5 Reasons You Should Have a Marriage Mentor

By Fawn Weaver on Monday, June 10, 2013

Mark Twain once said, “No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”

Although my love feels pretty doggone close to perfect, I have to agree with Twain.

Once you’ve been married that long, you know how you will respond to nearly every challenge life throws your way. You’ve been tested and come through the fire like pure gold.

This is why when I was recently asked by a newlywed for advice, I offered this: Only listen to marital advice from couples whose marriages you’d like to emulate.

I told her, just as she would never consider taking financial advice from a person in the middle of their second bankruptcy, she should reject advice from those in the midst of a miserable marriage.

In one ear…out the other.

This is not to say there isn’t great wisdom gained through failure. But that should always be put in perspective and held in lesser regard than wisdom gained through proven success.

What I have discovered over the years is couples successful in marriage, are oftentimes those who’ve modeled their relationship after thriving ones. They disregard the negative comments and choose to believe they can create their own happiness.

Those who surround themselves with couples who never tear down their spouse, only build up their marriage, and challenge the notion that happily ever isn’t possible, end up with a relationship filled with genuine happiness.

A marriage mentor need not be one married for ages. There is one couple Keith and I love to be around who are the same age as us. The difference is they’ve been together since college; roughly twice as long as we have. What is most important is their relationship is tried and true and thus we’ve gained a much higher marriage IQ from being around them.

So here are the 5 reasons we’ve surrounded ourselves with marriage mentors and why you should too:

1. They help keep you on track. Just being in their presence will remind you how wonderful life can be when you have a loving partner by our side.

2. They will not allow you to sweat the small stuff. Try complaining about your spouse to a long-standing couple who are genuinely happy. They will put a mirror in your face so fast. Speaking of which…

3. They will put a mirror in your face. Rarely, is a spouse always at fault. It takes two to tango, baby.

4. They provide a positive perspective in a world headed in the opposite direction. Let’s face it, marriage has been getting a bad rap these days. ”Happily married” has become an oxymoron. Marriage mentors help you see your relationship through the prism of time and love.

5. They are living proof that real love can and should last a lifetime. This constant reminder will help you ward off any negative thoughts and encourage you to keep fighting for the relationship you most desire. It will help you to design your happily ever after.

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

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Bio
Latest Posts

Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club

Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

Latest posts by Fawn Weaver (see all)

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Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are snarky, offensive, or off-topic. If in doubt, read My Comment Policy

http://intentionaltoday.com/ Ngina Otiende

I totally agree with you Fawn! I love that thought about marriage IQ, so true!

My husband and I have two mentor couples who we’ve known and been mentored by us since our single days. It’s amazing the strength, blessing, insights, oversight, accountability that that mentors bring into a marriage. You’ve mentioned here before that we don’t always have to learn from our own mistakes, we can learn from others. We can go further faster. That has certainly been the case for us (and not that we don’t have challenges..just that we are better equipped)
Great post!
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  No wonder you and your husband have such a wonderful marriage!
http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/ Lori Alexander

We have been married for 32 years. I did the first 20 years the wrong way and the last 10 the right way. So I have been mentoring women the past 10 years and it exciting to see marriages completely turned around when they learn how to do it the right way. Doing it the right way doesn’t come natural. We do need mentors as you have written since having a good marriage is a wonderful blessing.
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  So happy you are able to mentor couples from the standpoint of first having done it wrong and now having done it right. The number of people you will bless with your wisdom cannot be numbered.
http://www.messymarriage.com/ Beth Steffaniak

I agree with most of what you’ve said here, Fawn. I’m a great believer of mentors in marriage and life. I guess I’m just not sure that I agree totally with your words, “But that should always be put in perspective and held in lesser regard than wisdom gained through proven success.” I want to know that a couple has faced struggles and failures and navigated their way out of those before I would have full confidence in their ability to have a “successful” marriage or be a fit mentor. I think the couple certainly should have a track record of success, as you’ve said. But I don’t always see “success” coming simply from modeling another couple’s successes, but rather learning from the other couple’s mistakes, who’ve learned to trust God to guide them out of it. Overall, though, I appreciate your heart to encourage women (and men) to seek Godly marriage mentors here. It’s much needed!

And also glad to see that I can comment directly on your post. I wasn’t able to do that the last time I commented. Don’t really know why.
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Thanks, Beth! I actually think we’re saying the same thing here. Lori’s comment below is a perfect example. She experienced 20 years of doing it the wrong way and now 10 years of doing it the right way. She experienced failure before success…but the success portion of it is hugely important. At least in my experience (which could always be wrong), those you want to be mentored by are those are successful in the area in which they are teaching. Doesn’t mean they didn’t first experience failure -oft times that is even more beneficial- but the important thing is for them to be speaking (and teaching) from a place of success.
  
  And yes, we fixed the commenting issue. We’ve had some challenges with this Disqus system but I think (fingers crossed) it’s all worked out. Thank you, as always, for sharing your great thoughts. I so appreciate you!
http://www.modernmarried.com/ Maggie Reyes

Fawn! I love this one thousand percent!

It’s so important to see and be inspired by couples who are on the right track (just like in business or any sport – follow the formula that works so to speak).
I have a super cool story about this too. One of my dearest friends is married to a Navy Chaplain, they have been together since highschool and when I was single I always told them, I wanted to have a love like theirs. They were my “light house” for what a loving marriage looks like.
Fast foward to when I finally meet the hubs and start planning the wedding. I call my friend to tell her our wedding date and she says, “no way! that’s OUR anniversary.” Somehow without concious planning, my subconcious said, you want a marriage like theirs, here you go!
So now we share the same anniversary! Something I could have never imagined when I was single!
Did I mention that I LOVE THIS! Fawn this was a Grand Slam! (Baseball being the only sport I actually understand!)
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  LOVE this, Maggie! And I love that your “mentors” are your age. Having that lighthouse is so beneficial (but, of course, you know that ).
http://momstheword--livingforhim.blogspot.com/ Nan

It’s funny because whenever I click on your post title, I can comment individually here. But if I don’t, then I am lumped in with all the other people that have commented on all your other posts recently. Strange, huh!

Anyway, this is made of awesome, Fawn! We have been married for 30 years now so I guess we qualify, lol!
I loved your sweatin’ the small stuff comment, because it’s those little things that just eat away at our marriages and happiness and set us at each other’s throats if we allow them!
Our oldest son is getting married in the fall and we warned him that the first year of marriage can be rough as they learn to adjust to one another. No one prepared ME for that first year of adjustment, lol! Thanks for hosting today.
- http://www.toodarnhappy.com/ Kim Hall
  
  Wow-Congrats on 30 years!
  - http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
    
    Nan, you make such a great point here. So many are told the first year will be the easiest and I think that may be why so many give up on marriage so early. For many, that first year will be the most challenging because you’re merging two very different lives into one household. But preparing your son to succeed in that first year will help him succeed in the 50 years that come after. Awesome!
    
    Oh yes, about the comments. The home page has all the comments “lumped together” and the individual posts have just the comments for that particular post. Haven’t figured out how to fix that without losing the comments on the home page. Working on it .
http://www.toodarnhappy.com/ Kim Hall

Yes, having a mentor is so helpful to help grow a strong and satisfying marriage. We tend to mirror the behavior and ambitions of the people who make up our regular circle of life. Having folks who are walking the talk and living grace, forgiveness and love daily is important, especially through the rough waters.

I love how you’ve revamped your link-up. Just terrific! The comments seem to be working fine, too. Hooray for getting the kinks out!
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Yeah!! Yes, hooray for getting the kinks out . And I love your point about our regular circle of life. I am surrounded by couples with loving marriages – intentionally (and I bet you are too)- and have found so much encouragement in that.
Angie Knutson

Hope you have a fantastic week! Thank you for hosting! ~ Angie @ The Dating Divas
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Thank YOU, Angie! Did you see the post you linked up last week was featured in our newsletter? It was such a great idea! Thanks for linking it up.
  - Angie Knutson
    
    I hadn’t seen that. Thank you so much! I’ve been playing catch-up the last few days.
Kristen @ Smithspirations

Thank you for hosting the link-up! This is my first time joining you. I am doing a Marriage Month for all of June in honor of our ten year wedding anniversary at my blog. Today I’m sharing with your a testimony of our relationship, as well as a post on unconditional respect.
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Love this, Kristen! I can’t wait to read your post and congratulations on 10 years of marriage! My husband and I just renewed our vows a few weeks ago in honor of our 10th. 2003 was a great year to get married .
Abena Okley

I keep learning new things. I’m really proud to be married to a wonderful
husband
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Me too, Abena! Thank you so much for stopping by.
tamrenzi

Fawn, I think this is a great idea. I had never thought nor heard of it, but I can imagine it would be very powerful. We did not have role models of happy marriages in our lives, but we did manage to make our marriage the happiest we could ever imagine. I am hopeful that someday someone might see us as marriage mentors – or at least wacky and fun! I’d love to see couples play more, laugh more, and love more. After many years of working too much and being too serious about so many things, I now know what can happen when you put your marriage first.
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  That is SO awesome! Love that you will soon be marriage mentors for others. How fortunate that couple will be!
PenelopeG

This is something I strongly believe, and have always advised other married people as well- people who have never been successfully married have life experience, but not the answers for a successful marriage. I don’t take advice from friends who have been divorced multiple times or never married about how my husband and I should interact with each other or live our lives.
- http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club
  
  Love this and so honored you popped over to HWC, Penelope! Love penelopesoasis.com .
Rahul

Very nice article.
- Rahul
  
  Thanks