Creating a Vision and Mission for Your Marriage

This article is all the help you and your partner need to create two deep and meaningful tools to better understand and strengthen your marriage, focused on today and building for the future. You'll find expert advice, tips, and samples to help guide you in developing your marriage mission and vision.

You may know this fact, but in case you don't... the majority of businesses and organizations have learned that developing corporate vision and mission statements, which are designed to help managers make better decisions about the future and serve as a guiding hand for the present respectively, has led to years of prosperity, success, and better results.

These two statements are designed to provide direction and strategic thrust to an organization. The mission statement serves as an invisible hand that guides the decision-making within the organization -- and explains the organization's reason for being -- its core purpose. The vision statement describes what the organization aspires to become... what the organization will look like at its most successful state.

While your marriage is not a business, it is, for most of us, the greatest relationship, partnership, entity in our lives. And yet, most couples enter a marriage with no mission statement, no vision for the future -- just some ideas of what they seek from a partner and a hope for the future.

If you agree that your marriage is the most important thing in your life, then grab your spouse and make a pledge to spend a future weekend as a marriage retreat in which you will follow the guidelines in this article and at least begin the discussion -- and ideally, complete drafts of your marriage mission and your marriage vision.

Your marriage mission statement offers you the opportunity to establish what is most important to you both as a couple -- a mantra that you see and live every day, in good times and bad. Your marriage vision statement looks at your goals and dreams for the future and crafts a mutual set of principles that can be enacted to help achieve that future.

Creating Your Marriage Mission Statement

Remember that your marriage mission statement should focus on the present and answer the question, "what is at the core of our marriage?"

The best way to being the process of crafting your marriage mission is to start discussing the fundamental principles and ideas of how you both live your marriage -- or for engaged or recently married, how you want to live your marriage.

If you prefer answering a set of questions, try one or more of these five:

1. What values of the marriage are fundamental?

2. What are things we want to avoid in our marriage?

3. What are the best parts of our relationship/marriage?

4. What kind of marriage do we have/want?

5. What do we each get out of our marriage?

Take notes during your discussion, circling the words and phrases you both you to describe your marriage.

Your goal at the end of the session is crafting a one-sentence (thus, statement) describing your marriage. Avoid too many semicolons or other grammatical techniques to extend it. Keep editing it down until it passes the t-shirt test; in other words, short enough to easily fit on the front or back of a t-shirt.

Sample Marriage Mission Statements

Sample Marriage Mission 1:This is our marriage pledge... To love each other, respect each other, support each other, and always resolve any issues before going to bed for the night.

Sample Mission Statement 2: We promise to always have each other's backs, to love deeply and passionately, to keep inwardly focused and avoid those who might hurt the marriage.

Sample Marriage Mission 3: We value honesty, mutual respect, and love for each other above all else, including family, friends, careers, money.

Sample Marriage Mission 4: To live lives deeply intertwined with passion, love, and respect for each other and for the sacrament of marriage.

Sample Marriage Mission 5: To live a life as husband and wife as God intentions, fully supporting each other, jointly raising our children, and staying focused on the prize of our marriage, not letting small setbacks or people affect what God has deemed good, right.

Creating Your Marriage Vision Statement

While your marriage mission statement should be fairly easy to create, your marriage vision statement will most likely be a longer, more involved process.

Begin the process with your partner remembering that your marriage vision should be inspiring and challenging -- describing what you want to accomplish in your marriage in the future... what you want your marriage to become. Once your vision statement is completed, you can then start developing steps -- 1-year, 5-year, and 10-yeart goals to help you achieve your vision.

Plan to make several lists -- of your individual dreams, values, strengths, and weaknesses. Be as honest as you can, then set aside the lists.

Next, work together on your goals for the marriage. Develop a statement for each partner -- and for the marriage -- together for all of these 10 goals:

• Sexual/physical connections (frequency, types, etc.)

• Intellectual pursuits (college, grad school, self-actualization)

• Spiritual/religious ideals (and their role in the marriage)

• Career aspirations and values (and how marriage can support/be supported by them)

• Financial management and importance of money.

• Family relations (including dealing with current family, future children, etc.).

• Physical fitness (including importance, amount, types).

• Eating, drinking, nutrition (including types of food, who cooks, eating out)

• Household administration (including division of chores, where/how to live)

• Recreational activities (including daily, weekend, and longer vacations, aspirations)

Final Thoughts on Keeping Your Marriage Your Priority

Use these two tools -- your marriage mission and your marriage vision -- to continually help your marriage evolve. Both of these statements are meant to be reviewed and revised regularly, so consider using a weekend before or after your wedding anniversary to review, revise, and reaffirm your marriage mission and your marriage vision; doing so will help you continue strengthening the marriage as each partner evolves.

Finally, consider printing and framing your marriage mission, hanging it in a prominent place in your home for you to see -- as well as inspiration for guests, children, and other visitors.