Primarily, this blog is about my adorable daughter and my sweet still-baking daughter. I spend most of my time posting about goings-on relating to our lives as parents. But I wanted to take a moment today to focus on one of the main things, in my opinion, that makes us good parents: our marriage.
"In the enriching of marriage the big things are the little things. It is a constant appreciation for each other and a thoughtful demonstration of gratitude. It is the encouraging and helping of each other to grow. Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine." --James L Faust
I created a board on pinterest not long ago devoted to “Love and Marriage”. I found this quote along with a blog about “11 Tips for a Marriage”. The blog was fine, but the quote was magnificent. For me, it summed up marriage in 4 easy-to-read sentences. Ever since I said “yes” to Sean, it’s been one of my major goals to constantly encourage not only my husband, but our marriage. I try to do this in a number of ways—little gifts for him when I know he’s having a crappy week, words of appreciation when he cooks a kick-a dinner or fixes something around the house, and yes, I will say it: putting out even when sometimes I don’t feel like it (we’re all friends here and you know how this is encouraging for a man!) Neither of us are terribly PDA-driven, so
even those that are the closest to us may wonder from time to time just how happy we are. Well, I can assure you, most of the time we’re VERY happy. We work HARD at being very happy. We nurture our marriage as much as we nurture our daughter. We have date nights (sometimes as simple as just playing scrabble together after Elise has gone to bed) and we also nurture our marriage by making sure that we each have an opportunity to have time to ourselves. And yes, I think that’s an important part of a good marriage. You have to be able to keep your own identity outside of your partner and your children (if you have them). Additionally, and probably most importantly, we nurture our marriage by turning to God together—in private times and with various church and bible study activities.
I created a board on pinterest not long ago devoted to “Love and Marriage”. I found this quote along with a blog about “11 Tips for a Marriage”. The blog was fine, but the quote was magnificent. For me, it summed up marriage in 4 easy-to-read sentences. Ever since I said “yes” to Sean, it’s been one of my major goals to constantly encourage not only my husband, but our marriage. I try to do this in a number of ways—little gifts for him when I know he’s having a crappy week, words of appreciation when he cooks a kick-a dinner or fixes something around the house, and yes, I will say it: putting out even when sometimes I don’t feel like it (we’re all friends here and you know how this is encouraging for a man!) Neither of us are terribly PDA-driven, so
even those that are the closest to us may wonder from time to time just how happy we are. Well, I can assure you, most of the time we’re VERY happy. We work HARD at being very happy. We nurture our marriage as much as we nurture our daughter. We have date nights (sometimes as simple as just playing scrabble together after Elise has gone to bed) and we also nurture our marriage by making sure that we each have an opportunity to have time to ourselves. And yes, I think that’s an important part of a good marriage. You have to be able to keep your own identity outside of your partner and your children (if you have them). Additionally, and probably most importantly, we nurture our marriage by turning to God together—in private times and with various church and bible study activities.
I will fully disclose: Sean and I have only been married 6 1/2 years. I am certainly no expert at marriage. But I do know that this is what works for us. We have gotten a lot of advice throughout the years from couples that we admire and we're fortunate to have many good role models for marriage in our lives. I even look to the movie "UP" for inspiration on how to have a good marriage! 
I am so thankful to God for giving me Sean to walk with on this earth. And even if I don't often tell you out there in the blogosphere that often, I hope that he knows that.
1 comment:
What a great post! Good job.
I often say marriage is the biggest blessing of my life... it's so true that it is hard work. I needed to read this this morning.
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