Whether you're dating, planning a wedding, or already married, I'm sure you've gotten a lot of relationship advice from other married folks. If they've listed off any of the soft rules of marriage, you might want to do some new research. On a recent segment on The Today Show, Rosemary Ellis, the editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping, shared some new and improved rules of marriage that you should check out below.
| Old Myth | New Rule | Explanation |
| Never go to bed angry. | Sleep on it, but before you roll over in a huff, give your partner a six-second kiss. | If you're blood is boiling and you're frustrated with your honey, duking it out all night won't help. Though kissing before you go to bed won't necessarily solve your problems, it will remind you of your special connection so you can talk about it the next day with a clear and level head. |
Want to see the other myths? Then read more.
| Old Myth | New Rule | Explanation | As you get older, sex isn't as important. | There's no reason you won't grow more sexually connected. | The more comfortable you feel with a person, the more confident you'll be to ask for what you want and try new things. |
| As a marriage grows, you'll realize that you've grown apart and fallen out of love. | Marriages don't run on feelings — in order for them to thrive, both partners need to do their fare share of work. | Working through your differences and talking through your disagreements and issues will make your relationship stronger. |
| Couples who stay together have a lot in common. | It's actually the couples who don't have a lot in common who are often happiest. | You don't have to love doing everything together all the time as long as you do set aside time to be together. Also, having different interests is a plus because it'll keep you happy and secure as an individual, which can only benefit your relationship. |
| Every guy has a midlife crisis. | It's actually a "reinvention," and women go through it too. | Everyone's life goes through change. Maybe your career takes off in a different direction, or your children leave home, or a parent passes away. The first half of your life is different than the second half, but the second half should get better! |
I don't necessarily agree with all of these "new" rules, but what about you? Is there some merit to these news ways of thinking about marriage? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Heals
Stiefel
Only
i love the "six second kiss"
15 seconds won't cut it, and 7 seconds may be overkill
6 is just right
Marriage scares me!
2We go to bed angry all the time. It gives you time to think about what you were fighting about. Then the next day we usually talk about whatever problem we were having, find a solution, and move on.
3i can't sleep if i'm angry
4i abide by the "don't go to bed angry" rule only because it makes me nuts to lay there over-thinking things while he's snoring!
WHAT?! lol...if i'm angry I am sure I won't want a 6 sec. kiss...I wouldn't want his face anywhere near mine!
5Not being married, I wouldn't know... but like Skigurl, I cannot sleep if I'm angry, and would just spend the night laying there, thinking and picking everything apart and over-analyzing and just making it all worse.
6My boyfriend and I do need some time apart to cool down and think when we're fighting, but it does not work to spend that time sleeping.
i totally agree gossipqueen!
7i meant to add, that he should just leave me alone! I hate it when my boyfriend knows I'm mad at him and all he wants to do is cuddle! get away from me!!! lol, but sometimes I cant help it, hes soo cute!
8il stick with the old myth
9sometimes u need to sleep on it...BUT without the kiss.... im angry DONT TOUCH ME
10hehe
I completely agree about going to bed angry. When we fight, I always need a time out. I tend to get melodramatic and waking up fresh in the morning helps me figure out what important and what isn't. We usually wake up in the morning and make up right away and then we can get to the constructive part of working out whatever we were fighting about. Of course, everyone is different so this strategy wouldn't work for everyone. I also really agree that marriages don't run on feelings. If you are only marrying someone because you love them, you probably won't be married for long. I think there is just so much more that goes in to it.
11For me, it depends on what we're fighting about as to whether I mind going to bed angry or not. Some things can't be solved right away!
12I agree with skigurl if I'm mad, I'm awake and you can bet I'm goig to make sure he's awake too!
13My boyfriend and I have a rule that when we are fighting, you are allowed time outs for cooling off. Generally the timeout is just enough time for us to reevaluate and start talking a little more clearly. Seems to work well for us! That being said, we don't go to bed angry. We can't sleep without cuddling first and the cuddling generally makes the mad slip away.
14Bluebird.....I love kurt Halsey! you just put me on a search for anything new. Sorry to be off topic guys!
It depends on what we're fighting about. Sometimes I can go to sleep ANNOYED, but not angry. I'll just want to side kick him off the bed when he falls asleep and I'm laying there like a dummy getting more mad cause he CAN actually fall asleep.......
But we RARELY ever have these moments. Thank God.
15If I'm going to go to bed angry, I do give hubby a kiss. I do it with all of our arguments. It usually difusses things a bit too. Enless it's a phone fight and I say "I love you" and hang up. He HATES when I hang up on him. Lol.
I am a big fan of having seperate interests. It would get boring really fast if you two were the EXACT same person. Variety is the spice of life!
16my husband and i agree not to go to bed angery. we live by the rule you never know what will happen and being angery could be the last think of your loved one. i don't know about you but i couldn't bare to have that on my mind that being upset over something dumb instead of him knowing i love him.
17wow, thanks for the info. sometimes, it's really hard to not go to bed angry because I'm the type that needs to cool off and then hash it out with a level head, but my bf is the other way around. he has to take it on and try to resolve it then and there, which can make the problem worse. however, a lot of the new myths and explanations sound like good things to keep in mind.
18Lambsauce I'm with you.
19My husband and I sometimes go to bed angry, but we say good night and cool off overnight. It's better than being up half the night talking in circles and not getting anywhere.
20We've only been married a few months, but I think the rule that marriages require a lot of work even after a lot of years is true. If a couple works on it and tries new things, they can still have romance and heat in the relationship.
you guys have only been married a few months and already fighting? we have been married for almost 3 years and end up making up before the end of the night. neither of us can sleep if its of importance. so either way have to resolve it before bed
21Im glad to read the not having anything in common myth. My boyfriend and I have very little in common and it really does make us each do things the other one likes and experience more things. Who knew i'd like snowboarding so much!?
22I love that mid-life crisises are now called "reinventions". Haha.
23snapdragon---its common knowledge that the first year of marriage (yes the first months included) are the hardest. 2 souls must mesh into one. that comes with disagreements and arguments and sacrifices. the first few months were very hard for my husband and i, and as we get close to our one year anniversary we can say that our relationship has gotten much better than the first few months. so it bothered me a little that u say "ur already fighting" to bsgiork. sounded a little judgemental
24My boyfriend always insists we talk it out when I'm mad. He never gets mad, only me, so he makes sure I'm completely satisfied and happy before he lets me walk away or go to bed. I like it that way!
25I really like this post. Very creative and thought-provoking.
26lol gossipqueen
I like the spins on the other ones but I disagree with sleeping on it. I'm definitely a fan of just getting the fight over with... I can't sleep with something like that on mind, not to mention without the cuddling =(
27Sun_Sun I'm with you 100%. I've been married nearly 5 months and its aleady geting easier. Comments like SnapDragon's perpetuate the media myth of "Newlyweds" and "The Honeymoon Period". Getting married was the biggest emotional thing in my and my hubby's life, maybe it hit us harder cos we never lived or slept together before. But the first few weeks and months were a TOUGH adjustmet! And the expectation that everything should be butterflies and roses did not help, because that made us feel like failures. Now that we've settled into our life together and are a litle more emotionally stable, I can see how this whole tough period has really brought us so close together. But I think too many people have the opinion that if a relationship isn't always easy, it isn't real or right or "the one" or whatever. And that's just a pet peeve of mine
28I have been married 8 years and have gone to bed angry many times, and no 6 second kiss is going to happen, because with my hubby he would take that as "everythings kosher" and that opens another can of worms.
There is nothing wrong with argueing, its when it goes beyond that into screaming, or insults, or violence that you have to worry about.
And you will wake up some days and go "jesus i wish i was single" and others its "how could i live without him!"
29I'm with sun_sun here. I thought it was a bit judgemental on snapdragons part to mock a noter on the fighting thing.
Not every couple solve their arguments right away. I know I don't and I've been with him for 4 years. Sometimes I think it's best to sleep on it. Alot can happen during a fight, you can say alot of things that maybe you don't mean, so instead of doing that I rather cool off think about the right things and then we can solve the whole thing.
Anyways, that's how I approach this matter...we are not all the same...
30Actually, I sort of subscribe to the advice of never going to bed angry. If hubbie and I are intensely arguing, we would forego sleep, and argue into the night. We wouldn't be sleeping. So we never go to bed angry because we're arguing all night.
31I agree and disagree. Cooling off overnight does help sometimes I think, I usually wake up refreshed and I remember what's really important. We never go to bed without kissing and saying "I love you", but it doesn't last anywhere NEAR 6 seconds =)
On the other hand, I have many many old (65+), still married couples in my life who all seem to say the same thing "Never go to bed angry". I know the same thing doesn't work for every couple but I can't help thinking that their advice might be worth something in the end.
BTW, any newlyweds out there who haven't had children yet, just wait. The most intense arguements we've ever had are about child-related issues! And then you HAVE to wait until nighttime to duke it out!
32I don't think there are any hard and fast "rules" for marriage. I agree that anything can happen at any time so your marriage doesn't have to follow a particular pattern to be A OK. I've only been married for a little over a month but we have been together for 12 years on and off. Sometimes we go to bed angry or he does because I can't sleep and just keep getting more angry, or sometimes we kiss and make up. We don't have everything in common but that helps because we balance each other in the most awesome ways. I don't foresee a time that we won't be madly in love and have a hard time keeping our hands off each other but hey that's love. And I totally think that if you marry the right person time doesn't make you grow apart it finds ways to help cement your relationship even more. I know an awful lot about my husband but the longer I'm around him the more I find out. It's kind of like a treasure hunt and it's the best thing in my life ever !
33I agree with the user above- there are no guidelines for the perfect marriage. If there were, there wouldn't be any divorces any more.
But people are different and so are couples. That 6-second-kiss might work for some people but not for everyone. If I'm really angry, I definitely don't want to kiss my boyfriend ( and really, counting time while doing so? Really?? How very romantic.). I want to make sure that we will talk about it the next day- just a short indication to show we still care for each other even if we're angry.
34I agree with most of the myths, except we don't go to bed angry. We work out the problem and then fall asleep and the next day we don't bring it up.
35im sorry that i offended you im not around alot of newly weds. i just know that my husband and i have been married almost 3 years which still makes us in the honeymoon state and we've only had maybe 5 fights of importance. my exprience is you fight alot and i mean to the point you can keep track in a month then you shouldn't be togehter.
36Reinvention?
As long as it does not mean a flashy sportscar and trying to attract chicks half his age... or selling everything we own to move to Alaska, I am cool with it.
Luckily, midlife is a while away and there aren't any reinventions anticipated anywhere close to the near future.
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