Happy marriage, happy family

If your kids get all the attention your spouse used to receive, listen to what Larry Koenig has to say — before it’s too late.By Maureen Waslicki

If Larry Koenig, Ph.D., author of Happily Married for a Lifetime, is so happily married to Nydia, why is he always talking about CARISA?

Because CARISA isn’t a person, but an acronym for Capable, Appreciated, Respected, Intelligent, Sexy and Attractive. They are the six words Dr. Koenig believes every married couple should live by in order to build and maintain a strong and happy marriage.

It sounds easy enough. After all, they’re why you fell in love. You found your spouse to be capable, intelligent, sexy and attractive — someone you appreciated and respected.

Chances are, your spouse felt the same way about you. And you constantly told him and showed him, as he did you, how much you found him to be all of those things.

It was a fertile breeding ground for keeping love alive.

But as time wears on, the show-and-tell ends. Other things get in the way. We stop trying so hard, and that’s where the deterioration begins.

“A happy marriage depends on each person helping make sure his or her spouse feels CARISA on a daily basis,” says Dr. Koenig, who has been married to Nydia for 18 years. “Do those things in small ways and it makes all the difference in the world. The day I feel it’s not important is the day my marriage starts to slide.”

Putting marriage first
As the creator of the Smart Discipline parenting workshop and publisher of Smart Family magazine, Dr. Koenig has spent a career focused on children. Why, then, does he travel throughout the country touting the importance of happy marriages?

“Putting your marriage first — it’s kind of a shocking idea,” he says. “We’re told that once we have kids, we have to put them first. Many people do that. But if needs aren’t being met, that’s when spouses start to stray. By putting marriage first, we are also helping our children by keeping the marriage together.”

His book, Happily Married for a Lifetime, and the workshops based on it help couples anticipate and solve potential problems. Worksheets and exercises (dubbed “love potions”) are offered as ways to strengthen a couple’s bond and build an enduring, harmonious marriage.

It helps couples “avoid conflicts or keep them from escalating, and helps them choose behaviors, strategies and solutions that will satisfy the needs of both spouses,” Dr. Koenig writes in the book.

Fulfiling your spouse’s needs
Satisfying his or her needs, Dr. Koenig says, is the key to a good marriage. While he emphasizes that no one should rely on another person to fulfill all of his or her needs, finding someone who shows how much they care certainly makes us feel good — about ourselves and the other person.

In this type of “dual focus” marriage, both partners take responsibility for their own needs while at the same time being aware of the spouse’s needs and helping him or her fulfill them.

And as the adage goes, the more you give, the more you receive.

“It’s a neat thing when two people have that going,” says Dr. Koenig. “Once you start doing these things on a daily basis, they become very natural. You don’t have to think about it, and there’s nothing that’s ‘work’ about it.”

Common sense solutions
The “Happily Married” workshop and the book are filled with practical ways for couples to identify the dynamics of their marriage, as well as easy-to-implement ideas for improving the relationship.

One “love potion” is to make it a habit of asking your spouse whether he or she wants something anytime you get up from watching television. Another is to surprise your spouse with his or her favorite meal.

The benefits are exponential. As one person does something nice for the other, the other wants to reciprocate. It starts a cycle in which spouses focus more on each other, allowing remaining aspects of their relationship to fall into place.

If, says Dr. Koenig, the spouse on the receiving end does not start to reciprocate, the need for professional help may be indicated.

A major factor for most married couples, of course, is sex. Dr. Koenig refers to it as being “integral” to what’s going on in a relationship.

“If the relationship is going well during the day, the night life will be a lot better,” he says. “It’s not a separate entity. You can’t expect sex to be great if the rest of the relationship isn’t in order.”

While this can be a sensitive topic, it — like others covered in the workshop — is presented with a heavy dose of humor.

“When people can laugh, they can be more open to learning,” Dr. Koenig says. As long as both partners have an open mind to learning and are willing to lay aside their defenses, the benefits of the workshop and the book can be reaped.

“Most people haven’t done anything to learn about marriage,” says Dr. Koenig. “We’d never think of building a house without a blueprint without expecting it to fall down.”

In other words, work on your marriage and your marriage will work.

Maureen Waslicki is a Wauwatosa freelance writer and mother of two.