Last Saturday night some friends invited my wife and me over to their house for dinner and a movie. Several other couples were invited and we all brought food for the occasion. We had fried chicken, black bean dip, cheesecake, and chocolate cake. Did I mention chocolate cake?
The sun started to set so it was cool enough for us to stay outside. My friend put a sheet on the back of his house, set up a projector, and when it got dark enough we settled into our lawn chairs for the movie.
The movie for the night was ‘Fireproof’ which is a film about a father who challenges his son to save his marriage by using a 40 day “love dare”. About half the crowd had seen it before but all felt it was worth seeing again. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Here are just a few of its powerful lessons…
*Marriages improve when we stop focusing on changing our spouses and start looking at what needs to be changed in us.
*We can fight for all kinds of noble things and still neglect our marriages.
*Sometimes even those closest to you will tell you to give up on your marriage…don’t. It’s never too late to begin again.
*Infidelity is whatever you put before your spouse. This includes work, other people, sports, hobbies…you name it.
*When things get tough and you feel unappreciated, try even harder to encourage and serve your spouse. Change will come.
*If you don’t know where to begin, try loving your spouse as God loves you, faithfully and unconditionally.
>‘Fireproof’ is without a doubt one of the best marriage-building movies out there. It’s packed with all kinds of thought provoking stuff that will change your life and your marriage. If you haven’t seen it, grab it today. I dare you.
Focus: Respect
Healthy marriages have high levels of respect.
Our spouses need to know that they are loved, valued, and appreciated.
Challenge: Say it and Show it
Over the next few days intentionally let your husband or wife know how much you respect them.
Text them to let them know that you admire them for what they do or leave them a note
to let them know that you appreciate something about them.
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
~ Mignon McLaughlin
Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day.
I don’t really like Valentines Day. Ok, there I’ve said it. Well, it’s not that I hate it altogether. I just have a problem with what I call ‘Valentine’s Pressure’. Every guy reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about. It starts around the beginning of February or maybe even earlier.
You see, that’s when you notice that the cards and candy have hit the stores. So immediately you start thinking about what to get your wife. Flowers? Nope, every guy does that. Candy? I don’t think so, at our house we still have chocolate kisses and candy canes left over from Christmas.
And so the question stays with you for several weeks. How can I let my wife know how much I love and appreciate her? One thing’s for sure, whatever it is, it has to be better than last year. That’s just how it works and therein lies the problem…and the pressure.
Valentine’s can begin to feel forced and well, you can say lots of things about love but one thing’s for sure, it shouldn’t be forced. And I can tell you, considering all that my wife puts up with from me, expressing my love to her with flowers or chocolate one day a year just doesn’t cut it. She deserves more. (Yes, you guessed it, this is the part where I suck up to my wife for saying that I don’t like Valentine’s Day!)
What I’m trying to say is that I hope and pray that I express my love to my wife every day and not just on those ‘Hallmark Holidays’ when I’m ‘supposed’ to express it. Our spouses need to know that we still believe in them…every day. They need to know that we’d marry them all over again and that there are thousands of things that we love about them…every day.
So if you want to give your spouse an incredible Valentine’s gift, give them that. Sure, go to dinner, shower them with flowers and chocolate if that’s what they like but also recommit yourself to expressing your love to them on the other 364 days of the year. Use post it notes, texts, cards…whatever it takes. If all else fails, try just telling them what you love and appreciate about them…every day. Then they’ll know that you’re not just saying it on the one day that you’re supposed to.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
p.s. If you and your spouse still haven’t taken the MyMarriageCoach quiz, I invite you to take a few minutes and take it together. I honestly believe that it’s one of the best things that you can do for your marriage. It analyzes 10 different areas of your marriage, reveals how you both view your relationship, calculates your marriage score, and then recommends several resources that you can use to deal with the weak spots. Talk about a great way to let your spouse know that you really care this Valentine’s Day!
Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day. Gifts for valentine’s day.
It was late when she called me. I had known her and her husband for many years. She called to let me know that she and her husband were having marriage problems and she thought they were headed for a divorce. She asked if I would talk with them.
The call surprised me. This couple had been married for over twenty years. They have two grown children and seemed to love each other. We set up a time to meet and we talked. For almost two hours we talked. There wasn’t any shouting or name callling. They both spoke very calmly about what they thought went wrong. There was no infidelity, no financial crisis, and no abuse but they both agreed that their marriage was dead. Marriage Problems. Marriage Problems. Marriage Problems. Marriage Problems.
I asked them when they first realized that something was broken. He said that it started to die six or seven years earlier. She agreed and said that she guessed they had just ‘fallen out of love’.
She said that right after their children went away to college she told him over breakfast one morning that she felt like they had drifted apart and that she wanted them to talk with someone. He said that he didn’t realize that there was a problem. She said that was the problem…he hadn’t noticed. They resolved to get some help but they never did, not until she called me years later.
We met together several more times and each time that we met it became more obvious that they were headed for a divorce. Neither person seemed to have any desire to stay married. They wanted it to be civil and by talking with me they could let everyone know that they had tried everything.
Within three months they were divorced. She stayed in the house and he moved to another state. This all happened several years ago. Neither person has remarried and now their first grandchild is on the way. They’ll each tell you that they’re doing great but their eyes aren’t very convincing.
I wanted to share this story with you for a very important reason. If you feel like something is broken in your relationship, don’t wait to get the marriage help that you need. Talk to someone. A counselor, a pastor, find someone to help you talk through things. Your marriage is worth fighting for. Don’t let it die a slow death. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems.
Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems.
Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems.
Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems. Marriage problems.
So I’m sitting at a traffic light yesterday and I notice that the car in front of me has stuff written all over it. Well, just on the windows. You know, in white shoe polish. Obviously, it was a couple who had just been married. Everyone that passed by seemed to notice and waved to them like long lost friends. The light changed and the couple were off. Oddly enough, they headed in the same direction as the car wash. Coincidence? I think not.
And then I saw it, it was written in big block letters across the back window, “JUST MARRIED!” and underneath that was the words, “GAME OVER”. Pretty sad, huh? I know that it was meant to be funny and that’s why you decorate a car at a wedding. The back windshield of a car isn’t exactly the place for a profound statement about marriage. But with that said, of all the things that could have been written there…that was it. Game over. I cringed.
The truth is, when we get married the game isn’t over, it’s “on” or at least it should be. This brings me to the point of this post, adventure and fun. Couples need it. One of my favorite authors, John Eldredge often writes about how couples need to intentionally plan adventure into their marriages. In their book, “Love and War”, John and his wife Stasi write:
“Whether it is camping in the Tetons or traveling to New York to see a Broadway show, the excitement and mystery of adventure can be strong coffee for a marriage. The new sights and sounds, the need to pull together to erect a tent or hail a cab – and yes, all the tensions also – they awaken us from the dulling effect of the daily grind and make us more alive to our world, to each other and to God.” (“Love and War”, p. 109)
How true that is. We all need adventure in our lives and marriages but we tend to factor it out. We play it safe and settle for the adventure of simply getting to and from work. Deep down we all know that we were meant for more. We’re wired for adventure and our marriages need it.
So what adventures do you have planned for you and your spouse? If you cannot think of any, maybe it’s time to put something on the calendar. Game on…
Yesterday I was talking with a man in his eighties and he said something about his marriage that hit me like a bucket of cold water. His wife passed away three years ago after they had been married for 54 years. He sat very comfortably in his wheelchair and told me about all of the great times that they had shared over the years. He talked about all of places they had traveled and about the struggles that they had faced together. Then he said, “Gosh I miss her. I miss loving her and honoring her.”
I had never heard anyone say anything like that before so I said, ‘”So you honored your wife?” He smiled and said, “I certainly tried to. I tried to honor her everyday”. He went on to say that he thought the word love was used too much these days. He said, “I love lots of things but I honored my wife”.
I’ll carry his words with me. After all, isn’t that what most of us said that we’d do in the beginning? At some point, didn’t we hold hands with our spouses and vow to love and honor them til’ death do us part? It’s part of the promise that we made.
Dale Harcombe once wrote: “Honoring your spouse means building them up and making others think well of them. It means praising them and accepting them for who they are and not trying to change them into someone else. It means honoring them with your actions and your words. It means honoring them with your body and being faithful to them. Not just in your actions but in your thoughts and imagination as well.”
Wow. That’s tough. Think about it, how have you honored your spouse this week? It’s still part of the deal you know. So this weekend, I challenge you to stay focused on honoring your husband or wife. Find a way to let him/her know that they come first and that you love and honor them.
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes…
I was meeting with a couple recently to plan their wedding. After talking through the details of the ceremony, the “Bride to be” said, “Is that it? Is that all that we need to do? That seems too simple.”
She’s right and that’s part of the problem. Getting married is simple. Staying married on the other hand isn’t. Planning the wedding is the easy part. Planning a great marriage, well that’s a different story.
We’re led to believe that married life will automatically be easier than single life. And that belief carries us for a while but then after a few months or a few years something unexpected happens. It could be the loss of a job, financial tension, an illness, or any number of things.
Stress enters the relationship like an uninvited guest and if things aren’t dealt with well, the whole thing can start to unravel. That’s why over 50% of married couples get taken out. That’s why so many end up in a place they never expected to be. They are simply caught off guard because they were led to believe that life would automatically get easier after the wedding.
Marriage does seem too simple. But it’s not. Far from it. If you want to have a great marriage it’s gonna take everything you’ve got. That’s why this site is here.
Every couple needs a place to go for encouragement, support, and great marriage advice. We all need to be reminded that we can do this and that it’s worth it. And it is. It is so worth it.
Regardless of how long you’ve been married or where you feel your relationship stands right now, I hope that you find this site incredibly useful. I hope that it helps you take your marriage to a deeper and more fulfilling place.
Please take a moment to share what has strengthened your marriage, check out the recommended resources on the tool kit page, or take the marriage quiz. Either way, know that I’m glad that you’re here!
