By Steve Beseke, beseke1@earthlink.net

I was on vacation recently celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in Key West. I have a wonderful wife and have been lucky enough to live the “good life” as we define it for more than two decades.

Our 25-year journey got me thinking about the resilience it takes to have a successful and happy marriage. I usually talk about career and personal branding resilience, and being successfully resilient in your married life (or significant relationship) can provide common threads into gaining your career “sweet spots.”

There are many folks that can talk more eloquently about marriage, but I want to provide you with a few common-sense thoughts to ponder as I begin my next 25 years of marriage “bliss.” A few of these – adaptability, compromise, knowing your strengths and finding common ground – you can also be a basis for your career success.

Compromise: At least in American culture, the word “compromise” is not always seen in the best of light. Typically, many of us are brought up to stick to our beliefs and not give in unless absolutely necessary. Well, in marriage and your career, this narrowly-defined attitude can spell ultimate failure. There was a study that showed that not being able to compromise was one of the top reasons marriages fail. This leads to eight out of 10 marriage separations in the first 10 years.

For me, compromise does not mean always giving in to whatever your spouse wants. It’s giving a little on both sides to find a common middle. Recently, my wife and I were up in arms with our 14-year-old daughter who wanted to switch to saxophone after five years of playing the flute. We knew our daughter was not keen on practicing, and learning a new instrument would take the ultimate commitment from her.

Knowing that my daughter was not that interested in the flute, I thought she should just give up playing an instrument. My wife, however, took the long view and said that playing an instrument could continue to teach our daughter commitment, resilience and teamwork. After many days of discussion, I began to believe my wife was right but that our daughter had to continue playing the flute instead of the sax.  We compromised on the solution – it took another month to convince our daughter about the positives of playing the flute rather than the challenges and expense of trying a new instrument at her age.

I could have stuck to my original belief and the unnecessary arguments between my wife and I could have provided rough moments. We agreed to see each other’s point-of view. There can be many other contentious examples of marriage and compromise, but the key is we were able to come up with a common decision without each of us losing the ultimate discussion. Sometimes, an issue is not worth sticking to your guns. As I’ve said many times in career articles, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Think about ways at work you could compromise with a co-worker that might make your day and week go smoother. Not everything needs to go your way, and the skill of compromising in some situations can be seen as a very positive career enhancer.

Adaptability: We have all learned to adapt in our lives one way or another. In marriage, however, there are always complicating factors, such as money, kids and romance. Making money and paying bills are usually at the heart of many challenging moments in marriage. Should we save more or use income to buy cool things like a bigger house, that nifty boat or the sports car you’ve always wanted?

Having each spouse on the same page on such money issues is where the “rubber meets the road” in marriages. We have definitely had our issues with layoffs, shrinking investments and the like. But my wife and I agreed early in our marriage to truly adapt to the money we earn. After bills and discretionary expenses, we try to put a good portion of savings into investments or a “rainy day” fund.

There have been many times each of us has wanted to move away from this commitment, but we have tried very hard to look at the big picture. Doesn’t always work, but the two goals we hold true are: Giving our daughter the best education possible, and letting us (at least six months out of the year) retire in Hawaii. We may adapt on smaller life issues but we don’t on these two items. This adaptability has helped us avoid many of the silly arguments laying seed to distrust and anger that can derail marriages.

In addition to your marriage resiliency, please think through how being more adaptive can help you have happiness and success in your career. The next time your boss says to redo something you’ve spent hours/days on, step back and find ways to adapt the project to be “boss successful” without having totally compromise your value system. This has been hard through my 25+ years of work experience, but adapting in at least some circumstances can be better than having sleepless nights.

Knowing Your Strengths – and Weaknesses. All of us have tremendous personal and professional strengths – and, of course, a few weaknesses along the way.

While we need to understand our weaknesses, I contend we should focus on what we do well in a marriage, instead of always dwelling on the things we don’t do so well. It’s definitely easier said than done. Just like in your career, I am sure all of us could list 10 or 12 weaknesses but have trouble coming up with a handful of strengths. Studies show that this thought process is just the way our brains are connected and how societal norms prompt us to view ourselves.

In marriage, though, I have found my greatest success when I am totally myself. I m usually a very laid-back type of guy, and I get into trouble with my wife and daughter when I step out of character – being too obstinate, inflexible and stubborn. I definitely can exhibit all these qualities but my strength is being the compassionate, sensitive guy that has always defined me.

Knowing this particular strength has helped successfully stay on the same page to my less laid-back wife. There’s no criticism here…her strength exudes from her very no-nonsense point-of-view on life and raising children. I truly admire her strength that sometimes I lack.

But I cannot worry about what I lack and need to focus on the example of my strengths I mentioned before. My wife and I typically counter-balance each other, which usually means we end up making common-sense decisions together in the middle. I may be more flexible in how we treat our daughter’s wants/desires (e.g. going on mission trips to other countries) but my wife brings the whole picture into focus through her very deliberate decision processes. Again, marriage success all depends on the first two components I also mentioned – being adaptive and the ability to compromise.

In work, I have found that it is also best to focus on your strengths. A study has show that workers can improve their strengths by up to 30 percent. If they use the same amount of time to improve their weaknesses, they can only get less than a 10 percent improvement rate. If we have a glaring weakness, that is a different story but…

Finding Common Ground: Sounds easy doesn’t it? I mean you married your spouse because there was love, romance and hopefully a few common things you like to do together – besides romance. But it is amazing to my wife and I that the “doing things together” component has derailed many couples that we know.

Finding common ground is ultimately the most important aspect of having a successful marriage or significant relationship. Wanting and liking to do non-romance things with each other will totally determine your marriage success or not. If all you have in common is sex, you should not be married at all. As your marriage continues, sex typically starts to be more sporadic. A study showed that couples married for less than three years had romance multiple times per week. After ten years, couples indicated that number went down to once a week or less.

That’s why liking to do activities together will promote the lifelong companionship that nine out of 10 of us want. My wife and I like to go antiquing, traveling and be with friends together to name just a few. I feel that if you can find common ground with three activities besides romance, you are going to make marriage work for you – and the two out of 10 marriages that truly work.

Now look at your career. What ways can you can adapt your work life to find common ground with your colleagues? Try to find three ways to better relate to your colleagues, such as talking about common interests, listening to each other’s stories or not worrying so much about a personal style but focus on their results.

Such examples may make your time at work and married life (or significant relationship) less stressful and, gosh, even fun once in awhile…

Look forward to your comments and talking with you again. Hope you are having a resilient week!