Have you ever noticed that people often tell you, “Have a good day!” but they don’t tell you how to have a good day? Doesn’t that seem a little odd? It’s like telling someone, “Have a million dollars” and then walking away without telling them how. Wouldn’t it be great if they said, “Have a good day…and here’s how you do it”?
I have a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. I work with married couples weekly, and I regularly write about how to improve marriage. Still, it was an elderly couple at McDonald that taught me my most recent lessons on marriage.
“Are you listening to me?” “You never listen to me.” “I’ve tried to tell you, but you just don’t listen.” “If you would listen you would know.”
Have you ever heard your spouse say something like this? If so, join the ranks of the many. Not listening is one of the most common complaints I hear from spouses. I’m sure my spouse has complained about it also, but I probably wasn’t listening at the time. Why do so many of us drop the ball when it comes to listening?
Is your marriage meaningful or mundane? It’s easy to skip over that question. An honest answer to that question might not be what we want to hear. But if we’re brave enough to ponder it, the question will lead us to ask another question. What makes a marriage meaningful?
I recently read a post by Donald Miller about what makes a life meaningful. In the post he referenced Dr. Viktor Frankl. Dr. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps. It was these experiences that led him to consider what gives life meaning. Is it fame, family, wealth, or pleasure that gives life meaning? When such things are taken away, does life lose it’s meaning?
We all want to be comfortable. We want comfortable chairs, comfortable shoes, comfortable beds, comfortable clothes, comfortable retirements…comfortable everything.
We especially want comfortable marriages. We want marriages that are calm, happy, and easy. We want spouses who like what we like, act like we act, and always think we’re wonderful. We also want to win the lottery, but that’s probably not going to happen either.
Marriage is never completely comfortable. It is always a mixture of comfortable and uncomfortable. Because of that, you’re marriage will either be uncomfortably comfortable or comfortably uncomfortable.
It’s Labor Day and I’m sick. Not loosing your last meal in the commode sick. More like head full of concrete can’t breathe sick. I’ve tried every remedy I could find in our cabinet of over-the-counter promises, but no magic bullet.
I woke up early this morning, after a hit-and-run night of sleep. Restless and mouth-breathing, I got up to find my wife sleeping on the couch so as to not catch what might be the next big thing on the CDC’s top 40. She got up to go to bed and there I was. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop peeing from all the water I’m drinking to stay hydrated.
This is not the way I wanted to spend Labor Day. Why did I have to get sick now?
Have you ever felt like you’re falling so far behind on something that there’s little hope of getting back to where you need to be? Have you ever thought, “What the heck. It’s too late now. Why even try. I’m too far behind.” Maybe you’ve felt that way about a project at work, or a hobby you always wanted to pursue. Maybe you’ve felt that way about your finances, or that career change you always wanted to make. Maybe you’ve even felt that way about your marriage.
At times we all feel like we’re falling behind, and it can be paralyzing.