Before marriage, couples begin to make mutual decisions and function as a team instead of acting independently. After marriage, however, working together becomes vital. And, it's not always easy. Character qualities such as cooperation, helpfulness, service, flexibility, and forgiveness are all part of the process of developing mature patterns in your marriage.

Amelia Jamison, 28, and her husband David, 23, of Idaho have been married for three years. They both juggle work and school tasks, especially now that they are new homeowners. " Both of us still fight the mentality of being a kid, and not having to be responsible ," Amelia says. Even with a house, mortgage, dog, and two cars. " I ask David to help more and very often he will. But I have to be careful. I can't make it seem like I'm being the Mom and telling him to do his chores. " Amelia is a teacher and working on a Master's degree. David is working in a furniture store while studying to be an engineer.

For Sarah and Josh McCoy, both 31 and living in Florida , the transition into marriage went smoothly six years ago. However, Josh had to work at realizing that it was important for Sarah to know where he is and how to reach him and that she wasn't just trying to be a mother-substitute. Now with two young children, life is a juggling act, even with Sarah at home with the children rather than continuing to work as a policy analyst.

Prioritizing needs

"We are both used to doing things ourselves," says Josh, who works as a university fundraiser. "We have to stop sometimes and say what would help us." And focus on serving each other's needs and prioritizing whose are more pressing at the time. " I might come home with something on my mind, and I've had a mediocre day. I get home and find out that Sarah has had a horrible day. I have to make the decision that her needs are more pressing than mine, and I can put mine on the back burner and at a more appropriate time discuss what's going on in my life. She does same thing for me. "

Josh admits that they are not always able to practice it, but it's a goal for the couple to each have the other's needs as top priority over their own. "When I get home, I know that my job is to give Sarah a break from the kids, spend quality time with them, and help out any way that I can. Even if I'm tired, instead of napping, I make sure she has enough time to get done what she needs to get done, and I figure out the ways that I can help." Sarah does the same thing and gives Josh some unstructured time on the weekends for golf or yard work.

Teamwork

Sarah says it's a struggle to find ways to fulfill their needs as individuals and as a couple. Having children at times has made it more difficult to work as a team with a finite amount of time and an infinite amount of tasks to be done. She says major tasks in particular, such as their recent move, take an enormous amount of cooperation and trading off. "We've developed a rhythm and an automatic sense of when to take turns being on kid duty," she says

The church is a focal point for their lives, and in spite of fatigue and time demands, they make a point to pray daily at meals with their children, Owen 3 years old and Mary 10 months.

For Amelia and David, who do not yet have children, cooperation occurs in other ways. Amelia says that one of the great blessings of marriage is having support during the rough days or when not feeling well. "The other person picks up the slack. David will bring me a drink or snack while I'm on the computer doing schoolwork." Sometimes he also rubs her feet during a break. She helps him when he's annoyed about customers at work, keeping him company and watching movies. "I'm really good at distracting him when he is in a bad mood so that he doesn't dwell on what's making him upset," she says.

Amelia says they pray together at times, but also recognize that they have spiritual responsibility for themselves. "Being married is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done and obviously one of the most satisfying. Learning to share your life so intimately with somebody else is a struggle. It makes you reexamine yourself all the time, because you can't just sit in your own imperfections as easily. Those imperfections affect the other person and get reflected back at you. The goal is to lessen them."

Discovering Strengths

One of the keys to working cooperatively in a marriage is discovering the strengths each person has. Amelia says she is a planner, so on a recent project to restructure a large pantry closet, she suggested the organization and David did the shelving and lifting of heavy items. " The two of us together get way more done than either of us would separately," she says. "There is a spiritual satisfaction with being able to take something and make it ours together."

In Josh and Sarah's case, Josh says that he's happy to socialize with their friends, but it's Sarah who is better at keeping in touch with them. " She is my walking personal calendar, keeping track of all the things that I push out of my head because I'm keeping things straight with my work ," he says.

Both couples have had to work through money challenges, particularly as both have had times when one partner was the sole breadwinner. It takes trust and agreement so money is not a source of disharmony.

Sarah manages the finances for their family, and Josh says it's challenging at times to not question her judgment when packages arrive from online shopping. But, he knows that shopping on the Internet helps Sarah stay at home with the children. "Occasionally there is a misunderstanding, like when I came home with a minivan when she thought I was just looking," Josh says. But they handled it with humor and forgiveness.and Sarah needed it and loves it.

Flexibility

Marriage also takes flexibility, Amelia admits. She likes to have the house clean and orderly all the time, but it's not as important for David. She realizes that there are other things that are more important sometimes. "There's not a lot of time in the evenings, and it's important to David that we do something together every week. I'm having to learn that there are some things that can be done away with. A bit of mess is okay."

Josh agrees that relationship time is vital. "I don't think that any day should go by where we haven't had some bonding time with each other, even if that happens after we put the kids to bed and we just sit next to each other and cuddle a bit. You can feel the physical and spiritual connection spark back."

Susanne M. Alexander is a marriage educator and the author of Pure Gold: Encouraging Character Qualities in Marriage and Can We Dance? Learning the Steps for a Fulfilling Relationship .