Cherishing your Spouse

There are many couples who will attest that the first year of marriage was the roughest for them….. I can honestly say we are NOT one of them.  My husband and I were blessed to have the first several years of our marriage be everything we could have hope for, and more.  I could probably count on one hand the times we argued in the first ten years.  Does this mean we got along perfectly?  Does it mean one of us was more controlling over the relationship?  Does it mean that we never struggled financially or had to overcome hardship?  No to all of the above.  I think that it was how we decided to handle hard things and treat one another from the beginning.  My husband was taught, and since has taught our five boys, that “if you treat your wife like a queen, she will become one”.   For my husband and I, we started our marriage making sure that one another was the top priority.  We worked through issue that came up, stayed close to the spirit, and always honored one another in all of our decisions. 

            Since the first years of marriage, we have had our fair share of moments of disconnect, or living “parallel lives”, we have disagreed and had hurt feelings, but we are quick to recognize it and come together to reconnect through putting our busy schedules on hold, even for an evening, to talk and spend time prioritizing our marriage. 

            I have loved studying John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  This week in my marriage class we studied the chapters that focused on Love Maps, which is, “where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life” (pg. 54), and Fondness and Admiration.  These were great chapters where Gottman reminds us that we don’t need to wait for our marriages to be in trouble to follow these principles, they can be reviewed often to strengthen a flourishing relationship.  Both of these principles can help us cherish our spouse so that when those times of stress and frustration come, we can remind ourselves of why we love and admire them. 

            Perhaps in our early years of marriage, before we had kids that pulled so much of our attentions, we practiced some of these skills without even realizing it.  Perhaps we were just very twitterpated.  Whatever the reason for getting along so well in the early years, I am grateful for the friendship that we have continued to grow through dating weekly, wanting to spend time with one another than individually or with others, and the honoring of covenants that we made in our marriage vows for so many years. 

            I pray that my boys have all paid close attention to the way their dad treats me.  I hope that treat their wives like queens, and in turn, their wives treat them like kings, but they can always find ways to build their own love maps and admiration for one another that we try to continually do after 28 years of marriage.