Will you please? That’s just one key phrase that, when adopted, can improve a relationship. Making a request to a spouse framed as a question rather than a barked command can create closeness and a willingness to lean in, according to Randy Schroeder, Ph.D., pastor, counselor and author. He recommends this and other small habit changes in his three-time national award-winning book, Simple Habits for Marital Happiness, published in 2020.

Dr. Randy has counseled more than 2000 couples to a happier marriage after spending 25 years as a professor teaching pastors counseling techniques at Concordia Theological Seminary. He also wrote the two-time national award-winning Christian parenting book, Simple Habits for Effective Parenting, and has been a popular guest on Focus on the Family’s radio broadcast multiple times. His Focus on the Family interview about marriage has been named one of their highest rated programs of 2022.

“Everyone wants a happy marriage,” Dr. Randy explained. But after spending 30 years in marriage and family counseling, he believes only approximately 20% of couples are enjoying a marriage that’s rewarding.

Dr. Randy has found habits determine the quality of life and relationships. Unhealthy habits lead to unhappy marriages. The antidote: correct habits and change actions for the better.

“Couples want to be happy – why aren’t they?” he asked. “They lack knowledge. Motivation is not sufficient. I believe an absence of knowledge and skills, not a lack of desire, is what holds people back from accomplishing their individual, marriage, parenting, and relationship goals.”

He believes the disconnect starts with expectations. Before marriage, couples meet each other’s expectations. Their goal is to make each other happy. They spend time together, talking, listening, touching, maintaining eye contact. But after two or three years, they stop expressing and requesting their expectations, and they stop giving lingering hugs and kisses, Dr. Randy explained.

“Complacency is the dreaded disease of every marriage.” Dr. Randy recommends couples give each other a 10-second kiss and 10-second hug every day. In the Bible, when people were greeted with a kiss, it showed a person’s esteem. When Jesus healed people, he touched them twenty-two times. “He could have healed them without touch, but he showed us how important touch is,” Dr. Randy said.

He also touts creating a habit of talking together, face to face, with no phones or television, to stay emotionally connected – even if it is just 10 minutes a day.

“When you are dating, you look into each other’s eyes and talk. Eyes are the windows into each other’s hearts. After marriage, you stop looking into each other’s eyes and having meaningful conversations. Couples are like trains passing in the night – not looking into each other’s eyes and not connecting.”

One of Dr. Randy’s gifts is the ability to explain concepts using everyday metaphors and easy-to-remember principles. In Simple Habits for Marital Happiness, he offers 90 practical habits organized under seven broader themes.

 “Unlike many other marriage books that only speak in generalities and abstract concepts, this one offers Concrete Actions, Specific Words, and Clear Guidelines that demonstrate marital love and build a satisfying, happy relationship,” As described on Amazon.

“The implementation of just one simple effective habit often makes the difference between happiness and ongoing frustration. These straightforward, easy-to-understand effective habits will help you learn how to:

• Apologize and forgive

• Stay in love after the honeymoon

• Communicate effectively with your spouse

• Safeguard your oneness

• Maintain emotional and physical closeness

• Disagree without hurting your relationship

• Budget, save, and spend together

Dr. Randy offers a free study guide on his website, DrRandySchroeder.com, to complement the book that equips churches, groups and mentors, in addition to individual couples, to further apply the content.

One of his top recommendations for couples is that they develop Guidelines for Disagreements, a safeguard he’s found the vast majority of couples lack. Every couple is going to disagree at times, he noted. “How you handle that disagreement is what makes the difference.”

Two disagreement guidelines in particular have proven extremely effective in helping couples improve their marriages.

• Agree that you will not have your disagreement discussion before 9 a.m. or after 9 p.m. “You need to have energy to find solutions. When you are not fully awake or tired, you are not going to be looking for solutions, you are going to look for blame,” he said.

• Always be seated when having a disagreement discussion. (Dr. Randy is not fond of the term conflict resolution, because he feels it has a negative connotation.) “Standing is an intimidating posture,” he added. “Just knowing to be seated and to stay inside the 9’s when you have a disagreement discussion has saved couples from a lot of heartaches.”

He noted these are two original habits he developed by observing couples in his counseling practice that he hasn’t seen widely shared elsewhere.

Another habit to cultivate – banish sarcasm. The Greek translation of the word itself means tearing of flesh, Dr. Randy noted. “We don’t want to tear our spouse’s flesh (or that of our children.) Ninety percent of sarcasm is hurtful. It’s like an emotional slap to your spouse’s face. And it can cause children to have low self-worth.”

Avoid interrupting each other, another damaging habit couples often don’t even notice. And stop criticizing. “Gentle words create life,” he said, while griping brings discouragement. Sometimes he asks couples to commit to refraining from the C’s (correct, criticize and condemn) for a week or longer. “It’s amazing how quickly that can change a marriage,” he said.

An accompanying behavior – develop a practice of apology and forgiveness. “If couples don’t know how to apologize and what it means to forgive, they struggle.”

In the chapter on avoiding potential problems, Dr. Randy cautions against opposite-sex friendships that can lead to emotional entanglements.

Finances are another area that can cause discord. His recommendation: Disclose, Discuss, and Decide expenditures together, budgeting for saving and expenses.  He sees couples today spending more money than they realized on kids’ travel, sports and fast-food meals.

“Write down every purchase for a month, and especially if you’re stressed financially. You’ll see where the money is going. It creates trust in a marriage when you can see what each is spending money on. There are no secrets.”

Speaking of secrets, couples should keep no secrets from each other – financial or technology.

Don’t let in-laws come before the marriage. Leave and cleave, and don’t vent about your spouse to your parents. His rule of thumb for in-law relationships: CPR — be Courteous, Polite, and Respectful. Sometimes family relationships grow into love, but not always. When there’s an issue, the natural child should break the news to his/her parents.

Lastly, always look for ways to improve, both individually and as a couple, to keep the marriage growing. What does a happily married couple look like? One that has learned and put into practice Dr. Randy’s Simple Habits.

Will you please? find more at DrRandySchroeder.com.