Making the Effort

"Procrastination hurts people -- Laziness prevents us from being loving. Love requires commitment, energy, and work. A lot of people just don't want to work at being loving; it's easier to be lazy. Many marriages break up because one spouse -- perhaps both spouses - are unwilling to make the effort necessary to save the marriage." -- The Agape Connection

 This is true, very, very true. 

So, what if you DO go to marital therapy? You still have to ACT on the "TOOLS" that your therapist gives you to work through each and every day for your marriage. It can sometimes be very difficult to get into a new motion of not being "lazy" and to have commitment towards your spouse. But, do you like where you are at right now? The not doing anything about it, bad feelings towards each other, disconnection, lack of feeling loved etc. Do you like where things are going? 

 STOP and do whatever you need to to change your attitude - an attitude of "I care about my spouse, I want her/him to be happy, yes we need to work through some issues, but holding onto and keeping a dark cloud overhead isn't helping myself or the feeling within our household or marriage. Seek out what you do love about your spouse -because the more you look at the things that bother you the more you're going to go on the downward spiral. And the more you look at every little positive thing, and acknowledge those positive things, the better you will feel and will help your marriage get out of a rut. How about you look at what your spouse needs from you? Instead of what you think he/she needs and do it with love. Choose to love - CHOOSE, because LOVE IS a CHOICE. Strengthen yourself individually, but work at strengthening your marriage. 

I find that even through therapy, there are some insights that you may have never thought of or thought of in that way, that do help you pick up your feet and want to move forward. Marriage is hard work, but worth it - you want to be happy right? Then work at it, stop procrastinating, and DO. 

Stop pointing fingers. Stop trying to be "right". Stop arguing and start learning what is best for you and your spouse to have effective communication. Remember that you both perceive things differently, have different feelings - but can come to understand where the other person is coming from, don't downgrade their feelings. Remember that "The Joneses" marriage doesn't mean that you have to be a carbon copy - that every marriage is what is best for you and your spouse, there are no carbon copies. Figure out what your expectations have been, are, and what your goals are individually and what you'd like to see in your marriage. Be reasonable. Care about the other person. Stop mumbling, stop rolling your eyes, stop giving the silent treatment or do a guessing game of what the other is feeling or thinking. LISTEN and listen without coming up with your comeback, because you are not listening if you are doing that. LISTEN and learn to understand, CLARIFY what you hear so there are no misunderstandings and unnecessary hurt feelings. Work through hurt that has been caused in the past that is hurting your here and now and the future. Remember healing takes time and you can help one another through it. 

PRACTICE makes perfect. Learning new techniques do not happen over night. Be patient with one another. But LEARN what you need to in order to move forward in your marriage. Don't stay at a standstill, because the more you do, the more apart you become emotionally and the easier it is to just throw in the towel. Marriage is worth fighting for. Divorce sucks for so many reasons. Do everything you can to fight for it, and fight for it in the right ways.

Remember the things that you loved about that person before you married them. Do those things that made you feel giddy back in the day. Find other things that bring you closer together. The best advice we received from a therapist is 3 points :: 

1. Focus on Spiritual Strength in Relationship weekly.

2. Focus on Emotional & Mental Commitment to each other weekly.

3. Focus on Physical Activity with each other (couple time) regularly (weekly).

 This overall makes or breaks the marriage - if you aren't doing these things - your marriage will break. Don't let that happen!

Marriages Dissolve Because...

"Many marriages dissolve because couples don't spend time or resources learning how to be successfully married."

--The Agape Connection

A Healthy Marriage

I have been given permission from The Agape Connection on Facebook to quote their quotes here. So from time to time I'll be doing just that. I often share their quotes onto my own wall on Facebook, and want to do the same here. Here it goes ::

"A healthy marriage is one in which you go through the stages of self-discovery and learn to identify your healthy and less-than-healthy expectations. Then you choose to take personal responsibility for your actions and reactions. Finally, you make the commitment to honor the marriage and your spouse." -- The Agape Connection

Meridian Magazine - “BE MINE” . . . and I Really Mean It

I came across this article in my Inbox. I thought I would share it with you. It is a good read. I personally love this part:

"We all know that marriage is challenging. A good marriage doesn’t just happen, it takes planning and doing. Even though it takes work, marriage is worth every ounce of the effort." --- "What can you do this Valentine’s Day that would spark up your marriage?"

SPARK - I like that word. That is along the same lines of what my thoughts were for the blog post I did "Extra Special Day to Show Love ~ Happy Valentine's Day!"

Read the whole article here:

Meridian Magazine - “BE MINE” . . . and I Really Mean It

Extra Special Day to Show Love ~ Happy Valentine's Day!

I ♥ Valentine's Day! Showing our love to our spouse, family, and friends needs to obviously come every day,  especially for our spouse and family - but one special day out of the year, makes it extra special to give focus on making homemade gifts and give other gifts if those choose to do so.

I am sure there are some people that don't do Valentine's Day because of the very thing I said above, that we should be showing love each and every day, and one focused day might seem silly. Some may feel that it is a stupid way for a small boost in the economy for people to purchase items for their loved one. Some see it  strictly as a couples day and should not extend to anyone else. To each their own on their feelings on this day, but for me, I look forward to Valentine's Day, simply for the extra special touches it can give, the opportunity to create something extra special and sometimes a breathe of fresh air to relationships - to your spouse, and even to your kids.

This Valentine's Day, I made the Sweetheart Journal for my spouse. The idea came to me on Pinterest, from MyCreativeStirrings.com. Instead of buying a journal, I bought a nice decorative notebook instead, which was less expensive and easier for me to put the little note inside of what the Sweetheart Journal was all about. I'm really excited to do it with my husband, and he seemed to be excited about the idea as well.

Also, from Pinterest, on the same website above, I did my own version of Can of Dates. I found an inexpensive plastic container at Walmart. And then I found some cardboard stickers that were lovey, that I attached to the container. I haven't quite completed this project, but this is part of the 2nd part of my husband's Valentine present. One thing we need to work on in our marriage is more regular date outings, so I thought perhaps if we had some ideas that we could pull out of a jar at the beginning of each month that would help us get the ball rolling better. I would add, that if one of the date ideas you pull out that is on a season that you're not in currently, just replace it with something you can do and put it back in your Can of Dates. Can't think up any ideas for several ideas for dates? If you Google "Ideas for Dates" - there are many lists that you can choose from and then add your own as well. It kind of gets the creative juices flowing and you actually start thinking about what is actually around in your own area that would be a great for dates. At the same time, I thought of many outings we can do as a family too - thinking about doing a Can of Family Outings too, kind of a bucket list for our family. Also on Pinterest, there is a list of 50 Fun and Cheap Date Ideas, which I gathered some ideas off of for our Can of Dates.

When I was little, in Elementary school, one of my most fondest memories was making a themed box of some sort to collect the Valentine's I would get from fellow classmates. I haven't had the opportunity to do that yet with my kids, but look forward to it. My oldest is only in 1st grade and they did something more simple for Kindergarten and even this year, but seeing one of the neighbor kids do an R2-D2 Valentine Box got me excited for future school years, as I was starting to think they just didn't do that anymore. It was fun nonetheless for my son to be able to pick out his Transformer Valentine cards for his classmates, and then an extra special something for his best friend. For his teachers, we made an idea from Pinterest, a teacher gift for his 1st grade teacher, assistant teacher, and music teacher "We need S'more teachers like you" -- the store even had these clever new marshmallows that are flat to fit better to make the smores treat! So cute!

The kids made daddy a Valentine by cutting a heart out of paper, writing a little note of why they love dad. A treasured item for sure!

For our neighbors and grandparents, we are doing a recipe I found on Pinterest called Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. Only, I am going to do pink ones instead since the red food coloring was for some reason ;-) very popular right now. I love to be able to do this for neighbors too because when you otherwise don't see them all that much, it gives an extra special day to say "I'm thinking about you, hope you are doing well. Thanks for being a great neighbor!"

For the kids, we have always gotten them a little stuffed animal of some sort and sometimes a little treat. They will get those this evening.

And for me, my husband helped boost the economy a little by purchasing a Blu-ray disc of The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn Part 1. I am super excited about this because while I am a BIG fan of the books, and of the movies so far... I am okay with waiting for it to come out on DVD. But super excited to watch it this evening with my husband, yes unlike many other spouses who want to shoot these movies, my husband enjoys watching it with me. ♥

While I had plans to make heart-shaped pancakes this morning, that will have to become dinner (our family loves breakfast for dinner), since my youngest decided to wake up at the wee hours of the morning and have a little giggle chat with me, I was entirely too tired to wake up and make pancakes. My son who is in school, will get a heart-shaped sandwich and little note in his lunchbox (though I put a little note in his lunchbox every day.) Both my other kids at home will also get a heart-shaped sandwich for lunch.

So, just some ideas for your special day or future special days - and this doesn't just have to be for Valentine's day, do it just out of the blue if you'd like, but one special day to me out of the year gives a lot of focus on helping our relationships to have an extra boost in the right direction, a breathe of fresh air.

I would encourage you to customize your own Valentine's Day for you and your spouse. Every marriage is different. Don't feel like you have to live up to the Jones'. There isn't one way that is stamped of how you should go about Valentine's Day for you and your spouse or your family for that matter. You do what works for the both of you. What is important to your spouse? You don't have to go broke to show your love; and if you do go broke that will just be one thing that goes against your marriage - don't do that. Simply do what works, add a little extra special touch to this day, and do it with genuine love.

So, Happy Valentine's Day to All of You!!! ♥

Marital Therapy Not Working?

We have all heard "It takes two to tango..." Marital therapy will work if you BOTH are taking good looks at yourselves, and coming together with respect and understanding and learning what works best for your relationship and marriage. And then applying those "tools" together.

However, I recently learned something that might be of benefit to you.

When therapists get their degree or become certified, they become certified as a general therapist. Anything marital related comes from extra curricular classes and education on their own time. So, something that might be beneficial to you before you get involved with someone that says they specialize in marital therapy, is what their training has been with it, what their success rate is with it, what is their approach with marital therapy and so on. Otherwise you might be getting into a therapy session that isn't going to really pan out very well.

Which then brings me to some types of therapy simply does not work well with some couples, not because you are failures at your marriage, but because we all jive with different types of therapy, some better than others. Perhaps the therapist that has adequate knowledge about different types would be of benefit to you, simply because if there is only one type that he or she teaches and it doesn't jive with you or your spouse, you'll feel like your marriage is in a worse spot, and the likelihood of you seeking out another therapist is more slim. The idea behind that is, if this therapist didn't work for us, then why try again?

Try again. Be patient with one another, and with yourself. Change does not happen over night. Be educated on who you are actually going to. Get referrals from other couples who have had positive experiences.


Having been married before, having gone through marital therapy more than once before, and even recently, my most positive experience has been with EFT (Emotional Focused Therapy). It has given new hope, understanding, new insights, a different, yet positive "dance" rather than the negative "dance" many couples get into with communicating feelings to one another, as well as the overall feel of the entire relationship/marriage.

Execute the tools that have been given to you and you will be able to come out with flying colors! Remember love is a choice. You can choose to have the marriage that you would like to have!

Marriage Recipe

This was pretty random, but as I was looking for a dessert recipe in one of my older recipe books, a recipe book that was compiled and put together by a ward I was in several years ago, I found a recipe that just made me smile. In the very back, there was a recipe on Marriage. I thought it was pretty clever and cute, and I thought many women would get a good chuckle out of it. So, here you go:

Marriage

1 lifelong commitment
1/2 hour daily cuddling
5 annual reminders about anniversary
19 subtle hints about breath
3 self-help books
16 toilet seat lessons
21,000 home cooked dinners
30,000 shirts, folded
2 1/2 pieces of lingerie

Blend all ingredients together, keeping expectations at low and let simmer 50+ years. Bring to a boil when necessary.

Results may vary.