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Friendship key element to happy marriage

"Happily married in the military" doesn't have to be an oxymoron.

One of our favorite relationship resources is "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" by John M. Gottman, Ph.D., who monitored more than 16,000 couples and studied what makes marriages successful. A major key: the quality of the friendship between the spouses. The more you know and understand about each other, the easier it is to keep connected when life swirls around you.

Here are a few tips:

1. Cultivate interests in common with your spouse. Della Elzie, a Marine spouse and mother of three, shared the plan she and her husband came up with early in their military life. With each new assignment, they take on a new activity together.

"We scuba'd in Cuba, tried golf in Hawaii and ran a marathon together in Virginia," she said.

2. Recognize the importance of fun. Terry Sovinski, a family and marriage counselor in Vilseck, Germany, said that many times a couple's problems are the result of a lack of shared fun.

Write down a list of the activities you enjoy doing as a couple -- or you'd enjoy doing if you had the time. Then, keep that list and pull one item off the list each month and do it.

3. Schedule regular date nights. "It seems crazy you have to consciously schedule in time to be together alone," said one wife, "but that's the reality. If you don't schedule it in your calendars, it doesn't happen!"

Gottman recommends a weekly date with your spouse. Army Chaplain (Maj.) Tom Cox, who conducts relationship workshops, modifies that for military couples.

"Of course, that would be ideal, but with op tempo today, once a month might be more realistic," he said.

Cox stressed the importance of choosing what you do on a date. Going to a movie doesn't really count because it means you don't get to talk to each other. But going to a movie to de-stress and laugh -- and then talking over coffee and dessert later -- does count.

So how do you continue to build and strengthen the friendship when you are dealing with a deployment? Marine spouse Brandy Wood said she loves to find fun relationship or interest quizzes in magazines and on the Internet. She e-mails them to her husband, takes them herself, and then they share and discuss their answers in letters, e-mails and on the phone, learning more about each other and deepening their friendship.

Google the words "relationship quizzes," and you'll find 10 pages of Web sites with one or more quizzes.

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Kathie Hightower and Holly Scherer are military spouses who have written articles and presented workshops based on their research and experience for more than 10 years. Send your questions and suggestions to marriedtomilitary@atpco.com.