How to fix your spouse: Thoughts on how to have a happy, enduring marriage

How to fix your spouse: Thoughts on how to have a happy, enduring marriage#

Dear friends,

If it isn’t obvious, the title is not entirely serious. I’ve told a lot of people over the years, “in this life, if you work hard and are lucky, there’s exactly one person you can hope to fix or improve … and it’s you.” But it’s so much easier for us to see someone else’s problems, I figured “how to fix your spouse” would draw people’s attention faster than “how to put in the work required to build a happier marriage.”

Herein you’ll find some thoughts I’ve collected over the years from my work in the clinic, from my ecclesiastical service, and from my own marriage. I’m hoping they’ll be helpful, but every marriage is different, and I never got my omniscience badge, so feel free to ignore any advice that doesn’t seem to apply to you.

This book is meant to be a work in progress, in which I further fill out the (short) chapters over time. To get the main points, you can skip to the chapter “Quick summary of How to Fix Your Spouse.”

Immense thanks but no responsibility for the contents go to my dad, a model of a loving husband; to my mom, who was a marriage and family counselor; to my wife, an amazing woman who is largely the inspiration for my belief that marriage can bring you more joy than you ever imagined even when you were a starstruck newlywed; and to my faith, which teaches that marriage is essential to God’s eternal plan for us.1

God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them.

—Genesis 5:1-2

Kevin J. Black
Crestwood, Missouri
06 May 2023

Acknowledgments

Built with Jupyter Book. The wedding rings icon is from The Noun Project under a CC-BY license.

Thanks to my colleagues Drs. Annelise Bederman and Can Mişel Kılçıksız, whose wedding prompted me finally to set (digital) ink to paper. Thanks to Dr. Jake Henderson for a thoughtful comment that motivated the “different strokes” chapter.

The ideas here are not necessarily endorsed or approved by my employer, my family or my church.

1: The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng, accessed 08 May 2023.