Love is Intentional: Practical Intentions

Each day we make a choice to love our spouse. It is a choice. Having a happy and thriving marriage requires intentionality on the part of both people involved. It requires a daily re-commitment to your marriage vows.

There are infinite ways to be intentional about loving your spouse and making your marriage the best it can be. My hope is to get you started by listing off some practical and easy ways:

• Start each day by telling your spouse how much you love, appreciate, and cherish him/her.
• Try to do something special at least once a month just for your spouse because your know he/she will love it.
  
• At least once a year, sit down, read, and recite your vows to each other again to keep them current and fresh in your mind.
  
• When you do not feel like loving your spouse, choose to love them anyway.
• Pray for your spouse and marriage daily.
• When you are feeling yourself beginning to have negative feelings toward your spouse, stop and focus on some of the good things about your spouse.
• Each day, tell yourself and your spouse that you love them.
• Maintain integrity by avoiding any potentially hazardous or dangerous situations that could harm your marriage.
• Think positively about your spouse and marriage.

As I mentioned before, there are an infinite amount of possibilities on how you can intentionally love your spouse. This is just a small list of some things to get you started and thinking in that direction.

While I am at it, I just wanted to share a little experience from yesterday that I found so encouraging. I was at Hallmark picking up some cards for various people, and I overheard an older lady telling the sales person that she had been married for 66 years. As i was leaving the store, I wanted to let her know how encouraging it was to hear that someone made it 66 years (that's quite the accomplishment!). Well, as I congratulated her, she proceeded to tell me that after 66 years of marriage, her husband had just passed away at the age of 91, and she was there picking up some things for the proceedings this weekend. She wasn't sad though because she said it was the best 66 years, and that they had created this amazing family together that all had wonderful memories to ponder upon. As I walked away, I thought to myself, "Isn't that what we all really crave? A lifetime with someone. A huge family of memories all started with a commitment we made and kept. All brought together in celebration of life." I was so encouraged and absolutely overwhelmed with excitement of hearing her story. What she and her husband had is what we all want, but so many of us aren't willing to do what it takes to get that.

Love does not come easily. Love is an action and requires work. Marriage may be one of the hardest things you will ever have to work at, but it's also the greatest thing to work at. Don't get discouraged - realize it's tough, it's work, there are going to be good and bad times, there are ups and downs. The important thing is to make your marriage a priority through it all and remember how it is so worth it. Stay intentional. Put the time, effort, and work into it, so that you can reap its rewards for the rest of your lives as will all the generations to follow you.

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It's All In Your Head: A Positive View

As I mentioned on Monday, a lot of the battle for a happy marriage begins in our heads. We make decisions about how we view our spouse, how we react to situations, and how we view our marriage and life. These decisions start with a process inside our heads. The important thing to note is that we choose how we react to things, how we treat our spouse, and how we view our life/marriage. No matter what happens, no matter what your spouse does, you are responsible for you. How you handle things and react are entirely your choice. It's like that saying "two wrongs don't make a right."

That being sad, we choose how we view our spouse. Granted he or she can make it tough for us to view them in a positive light, but we ultimately choose how we are going to view them (and subsequently treat them). A study conducted by Marcus Buckingham, the author of The One Thing You Need to Know (not a Christian book or author by the way) set out to show that in every discipline, there is one thing you need to know to be successful. So, in marriage he wanted to find out the one thing people have in a happy, successful marriage. He did massive research on marriages of all sorts and discovered the following:

• In all of the marriages where they were unhappy, unloving, and unsuccessful, there was this big gap between expectations and behavior.
  
• They assumed healthy marriages would demonstrate a smaller gap between these two things but what they discovered is that the gap in loving, healthy marriages (that were successful 10+ years) was the same.
  
• Both had totally unrealistic expectations going into marriage.
  

So, what was the difference then? Well, they conducted a test where the husbands graded themselves in various categories and then the wives turned around and graded their husbands in the same categories. The difference ended up being that the wives graded their husbands better in every single category than the husbands had graded themselves and visa versa. Here's what they said as their conclusion "Love really is blind. A spouse's positive illusion created an upward spiral of love." This is why we even get married. When we are dating, we explain away everything to cover the sins of our significant other, the same needs to be true when we marry them in order to maintain that love.

I touched on this in the "Foundation of Marriage: Attitude" posting. We must choose to assume the best rather than the worst about our spouse. We can always find the bad in someone, and they can always find the bad in us. Finding the good in them though and focusing on that is in the best interest of you, your spouse, and your marriage. When something turns up or goes wrong, or perhaps our spouse "proves us right" again and disappoints, our natural inclination is to say, "See! He/She did it again!" We must choose a different reaction if we want to cultivate love. A personal example of this is:

• Each night I make dinner and expect my hubs to be home around 6:30. I just about have dinner timed perfectly for him to walk in the door to when I occasionally get a text that he is just leaving work and won't be home for another 15 to 20 minutes. I immediately feel bummed because I am so excited to see him, and now my delightful dinner is going to be cold. My natural inclination is to start stewing in negativity - "He has been getting home later and later. Does he know how hard it is to make dinner for him? He must not care that I was planning on him being home when he said." Then I stop myself. I am headed on a downward spiral to no where good. So I start battling that negativity in my head - "Wait a second, he loves coming home to me and a nice dinner, so I know he would never intentionally hurt me or avoid that. He doesn't like staying late at work anymore than I like him to stay late. He worked so hard all day and doesn't need to be greeted by his wife angry at him for something he couldn't help." Then I start thinking on how great of a provider he is and all the wonderful things about him to prepare myself to greet him at the door excited. He walks in the door and is so grateful to be greeted by a happy and loving wife. He apologizes for being late and says how glad he is to be home and how yummy dinner is. It's a wonderful evening instead of one of both of us being miserable. All because I made a choice to stop that downward spiral or negativity and to assume the best.
  

You want your home to be a haven for him or her. Giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt makes a world of difference. Assuming the best over the worst breathes life into the relationship. It's not always easy, and they may be "repeat offenders," but still, be a repeat offender of grace, love, and assuming the best. Think of how it feels when someone handles you that way - you want to be a better person and maybe react or behave differently the next time. Love and grace are contagious. A "Love is blind" mentality in a marriage can protect your marriage and definitely builds it up. Try giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt and choose to love your spouse, your marriage, and behave positively. Stop the downward spiral. It will make a world of difference in your marriage!

*There is a sermon that was given at my church - Mariner's Church in Irvine, CA, and it was really wonderful on this concept. If you want to check it out - you can subscribe to their podcasts at http://www.marinerschurch.org/pages/weekend-podcast.html and look for a sermon named "What is Your Choice?" It's from a great sermon series that I would encourage you to check out called "As Good As It Gets?"

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