You will face challenges on your lifelong journey together. Always fight for your marriage, and support and cheer each other along the journey.

Every marriage faces change, stress, and crisis. Coping well requires, first of all, a solid understanding that challenges are inevitable. Indeed, part of the excitement and adventure of marriage comes from facing the pressure of hostile external forces together. Healthy couples prepare for hard times and work together to overcome difficulties. They lean on each other and are willing to seek help when they need it.

Related Content: Take our free Focus on Marriage Assessment to see where you rank in the area of coping.

We’ve already talked about the ways in which internal conflict management can help a couple build intimacy by teaching them to resolve issues. In the same way, surviving a marital challenge or crisis is not only possible but those difficult times can also be transformed into experiences that will strengthen your marriage. Although painful, working through a crisis can force you to grow as individuals. Then you will have the maturity to confront and fix other problems in your relationship, perhaps issues you have been “stuck” on for years.

How does this process look in practical terms? We describe it in terms of four basic attitudes:

Know what to expect

Challenges and trials produce endurance and resilience in character. The most successful married couples are those who understand this principle and know how to put it into practice. They assume that married life is going to have its ups and downs, good times and bad. As a result, they don’t allow unexpected changes, stresses and crises to throw them off balance.

John and Stasi Eldredge have expressed this same idea by pointing out that every couple lives “in a great love story, set in the midst of war”. It’s important to understand precisely what they mean by this. John and Stasi aren’t using the word “war” to refer to the conflict between spouses. Instead, they’re thinking about external forces and pressures. They’re telling us that like any vessel on a long voyage, the ship of marriage will almost certainly have to weather some storms.

Those storms can take an almost endless variety of shapes: job stress, job loss, a child with a disability, cancer, in-law problems, the death of a loved one, miscarriage, infertility, infidelity, financial failure, and so on. You can probably expand the list with some personal experiences of your own. The point here is that all these are completely normal. Couples who arm themselves with this expectation have a distinct advantage over those who don’t.

Be prepared

Once equipped with the knowledge of what’s coming, thriving couples take time to prepare for the difficulties that life in this troubled world is likely to send their way. They understand that the two houses described in a story – the house built on the sand and the house built on the rock – both endured the buffeting of the wind and the rain. The only difference between the two houses is their foundations. Soon, the house built on the sand will crumble while the house built on the rock will stand strong even as the storm rages on.

Because they grasp this concept, these couples don’t flinch at the prospect of trouble. They don’t consider it strange when troubles come upon them, nor do they blame each other when misfortunes arise. Instead, they take pains to anchor their marriage on the solid rock. They do this by drawing upon the strengths they derive from all the other traits of a thriving marriage – developing effective communication skills, cherishing and nourishing each other, building physical and emotional intimacy, and spending lots of enjoyable time together. In short, they make efforts to strengthen their relationship during the good times so that when the bad times come, they’re strong enough to weather the storm.

Work as a team

All these are just another aspect of the teamwork that characterises a thriving marriage. Husbands and wives who have healthy, vibrant relationships face adversity side by side. They proactively anticipate domestic hardships. They work together to get on the same page when faced with stressful or critical situations. They share their burdens and take the view that difficulties are, among other things, springboards to growth and positive change. In short, they’re prepared to tackle life together as fellow travellers on an adventurous journey. As a result, they’re ready for anything, and nothing can knock them down.

The key to this process is the ability to keep an eye out for the opportunity that lies hidden, like the proverbial silver lining, behind every new challenge that life brings our way. President John F. Kennedy once wrote, “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognise the opportunity.” Couples who go the distance understand this concept and look for ways to put it into practice. This requires intentionality and the willingness to work together to achieve a real meeting of the minds.

Ask for help

Finally, the couples we have in mind are not too proud to seek outside help in times of trouble. They aren’t above admitting their needs to family members, friends or professional counsellors when it’s appropriate. They understand that being strong doesn’t necessarily mean going it alone. As a result, they are willing to ask for and accept assistance when faced with difficulties they can’t handle on their own. They are willing to set aside their pride and ego to get help because they value their marriage.

From the Focus on the Family website at focusonthefamily.com. © 2016 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. Used with permission.