8 solutions to make married life easier

• Negotiate a fair arrangement. Using these questions, talk over your needs. Work out a reasonable treaty that gives each of you enough individual "adult freedom" every month. Talk openly, but be tough. For example: one day during the week he must be home at five so she can have a free night, and one evening a week he doesn't have to come home right away, but can do things with friends or go play sports as long as he wants. At least four days per month are just hers alone; on two weekends he takes care of the children and takes responsibility for the household (including grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning), on the other two she does. Divorced fathers often find that the obligatory weekends with their children mean that they actually spend more time with them than they did while married!

• Be absolutely reliable. This schedule must be rigidly followed and heroically defended against threats from the office – it is an opportunity for the man to demonstrate his manliness to his boss of customers! Respect this schedule unconditionally: reliability is a cornerstone of love. The more reliable you prove to be to each other, the more your love will grow despite the burdens of everyday life. Once a year, stop and check whether the agreement still makes sense or whether it's time to renegotiate.

• Divide up obligations. First there's career, education, raising children, and managing a household; then tack on elderly parents, a dog, or a garden to take care of, plus problems that arise at kindergarten or school and you can easily reach your limit. Health problems and arguments are the consequences. Here the only help is an objective analysis with everyone involved, where obligations can be reduced, delegated, or removed altogether: the smaller the children, the simpler you should make it. The older the children get, the more obligations can be taken on and divided up fairly.

• Build a network. Get connected to other families who have children around the same ages and who live nearby: form carpools with other mothers to bring children to soccer practice or music lessons, and take each other's children for a weekend now and then. Involve the fathers, too: who can do what especially well and contribute? Call the other families about a special sale you notice at the store to see if they want one, too. Put together a "contingency plan" with these partner families in case one of the mothers gets sick. In the long term, this kind of network stabilizes your relationship, because everything doesn't have to depend on the partner.

Read more:
• How to know if you're ready to have kids
• How to get your spouse to clean the house
• 8 things no one ever tells you about being married

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Excerpted from How to Simplify Your Love, copyright 2008 by Marion Küstenmacher and Werner Tiki Küstenmacher. Used by permission of McGraw-Hill Companies.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.