Valentine’s Day is the day designated to love and honor the person you are in a relationship with. In most cases, it’s too little too late as a card, some flowers and chocolate won’t have a long lasting impact on your happiness.  It might give you a good day, but long term, you need more.  To really honor the person you love, it takes a lot of work every single day. Here’s my advice for a happy marriage or ongoing relationship with a significant other. Most of it was learned the hard way, but all of it has been learned. Hope this helps you enjoy the person you are spending your life with!

1. Make a list of everything you like about your spouse. Be very specific. Doing this will remind you of the person you originally fell in love with.

2. Commit to telling your spouse one of the things from the list every day. You will be amazed at the effect this will have on your relationship. Bonus: When you tell someone something you really like about them, you will see more of that behavior: a win/win!

3. Make another list of everything you don’t like about your spouse. Then throw it away. You can’t do much about it anyway, so don’t drive yourself crazy focusing on what you don’t like.  Besides, you have your issues too!

4. Leave your spouse little notes telling them how much you love them. Keep it private; facebook is not the place to slobber over each other!

5. Laugh together often. Laughter can break down many barriers, ease the tension and reduce a lot of the stress of living with each other.

6. Go more than halfway. That old saying “I’ll meet you halfway” may work when negotiating a business deal, but it won’t work in a marriage.  You have to go as far as it takes and then some. Sometimes you have to go 100% of the way because they aren’t budging.

7. Become a better listener. Hey guys, you suck at this. Women want to be listened to. Guys want to be listened to as well, but it seems more important to women. So put down the remote or the gadget and look the other person in the eye and just listen for a few minutes.

8. Hug more. Gripe less.

9. Fight fair. Keep the fight/argument/disagreement about the issue and don’t make it personal. When you attack on a personal level, the fight is no longer a fair fight. Keep it about the matter at hand and don’t dredge up ancient history that has nothing to do with what’s going on right now. A fair fight about differing opinions regarding the relationship, money, kids and other things is a good thing. Couples who claim they never fight are either liars or don’t love each other enough or trust the relationship enough to express themselves.

10. Have lots of sex. When the sex wanes, the intimacy will usually follow suit. (A heavy dose of reality for women: Men are pigs. (Sorry guys, but you know it’s true!) Have sex with us and we will do whatever you want. We will talk, listen, carry out the trash, wash the dishes or anything else your little heart desires. Men want sex, a sandwich and a little sleep. We are uncomplicated in that way. Most of the time, we can skip the sleep and we don’t care that much about the sandwich either.)

11. Look good and smell good for your spouse. Take a shower before you go to bed. No one wants to snuggle up next to a goat.

12. Don’t put so much effort into raising your kids that you neglect your relationship with your spouse. Raising kids is the most important thing you will ever do in your life and you owe them your best, but there will come a time when the kids will be grown and will hopefully go away and you will be left looking at the person you are married to. Make sure that person hasn’t become a stranger.

13. For the men: Put the seat down.

This is an excerpt from my New York Times Bestseller, “People Are Idiots And I Can Prove It: The 10 Ways You Are Sabotaging Yourself and How You Can Overcome Them.”      If you want more action lists on dozens of topics plus learn how to stop sabotaging your life, your money and your business, go to my website store and order your autographed copy today!