Do you and your spouse sit together? I’m talking about sitting close together. Do you sit together on the sofa? Do you sit together when you’re out to eat? Do you sit together when you’re visiting friends?
One of the laws of attraction has to do with proximity.
Which is more important, forgiveness or justice? It depends on who you are. If you’re the offended, justice is more important. If you’re the offender, forgiveness is more important. Whether you’re looking for forgiveness or justice, you need to understand that getting it will also be problematic for you. Here’s what I mean…
Possessive pronouns are general words that replace nouns and denote ownership. (Feel like you’re back in school?) They are words like: yours, mine ours, etc. These words are very important to us. Toddlers grab toys and say, “Mine!” Children brag about something of theirs being better than someone else’s. And most teenagers will sooner or later make a grab for independence with the declaration, “It’s my life!”
The transition from single to married requires a transition in possessive pronouns It’s a transition from “mine” to “ours.”
“What’s the most important thing in life? Ever thought about it? Most of us are looking for the answer to that question. We’re not navel-gazing, wide-eyed fanatics. We’re not climbing mountains to talk to some wise man sitting cross-legged in the snow. But we are looking.
“Cars. Dishwashers. Houses. Televisions. Phones. These eventually beg the question, “Should I fix the one I’ve got or get a new one?” It’s not always clear, and often we make more of an emotional decision than a rational decision. If we really want something new, we can always find the rationale for it. “There’s too many miles on this one.” “It doesn’t clean like it used to.” “It doesn’t have all the features I want.” “It’s not as sharp as it used to be.” “It doesn’t respond like it used to.”
Lists! They’re everywhere! Eight steps to successful parenting. Three steps to determine if you partner is cheating on you. The four things you need to remember when buying a house. Ten ways to impress your boss. Five ways to romance your spouse. (Or were those last two the other way around?)
But, is life really as simple as following a list?
When I’m eating out, I hate not getting what I ordered. Once while traveling, my wife and I pulled off the interstate to grab something to eat. Like a pit stop at Indy, we drove through, got our food, and got back on the road. Back on the interstate, my wife opened the bag to verify the order. (Yeah, I know.. we should have thought of that before getting back on the interstate.) She discovered they had gotten my order wrong. I was so frustrated I turned around at the next exit…several miles down the road…and went back to get what I had ordered. (Can you say “obsessive?”)
What’s this got to do with marriage?
I just watched the movie “Saving Mr. Banks.” (Yeah, I’m behind in my movie watching.). The movie is loosely based on the life of P. L. Travers, (author of the Mary Poppins books) and her thorny, combative struggle with Walt Disney over the movie rights to her book.
It was a busy Saturday for my wife and me. We had two celebrations to attend in the same afternoon. One was a wedding, and the other was a celebration of a 50th wedding anniversary. Later that evening, after attending both events, I was thinking about those two marriages. It was like someone had called up marriage on the DVR and then pushed fast forward. From zero to fifty in one afternoon.