HEALTHY MARRIAGE

In the spring of 2021 I was intensely finishing up the last few courses on my doctorate while overseeing on-line school with our 3 granddaughters. I had to do a book report on a 900 page comprehensive Christian counseling textbook that, in great detail, outlines many problems we humans have and how to approach each one in an effort to help people overcome the issues in their relationships. One of the teachers stated that she went to school to learn helping skills but was disappointed that she still did not have adequate tools in her kit to do that. This is one of the reasons I went back to school after we became empty nesters – to learn helping skills. 

We are so good at looking at the problems in relationships and having answers to help fix things. However, we also need to see what a good, healthy marriage looks like. This is the marriage, not the individuals who make up that marriage, for we humans are all flawed and glorious messes.

 Characteristics of a Healthy Marriage include:

 Time spent together   

  Mutual spiritual habits

  Negotiating ability

  Maturity

  Play and humor

  Intimacy

  Willingness to make commitment

    Loving action often create loving feelings 

    Common goals

  Agree on basic standard of living

  Agree on how to raise children

  Healing existing wounds

  Roles – agree – change

  Attitude of  mutual submission to each other 

   Sharing everything

  Safety

This was the lecture that gave me the inspiration to begin writing a book on How to Stay Married for 50 Years. We were planning our first 50^th anniversary party and had to cancel it due to covid. Then we had to cancel the second one and finally celebrated publicly this past summer with a pig roast and about 100 people including family and neighbors and long time friends. And it rained. It was awesome. That is why we rented a tent.

So, two years ago, I did a quick brain dump and started to make a list of the ideas splattered all over a big sheet of paper and realized that I was writing an ABC list. There were so many good words for most of the letters. I started writing whatever came to mind for the word that I had. I found myself recalling so many stories from our long life together. Many were happy stories. Many were not so happy. I actually set up this blog more than a year ago and typed out most of the stories. But then, I started second guessing myself and the whole project paused. I finally took the plunge this past summer and started posting weekly. But not until I got my Sweetie involved as we edited each post together. Then he started writing a few pages. We are on the cutting edge of learning to write together. How novel. 

He writes: as sometimes happens, in our relationships with our spouse, we don't always carry through with our best intentions like words of praise, comfort, encouragement, listening, acts of kindness. It might be time to just hit the reset button. We've had wildly creative imaginations of things to do that keep us saying "I'm glad we're together". Gondola rides in the Rockies. Riding horses along the beach in the wake of the Pacific Ocean in Tofino. Taking a trip to the moon - well, maybe laying on the grass together looking at the moon on a clear summer's night or watching a falling star. Taking walks through the cornfields. Delivering baby calves on cold winter nights then climbing back into a nice heated water bed. Together. 

If I give all I posses to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Cor 13:3-6 NIV).