Great marriages are experienced by the people who have made the decision to grow with the marriage. If you are going to have a lasting relationship, individual growth from each partner is necessary to evolve with the marriage. Marriages have their ups and downs, but if each partner is willing to evolve and gain a new skill set to pass through their rougher times, to glean the proper wisdom for staying committed and not quit, the marriage will likely stand the test of time. If your marriage started off with love then you can use that love as the fuel to stay in love.

Five Ingredients to Maintain a Great Marriage:

1. Treat your spouse like the household pet: When they come home, greet them at the door with love and acknowledgement. Let them know you have been waiting all day to see them and spend time with them. Be interested in their day, what they did and didn’t do and show an excitement about their return home.

2. Physical affection: Whenever you are around your spouse you should be touching on some level. Kiss in the morning, before leaving for work and when you get home from work. Physical affection (hugs, kissing, snuggling, hand holding) is vital to remembering you are husband and wife. Even if you are mad, keep the affection alive because touch has been shown to be essential to healing of any kind. A hard day is often softened by the touch of your partner.

3. Verbal affirmation: Verbally affirm your partner with praise and compliments. If you want to feel good in your marriage make sure your husband or wife feels good and you will find compliments are contagious. As they are given they will uplift your spouse and they will then be filled with seeing the good in you as well. There is always a way to find something beautiful about your spouse. Say, "I love you." You can never love someone too much as love is abundant. Let your spouse know how much they are loved.

4. Quality time together: It is important to get away for quality time from the kids, friends, work and other distractions. Many marriages get lost in all these details and you forget how to be alone together. Alone-time creates the space for the intimate conversations to take place. Intimacy is emotional, and connecting with each other verbally is a great way to establish and maintain that intimacy. If you stop talking to each other, the marriage will stop growing.

5. Sexual intimacy: Sadly, sex is often one of the first things to go in a marriage the longer you have been in it. It is easy to be too tired, too stressed or not interested. Once this element is gone there really is nothing that makes you married anymore. You have become good friends and roommates. Quality time brings the emotional intimacy into the relationship, which should then be followed up with sexual intimacy so the physical love connection can be made and you remember how great it feels to connect this deeply.

Many of us think having a great marriage is as rare as winning the winning lottery ticket. It really isn’t about marrying the "one." It is about you becoming the 'one.' It is about you becoming a person who is someone that can sustain and thrive in a marriage. Choose to be a loving and lovable person in your marriage. Be someone you would want to marry yourself. Think about that, would you marry you? If not, then make the necessary changes to become that right person for yourself and your partner. If there are troubles in the marriage be patient, don’t give up. Develop the new skills necessary to make your marriage work. Life is not about making others happy it is about sharing your happiness with others.

Little life message: As you grow, your marriage will grow with you.

Dr. Sherrie Campbell is an author and a licensed psychologist with more than 19 years of clinical training and experience. She provides practical tools to help people overcome obstacles to self-love and truly achieve an empowered life. She is a featured regularly on national online media and has a successful practice in Southern California. Receive free insights from Sherrie through her Facebook community. For more information visit www.drsherriecampbell.com.