Last month, my knight and I were blessed to celebrate 20 years of marriage. Call me crazy, call me just a hopeless romantic, but I LOVE my husband! Yes, I refer to him as my knight because he is just that amazing in the way he treats me; holding doors for me, getting the car door for me, making sure I have enough cash, gas in the vehicle, and little things in between. He is the spitting image of his father, who was the perfect knight in his marriage of 61 years.
Through the years, I have met other women, friends and co-workers, who made it their hobby to complain about their husbands; some bitterly, I might add. Listening to their list of complaints and character flaws, I would hear the anger and bitterness in their voices. What was so weird was when I had the opportunity to meet these dreadful creatures called husbands, they rarely resembled the descriptions I was provided. I'll never forget one lady that I knew through selling Tupperware who threw a huge Christmas party for all her sales force (of which I was part of) at her home. When I arrived, a son answered the door and took my coat, another lead me to the group, her husband made sure everyone had drinks, food, and were comfortable, all the while our host lead the meeting and celebration without a worry. I was in a daze by what I saw and what she had described to me for months as worthless heaps that made her life nearly unbearable.
Always reading books and articles on family living and all things related, I came across an article talking about how one can talk themselves out of love. Wow, does that make sense! Just as you can self-talk yourself through a trying situation, you can self-talk yourself out of something, too. Negativity breeds negativity just as easily as positivity breeds positivity.....same process.
From the get-go, in a relationship, respect and mutual admiration should be the front runner for each other. I know the difference between a good marriage and a bad one, believe me! Being raised under the umbrella of a miserable marriage where my parents rarely spoke kindly of each other and arguments abounded quite frequently, I see now how much pain and tension it transmitted throughout the family. I don't know when it when downhill, but it did and after 26 years of marriage, my father had had enough.
My two brothers and I watched as the anger, bitterness, and disrespect ruined our parents, which is sad to see today, both in their early 80's, alone, and fighting all the disabilities of aging without a spouse to weather these trials with. Would they have changed things, if they could see what was before them? I don't know, I don't ask.
Basically, start at the very beginning, at the starting gate, be respectful and show admiration for your new spouse. Recently, Steve Crowder, a young newly-wed and FOX contributor began writing about his marriage and his thoughts are noble and very needed in this day in age of doom and gloom concerning marriage and the traditional family life. I share his article here. He is saying exactly what I have been saying all along about marriage and spousal love and respect.
7 comments:
Oh I like this. I feel the same way about my husband of 15 years. It's so bad for a marriage to discuss negative things about our spouses with other people.
On Friday I taught two Catechetical sessions at a Catholic Teachers' Conference, and compared the abundance of food in the Loaves & Miracle to my wife. That is, God gave me much more wife than I deserved, and a better wife than I could have imagined.
"Talk yourself out of love." That's a great way to put it. It's easy to focus on the bad instead of the good, and then you get into the habit and stop being able to see the good. Too bad the other way around isn't as bulletproof! You have to keep working at it... This is something I think about a lot in my own life.
You are lucky to have such a good marriage when your parents had a bad one. Their story is sad. What you wrote here shows how important it is to appreciate a spouse. I think we can do that by having realistic expectations and going out of our way to do kind things for one another. Nobody's perfect, especially me!
There's just no way to speak about one without the other being implicated. Complaining casts the complainer in a poor light. Complimenting flatters the one who either (1) chose well, or (2) succeeded in molding.
Guess that's what "one flesh" means.
But mine certainly does things of his own volition, out of the goodness of his heart and not in response to anything from me.
Such good advice, thanks for sharing!
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