Marriage Advice For Farming & Ranching Couples
The other day, I asked y'all for your best parenting advice, and it was so good that I decided to follow up with a second question -- what's your best advice for marriage, especially for agricultural couples?
The responses were SO GOOD, and now I'm deep-diving on this topic for an upcoming RADKE REPORT column. Stay tuned!
Today, I wanted to share some of your advice. Feel free to add more in the comments section!
- Keep God at the center of your marriage. Always. The closer you get to God, the closer you'll get to each other.
- Automatic chutes save marriages! (HA! Very true...)
- Get a babysitter and spend time alone together.
- Communication is key. You have to talk to each other!
- When your wife says it's time to cull that one, ole mean cow, do it.
- Be willing to do things your spouse enjoys. You might even discover a newfound love for their hobby, too!
- If you're having an argument, think to yourself, will this matter in 10 years? If not, let it go. If yes, work it out.
- Mutual respect is critical.
- Learn and accept you both have different love languages.
- Give each other grace and forgiveness.
- Have faith in God and each other.
- Take turns opening cattle gates!
- Work together! You're on the same team!
- Critique in private, and never in front of others.
- Build your marriage on a good friendship, and make sure there is plenty of laughter in your home.
I always allow my wife to take turns opening the cattle gate before I chute her ;).
This topic brought to mind the chapter “Retirement: The Best of Times and The Challenges” in my recently published book “From the Sandhills to the Big City, Reflections of a Modern Ag Woman” In this chapter I write about my husband and I working as consultants in leadership development, education and advocacy for agriculture and handling retail sales of wool products. Over a 29 year period we had a wide variety of opportunities for part-time work, professional volunteering and just plain fun!! However there were challenges-forming a new work team with similar work ethics, but different work styles, and strong independent personalities. The big issue was deciding who is boss when you have two type A personalities!! After a time we agreed as to which person was the “lead” on our projects and who had the last word! Love of each other, commitment and strong belief in our goals and patience carried us through!! We became known as the “dynamic duo” in agriculture.
Beautiful words!! Everyone is spot on!! Thanks for getting things out there. It’s good for all of us to know we are not alone…