Marriage Tip #2: Don't ever give up

Marriage is a journey.  There are going to be times of great joy and happiness but there will probably be times of sorrow and difficulty.  Either way you cannot ever give up on each other and your marriage.  Both parties have to be willing to work on the marriage because marriage will never be a one way street.  Sometimes people do terrible things and trust and respect may go out the window.  But I believe if both people are willing to work together you can overcome any obstacle.  Forgiveness is the key to moving on and going forward.

When you think about it, if you are a Christian you should try to forgive people no matter what they did.  The main reason is because Christ forgives us of our daily trespasses.  We can never be “good enough” no matter how hard we try we will always fall short.  This is why grace is so important.  Grace makes up the gap between where we want to be and where we actually are.  Sometimes this can be a difficult concept and expectations definitely factor in here too.

One thing I always try to do is communicate expectations.  Your spouse is never going to be a mind reader and they can only know your desires if you express them clearly.  Communication is the magic.  I say this all the time.  You have to be in constant communication when things don’t go according to plan; you have to talk things through so you can move forward.  Being angry doesn’t help anyone if you can’t communicate the problem, so it is less likely to happen again.

At the very least it can give the spouse the opportunity to apologize.  Then we come back to forgiveness.  I try to be generous with the forgiveness so when I mess up, he will be more likely to forgive me quickly.  I also just try to make my husband happy, doing things to help him out and being part of activities he enjoys.  He does the same thing for me.

But marriage may not be easy all the time and you really do have to work on it daily.  Be in constant communication because communication is the magic.  There also has to be mutual Love & Respect.  There is a really good book I read that transformed the way I viewed marriage called “Love and Respect” by Dr. Emerson Eggrichs.  If you have not read it, I would definitely recommend it.

I choose you, EVERY time!

In August, it will be two years of being married to Kyle.  It has really flown by.  I love him more every day!!  We just really have fun together.  He is the most amazing Christian leader and someone worth following.  I would follow him anywhere and everywhere. I trust and respect him completely.  In return, he loves me completely, as I like to notice, how Christ loves us.  This is the key to our marriage and I believe any healthy marriage.  In marriage it seems you either grow together or unfortunately, you grow apart.  Growing together is what we will constantly strive for throughout our marriage.  It takes joyful work, patience, and tons of grace!  Sometime you have to, consciously, choose to love your spouse.

I really don’t know how I could ever live without him.  He is my everything. I tell him almost every day, “You know, if I had to pick one thing to have in this world… I choose you, EVERY time!!”  I also tell him that he is “my favorite, anything.”  He is my best friend, and the love of my life.  It is kind of funny to think about but, when I was single, I never really could imagine or expected to ever find someone like him or think about loving someone so much.  He is kind of easy to get along with which helps.  We were also older when we started dating so we were mature.  You have to be satisfied in your relationship with yourself and the Lord or there will be a void in your heart. Then, you try to fill that void with someone else.    

To quote part of my favorite poem by St. Anthony of Padua, “Be Satisfied in Me” he wrote:

“Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
To have a deep soul relationship with another,
To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But God, to a Christian, says,
“No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled and content
With being loved by Me alone,
With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,
With having an intensely personal and unique relationship
With Me alone…”

When I was single, I had this poem taped behind my bedroom door and I read it almost every day.  It helped me focus on my relationship with myself and the Lord.  I really can’t stress that enough, how important it is to be a “complete person” before you are serious about adding that special person to your life.  My recommendation to those being patient in God’s plan for your life is to enjoy every season.  Then when you are ready and the person God has for you is ready, God will unite you together.  Timing is everything. 

So Critical

‘“I was just thinking how critical you are.” My natural instinct was… well, you know. But I thought, This is a good willed man. Maybe he means something else.  So I asked, “What does that mean, that I’m critical?”  He replied, “I mean our family couldn’t exist without you. You are so critical to us.”’  “The Language of Love & Respect,” by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, Pg 101.

When I first read this I thought what you did, wow sounds like the beginning of a fight!  This amazing book talks about a lot of things but one of the points of this chapter is how men say plainly what they mean most of the time and women read in between the lines.  He also talked about how we hear each others voice's and have a different connotation in the sounds when we communicate.

I did an experiment with Kyle and myself at the dinner table.  I said will you yell my name, pretending you are trying to get my attention.  Then I did it.  I thought he sounded mad at me and he thought I sounded like a damsel in distress.  So this just shows how the tone of our voices can make the other person feel a certain way about something we are saying.

Two students are given a task to try to get the other student to cross a line.  Students in America will try to bribe the other student and do anything they can to try to get the other student to come over.  In Japan the same experiment was done and almost immediately all the students quickly switched sides so that each student won.  Hence a true win, win.

I guess that is why in a loving marriage we don’t try to win on just one side, we did like the Japanese and try for a win, win. There is no "i" in team.