When my husband and I were dating, I was convinced I would be an award-winning wife.
I mean, I saw myself as someone who would totally kill it in marriage.
Color me surprised when we got married; things weren’t exactly how I pictured them.
Slowly and painfully, I began to come face to face with certain habits that I had that were making my marriage unpeaceful.
It takes two to tango.
Most of the time, when we say this, we mean that the other person should be more active or do more in the relationship.
But sometimes, it should make you look inward.
When I recognized these habits and set out to change them, our marriage experienced a positive shift.
It became more peaceful and healthy, and the tranquility we now enjoy makes me wish I dropped these habits earlier.
Some habits are detrimental to a healthy marriage, and in this article, I’ll share the ones I had to give up for my marriage to be more peaceful.
11 Habits I Stopped To Make Our Marriage More Peaceful
1. Nagging
Before you squeeze your nose in disgust or judge me, let me tell you that I also used to do so at the thought of nagging.
I hated the idea of nagging and never thought I could ever become a nagging wife.
But with little differences here and there between my husband and I and my failure to learn how to communicate effectively, I soon became a nagging wife.
I would go on and on about something I didn’t like, even when my husband had heard me and didn’t need the reminder.
I didn’t understand that constant complaining was creating unnecessary tension which was disrupting the peace in our marriage.
Nagging also goes hand in glove with being overly critical.
I remember spending the weekend with one of my aunts when I was younger and saying I never wanted to be anything like her.
She always had something to complain about with her husband and children, and I saw the negative atmosphere it created.
Thankfully, I was able to catch and stop myself from replicating the same toxic habit of frequent blaming and complaining.
Nagging, harsh criticism, and pointing out your partner’s flaws and mistakes are fast ways to strain your relationship.
It can erode your partner’s self-esteem and make your relationship hostile and cold.
When I decided to rebrand and started repackaging my reservations as constructive feedback laced with empathy and kindness, that was the game changer.
Instead of fault-finding, I now communicate my concerns respectfully and constructively, and the natural result I saw was that we focused on finding solutions together.
2. Expecting my husband to read my mind
Ladies, you know that thing we do where we keep things in our minds and expect our men to somehow figure it out?
Yeah, it’s time to get rid of that habit.
I would keep my feelings bottled up and refuse to talk about them, but I still expected my husband to somehow know what I was feeling.
No be juju be that? (Wouldn’t that be magic?)
My husband is not a magician, so expecting him to read my mind was unrealistic.
I thought it was a good way to avoid nagging, but it wasn’t.
It was equally as dangerous to my marriage as nagging was.
The actual cure to that was being more open and learning to communicate.
When people tell you that communication is the live wire in every marriage, you better believe them.
I stopped avoiding important conversations or bottling my feelings and started being more vocal.
That made it easy for my husband to understand me, apologize, and make adjustments where necessary.
3. Being volatile
To be fair, sometimes it was my hormones because it was that time of the month.
But other times, I was just in my feelings for no reason.
I would read deep meanings into every little action or word from my husband and pick a fight over little things.
I was being overly defensive and reactive, and it didn’t help our marriage at all.
All it did was escalate conflicts between my husband and me and I could see how miserable it made my man.
I had to learn to be more calm, less controlled by my emotions, and more open to seeing his perspective.
Letting go of being always sensitive and volatile wasn’t easy, but it was so worth it.
4. Comparing my marriage with other people’s
This is the number one killer of peace in many marriages, and I’m glad I kicked it out before it damaged my marriage.
The urge to compare your life, achievements, or marriage with others around you or even people on social media is human, but it has to be controlled.
The marriages around me and the make-believe social media marriage content I was watching were subtly getting into my mind and influencing my perception and expectations of my marriage.
I began comparing my marriage with other people’s, and it led to a lot of dissatisfaction.
It wasn’t until I chose to focus on us, our growth, and our unique journey that I began to experience a lot of peace.
5. Depending on my husband for my happiness
Marriage is supposed to make you better than you were.
Happier, more satisfied, and more fulfilled, but it wasn’t designed to be your sole source of happiness.
I didn’t understand this before.
So, I would lay the burden of the responsibility for my happiness on my husband.
I mean, he married me, so one of his main life’s pursuits should be making and keeping me happy. Lol!
I wasn’t completely wrong, but I wasn’t right either.
When you rely too much on your partner for your happiness and fulfillment, you are likely to be disappointed, and this may also hurt the marriage.
My husband loves me and always goes above and beyond to make me happy, but he’s only human; he can have his moments, too, or not meet my expectations on some days.
I needed to understand that that was okay.
I stopped being overly dependent on my man and started embracing a good level of Independence, maintaining my interests and taking care of myself.
I started attending to my well-being physically, emotionally, and mentally, and it changed our marriage radically.
6. Thinking like a victim
People who have a victim’s mindset hardly ever make progress or maintain meaningful relationships.
They always think someone is out to get them or people are willfully being mean to them.
It’s possible to have a victim’s mindset in your marriage; I know because I’ve been there.
Maybe it was from a place of not wanting to be accountable.
Or from a place of trauma, but I would always feel sad and attacked when my husband talked to me about something I wasn’t doing right.
I also responded the same way when he made any mistake: I would immediately begin to imagine wild things, remember his past wrongs, and question his love for me.
If I hadn’t nip it in the bud, this habit would have affected my life negatively, not only my marriage.
I had to stop seeing my husband as an enemy and remind myself that I married this man because he loves me, takes care of me, wants the best for me, and does his best for me, too.
If he makes mistakes, he’s only human, and if he calls out my wrongdoing, it’s because he wants us to be better.
He’s not my enemy, and I’m not a victim.
This doesn’t mean I’ll turn a blind eye to red flags or toxic traits if they do come up.
But it means I’ll be less judgmental and critical, giving him grace because he’s only human, too.
When I began to think like this, everything changed.
7. Avoiding responsibility
I used to be bad at being accountable and taking responsibility.
And this wasn’t because I was intentionally trying to be problematic; I just happened always to have a “genuine” reason or excuse for why I did certain things even though they ended up not being good.
But doing that not only frustrated my husband, but it also made our marriage difficult.
Thankfully, I grew and saw the maturity in owning up to mistakes and working towards resolving them.
8. Prioritizing other things over my marriage
When I stopped prioritizing other things over our marriage, the peace increased.
It’s so easy to get distracted by everyday life’s demands and get sucked in, leaving your marriage to suffer.
I almost fell into that trap.
I was paying attention to everything else in my life but my marriage; I subconsciously just felt like the marriage would be fine and didn’t need much of my attention like the other demands.
But boy, was I wrong!
To keep your marriage strong, you have to prioritize it and not take your partner for granted.
Don’t dismiss or neglect their feelings and needs when they need emotional or physical intimacy.
This can quickly lead to feelings of isolation and resentment.
I made a U-turn and started paying more attention to my partner, making him feel heard and showing appreciation for his efforts and contributions.
This made us bond more and made our marriage way better than it used to be.
You should try it.
9. Playing “hard to get”
I didn’t immediately switch from dating to married in my head after our wedding.
For the first few weeks, I still acted like I was my man’s girlfriend and not his wife.
And that means that I wasn’t as open and relaxed as a wife should be.
I was still playing hard to get, withholding affection sometimes, and not being expressive during intimacy.
It was cute at first, but then it became annoying.
I had to tell myself, “Girl, relax. You’re married now. It’s okay to let your guard down and let him have his way with you whenever he wants to without feeling like you’re letting him get it too easily. Stop going out of your way to be firm or prim and proper all the time, and just enjoy your husband.”
Then, I began to express love and affection more frequently.
This made a huge difference.
I hadn’t realized earlier that my actions created feelings of neglect in my husband and distance in the marriage.
10. Micromanaging
When my husband and I returned from an event last night, he left his shoe on the shoe rack facing a different direction from the other shoes.
I saw it and looked away because I genuinely didn’t care.
This is the same me who would have complained and schooled him months before because I want things to appear prim and proper and because I’m somewhat of a perfectionist.
But I realized that micromanaging my husband wasn’t bringing peace.
It was beginning to look like I was a controlling wife, trying to influence his every action, word, and even thoughts.
He was very open to the feedback at first, but when it became excessive, he didn’t like it anymore.
I observed that I needed to respect his individuality and autonomy more.
We’re not the same person, and we don’t have to be.
This brought peace.
11. Shutting my mind to the idea of help
It’s just going to be “my husband and I,” no matter what, I resolved.
Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for it when you need help, especially from a third party that is experienced or a professional in marriage.
I used to dislike the idea of seeking help or seeing a counselor. I saw it like bringing someone else into my marriage, and I didn’t want that.
I didn’t realize that some situations in marriage can make seeing a therapist crucial.
When you seek help, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed in your marriage or that your marriage is not good; what it means is that you and your partner value what you have and are committed to making it work.
Marriage is about compromising and healthy adjustments.
When I became more flexible and made adjustments in my behaviors and habits, the effect on my marriage was undeniable.
My husband was working hard on our marriage, and I knew I needed to do the same.
These were the habits I let go of, which welcomed me to a more peaceful and fulfilling marriage.
You can use it as a checklist of things you need to work on.
Hopefully, yours are not as many as mine were.
But even if they are, the most important thing is recognizing them and doing better.