The 3 Differences Between a Good Marriage and a Great Marriage

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  Mignon McLaughlin

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“GREAT” Doesn’t Happen By Accident

We all grew up reading the same fairytales.  The handsome prince meets the beautiful princess, falls in love, slays a dragon or two, proves that he is worthy to marry her, and they live happily ever after.

Awwwwww.

And those sweet childhood stories leave us with the impression that a great marriage will automatically happen when two practically perfect people find each other and fall in love.

Except there are no practically perfect people (besides perhaps Mary Poppins)

A GREAT MARRIAGE DOES NOT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT

Having a GREAT marriage does not happen by accident.  Nor is it dependent upon two people out of almost 8 billion people on earth finding the “perfect and only perfect match”.

No, a great marriage is actually built upon the same principles that underlie any successful undertaking – whether that is achieving a specific goal or creating a great company or having a great relationship with someone other than our spouse.

Good marriage may happen by accident, but a great marriage happens by intention.

This brings me to the first difference between a good marriage and a great marriage – 

Difference #1 – YOU HAVE A GREAT VISION FOR YOUR MARRIAGE

You know what you want and why you want it.  

In a good marriage, both people realize that they have married good people, and they assume they’re headed in the same direction in life when it comes to goals, desires, children, careers, etc.

In a great marriage, both partners KNOW they have a common vision for their marriage, and that it is a great one – based upon what they actually want, instead of what they hope to avoid.

For example, it’s not uncommon for two people to have the common desire to avoid the pain of divorce.  But that is a very different than having the goal “to raise a family together that enjoys each other and enjoys growing in the Lord.”  The first goal is fear-based, and the second is desire-based.

So, the first question to ask is this, “What is it I want for my marriage, and why?”  

This vision does not have to be complicated.  When I first asked this question, my simple answer was this, “I want to have time to enjoy sitting on my porch with my husband as we drink our coffee.”

I basically wanted a marriage where my husband and I had plenty of time to enjoy relaxing together.  

It may not seem like a big desire, but at that moment, we had no spare time to relax in the morning or night, very little money, and did not even have a porch.  To make that vision a possibility, we were going to have to change some things up in our life.

Which brings me to the second difference between a good and a great marriage…

Difference #2 – YOU PRACTICE DISCERNMENT

You are willing to look at every aspect of your life, and question it, to see if it aligns with your future vision or not.  

The things that do not support your vision, you are willing to remove, to make more room for the things that do.

In a good marriage, we make lemonade out of lemons.  

In a great marriage, we sell the lemons because we prefer tea.

The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr explains this well:

God, grant me
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.

In a great marriage, you have the discernment, the wisdom to know this – some things are not ours to change (like our spouse), but we can still experience peace, love, and joy without needing for someone else to change.

And, in a great marriage, you have the courage to change what is within your control (your thoughts, your perspective) instead of settling for whatever life might randomly offer.

Less is more.  We all have constraints of time, energy, and money.  Without a great vision for our own marriage, we will be tempted to follow someone else’s dreams, and miss out on achieving our own.

Without the courage to say no to what’s not serving us, we’ll have less time, energy, and money for what’s best for our family.  

A great (future) vision for our marriage is inspiring, which makes it easier to look at all the aspects of our life, and ask this very important question…

Is this serving me? As in, is this thought serving me? Is this activity serving me?  

The third difference between a good marriage and a great marriage is this – 

Difference #3 – YOU DO THE DAILY WORK

What is the daily work in a relationship?  Communication and connection.  

Communication is when we are relaying necessary facts and details to each other to keep each other informed.  

But connection goes a step beyond that.  It is not the logical connection, but the emotional one.

This is where we take the relationship deeper.  We share our innermost feelings and listen to our spouse’s feelings.  We don’t just know about them, we know THEM.  

When life gets busy, it can feel like there’s barely enough time to communicate, much less connect.  But this connection is everything.  It’s not just asking, “How is your day?”, but it’s taking it a step further and asking, “And how do you feel about that?”  

Communication is how we stay on the same page;

Connection is how we share our hearts and become one flesh.  

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Ephesians 5:31

The strength of our marriage will be directly correlated to how disciplined we are in taking the time to communicate and connect on a daily basis.  This is the ONE HABIT that will make or break a relationship.

It’s similar to brushing your teeth.  If you make brushing your teeth a daily habit, it’s easy to do, and supports the health of your teeth.  Your teeth will not develop a cavity just because you were too busy to brush them one day, or even two.  

But those without the habit of daily teeth brushing are more prone to cavities.

Those without the habit of communication and connection are more prone to having small issues grow larger, or growing more distant, which makes any relationship harder to maintain.

When we make communication and connection a DAILY habit, we are showing each other that our marriage is a priority to us.  

Good marriages might be able to coast along without communicating, but those who desire a GREAT MARRIAGE will develop the daily habit of sharing themselves with their spouse and inviting their spouse to share with them.

One final note – it takes no more effort to have a great marriage rather than a good marriage.  Yes, it takes more thought, more intention, and better communication and connection, but it really comes down to choices rather than hard work. In fact, a great marriage can be EASIER to live out.  It’s kind of like maintaining a car.  Yes, maintaining a car costs money for things like oil changes and tire rotations, but those things are so much less expensive than replacing the engine or tires prematurely.  

So, would you rather have a good marriage or a great one?  You choose!

She is passionate about Jesus, coffee, her two crazy amazing teens, and her husband Hiram (not necessarily in that order!)

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