Sunday, December 27, 2015

Staying in Love

Falling in love is easy.  Falling in love is fun, exciting, exhilarating and wonderful.  Staying in love is challenging.  Choosing to love when you feel frustrated, tired, angry, disappointed, betrayed, or heartbroken is difficult.  But anything worthwhile is difficult.  Anything worth having is worth fighting for.  Having a happy, stable marriage is worth every effort.  Every tear shed, every prayer uttered, every selfish urge denied is well worth it.  And not just for your own happiness, but for the happiness and well-being of your children and for the stability of society in general.

Fight for your marriage with all your heart and strength.  Give everything you have--every ounce of patience, every speck of kindness, every bit of commitment...all you have in order to make it work.  And at the end of the day, the kind of marriage you have will be well worth it.  When you have a deep level of trust, security, happiness, and understanding, it is a more real and lasting joy than the giddy feeling of falling in love can ever supply.

Being happy in your marriage is much more under your control than most of us realize.  Choose to love, even when it is hard.  Choose to be happy.  Choose to be kind.  Choose to be generous, unselfish, and trusting.  If you don't like the state of your marriage, change yourself to be a better spouse.  Most of us waste a lot of time and energy waiting for our partner to change, instead of looking inward and working on ourselves.  Stop focusing on your spouse's deficiencies and look in the mirror.  How can you become better?  What can you do to express your love more?  What grudges do you need to let go of?  What frustrations are you holding in, but holding onto?

The interesting thing about marriage is that you never reach a point where you don't have to put in effort.  Some times will be easier than others.  But you have to work on staying in love every day.  Put in the work, and you will see results.  If you want to be happier, work a little harder.  Choose to stay in love.  It is a choice.  It takes effort and sacrifice.  But it is worth it! 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

vulnerable

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis, "To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...  Wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell." 

Love hurts.  Love is hard.  It is scary to be vulnerable.  But it is worth it!  The more you give, the more love you will feel, and even though you are more vulnerable, you will live a happier life.  To know the most exquisite, full, complete happy love, you need to be vulnerable and experience pain and misery.  Otherwise you can never appreciate the happiness.  The more you give of yourself, the deeper your love will become.  Your capacity to love and be loved will grow.  Take the risk.  Love deeply.  Give yourself fully and freely.  Let yourself be vulnerable. 

Friday, October 9, 2015

Want a Happier Marriage?

Do you want a happier marriage?  OK, I have a challenge for you.  The beauty of this challenge is that it doesn't matter how long you've been married, what problems you're having, or how great things are going.  This little challenge will improve your marriage no matter what.  Are you ready?

Make your spouse's happiness your main priority for the next week.  

This one little change can and will make a big difference in your marriage!  Even if things are going great, this little change of perspective can boost the happiness in your marriage.  If things are not going so great, this can start to turn things around.  Some people reply something like, "But my husband has been viewing pornography,"  or "But my wife nags me constantly," or "But I can't stand the way he/she _________".   My answer to all of these is simple: TRY IT.  It doesn't matter if you think your spouse deserves it.  It doesn't matter if you are fed up or in the middle of a fight. When you make your spouse's happiness your main priority, all of these things start to sort themselves out.  When you are concerned with your spouse's happiness, your perspective starts to change, and you become less selfish and more loving.  This breaks the cycle of negativity, and it boosts the levels of happiness!  If you can't make it a whole week, try it for just 24 hours.  If a week is a piece of cake, then try a month.  If you accept the challenge, please let me know how it goes!!  Leave me a comment and fill me in.  Thanks!  :0)

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Relationship Tip #5

Keep the Relationship Fresh.  Look for new and different ways to add life to your marriage to keep it healthy and strong.  Try new things.  Explore new places.  Find new ways to express your love.  Get out of your comfort zone. 
Tips from "Change Your Brain Change Your Life" by Daniel G Amen

Friday, September 4, 2015

Relationship Tip #4

The next tip from "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" is:  
ASSUME THE BEST. 
"Whenever there is a question of motivation or intention, assume the best about the other person.  This will help his or her behavior to actually be more positive."  -Dr. Amen
We have so much more control over our own happiness than we realize!  We can choose our attitude.  We can choose how we react to any given situation.  And here's the kicker: how we choose to act has a strong effect on how our partner will respond.  If we assume the best, we'll feel better about the situation, and our spouse will feel better (and act better too). 

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Marriage is More Quote

“Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.”
 Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

When your spouse has a Mental Illness

Having a good marriage is hard work, but then again, anything worthwhile is hard work.  If you think about it, just being happy is hard work!   When you throw in a difficult life challenge such as mental illness, having a happy marriage is going to take even more effort.  Here are a few things I've learned about being in a marriage with a partner who has a mental illness:

1) Communication is crucial.   Both partners have to be willing to talk about touchy subjects.  For someone with a mood disorder, being evaluated gets old.  I'm not just talking about by doctors.  I'm talking about having your spouse (and/or parents, children, friends, etc) constantly watching your sleep pattern, evaluating your statements, analyzing your thoughts, and trying to decipher your mood.  But for someone whose spouse has a mood disorder, you can recognize patterns and changes in mood in your spouse (sometimes even before he/she notices it in themselves), and acting quickly to adjust meds is important to keeping things under control.  So it can be tricky to communicate, but both parties have to be kind and tolerant, and willing to talk about anything and everything. 

2) Understand the illness. This one can be tricky because you can have all the textbook knowledge in the world about a mental illness, but still be totally unprepared for what it looks like in your spouse, and how it will affect your marriage.  If things are rocky at first, know that in time, you will have a better understanding of patterns of behavior, treatment options, and you will have more realistic expectations.  Also, medication options increase and improve constantly, so don't doom your marriage with dire predictions of how things will always be.  Having said all that, it is still really important for you both to have a clear understanding of the diagnosis, the symptoms, and the treatment options for the mental illness you are dealing with.

3) Learn how to set boundaries and reasonable expectations.  If you know that a symptom of your spouse's depression is that they feel unmotivated and don't want to get out of bed, where do you draw the line between being understanding and supportive, and enabling that behavior?  This is such a huge challenge for the spouse of a person with a mental illness.  How much bad (difficult or challenging) behavior should we excuse?  How patient do we need to be?  At what point are we actually excusing behavior that can be controlled?   This is where that good communication comes into play again.  When your spouse is mentally healthy, it's important to talk about how much control they have over their actions, and to express how their actions make you feel.  Yes, you heard me right.  It is very important for you to talk about how you feel.  A lot of spouses feel that they have to be a martyr and just suffer through all the injustices that come with mental illness, without ever expressing their hurt, frustration, or sorrow.  That is very unhealthy for your relationship.  I know you do not want to make your spouse feel guilty about something that they cannot control, and you do not want to make your spouse feel bad when they are already miserable and might be feeling guilty for the impact their illness has on you.  But if you bottle up your frustration, your pain, and your anger over things that happen during an episode of mental illness, you will not be able to have a happy and healthy marriage.  You have to express your feelings and talk about difficult issues in order to process them and accept them and move on.  Be sensitive when you talk to your spouse about these topics.  Be careful not to blame or shame.  The important thing is to express how you feel. 

4) Appreciate the good times.  Store up the happy memories.  Take pictures and videos of good times together.  Keep a gratitude journal.  Make a scrapbook of happy events, family vacations, holidays, and other positive events in your marriage.  When your marriage gets challenging, you need to remember that you have had great times together, and have hope that you will get back to that point again.  Remembering happier days and reliving the good times in your mind can help you through the challenging times. 

5) Do not hold a grudge or keep score.  Mental illness is not fair.  Nothing about it is fair.  But you need to realize that you promised to love each other in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, so just do it!  Be quick to forgive.  Holding a grudge will make you both miserable and will drive a wedge between you.  Marriage will never be 50/50.  If you want to succeed, you have to be willing to give more, to try harder, to forgive first, to be the better person, to be more patient, to be more kind and to put more into the marriage than you think is "fair."  It doesn't matter if one spouse's illness makes the marriage more challenging.  You are no longer individuals with individual problems.  You are a team, and one person's challenges become the other person's challenges.  Every marriage has challenges.  When you get married, you can't predict all the challenges that you will have to face, but you agreed to stick together and face those challenges as a team.  Your spouse did not choose to have a mental illness.  And it doesn't matter if you knew about the mental illness before the marriage or not.  You promised to love each other forever.  Keep your promise cheerfully. 

6) Foster trust.  When someone has a mental illness, the problem lies in their thoughts and in their mind.  The spouse without the mental illness has to be able to think clearly and make good decisions for the couple when one partner is not able to reason well.  There has to be a good deal of trust built up between the couple for a spouse who is mentally ill to be able to trust their spouse's judgement over their own. When it comes to knowing when you need to see your doctor or adjust your meds, or cancel a trip, or stay home from work, sometimes the mentally ill partner cannot trust their own judgement and has to rely on their spouse.  It is difficult to trust someone else's judgement when it seems to contradict reality.  But if you have a strong bond of love and trust, the partner with the mental illness can realize that their mind is not functioning well, and they have to trust that their spouse has their best interest in mind.     It is especially important for these couples to be very honest with each other when both are feeling healthy.  Make a strong effort to foster love and trust when there are no problems plaguing your marriage, so that when difficulties arise, that foundation of trust is already established and strong. 

7) Patience is key.  Unfortunately, there is no timetable attached to episodes of mental illness or instability.  There is no "end date" and you really never know how long an episode will last.  You both just have to be patient with the other and to endure.  Sometimes it can take a really long time to find a medication that works well for you.  A psychiatrist will advise you to try a medication and come back in two weeks to discuss how you are feeling.  They don't seem to realize that in times of crisis, two weeks seems like a year.  When you are just trying to get through the next hour, two weeks seems like a lifetime away.  Patience is key.  For a person with a mental illness, sometimes having to deal with your spouse's problems on top of your own struggles can seem overwhelming.  But you both promised to love each other no matter what, so you have to be patient.  Sometimes your spouse's reactions to your mental illness may seem unfair or out of control.  Again, you have to realize that one person's problem is now both partners' problems, and have patience.

I think one of the hardest things about having a spouse with a mental illness is that there is still such a stigma to mental illness, that it's not something you can talk about freely with others.  Some people are very open about their mental illness, but most are not.  And as a spouse, it is not really your secret to tell.  Some people are still extremely judgmental or insensitive about mental illness.  Trying to pretend that everything is OK when you feel like your life is in tatters is especially challenging.  Having someone you can trust and talk to is really important.  Sometimes it is freeing just to be able to admit that you're not doing OK, or that your marriage is not easy and fun at the moment.  Talk to your spouse about your need to confide in someone, and get their permission before talking to others.  If you can find someone who is in a similar situation, that is particularly helpful.  There are support groups out there for family members if you search on-line.  

Nothing is fair or ideal or easy about having a mental illness.   Mental illness can definitely make a marriage more challenging, but as you make it through difficulties successfully together, your bond becomes stronger.  Your level of commitment increases.  You begin to trust that if you made it through that rough time, you can make it through anything!   Accept that things are what they are.  Choose to be happy.  You are strong!  You can handle this.  You can do hard things.  You got this!  Anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions?  Feel free to comment below.

Monday, April 6, 2015

To be Happy...

I love this quote from the book, The Happiness Project, "One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.  One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself."

Apply this to marriage, and you've got a good formula for a happy home.  Your mood can be contagious, so choose to be happy!  Also, if your mood needs a boost, do something nice for your spouse, and it will improve the mood all the way around. 

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Protect your Relationship

Getting back to the tips from Dr. Daniel G Amen's book "Change your Brain, Change your Life"...
Tip number three is :  "Protect your relationship.  A surefire way to doom a relationship is to discount, belittle, or degrade the other person.  Protect your relationship by building up the other person." 

It's a no-brainer, really.  But how often do girlfriends get together and complain about (or laugh about)  their husbands?  And there is NO place for name-calling in a marriage.   Ever.  Let's just stop it.  Protect your spouse and your marriage as fiercely as you would protect your child from harm.

I remember very clearly a time about 5 years into our marriage when I was talking to my sister-in-law (my husband's sister), and she was saying how devoted my husband is to me and how lucky I am.  I wasn't feeling particularly lucky in love at the time, so I looked at her quizzically.  She replied that she had never heard my husband say one negative thing about me.  Ever.  Not to their parents, not to their mutual friends, and not to her.  At the time, it really struck me because I knew she couldn't say the same thing of me.  I felt terrible for ever saying anything negative about him to anyone else, and I had a new sense of appreciation for the fierce loyalty my husband had shown for me.  Since then, I have tried to be more loyal to him, and to protect our relationship from negativity.  It's funny how when you act a certain way in an effort to benefit your spouse, it ends up strengthening your relationship, and as a result, benefiting you. 

Here is a great article a friend of mine shared on this very topic: 

http://familyshare.com/marriage/how-would-you-feel-if-your-husband-said-this-about-you


Saturday, February 14, 2015

great quote

Brigham Young once said: “When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honor and keep it, do not manifest that you have acted unwisely and say that you have made a bad choice, nor let any body know that you think you have. You made your choice, stick to it, and strive to comfort and assist each other”

Friday, February 13, 2015

A Change of Heart

I love this article about one man's change of heart.  Realizing he could only change himself saved his marriage!  (That's kind of the theme of my marriage blog here, right?)  If you haven't read it yet, here is the link...


http://www.richardpaulevans.com/saved-marriage/