So….. Eight nights ago my husband looked at me and said “22 more days”. With a little thought I said “Our wedding! So are you going to marry me!!?” He came a little closer, smiled and said that he couldn’t think of doing anything else.
An idea came to mind to share, twice a week, some of things that have help
us to have a healthy marriage for the past 19 years and 351 days today.
As I reflect on these years I realize that a happy marriage is not about having
everything you think you need, always feeling passion, always getting it right
and agreeing on most things. It’s about:
Tip #3: -Taking time to understand, accept and love yourself so you can really
understand, love and accept your spouse.
Because I understand, love and accept myself with all my strengths, weakness,
quirks, things I’m still working on and my own brand of strangeness…lol…it is
soooo much easier for me to do the following:
• Separate what is me and what is my husband
• Really listen to my husband without becoming defensive or projecting my blame
onto him
• Really Take Responsibility for what I do wrong
• Make myself happy so it is really easy for him to do things that make me
happy
• Love and accept my husband with all his strengths, weakness, quirks, things
he is still working on and his own brand of strangeness without feeling like I
need to change him. My husband can feel loved and accepted which empowers him
to change in response to my love and acceptance and vise versa
• I don’t fall a part when he doesn’t act lovingly because I know I’m loves and
I can really seek to understand what is happening to him
• I’m able to accept my feeling and share them in a constructive way
• Be willing to put myself in his shoes even if his actions are painful to me
• Experience deep and true intimacy in our marriage
• To give grace and space to my husband when he needs it
It was not easy for me to learn love myself. I had to forgive people who hurt
me deeply. I had to renounce many lies I believed about God & myself and
choose to believe and declare daily all that God said about me (no matter how I
felt). I had to learn to acknowledge and label my feelings and try to
understand why I felt the way I did. (Don’t blame anyone for where you are!
Stop asking “why”? and start asking “what now”?) I wrote letters to God as a
way to journal to try to connect the dots in my life. I remained vulnerable to
people and allowed them to influence me as they shared about how they perceived
me. I started really accepting compliments…saying thank you and not minimizing
the compliment. I prayed a lot just asking God to heal me and I had people pray
for me. I changed my self-talk from negative to positive. I complimented and
praised people and helped people, including my husband, to understand how loved
and valuable they are and it really help me. If you are God’s child you are
loved unconditionally! Blessings!
