Look After Your Marriage

As a mother/father, wife/husband, and woman/man, the best thing you can do is to nurture and care for your marriage, your prime relationship on this earth.

Without a secure relational base, the family frays around the edges.

Treat your honey as your best friend – watch your tone of voice, how you request things (to be done), how you correct, and how you fight. Yes, learn to ‘fight’ fairly – no digging up the relics from the past, no bringing in other issues not directly related to the current ‘problem’.

Take responsibility for your own feelings and actions. Oh dear, to love and respect our friend-husband-partner, we need to be(come) so grown up and giving, even endlessly unconditional and forgiving in our love. Lord, give me patience and help me to try to understand!

Look forward, not back. Look for the new and the positive. Share your hopes and dreams for yourself, have shared hopes and dreams – as a team.

Remember: “WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE”.

Another maxim my DH and I used especially in the first few years:
IF IN DOUBT, PRAY!

And a Biblical exhortation DH and I have leaned on in recent years, referring to God’s help, but can still relate to us plus the children:
YOU DON’T HAVE COS YOU DON’T ASK.
This doesn’t mean God (or anyone else) will give me what I ask for all the time, but how can I be given what I need if I don’t share that with another?

We are created for community – living together, belonging together.

Blessings on your marriage covenant,
johanna*mark
www.2Restore.wordpress.com

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Here’s a few helpful articles on Marriage :

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=weblog&id=283&wlid=9&cn=289
Interview with William Glasser (Reality Therapy now Choice Therapy) on Happier Marriages – personal responsibilty not external control; communicate interests and expectations to other without making demands.

http://divorcemarriage.blogspot.com/2008/06/choice-theory-from-glasser-quality.html  – Edmond Tay discussing William Glasser’s book

Relationships and our Habits
Seven Caring Habits
1. Supporting
2. Encouraging
3. Listening
4. Accepting
5. Trusting
6. Respecting
7. Negotiating differences
Seven Deadly Habits
1. Criticising
2. Blaming
3. Complaining
4. Nagging
5. Threatening
6. Punishing
7. Bribing, rewarding to control

http://wglasser.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=27

http://www.divorcebusting.com/ - Michele Weiner-Davis
www.2Restore.wordpress.com