Most married couples fall into two categories—satisfied or very satisfied with their marriage. The remaining minority of unhappy couples eventually becomes satisfied or very satisfied with their marriage or they end the marriage.

The early years of my marriage are vividly etched in my mind…the joy…conflicts…and determination to create a successful marriage relationship. We learned that there are seasons of immense joy as well as challenges to overcome in marriage. We believed in each other and in what our marriage could become. We were like 95% of married couples who encounter periods of unhappiness and with commitment and effort move back into a satisfied or very satisfied state in marriage.

In the absence of domestic violence and serious abuse, what is it that holds us back from coming to terms with low satisfaction in our relationships? Are we caught in the ebb and flow of routines that simply carry us from one day to the next? Or are we just too busy and tired to care? Perhaps happiness has been replaced by a more functional relationship.

David Popenoe’s Top Ten Myths of Marriage states that happiness in general has not increased in marriages, but has likely declined somewhat. The life span of a marriage hasn’t really changed much at all over the past fifty years. What has changed according to some studies is the amount of work-related stress, conflict, and the decreased interaction between married partners today compared to those of 20 to 30 years ago.

Typical work-related stressors that can impact marriage happiness include:

• The amount of time dedicated to work at the office or brought home
• The location of a job; the amount of travel involved in fulfilling one’s duties
• Control over the work schedule
• Degree of commitment to a job versus the marriage
• Attitudes about roles at home and division of labor

Clearly attitudes, beliefs, and communication play a significant role in resolving conflicts and other challenges that work-related stressors trigger. Sadly, it’s the lack of awareness of shifting attitudes and beliefs that can creep into a relationship and alter the mindset of the couple.

The good news is that a change in your degree of happiness offers a signal that something has shifted and needs your attention. It may be minor and temporary, or serious, demanding immediate attention, and a long-term plan of action. Whatever it is—until you deal with it you can’t move on to satisfied or very satisfied—which is where every couple wants to be. Happiness has its price. What’s it worth to you?

So, what about you? If you’re a married professional you should have one, or at least have one available to you. What else would you call a select group of truly marvelous, smart, and caring professional women gathered for the simple purpose of inspiring and strategically supporting each other’s “dreams” for their personal life at home?

I call it a dream team. Please don’t tell me you have no dreams for your home life! You wouldn’t dare tolerate such nonsense in your business or career. A career or business without strategic goals won’t accomplish much of anything worthwhile, and you know what–neither will a marriage. Our marriages need the fresh winds of aspiration to keep them alive and growing too. As professional women, we tend to be happiest when we’re in a place of fruitfulness. This fruitfulness can be easily seen in our attitudes about our marriage and family life…it really shows up there, doesn’t it?

Well, having a dream team helps us to cultivate the fruitfulness so essential to our happiness at home.

Happiness has become quite a paradox for so many of us, hasn’t it? As Matthew Kelly says, you and I know the things that make us happy. And yet, we don’t do those things.

Why? Because we’re just too busy. Here’s the real irony–we’re too busy trying to be happy!

If your marriage has taken a back seat to the demands of your career, your parenting, or anything else and you know it - but aren’t sure how to give it the priority and time it deserves on a daily basis - a dream team can provide inspiration and dunamis you need to rejuvenate your marriage, yourself, and your family life!

This month I am starting my Inspirare Mastermind Group. The name Inspirare, comes from the Latin meaning of the word inspire which means to breathe life into another.

Six professional women will join me in this private mastermind group to experience a re-invigoration of their marriage relationship, personal renewal, and to break through old habits, attitudes, and expectations that have held them back. The group will encourage, strategically support, challenge, and hold each other accountable to achieve their individual goals.

You can benefit from this if you want to unlock your potential to thrive by:

• Honestly assessing your relationship
• learning to communicate more collaboratively
• experiencing greater emotional intimacy
• dealing more effectively with personal and relational concerns
• caring for yourself and your partner more intentionally

If you are ready to love and be loved more deeply than ever before, this dream team’s for you! I invite you to start living a bigger, more satisfying reality in your marriage relationship now, before the rush of the holidays, before the end of the year… doesn’t that sound worthwhile?

You, your partner, and children are so worth it…

Contact me to discuss joining this dream team.

Note: There will be two mastermind groups consisting of a maximum of six participants per group. The first 6 people to sign up will receive a complimentary copy of New York Times Bestseller, Matthew Kelly’s inspiring book, The Rhythm of Life–an early Christmas gift for giving your relationship the priority it deserves!

In this week’s Interpersonally Speaking ezine featured article I talk about the reality of being unhappy in marriage. As I said in the article, this topic of unhappiness in marriage has been calling out to me for several months now.  Perhaps because of a growing observation of how little my favorite professional ezines and other publications address marriage dissatisfaction as an issue of concern for the professional woman.

In fact, I’ve noticed how little if ever the word marriage is even mentioned or spotlighted as an important part of the professional woman’s life. Yet, the word relationship and professional woman are often often intermingled. It’s as if there is something unacceptable about being professional and caring about your marriage…or even loving your married life.

Has it become acceptable to love your work, career, or your relationship, committed and otherwise–while even mentioning marriage as something valuable that contributes to a rich, full, and satisfying life–and is worth enriching has quietly become unacceptable? It seems that when marriage is mentioned it’s lost in lesser significant commentary about an unsuccessful marriage.  Here’s what’s really interesting. When successful women are interviewed well they offer a glimpse into a successful home life that provides the foundation for the success they enjoy professionally.

The real tragedy is that too many professional women are excelling in their career while secretly suffering in their most significant relationship at home–their marriage.

If as professional women we can:

• reign in pride for the sake of listening to opposing views in the interest of finding solutions
• set aside the resources and incorporate the time needed to plan properly
• assess and address areas of weakness
• take risks for clearly defined reasons
• persist
• surround ourselves with people who support, inspire, and challenge us
• be aggressive in the pursuit of that we deem worthy of us

What would become of the unhappiness that plagues too many of us if we took this mindset on for the good of our marriage? Sustainability in marriage could go a long, long way with just a tad bit of the genius that propels us forward successfully in our professions…

What do you think?

Are you presently unhappy in marriage? Do you have a plan for long-term sustainability in your marriage? You can. Be intentional about your happiness and your marriage! Get a plan. You, your partner, and your marriage deserves nothing short of that. My new exclusive Excellence in Marriage coaching group for professional women starts up in early November. I’m running two and each is limited to just six participants. See if this is for you. Here are the details.

I believe in you and your marriage…

I don’t recall where I heard this, but I absolutely love everything it implies. And, I think its relevant to couples in marriage. Someone once told me or I read it somewhere that the desire to please God pleases God. Can you imagine how that could positively impact how couples relate to each other if that attitude became the norm?

It’s not hard to imagine when it comes to our children. Just recently my eight-year-old son slipped into the kitchen and began “cleaning” a few dishes there in the sink. After a few moments he walked over to the table where I sat working on my laptop.

Smiling down at me he held up a small sauce-pot lid and proudly announced, “Mom, look at how clean I got this!”

I smiled back up at him and gave a nod of approval. Unfazed by my lack of enthusiasm, he disappeared back into the kitchen and continued his effort to “clean up the kitchen.” About a half hour later my husband walked into the kitchen and exclaimed, “What on earth are you doing?!” Our son had completely emptied out a bottle of dish soap and had begun to empty out a second bottle. Soap suds were everywhere. Water had been trickling off the counter-top onto to the floor in a slow steady stream…you get the picture.

My son’s desire had been to please us by cleaning up the kitchen…in the process he’d created a sizable mess to clean up. His intention was clear. He wanted to help. I applauded him for his generosity, hugged and kissed him for making a gift of himself in this way, then cleaned up the mess together with him.

How many times do we endeavor to do things for each other to make life easier, sweeter…only to have a response that doesn’t even acknowledge our desire in the effort? For example, you have a situation that has been worrying you a bit, and your partner inquires about what’s on your mind. You sit down and explain. It doesn’t take you long to realize that he doesn’t understand you. In fact, he may even react to what he heard you say. You become frustrated and walk away feeling like it was a waste of time. Not once considering his attempt to make a gift of himself to you through his offer to listen.

He didn’t understand. He reacted. His reaction became more noticeable than his desire to be there with you listening. Do you see how the desire to please can be disregarded? If it had been acknowledged the outcome for both involved could have been much better. In fact, there would have been a connection.

Think about it.

How often do you acknowledge the intentions of your partner?

 Gatekeeping, the catch word describing the behavior that determines or heavily influences the degree to which one spouse allows another to participate in activities such as child care, managing the finances, and even household chores can sometimes work against couples. Typically women are viewed as the gatekeepers in the home.

Interestingly, attitudes and actions of men and women in marriage are the factors that determine whether they are able to work well together as partners in parenting, managing a household, and of course in marriage.

It’s a repeating theme. Our actions and attitudes determine the outcome and results we get with each other. Take this gatekeeping activity, for example. What attitudes are being displayed by a woman toward her partner’s efforts to care for their children, clean their home, and manage their finances? And, what are those of the man toward her efforts? 

What “appears” as lazy may actually be resentment, anger, helplessness, and flat out resignation…all of this, goes right back to attitudes and actions…think about it. What do you think?

World-renowned anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson shared some interesting tidbits in the latest issue of Pink magazine for the executive woman on being proactive that I think are just as applicable in the world of personal relationships. And I think it’s a worthwhile comparison.

Speaking of how executive women need to prove themselves proactive as leaders, she explains educating yourself as a key part of the process:

“…While you’re finding out what works and what doesn’t and listening to what’s on people’s minds, you’re educating yourself and making a major contribution to morale…take your need to learn seriously and find the resources to help you.”

This is exactly what we do to understand what is working in our marriage, what no longer works, and what we think about what’s going on and where we are. Staying tuned in to what happens between us means we need to be proactive–and willing and open–to learning more about our self, our partner, and the relationship.

It’s never easy to open ourselves to the scrutiny of others or to otherwise make ourselves vulnerable.

And yet, this path of humility is the only way to having the genuine relationships we desire. If we aren’t proactive about our marriage we could very easily begin to see some signs of wear and tear on “morale”.

Here’s the main thing I wanted to say about this idea of being proactive in marriage–as professional women we’re often focused and proactive in our work life; what is it that keeps us from being the same way in our most important work, the work of cultivating great relationships at home? If we are willing to use our proclivity toward excellence at work at home we will gain more and more of what we truly want in personal relationships:

1. understanding
2. respect
3. to be known and loved
4. and, a great sense of well-being

I’d say each of these makes the effort more than worthwhile!

You might want to think twice about allowing important and unresolved issues between you to just “float”. Floating is defined in Talking and Listening Together (the Couple Communication workbook) simply as endless talk and no action. Couples talk about their concerns, problems, and needs without ever taking action to address them. 

Although in every marriage there are times when couples float, healthier marriages don’t engage in it to the point where it becomes a pattern  or habitual response to their issues. Floating multiplies the misery in a vulnerable and unhappy marriage because it simply doesn’t work. What does work is taking courage and working on issues as they arise.

In his article, Marriage Matters: Marriage the Wonder Drug, James Burg, Ph.D., associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue, together with his wife and freelancer, Audora Burg, cite researcher John Gottman’s findings about the power of working on a marriage as follows:

…an unhappy marriage can increase the chances of illness by 35 percent, but that working on a marriage every day does more to promote health and longevity than working out at a health club.

With all that we do today to promote personal health and well-being why is there not more talk about the power of a great marriage? I’d love to get your feedback on the quote. Do you float much at all in your marriage when it comes to tough and important issues, needs, concerns? Which issues do you find yourself most willing to float on?

Probably most important of all—how do you move through it?