Patience is an indispensable virtue in marriage. It makes it possible for spouses to maintain composure and restrain themselves from getting angry or frustrated when things do not go their way. It also enables them to live together in relative peace and enjoy a happy marriage without constant strife.

How Patient Are You?

Here are a few questions to help you find out how patient you are.

• Do you have the ability to wait or tolerate delay without getting annoyed?”
• Are you able to stay calm while being provoked?
• Are you able to differentiate between situations that need to be changed and those that need to be tolerated?

If you want to truly enjoy the benefits of marriage, you need to try and get to a point where you can answer “yes” to the above three questions – at the very least.

How to be More Patient with Your Spouse

Evaluate your marriage and identify past situations where you have been impatient with your partner. This will enable you to recognize similar situations in the future so that you can make an effort to employ patience.

Don’t focus on what you feel should happen. Doing so will only leave you with unfulfilled expectations which can turn into impatience. Acknowledge that life is unpredictable and outside your control – for the most part. This way, you won’t be too disappointed if things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to.

Realize that it’s not all about you. While, it feels good that have everything go according to your plan, you need to realize that a healthy and happy marriage involves the perspectives of two people. Your perspective and plans are only half of the equation so treat them as such.

Keep reminding yourself that impatience won’t change the situation. This will discourage you from being impatient and help you to break any negative patterns of impatience that you might have. After all, why would want to spend time and energy being impatient when you know it is not going to change anything? It’s much better to focus on the solution.

In addition to being patient with your spouse, you need to be patient with the marriage itself. All marriages go through several stages of growth and not all of them are exciting. Therefore, your marriage won’t always be where you want it to be. Sometimes you’ll feel bored and disillusioned and other times you’ll feel ecstatic. With patience, you can work through the difficult stages / marital problems towards a happy marriage.