Rules to a Successful Second Marriage
Build a Culture of Appreciation, Respect, and Tolerance
The highest needs of men and women are respect and security. You should always be feeding into these needs by practicing appreciation, respect, and tolerance. It's important to learn from each other without bringing your past into the relationship.
Practice Being Vulnerable
Open up to your partner and let them get to know who you are. When you feel a certain way, tell them as you feel them versus holding onto them and keeping quiet. The pace that a person reveals themselves can be fast or slow, and you have to let it flow that way to build a better connection. Even if it's embarrassing or you feel like you'll be judged, it's still better to open up and unload those feelings, which then helps your partner better understand why you do what you do.
Create Time and a Relaxed Atmosphere
Make each other a priority. Carve out time where you both can communicate and talk without fear of judgment, embarrassment, or anger. Those are the moments where you truly get to know a person.
Discuss Expectations to Avoid Misunderstandings
It's crucial to understand what you expect from your partner and what your partner expects from you because this will be the foundation of how you run your marriage. Be clear on what you expect each other to bring to the table, even if you're already married. This means not just stating your expectations but also making sure that your partner is able to understand and fulfil them. If your partner can't, then you may be with the wrong person.
Prepare for Conflict
Two minds that believe they're right will create opposition. With that, you must be ready for arguments or other forms of conflict. This is natural, but it's not natural to always be in conflict. It's critical to understand that you can't change a person as much as you may want to, especially in a second marriage. This is why you must know if the person you want to marry is right for you, otherwise, you're potentially setting yourself up for an unhealthy, argumentative relationship.
Communicate Effectively
The art of communication is hard and this can change over time in a relationship. You'll need to evolve with it as you learn and grow with the other person and understand each other better. Another key part of communicating is owning how you feel by saying "I feel…" rather than "You make me feel…"
Embrace Being a Step-Parent
This is huge because lots of people who get into second marriages already have kids. With those kids comes their other parent, aka the ex. In an ideal situation, your spouse and their ex are on good terms and co-parenting well. You want to make sure that, as you join in on the co-parenting, you also have a good relationship with that ex because you'll likely be taking care of their kids at some point. You want to ease their mind by knowing that you'll take care of their child as if they were your own, and it's important to discuss expectations about discipline, parenting methods, etc.
Attune to Your Partner
You have to lock in and communicate with your partner. Be mindful of your words and how you communicate as it should be in a manner that's helpful, not insulting or negative.
Establish an Open Dialogue
As you go into a second marriage, be willing to have moments where you can be open, transparent, and real. You don't have to bottle things up. Make sure you deal with things on the spot, meaning talking about something that happened on the same day rather than holding it back. You don't want to harbor feelings until you explode at your boiling point.
Practice Forgiveness
You have to master confession and forgiveness. You'll mess up and say things wrong – and your spouse will do the same thing. The key to forgiveness in marriage is not bringing it up every time you get upset with the person. True forgiveness in a healthy relationship means dropping that weight and letting go of negative thoughts. Forgiveness is not forgetting, it's choosing not to keep bringing it up.
