- By S.P.Muhurath

You each make decisions throughout your day, every day. Some decisions are made automatically and without much thought and some with much heart wrenching battles.Additional decisions are made as a matter of course such as deciding what to prepare for dinner (which will greatly affect the mood at home). Other decisions may be forced upon you in difficult and stressed times.

Most decisions have a short impact on your life. Other decisions can have a more lasting impact. As a married couple, you need to talk about how you will make decisions.

What you consider to be important decisions is one of the first decisions you should make in your marriage. Most couples consider the following decisions to be major decisions that require discussion and agreement. Any decision should be well informed to avoid disputes.

Where the two of you will live, how many children you will have, Parenting styles, spending and saving money, expectations about family time, household chores, Decisions regarding a crisis and of course Future plans, these are the major touchy spots.

Once you have agreed about what decisions you want to make together, talk about how the two of you will handle making decisions together.

Decide and set an amount of money that you feel is the top limit of spending individually. Anything either of you wants to purchase above that amount needs to be discussed and be a mutual decision.

If both of you take on a dominating role and expect to make all the major decisions in your marriage, it will be a bumpy ride. Making decisions should be a shared responsibility. Studies have shown that the unhappiest people in a marriage are often those who have the burden of making decisions alone. In the most successful marriages, decision making is a shared activity. Remember this.

Another characteristic of a successful marriage is that both partners are sincerely concerned about the wishes and personal preferences of the other. They are both willing to go more than halfway in reaching mutually satisfying compromises. Decisions or compromises that are made are made willingly instead of grudgingly.

Sharing decisions means that neither spouse has to be "wrong" or "lose." Share the results. There is no resentment aroused by the attitudes of "who was right" and "who was wrong." There is the mutual growing together by the sharing in making "our decisions."