Best place to feel good

Marriage is the best place to feel good – we’ve got someone who loves us and said they would stay with us no matter what. If that’s just the foundation, wow! It can even get far better than that, with just a little daily reinforcement thrown in.

Each day that you slip in a compliment like, “wow, you’re the best [insert noun] ever”, “thanks for doing the [insert chore]”, “you’re my favourite person in the world” etc, etc, or that you receive such encouragements, notice how your day is so much happier and your marriage keeps getting better and better each day!

It’s been reinforced to me over and over again from many different sources over the past two weeks: the words we speak are so powerful that they create our reality.

New lease of life!

I’ve figured out what I need to do with this blog now, though it took 3 years.

It’s getting a make-over!

I’m taking a holiday in a couple of weeks, and when I come back, this blog will become a treasure trove of encouragements for married couples. Positive snippets of nice things to fill our marriage spaces will stream forth, maybe monthly at first with the aim of making it more often.

No ball and chain marriages here!

Subscribe and be encouraged…

Avoid an after marriage let-down

Will you make extra effort with your partner until the knot is tied, but find yourself starting to act “like yourself”, a lazier self, thereafter? Maybe if your perception of the impact of this marriage on your life was different, you might ensure you don’t change your tune to a lesser you. Your impending marriage to the love of your life 1) takes preparation in the manner you mean to go on, 2) requires focus, and 3) is entry into your destiny.

Prior preparation:

The meticulous care in getting ready for a date, the prior planning to surprise and delight your partner, the flirty/doting/attention-giving texts; all are actually promises you are making to your partner about how exciting a mate you will continue to be for them. Your spouse is marrying, according to them, the most good looking, intelligent, fun, and exciting person they have ever met based on this prior experience of you.

How do you know you know?

What is it that happens to make people realise they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other? I’m fascinated by this – how do you know? In my own experience I got little surprises about my husband to be almost each time I saw him (when we had just met). I couldn’t quite believe that a man actually existed that was just like I never realised I always wanted!

I think one factor that definitely goes without saying is time spent getting to know the personality of this person. If you like what they say and are impressed by what they do, if you enjoy spending your time with them, it has to count for a whole lot. But is it enough to commit to your whole life with them? I’m sure there are many other facets to this. What are your stories on how you knew you wanted to be with your spouse “til death do you part”?

Submit! – que?

I was chatting to my good friend the other day about submitting to your husband. She had been to a wedding where she was horrified to hear the bride (a Christian wedding) say in her vows that she would submit to her husband! I said the meaning of the word submission has altered and been lost to some extent through the ages, to now hold negative connotations. Actually what it originally means to portray is simply that the husband is the head of the family, and he is perfectly capable of making good decisions on behalf of his family.

What is marriage? Marriage and Design

Marriage dates back as far as Adam and Eve who became husband and wife. The bible explains that in this act of marriage the man leaves his father and mother and becomes one flesh with his wife*. I think that’s a perfect way of explaining how getting married means becoming a team or a family of your own. Previously, you were part of your parent’s nuclear family unit with your father (or mother!) at the head. In your own marriage, you are creating your own family foundations using what you’ve learned from your own parents, from your life experiences, and combining these with the learnings and experiences of your spouse. In this way, marriage takes forward-thinking and planning; it takes design, it takes creation to bring all of these ideas and beliefs together.

Why prepare for being married?

Prior preparation prevents poor performance!

People study for years to get a good job. Just selecting the right job for you isn’t enough – you have to do some prior preparation to make sure you can do what you will need to do. Likewise when having a baby most people would find out about how to care for children, what to prepare for and what to expect. Many would read books about it.

In the same way, surely it is important to set up a marriage, something that you commit to for the rest of your lives, in a way that focuses you on making it succeed?