Picture yourself and your spouse on your 50th wedding anniversary. Is it a happy picture? Are you smiling, content? Are you satisfied with what you have put into this fifty-year-long relationship? Are you still best friends? Are you still in love?
Being in love is not a phase for teenagers or newlyweds. In love does not have to end with the honeymoon or the first child or financial woe. Whether or not you are in love tomorrow depends on the choices you make today. Love is not an out-of-control feeling but a structure, built up by action upon action, choice upon choice, or vulnerable and falling apart from abuse, neglect, and apathy. Choose to build your structure well by making these 12 choices.
1. Choose to be a team. No more separate lives, interests, friends, even jobs. View every endeavor as a shared one, even if your part is minimal. Joe puts in 40+ hours a week at his family’s business; I put in about 2 or 3 hours a week updating the website from the comfort of home. But when we have a shop meeting, I’m there. When policies change, I want to know. I care. It’s “our business.”
2. Choose to accept your husband’s personality. Oh, how many heartaches could be avoided with a little understanding! Personality types are very simple but most of us know nothing about them, and into this lifelong relationship we go only to be shocked by the fact that this strange creature chooses not be just like me! What could be wrong with him? Well, dear, nothing. The problem is ignorance: not everyone is like you! Save yourself more heartache by getting educated about personalities, and make the choice to love and embrace who your husband is, as he is. Do not try to make him more like yourself. There is a reason different personalities are attracted to each other. They balance each other out. Don’t ruin it all by forcing your husband to try to become some twisted, mediocre version of who he is supposed to be.
3. Choose to bite your tongue. Here is a simple test: When faced with the choice of these two cliches, which should you choose? “Silence is Golden,” or “Honesty is the Best Policy.” If you picked the first, then you’ve learned a thing or two already. Honesty is best. Don’t ever lie to your husband. Not good. But also don’t feel like you have to share every single little thought that goes through your head with your husband. “Woman, be silent!” is an admonition we all need sometimes. It is okay to just sit in quietness together. It is not only okay, it is necessary for the sake of a happy marriage, to sit in quietness when you are thinking negative things. To sum it up with an even better cliche, remember what my Mom used to say: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
4. Choose to talk about your husband positively. Now is the time for talking! You’re with his family, or your family, or a group of friends. Someone finishes a story, everyone laughs appropriately, and that small silence fills the air as everyone waits for the next topic. Jump in. “Did I tell you all about this new deck Bob just build onto our house?” Or “Did you hear that John’s boss said he was the most valuable member of management?” Or “Steve did the sweetest thing the other night…” You know the man. Next time you are en route to a social event, review a few positive stories (feel free to share them with him as you drive; he won’t mind) and share them. (Understood in this admonition is its opposite as well: Don’t talk about your husband negatively.)
5. Choose to be his best friend. You know about best friends. Best friends talk on the phone, go out, spend time together, have secrets and inside jokes, know embarrassing stories about each other, remember birthdays… well, the female best friends do, anyway! Guy best friends are a little different. They don’t go to the bathroom in pairs and they don’t paint their nails together. So compromise a little bit. The point is that best friends seek out and enjoy each other’s company; they laugh together; they make each other a continue reading…