Whenever people take on a big challenge, they look to those who came before them. They seek education, advice, and the path already taken in the hopes that it will make their journey a little easier. Marriage is no different. Even before couples get engaged - while they are courting and contemplating the next steps - they look around them to see how it's done.

Much of the time our parents and grandparents offer up intended and unintended lessons in love, marriage, and family.


But we're not limited to just them. Other family members, friends, and even celebrity couples might influence our relationships. Recently, I posted a query on a site, which reporters use to find sources, asking married couples who they viewed as role models and what lessons they learned from them. Here is the education they shared: 

1. Be your spouse's B.F.F.

Julie Drew, author of The Tesla Effect trilogy and professor of English, writes in an e-mail that her mother and stepfather served as marriage role models, at first, because they not only dedicated themselves to each other but to the children they both had in previous relationships. When Drew became a divorced, single mom, she says she recognized how important and special blending families is. 

In 1998, Drew remarried and started paying more attention to the bond her parents had with each other, which went beyond the family they raised together. Now, Drew's parents are in their 70s and have become her ideal on how couples should spend their golden years.

"They deliberately stay sharp and active, and they do things together every single day," she adds. "Whether it's the NYT crossword, community service through the Lion's Club, organizing neighborhood yard sales for charity, going dancing, or competing over their Jeopardy scores every evening. They are companions, friends, and confidantes, and they advocate for one another fiercely in all things."

2. Keep up the good work. 

Academic Jim Fadiman taught Eric Daimler, who has been married to Melissa since 1996, that marriage is his responsibility. But it was Daimler's friends, Tim and Judy, who showed him that marriage is always a work in progress, he writes in an e-mail. 

"Just like fixing the roof when the sun is shining or saving money while extra cash is coming in,
the best time to work to make the marriage even better is when everything is going great," writes Daimler. "Maturity means thinking ahead before the rain starts, the job is lost, or you are unhappy."

3. Have vision. 

Fred Mwangaguhunga and Notoya Green have been married for 8 years, have triplets, and are the founders of Mediatakeout.com, which is an urban celebrity news Website. Their role models are talk show host Wendy Williams and her husband Kevin, who they know personally. One of the main reasons that they are admirers of Williams and her husband is that they are business partners and lovers and it all works, writes Mwangaguhunga in an e-mail.

More importantly, Williams and her husband made big plans together. "They had a vision of what they wanted their marriage to be like and stuck to it, until all of their desires were brought into fruition," writes Mwangaguhunga. "We have set a vision for ourselves, and it has helped us get to the point of where we are now. It takes commitment and patience — eight years of marriage, a successful business and a set of triplets later, we’ve realized that the end goal is always sweeter than you anticipated."