Val McKinley––Create your own happily ever after

Seven Secrets for nurturing a relationship that you want to live in 

By Val McKinley for North Valley Magazine

After 23 years of marriage, I divorced, and was later fortunate to fall in love with my current husband. We each brought two teenaged children to the marriage. Life was filled with much joy. After several months, reality set in, and I began to realize that my first marriage had started out as lovingly and full of promise as my current one. This time around I was determined to learn from my mistakes and “do” marriage differently. At the time, I sensed that happy long-term relationships must share certain common traits and I was determined to discover what these were.

The following are my top seven tips for nurturing a relationship that you want to live in. This list was created after extensively researching the relationship literature, interviewing happy couples who have been together at least twenty years, and personal experience.

1) Express your love daily. Small acts such as a kind word, a good deed, a long kiss, a warm embrace, or quickly repairing hurt feelings can do wonders.

2) In an honest, respectful, and timely fashion, share what’s on your mind.  Tell each other what you want, need, and feel so that the other person knows who you are and where you’re coming from.

3) Choose to love.  When you do, you will be able to be more responsive than reactive and more positive than negative.

4) Create daily couple time to share your day.  This is one of the greatest gifts you can give each other.

5) Laugh with your partner! Humor keeps things in perspective and makes life more fun.

6) Read The Heart of the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  In order for your partner to hear and feel your love, you have to communicate with them in their language.

7) Weekly, ask each other-on a scale of 1 to 5  if they feel loved.  If the answer is 4 or less, ask your partner to suggest something you could do for them over the following week.

About Val McKinley

As a Scottsdale resident, I would love to be a Team North columnist, sharing my expertise about Relationships. My passion is educating and supporting happy, healthy family relationships through my business, Prioritize Relationships. Teaching dyslexic students is also a passion of mine and I am a Certified Barton Reading and Spelling tutor. Currently, I am employed full-time as a Speech and Language Pathologist with the Paradise Valley Unified School District.  I hold a certificate as a mediator, and am a Certified Gottman educator. I am a wife and mother of four grown children and one grandchild who just recently celebrated my 60^th birthday.