10 Black Married Couples Reveal Their Secret to Happily Ever After

For us, the key to marital bliss has been keeping Christ first in our relationship and our lives. It's like a triangle with ourselves as the bottom corners and God at the top. As long as we're both chasing Christ, we climb higher and grow closer. When you keep God at the center, all the other pieces seem to fall right into place.

I have to say that after 4 years of marriage the thing that has helped us stay blissfully happy is defining what a "perfect marriage" looks like FOR US. We do what makes us happy from handling finances to household roles. When you listen less to what society says you "need to do" in a marriage to make it, you figure out the things that make YOUR marriage flourish. Coming up on 5 years we've found our sweet spot by focusing on each other and our needs. No room for "they say" over here!

Our advice for maintaining marital bliss: Spontaneity. Although the dating stages are over, do things that are random, unexpected, and exciting from date nights, weekend getaways, or simply having ratchet moments.

Compromise, and letting the other person be themselves. Not trying to change the other person, but enhancing whom they already are. Selflessly and wholeheartedly.

It’s so funny – I’d say the key to marital bliss is communication, but I thought that would be boring, so I asked Jarel, and he said “communication”! We’re both big talkers. I think our very first phone conversation lasted for like 6 hours. Even with us both being such social people, though, talking about the stuff that really matters – the difficult and uncomfortable stuff – is no easier for us than anyone else. So I think we’ve had to make a conscious effort to talk about EVERYTHING; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Always remember, God is the Glue that makes a marriage stay together. Marriage is not a destination, it's an ever-evolving journey.

Our key to marital bliss as newlyweds is constant communication, continued courtship, continued pursuit and continued romance.

As a woman who has been married for fifteen years as of May, there are many things that I have learned and I am continuing to learn when it comes to this thing called marriage. For me "the most important" thing would be prayer. Did she just say "prayer?" Yes I did! Prayer is a powerful tool. Believe me, it took several years for me to get it. After years of trying everything else, I chose to begin to pray. When I couldn't get through to my husband, I prayed. When, we faced different challenges, I prayed, and it worked. Let me be perfectly clear, every time I prayed, God didn't change him, there were times he showed me Rochelle. Praying for your spouse shouldn't be a task you just do when challenges arise, it should be a daily practice.

Our advice for maintaining marital bliss: Effective communication, and understanding the ways your partner receives love. The latter being most important thing of all actually, you have to know how your partner wants and needs to be loved in order to maintain a desirable connection. Also, try hard to keep things as exciting as they were in the beginning, Beyonce said it best, “Keep it how it is so you can never say how it used to be!”

For us, staying happy means staying true to God's plan for our lives. When people stray from what convicts them or lean towards selfishness, they can become very unhappy. We find balance in giving each other the freedom to be who God created us to be. Authentic people are happier people & we refuse to have it any other way.