work out a disagreement with someone alone. If you and your spouse don't agree on something, let's say how to discipline your child, and you bring your parent into it, not only will it more than likely make your parent take your side, but it also makes your spouse feel betrayed. You and your spouse should be a united front at all times with all decisions. You're going to disagree at times, but when you come to each other to work it out, in the end you'll have a stronger, healthier relationship.
5. Compliment your spouse- Whether your spouse is the bread winner or the homemaker, compliment them on a job well done with what they do. It lets your spouse know that you not only love them, but that you notice their hard work. And a compliment can go a long way to boost someone to doing better at what they're doing.
6. Be the spouse you want- Don't assume your spouse is automatically going to have an idea of what you want from them. Sometimes the best way is to show them by treating them how you want to be treated. It probably won't magically make them start treating you in the way you want, but it will eventually get there.
7. Assume the good, doubt the bad-This one I took from Elder Holland's talk "How do I love thee?". Focusing on someone's positive attributes helps you forget the bad ones. Obviously when you're choosing someone to marry you need to honestly look at the bad to decide whether it's something you can live with. If it is, then from that point you need to decide to not focus on it in your marriage. Choose to look at your spouse in a positive light by only acknowledging their good traits.
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