Tag: marriage

3 Easy Ways to Make Your Spouse a Priority

When you really matter to someone, that person will always make time for you. No excuses. No lies. And no broken promises – Anonymous

Man, life is busy. There are so many things on our agenda and our to-do list that something is bound to fall through the cracks. How do we make sure that our marriages are not the things that we allow to fall through the crack? So, how do we, in a busy and fast paced world make our spouse a priority? How do we make sure that the person that we value the most doesn’t feel like an afterthought?

spousal support

If people are honest there are times in the marriage where each person may not feel like they are a priority for the other person. This comes from the ups and downs that come with our self-esteem and being married. Marriage can have its ups and downs. The key word that I mentioned before is “feel.” Our feelings can betray us. We can think or perceive an action from our spouse one way and it was intended a completely different way.

There have been times in my marriage where I perceived an action from my wife one way. Because I felt a certain way and perceived those actions a certain way, I then felt like I wasn’t a priority for my spouse. Was there anything that she actually did? Was she trying to make me feel that way? The answer to that question is a resounding NO. It was just my feelings and my emotions. While we can’t always help how someone perceives our actions, we can make sure that we do our part to make sure that our spouse is a priority.

 

  1. Connect with them throughout the day.

If you are trying to establish or reestablish the place that your spouse has in your life, there isn’t a better way to do than to check in with them throughout the day. If your spouse hasn’t always been the priority, you may experience some blowback. Don’t let this deter you. This is a change in your behavior.

Connecting throughout the day should be viewed at paving a new road. You’ve got to bulldoze the path first before you can put down the asphalt and drive on it.

 

  1. Invite your spouse in.

Marriage is one of those things where because you spend so much of our time with another person it can be easy to assume that you know what they will think. We have to take a step back and not assume that we know how our spouse will react or think. Stepping back allows you to include them. Making your spouse a priority means including them, sometimes even in the small decisions.

 

  1. It’s the small things

Big gestures are great and they have their place in your marriage. The small gestures can be just as impactful when it comes to making your spouse a priority. Grabbing their favorite candy bar at the grocery store, or a card that communicates that you are thinking about them. It’s those thoughts and corresponding actions that will communicate to your spouse that you’re making them a priority.

 

Discussion Question:

How do you make your spouse a priority?

 

The Avengers of Marriage

There is only one who is all powerful, and his greatest weapon is love- Stan Lee

I’m naturally a DC fan. Mostly because I’m a huge Batman fan, you can ask anyone in my family. With that being said, I also recognize the Grand Canyon-sized hole between the DC and Marvel movies. The Marvel movies were like my Saturday cartoons coming to life. I have enjoyed every minute of the past 10-11 year run of Marvel movies. I was able to watch Avengers Endgame opening weekend. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it I’m not going spoil it for you.

Watching the Avengers over these past years has me thinking of their personality types, and how they relate to us in our marriages. For this list, I’m going to stick to the core characters. Which one are you?

Iron Man/Tony Stark –

Tony’s story arc (Arc is the progression of the character) has truly been one of growth. He starts out being very selfish and ends up being a mentor to Spiderman and a selfless leader. This is how we tend to be in marriage. We start our marriages being selfish and learn to grow into who we are destined to be. There is always room for growth. We should always be growing in our marriages.

Thor –

Thor started out as being the big gun. He was very cocky in his ascension to the throne in Aasgaard. He expected that everything would be handed to him. It took the loss of just about everyone close to him for him to come to the place at the end where he understands what true leadership is and the value of close relationships. In our marriages we can be like Thor was at the start of his arc. We can come into it swinging a big hammer. Everything has to be our way or the highway. This type of attitude will only lead to a loss. It could be the loss of a job, the loss of our health, the loss of maybe our family before we learn to value those things.

Captain America –

Cap starts out as the American Hero. He does everything by the book. Throughout his arc, he learns right from wrong and to think for himself. He learns to be able to adjust to each situation as it comes up. He sees the gray areas and in those areas, he grows as a person. In marriage, there are very few things that go by any man’s book. Marriage is full of gray areas and we must adjust to each situation as it appears. Our marriages can grow and thrive as we learn to adjust to these spaces.

Hulk/Bruce Banner –

Full disclosure, I did not like the arc of Hulk. There was so much of his story that was overlooked and glossed over. Nevertheless, we can still take a look at him/them. The Hulk/Bruce Banner arc is something we can all learn from. They are two sides of the same coin. Most of the current MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) struggle deals with finding balance within. Marriage can be the same way. We can find ourselves seeming like two versions of the same coin. How do we balance being an individual and being a part of a union? It can feel like there are times where we are fighting to be one

Black Widow/Hawkeye –

I am putting these two together for one reason. Throughout the entire MCU, they have been supporting the other characters above. They have moments in various movies where their roles either increase or decrease, but they’ve always been a supporting character. I don’t like it, but there is something here in regards to marriage. There is a time a place where we should be supporting our spouse. None of us, however, should always find ourselves where that is all we do. It can be difficult especially if one spouse has a dominating personality or is charismatic and others are just drawn to them. There is a time to support and there is a time to be supported.

Discussion Question:

Which Avenger are you in your marriage?

Make Life Better

“If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better.”

― Will Smith

Serve one another

Are we Serving?

Most of us had heard the term Servant Leadership. If you haven’t, the basic idea is that good leadership requires that you aim to meet the needs of the people that you want to follow you. So instead of dictating to people, you walk alongside them. What we miss is that this idea should be a part of our whole lives and not just in the workforce. We should all be serving, so I want to tell you a story. This isn’t my story, but I thought it was a good story to share.

During this past year, I’ve had three instances of car trouble: a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out-of-gas situation. They all happened while I was driving other people’s cars, which for some reason makes it worse on an emotional level. And on a practical level as well, (what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my own car, and know enough not to park on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.)

Each time, when these things happened, I was disgusted with the way people didn’t bother to help. I was stuck on the side of the freeway hoping my friend’s roadside service would show, just watching tow trucks cruise past me. The people at the gas stations where I asked for a gas can told me that they couldn’t lend them out “for safety reasons,” but that I could buy a really crappy one-gallon can, with no cap, for $15. It was enough to make me say stuff like “this country is going to hell in a handbasket,” which I actually said.

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke any English.

One of those guys stopped to help me with the blowout even though he had his whole family of four in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to three hours with my friend’s big Jeep. I put signs in the windows, big signs that said, “NEED A JACK,” and offered money. Nothing. Right as I was about to give up and start hitchhiking, a van pulled over, and the guy bounced out.

He sized up the situation and called for his daughter, who spoke English. He conveyed through her that he had a jack but that it was too small for the Jeep, so we would need to brace it. Then he got a saw from the van and cut a section out of a big log on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top and we were in business.

I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones, and I wasn’t careful, and I snapped the head clean off. Darn.

No worries: he ran to the van and handed it to his wife, and she was gone in a flash down the road to buy a new tire iron. She was back in 15 minutes. We finished the job with a little sweat and cussing (the log started to give), and I was a very happy man.

The two of us were filthy and sweaty. His wife produced a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead, I went up to the van and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I’d send them a gift for being so awesome. She said they lived in Mexico. They were in Oregon so Mommy and Daddy could pick cherries for the next few weeks. Then they were going to pick peaches, then go back home.

After I said my goodbyes and started walking back to the Jeep, the girl called out and asked if I’d had lunch. When I told her no, she ran up and handed me a tamale.

This family, undoubtedly poorer than just about everyone else on that stretch of highway, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took a couple of hours out of their day to help a strange guy on the side of the road while people in tow trucks were just passing him by.

But we weren’t done yet. I thanked them again and walked back to my car and opened the foil on the tamale (I was starving by this point), and what did I find inside? My $20 bill! I whirled around and ran to the van and the guy rolled down his window. He saw the $20 in my hand and just started shaking his head no. All I could think to say was, “Por favor, por favor, por favor,” with my hands out. The guy just smiled and, with what looked like great concentration, said in English: “Today you, tomorrow me.”

Then he rolled up his window and drove away, with his daughter waving to me from the back. I sat in my car eating the best tamale I’ve ever had, and I just started to cry. It had been a rough year; nothing seemed to break my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn’t handle it.

In the several months since then, I’ve changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and once drove 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. But every time I’m able to help, I feel as if I’m putting something in the bank. (This is a story called Today You, Tomorrow Me. Found at https://www.kindspring.org/story/view.php?sid=25237).

 

This month we’re going to talk about serving. Serving our families, our spouses and those that are most important to us. 

 

Discussion Question:

What have you done to serve someone lately?