10 years

In May of this year my knight in shining armor and I celebrated 10 years of happily ever after.   Like everyone else we have had our ups and downs.  Some days were white horses, kisses beyond compare, and riding off into the sunset, but most days were tarnished armor, blisters from those glass slippers, dirty diapers, and sweeping up the ashes.  When we celebrated our 10th anniversary we made a list together of things that helped us get through that 10 years.  I have been encouraged to make my own list.  So here it is:

Things I've learned in 10 years of marriage.

1.  Find your rythm.  Everyone has a rythm at which they live life.  What is your rythm as a couple?  As a family?  Are you quiet, artistic, contemplative?  Are you laid back, Sunday afternoon football, and chilli?  Are you a hike, a party, fast paced?  Find your rythm as a couple and live it.



2.  Give your best to your spouse; your best smiles, your best words, your best work, and your best love.  Don't stop trying to impress them.  Don't stop being your best self.  Put your best face forward.

 

3.  Learn to be content with what you have.  Proverbs 27:15 and 16 (NIV) says, "A quarrelsome wife is like

a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand."  Another translations uses contentious wife.  

4.  It's the little things that make a marriage unique.  You know those little things that you do for each other that you don't do for anyone else.  It's those little things that matter and make a difference.  That being said...

5. Don't sweat the small stuff.  Find out what's important and don't worry about the other stuff.  The laundry, dishes, cleaning will still be there tomorrow.

6.  Respect your husband.  Allow him to be the head of the household.  Sure, you are perfectly capable of taking on the role and probably do a better job.  But that's not how it was intended to be.  Your husband needs to know that he is the king of his castle.  He needs to know that there is at least one place where his word is heeded and where he can be a man.  A place where he is not questioned about everything he does.  He gets enough of that out in the world.  He doesn't need it from his family.  If you want him to step up and take care of things then you need to step down and make room. 

7.  Take it one day at a time.  Yesterday is past, tomorrow will never come, but today is a gift.  That's why it's called the present.  Don't hold grudges.  Clear the air.  Get over it.  Allow for change.  Today is all we have.  We have to make the most of it.

8.  Make intimacy happen.  It doesn't happen on it's own.  You have to nurture it.  You have to protect it.  It doesn't take long, just a few minutes a day.  What you put in is what you will get out.

  

9.  Encourage each other's passions.  They will change, you do.  Make room for the passions of your spouse.  Their passions are a part of them, a God given dream if you will.  Something that makes them who they are.  

10.  Only God can meet all your needs.  Don't expect your spouse to be able to do it.  Put God first in your marriage.  He is the only one who can hold it all together when it feels as though it will come tumbling down. 

Colossians 1: 16-18 says, " For by him all things were created (you and your spouse): things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities (or marriage); all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things (even your spouse), and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church (your marriage); he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything (even your relationship) he might have the supremacy." (emphasis added by me)