I'm mainly talking to me, but perhaps what I've learned could help others as well. This is advice I've gathered and read about from different marriage blogs and columns.
1. Make time for alone time and date night.
Make sure when baby is napping, or get a babysitter in order to have enough bonding and alone time with your husband. Spend every moment you can get alone and love on him.
2. Set boundaries with your parents.
I personally don't have an issue of my parents dropping in, cleaning my house, micro-managing how I raise my child, because my parents live an hour and a half away from us and we hardly see them, but I do need to work on not complaining to my parents about my husband. Sometimes, I do that. I call them up to complain about him. It's almost like telling on him. Sometimes, I do it in front of his face, like he's in trouble. I know this is damaging to my marriage, and I need to stop it.
3. Do Not emasculate your husband to anyone!!
When I was single, I used to work with a bunch of married women, and all they ever did was talk smack about their husbands. Some of them hated their husbands so much, I was really afraid to ever get married after listening to some of their stories. I'll add that most of them are divorced now. It would really hurt my feelings, if I knew my husband was talking nastily about me to anyone, and I need to remember that the next I feel the need to trash him to my friends, co-workers, or friends. Not only that, but don't emasculate him to him. Don't belittle his profession, or his friends, or his hobbies. Build him up in every way possible. Tell him how proud you are of him. I hate it when my husband speaks to me like I'm a child. I want to strive to never talk to him in this manner. The fact of the matter is he is not doing things wrong. ( I want to also strive to stay away from the word, "wrong", but he just does things differently than me. We need to look it over, talk it over, and figure out the most efficient way to do it. When you continue to belittle people you drive them to have zero respect for you.
4. Fight the right way
There is a right way to fight? Apparently. My husband and I are both very blunt, so we tend to not have a problem with bottling things up until we explode, but I know a lot of non-confrontational people like this. Instead, we stand on the side of blowing up over little things, which is not exactly the correct approach either. We both become very scary people, and no one, especially not my baby, needs to see that. When fighting:
A. Do not fight in front of your children, if possible.
We need to set an example for our children. They need to know that it is not acceptable to fight in an exploding manner, or in front of other people.
B. Do not fight in public
First of all, it is very awkward and uncomfortable for the people who are witnessing this. This is embarrassing for the both of you. Let go of the issue until you are alone. This will be better, because it gives you some time to calm down and think it over anyway.
C.Don't be overly dramatic
Like I said, when I get extremely frustrated, I tend to blow up. Try to stay as even headed as possible. I have a bad attitude sometimes. I'm not going to lie. One day, my husband was trying to teach me the proper way to clean something, and I didn't want to do it or hear it, but when I changed my attitude, and decided to be humble and teachable, I realized that he was right, and doing it his way was less time consuming, and more efficient. Just because you are equals, doesn't mean you can't teach each other things.
D. Never bring up things from the past.
Those things already happened. They are done. Over. They are never going to help your current situation. Forgive, and try to forget. Let it go. Do not use it as current ammunition.
E. Don't try to hurt your partner intentionally because you are angry
It's easy to hit below the belt. Words hurt. They are not easily forgotten. You know what buttons to push to send your spouse over the edge. Throw those buttons out with the garbage.
F. Learn from each fight
Stop fighting for the sake of fighting. Take the opportunity to learn something about how to make each other happy. One time when my husband and I were fighting, I said, "You never listen to me!" He said, "Okay, I'm here. I'm listening. I love you. I care about your feelings." I told him my feelings on the matter. He told me his version of how it should be done and why he couldn't understand me. I told him, "Look, we are different people. We think differently." You can learn from your spouse. You can learn to see things from his/her perspective. Take the time to rebuild, rekindle, relate, love, and compromise. And please, for the love of everything, do not bash your spouse behind their back. That is the most hurtful thing you can do.
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