3 Essential Ingredients for a Marriage That Lasts a Lifetime

When Sarah and Michael celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last year, their children asked them the secret to their lasting marriage. Sarah smiled and said, “We never stopped choosing each other.” Michael nodded and added, “Even on the days when it was hard.”

This simple exchange captures a profound truth about marriage: longevity isn’t about finding the perfect person or having a fairy-tale romance. It’s about consistently nurturing specific qualities that keep your bond strong through decades of change, challenge, and growth.

After working with hundreds of couples over the years and studying what separates marriages that thrive from those that merely survive, I’ve identified three essential ingredients that appear consistently in relationships that go the distance. These aren’t trendy relationship hacks or quick fixes.

They’re foundational principles that require ongoing attention, but the payoff is a partnership that deepens and enriches over time rather than fading into routine or resentment.

Let’s explore these three essential ingredients that can help your marriage not just last a lifetime, but flourish throughout that lifetime.

Ingredient #1: Deep, Intentional Communication

If I had to point to one factor that most reliably predicts marital success, it would be the quality of communication between partners. But here’s what many couples misunderstand: communication in a lasting marriage isn’t just about talking more or sharing every detail of your day. It’s about creating a specific type of connection through your conversations.

The Foundation: Emotional Safety

Before we can have truly deep communication, we need emotional safety. This means both partners feel secure enough to be vulnerable without fear of judgment, dismissal, or retaliation. When emotional safety exists, you can share your fears, dreams, insecurities, and needs without worrying that your partner will use that information against you or make you feel foolish.

Related Post: 6 Signs of a Healthy Marriage (Are You Checking All the Boxes?)

Consider Tom and Lisa, who came to me after 15 years of marriage feeling disconnected. Tom complained that Lisa never shared what was really bothering her. Lisa explained that years ago, when she’d opened up about feeling inadequate as a mother, Tom had responded with, “Well, maybe you should try harder.” That single moment of dismissiveness taught Lisa that sharing vulnerable feelings wasn’t safe. It took months of rebuilding trust before she could open up again.

Creating emotional safety requires several key practices:

Active Listening Without Fixing: When your partner shares something difficult, resist the urge to immediately solve the problem or minimize their feelings. Sometimes people need to be heard, not fixed. Try saying, “That sounds really hard. Tell me more about how you’re feeling.”

Validating Emotions: Even when you don’t agree with your partner’s perspective, you can validate their emotions. “I can see why you’d feel that way” goes a long way toward helping someone feel understood.

No Weaponizing Vulnerability: If your partner shares something personal, never use it against them in an argument. This is relationship poison and destroys trust faster than almost anything else.

Admitting When You’re Wrong: Emotional safety grows when both partners can say “I was wrong” or “I hurt you, and I’m sorry” without defensiveness.

Beyond Surface-Level: The Art of Deep Dialogue

Once you have emotional safety, you can develop the kind of communication that truly sustains a marriage over decades. This involves moving beyond logistics and small talk to regularly connect on a deeper level.

The Daily Check-In: Successful long-term couples often have some version of a daily ritual where they genuinely connect. This isn’t the “How was your day?” “Fine” exchange that happens on autopilot. It’s a dedicated time (even just 15-20 minutes) where you focus on each other without distractions.

Dr. John Gottman, whose research has tracked couples for over 40 years, calls this “turning toward” your partner. He found that couples who regularly make these small moments of connection are significantly more likely to stay happily married. The conversation might cover:

• Something that made you feel proud or accomplished today
• A challenge you’re facing and how you’re feeling about it
• Something you’re looking forward to
• A fear or worry on your mind
• Something you appreciate about your partner or your life together

Discussing Dreams and Values: Many marriages drift apart because partners stop sharing their evolving dreams, goals, and values. The person you married at 25 won’t be exactly the same person at 35, 45, or 65. Regular conversations about what matters to you, what you’re aspiring toward, and how you’re growing ensure you’re evolving together rather than apart.

I encourage couples to have quarterly “State of the Union” conversations where they discuss bigger-picture topics like:

• Are we heading in the direction we want to go?
• What do we want the next season of our life to look like?
• How can we better support each other’s individual goals?
• What needs to change in our relationship?

Conflict Communication: The Make-or-Break Skill: Every marriage has conflict. What matters is how you handle it. Couples in lasting marriages develop the ability to fight fair and resolve conflicts in ways that bring them closer rather than drive them apart.

Key principles for healthy conflict:

1. Address Issues When They’re Small: Don’t let resentments build. When something bothers you, bring it up respectfully before it becomes a huge issue.
2. Use “I” Statements: Instead of “You never help around the house,” try “I feel overwhelmed with the housework and I need more support.”
3. Avoid the Four Horsemen: Gottman’s research identified four communication patterns that predict divorce: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Learn to recognize and avoid these.
4. Take Breaks When Needed: If you’re too heated to communicate constructively, take a break. But be specific: “I need 20 minutes to calm down, then let’s talk.”
5. Seek to Understand Before Being Understood: Try to genuinely understand your partner’s perspective before pushing your own agenda.
6. Find the Underlying Need: Often what couples argue about (who does the dishes) isn’t the real issue. The real issue might be feeling unappreciated or overwhelmed. Address the deeper need.

The Technology Challenge

In today’s world, I’d be remiss not to address how technology impacts marital communication. Phones, tablets, and screens are relationship intruders that can prevent the kind of deep connection marriages need.

Set boundaries around technology:

• No phones during meals or dedicated couple time
• Don’t use your phone in bed (it kills intimacy and real conversation)
• Be fully present when your partner is talking to you
• Consider a weekly “digital detox” evening where screens are put away

The couples who thrive long-term protect their communication time jealously. They recognize that in a world full of distractions, choosing to truly focus on each other is an act of love.

Ingredient #2: Unwavering Commitment (Not Just Love)

Here’s a truth that modern culture often glosses over: feelings of romantic love naturally ebb and flow over the course of a marriage. There will be seasons when you feel intensely in love, and seasons when you feel more like roommates than soulmates. What carries you through the inevitable valleys is commitment.

Understanding True Commitment

Commitment in marriage isn’t just a promise you made on your wedding day. It’s an active choice you make repeatedly, sometimes daily, to prioritize your partnership even when it’s difficult or when your feelings aren’t particularly warm.

I often tell couples: “Love is what brings you together. Commitment is what keeps you together.”

Rachel, married for 32 years, put it beautifully: “There were years in our marriage where I didn’t like my husband very much. We were in survival mode with young kids, financial stress, and aging parents. But I was committed to our marriage, and I knew he was too. We kept showing up. And eventually, we came out the other side and fell back in love with each other. If we’d given up during the hard years, we would have missed all the amazing years that followed.”

The Three Levels of Commitment

Research on successful marriages reveals that commitment operates on multiple levels:

Personal Commitment: This is your internal desire to stay in the relationship because you genuinely value your partner and the life you’ve built together. It’s rooted in love, satisfaction, and the positive aspects of your relationship.

Moral Commitment: This comes from your values and sense of obligation. You believe marriage is a commitment that shouldn’t be broken lightly. You value keeping your promises.

Structural Commitment: These are the practical constraints that keep you together—shared finances, children, social networks, religious communities, the hassle and cost of divorce. While this might sound unromantic, structural commitment actually serves a useful purpose: it keeps you from making impulsive decisions during tough times.

The strongest marriages have all three types working together. Personal commitment makes you want to stay, moral commitment reminds you why you should stay during hard times, and structural commitment creates stability that allows you to work through problems rather than immediately seeking an exit.

What Commitment Looks Like in Action

Commitment isn’t passive. It’s demonstrated through daily choices and behaviors:

Prioritizing Your Marriage: When you’re committed, your marriage takes precedence over other relationships and activities (except in cases of individual emergencies). This means sometimes turning down social invitations to spend time together, considering how decisions affect your spouse, and putting relationship health ahead of being right or getting your way.

James, married for 28 years, shared: “Early in our marriage, I accepted a promotion that required extensive travel. I thought my wife would be proud. Instead, she was hurt that I hadn’t discussed it with her first. I learned that commitment means considering ‘we’ before ‘me’ in major decisions.”

Protecting Your Marriage from Outside Threats: Committed partners create boundaries that protect their relationship. This includes:

• Maintaining appropriate boundaries with people who could pose a threat to your marriage
• Not complaining about your spouse to friends or family in ways that erode respect
• Addressing problems together rather than seeking validation from others that you’re right and your spouse is wrong
• Supporting your partner in front of others, even when you disagree (then discussing it privately)
• Creating a united front on important issues, especially regarding children

Investing in Your Relationship: You don’t maintain a garden by planting it once and walking away. You water it, weed it, and tend it regularly. The same is true for marriage. Committed couples invest time, energy, and often money into keeping their relationship healthy:

• Regular date nights, even when money is tight or childcare is complicated
• Couples counseling or marriage enrichment programs, not just when in crisis but as preventative care
• Learning about relationships through books, workshops, or courses
• Planning trips or experiences together to create new memories
• Continuing to court each other even after decades together

Choosing Commitment During Crises: The true test of commitment comes during major life challenges: serious illness, financial disaster, infidelity, loss of a child, or other traumas. Couples who survive these crucibles often report that their commitment carried them when their feelings couldn’t.

After his wife’s cancer diagnosis, Marcus said: “There were days I didn’t know how we’d get through it. I wasn’t feeling romantic love. I was feeling exhausted, scared, and overwhelmed. But I’d committed to ‘in sickness and in health,’ and that commitment was like a rope pulling us forward when we couldn’t see the path.”

The Gift of Security

One of the most beautiful benefits of unwavering commitment is the profound security it creates. When both partners are fully committed, you can relax into the relationship. You don’t have to constantly worry if your partner is going to leave when things get hard or when you’re not at your best.

This security allows for:

• Greater vulnerability and intimacy
• Freedom to grow and change, knowing your partner is on the journey with you
• The ability to work through conflicts without fear that disagreement means the end
• Peace and stability that benefits not just you, but your children and your wider community

Commitment isn’t about feeling trapped. It’s about choosing to build something enduring, knowing that the best parts of marriage often come after you’ve weathered storms together.

Ingredient #3: Cultivated Friendship and Genuine Enjoyment

The third essential ingredient might surprise you: successful lifelong marriages are built on genuine friendship. Passion and romance are wonderful, but they’re not what sustain a marriage over 40, 50, or 60 years. What sustains it is actually liking your partner, enjoying their company, and maintaining a friendship that deepens over time.

Your Spouse Should Be Your Best Friend

I know this phrase has become clichéd, but there’s profound truth in it. When I interview couples who’ve been happily married for decades, they consistently describe their spouse as their best friend. They genuinely enjoy spending time together. They make each other laugh. They’re interested in each other’s thoughts and experiences. They choose to be together, not just because they’re married, but because they actually prefer each other’s company.

Consider what we look for in our best friends:

• Someone we can be completely ourselves around
• Someone who makes us laugh
• Someone we want to share experiences with
• Someone we trust completely
• Someone who supports and encourages us
• Someone we respect and admire
• Someone whose company we genuinely enjoy

Now consider: Does your marriage have these qualities? If not, it’s time to cultivate them.

Building and Maintaining Friendship

The good news is that friendship in marriage can be built and strengthened intentionally. Here’s how:

Shared Experiences and Adventures: One of the strongest predictors of marital satisfaction is regularly having new experiences together. When you share novel experiences, your brain releases dopamine and creates positive associations with your partner.

This doesn’t have to mean expensive vacations (though those are great too). It could be:

• Trying a new restaurant or type of cuisine
• Taking a class together (cooking, dancing, pottery, language)
• Exploring a new hiking trail or park
• Starting a project together (renovating a room, building something, creating a garden)
• Playing a sport or game together
• Volunteering for a cause you both care about

The key is doing things together that create shared memories and give you something to talk about and look forward to.

Maintaining Curiosity: In long-term relationships, we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking we know everything about our partner. We stop asking questions. We stop being curious. But people change and evolve constantly.

Stay curious about your spouse:

• Ask questions about their day, thoughts, and feelings
• Show interest in their hobbies and passions, even if you don’t share them
• Ask about their childhood, dreams, fears, or opinions on new topics
• Read or watch something they recommend and discuss it
• Learn something new about them regularly

Elena, married for 38 years, told me: “Every few months, I still learn something new about my husband. Last week he told me about a dream he had as a child that I’d never heard. It reminded me that he’s not just ‘my husband’—he’s this fascinating individual with his own rich inner world.”

Humor and Playfulness: Couples who maintain a sense of humor and playfulness tend to be happier and more resilient. Life is serious enough without making your home life overly serious too.

Ways to keep playfulness alive:

• Develop inside jokes and references that are unique to your relationship
• Be silly together—dance in the kitchen, make funny faces, play with your pets
• Watch comedies or funny videos together
• Playfully tease each other (in loving, not hurtful ways)
• Don’t take everything so seriously
• Surprise each other with small, fun gestures

Remember: Laughter truly is medicine for relationships. Couples who laugh together regularly report higher satisfaction and better conflict resolution.

Respecting Differences: Good friends respect each other’s individuality. The same is true in marriage. Your spouse doesn’t have to share all your interests, opinions, or preferences. In fact, healthy marriages include two whole individuals who maintain some separateness while also having a strong union.

Respect your partner’s:

• Need for alone time or time with friends
• Different interests and hobbies
• Different communication or processing styles
• Different perspectives and opinions
• Different ways of showing love or handling stress

The goal isn’t to merge into one person. It’s to create a life together while still honoring the individual people you each are.

Supporting Each Other’s Growth: True friends want to see each other grow and succeed. In marriage, this means actively supporting your partner’s goals, dreams, and development—even when it’s inconvenient or requires sacrifice from you.

This might look like:

• Encouraging your spouse to pursue education or career advancement
• Supporting a career change or entrepreneurial venture
• Making space for your partner to develop a talent or hobby
• Cheering for their successes without jealousy
• Believing in them when they doubt themselves

When both partners are committed to helping each other become their best selves, the marriage becomes a launching pad for personal growth rather than a constraint on it.

The Intimacy of Friendship

Physical intimacy is important in marriage, but emotional intimacy—the kind that comes from deep friendship—is often more sustaining over a lifetime. Sexual attraction naturally fluctuates, but the comfort of coming home to your best friend remains constant.

This doesn’t mean physical intimacy isn’t important. It absolutely is. But when physical intimacy is built on a foundation of genuine friendship, it’s more meaningful, more resilient to life’s challenges, and more likely to be maintained throughout all seasons of marriage.

Couples who are friends first often report:

• Better sexual intimacy because there’s greater trust and communication
• More satisfaction overall because they enjoy their daily life together, not just special occasions
• Greater resilience during hard times because they’re facing challenges with their best friend
• Less loneliness because they have a true companion in life

Creating Rituals of Connection: Lasting friendships have rituals—regular ways of connecting that become part of your relationship DNA. The same is true for marriages. These rituals might include:

• Morning coffee together before the day starts
• A weekly date night (even if it’s just walking around the neighborhood)
• Sunday morning pancakes
• An annual trip, even if it’s just a nearby weekend getaway
• Watching a favorite show together
• Evening walks
• Goodnight rituals (talking about the day, expressing appreciation, physical affection)

These rituals create touchstones of connection that help you stay close even during busy or stressful periods.

Choosing to Like Your Partner

Here’s something I’ve learned from working with couples: liking your spouse is partially about compatibility, but it’s also about choice. You can choose to focus on what you appreciate and enjoy about your partner, or you can focus on what annoys you. Where you put your attention grows.

Practice noticing and appreciating positive qualities:

• What do you genuinely enjoy about your spouse?
• What makes you smile about them?
• What would you miss if they weren’t in your life?
• What do they do that makes your life better?

Make it a habit to share these appreciations regularly. Not only does this strengthen your bond, but it also trains your brain to notice the good, which increases your own happiness and satisfaction.

Weaving It All Together: The Synergy of the Three Ingredients

While I’ve discussed these three ingredients separately, the magic happens when they work together synergistically:

Communication deepens when you’re committed because you feel safe being vulnerable, knowing your partner isn’t going to leave when you reveal your struggles or imperfections.

Commitment is easier to maintain when you’re friends because you genuinely enjoy the person you’ve committed to, and the relationship itself is rewarding.

Friendship grows through honest communication because you’re able to truly know each other, share experiences, and navigate differences.

Think of these three ingredients as the legs of a stool. Remove any one, and the marriage becomes unstable. But when all three are strong, they create a relationship that can withstand the inevitable challenges of a lifetime together.

The Seasons of Marriage: Applying the Ingredients

Marriage is not static. It moves through seasons, each with unique challenges and opportunities. Understanding how to apply these three ingredients through different life stages can help you navigate each season successfully.

The Honeymoon Phase (Years 0-2)

This is when physical attraction and romance are at their peak, but it’s also when you’re building the foundation for everything that follows.

• Communication: Establish healthy patterns now. Don’t avoid conflict or pretend to be perfect. Learn to disagree respectfully early on.
• Commitment: Begin building your identity as a couple. Make decisions together and prioritize your marriage over extended family or friend groups.
• Friendship: Don’t let romance overshadow friendship. Keep dating, having fun, and discovering each other beyond the physical.

The Building Years (Years 3-15)

This stage often includes career advancement, buying homes, having children, or pursuing major goals. It’s exciting but exhausting.

• Communication: This is when communication often takes a hit due to busyness. Protect your communication time fiercely. Have regular check-ins even when you’re tired.
• Commitment: You’ll face temptations (emotional or physical affairs) and pressures (work demands, financial stress). Your commitment will be tested. Remember why you chose this person.
• Friendship: Don’t lose yourselves in parenting or careers. Continue to date and have kid-free time together. Maintain interests and humor.

The Middle Years (Years 15-30)

Teenagers, aging parents, career peaks, and sometimes marital plateaus characterize this stage.

• Communication: The empty nest looming or arriving requires new conversations about identity and purpose. Talk about who you’re becoming and what you want your next chapter to look like.
• Commitment: Some couples drift here because they’ve prioritized kids or careers for so long. Recommit to each other. Remember you’ll be a couple long after the kids leave.
• Friendship: Rediscover each other. You may have changed significantly. Get curious again. Take up new hobbies together.

The Later Years (Years 30+)

Retirement, health issues, grandchildren, and the reality of mortality become central.

• Communication: Talk about fears, dreams for your remaining years, health decisions, and legacy. Don’t avoid difficult conversations.
• Commitment: Care for each other through health challenges. Your commitment will sustain you through loss and illness.
• Friendship: The couples who’ve maintained friendship shine here. You have time together again—enjoy it. The best marriages become even better in this stage.

Practical Action Steps: Starting Today

Understanding these three ingredients is one thing. Implementing them is another. Here are concrete steps you can take starting today:

This Week:

1. Schedule a 30-minute conversation with your spouse where you’re fully present (no phones). Ask open-ended questions and really listen.
2. Do something fun together, even if it’s small—watch a comedy, play a game, cook a new recipe.
3. Tell your spouse three specific things you appreciate about them.

This Month:

1. Plan a date night and put it on the calendar. Protect this time like you would an important meeting.
2. Have a “State of the Union” conversation about your marriage. What’s going well? What needs attention?
3. Identify one pattern in how you communicate during conflict that needs to change. Work on it together.

This Year:

1. Take a weekend trip together without kids (if you have them).
2. Read a book about marriage together and discuss it, or attend a marriage workshop or counseling session.
3. Establish at least one new ritual of connection.
4. Evaluate and adjust technology boundaries in your relationship.
5. Create a vision together for what you want your marriage to look like in 5 years, 10 years, and beyond.

When Things Feel Hard: Don’t Give Up Too Soon

I want to address something important: even with these three ingredients in place, marriage will have hard seasons. There will be times when you question whether you can make it. This is normal.

Many couples give up right before a breakthrough. They endure years of difficulty—perhaps with young children, financial strain, or work stress—and just when things are about to ease up, they call it quits. They don’t realize that if they’d held on just a bit longer, they might have entered one of the best seasons of their marriage.

Obviously, there are situations where divorce is necessary—abuse, unrepentant infidelity, or complete unwillingness by one partner to work on the relationship. But for most couples, the periods of unhappiness are temporary if both people are willing to keep applying these three ingredients.

As therapist Esther Perel notes, most people will have two or three marriages in their lifetime. The question is whether they’ll all be with the same person. People change, relationships evolve, and you may need to “remarry” your spouse multiple times as you both grow.

The Beautiful Truth About Lifelong Marriage

Here’s what I’ve learned from couples who’ve made it work for 30, 40, 50+ years: the marriage you have at year 40 is fundamentally different from the one you started with. It’s deeper, richer, and more complex. It’s weathered storms and celebrated victories. It’s seen both partners at their worst and their best.

And here’s the paradox: lasting love isn’t about finding someone you can tolerate forever. It’s about creating something together that neither of you could create alone—a shared history, a safe haven, a source of joy, and a partnership that makes both of your lives better.

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The couples who make it work aren’t perfect. They’re not more in love than everyone else. They haven’t avoided all the problems that cause other couples to split. What they have is commitment to these three ingredients: they communicate deeply and honestly, they remain committed even when feelings fluctuate, and they genuinely like and enjoy each other.

They choose each other, again and again, through all the seasons of life.

Your Marriage, Your Legacy

The investment you make in your marriage ripples outward in ways you may not even realize. Your children (if you have them) learn about love, commitment, and relationships by watching you. Your community is strengthened by strong marriages. And you yourself benefit from the deep security, companionship, and meaning that a lifelong partnership provides.

But perhaps most importantly, at the end of your life, the relationship you’ve built with your spouse will likely be one of your greatest sources of pride and comfort. Imagine being in your eighties or nineties, looking at the person next to you and knowing you’ve traveled life’s entire journey together. That you’ve built a history that belongs only to the two of you. That you’ve loved and been loved deeply across decades.

That’s worth fighting for. That’s worth the daily choice to communicate honestly, remain committed, and cultivate friendship. That’s the prize of a marriage that lasts a lifetime.

Begin Again, Today

Whether you’ve been married for two years or twenty, it’s never too late to strengthen these three essential ingredients. Start today. Start small. Have one real conversation. Make one commitment to prioritize your marriage. Do one thing together that makes you both smile.

Marriage is a living thing that requires tending. Water it with honest communication. Root it in unwavering commitment. Let it bloom through the sunshine of genuine friendship.

Your marriage has the potential to be one of the greatest sources of joy, meaning, and fulfillment in your life. It can be the safe harbor you return to after every storm. It can be the partnership that makes both of you better, stronger, and happier than you could be alone.

All it takes is consistent attention to these three ingredients: deep, intentional communication; unwavering commitment; and cultivated friendship and genuine enjoyment.

The couples celebrating 40, 50, and 60 years together aren’t lucky. They’re intentional. And you can be too.

Start today. Your future self—and your marriage—will thank you.