7: Don't Compare Yourself to Other Couples

This is #7 in a series of 40 things you can do to stay married for 40 years.

You have no idea what other couples have been through and may have little idea what they actually had to do to get to where they are. Every one of us has gotten that surprise news that a “golden” couple is getting divorced.

When you’ve been married over 40 years, you’ve seen a lot of other couples and been friends with a lot of other couples. If you see something good another couple is doing, that’s great. Like if a husband occasionally brings his wife flowers just because – that’s a nice gesture you might want to mimic. If you see something bad, like a wife belittling her husband in public, that’s something you might want to discuss and agree you don’t want to see in your marriage.

They say finances are the number one cause of divorce. If another couple appears to be living the good life while you’re struggling to make ends meet, just keep going. They may or may not have a “better” life than you. Hopefully they have done a good job with their finances and are getting along just fine. But maybe they’re in debt up to their eyeballs and lay awake at night wondering how they’re going to keep it up. Either way, it has nothing to do with you.

As we all know, social media is the devil. I know many people who have totally stepped away from it. If you can’t handle seeing photos of friends and family living their (social media) best life – step away.

At a bible study one time, one of the ladies said that if we all threw our troubles into the middle of the table, we’d more than likely grab our own troubles back. Don’t be trying to compare apples to tacos. They’re two completely different things.

p.s. I generated this image with AI, but none of the text.