I went back to the counseling situation I mentioned yesterday, and hope I was able to do some good. We’ll see if the time spent this weekend bears fruit in the next few weeks.
A few thoughts to share with you.
Why, oh, why is it that some people seem to think that marriage is something one does once, in a church or registry office – and then ignores?
I find the Biblical wisdom, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” is very, very appropriate when applied to marriage.
If your spouse is the person you love; if you’re planning to spend the rest of your lives together; if you hope to raise children together; then that spouse, and your relationship with her, had better be your treasure, and you’d better have your heart there!
If spouses basically burn out by working hard each day, coming home tired, fix a hurried meal for the kids, put them to bed, drink a few shots in front of the TV, and collapse into an exhausted sleep, where’s the communication?
If they never make quality time for one another, do things together, shut the world out periodically and just spend time enjoying one another, how on earth do they expect the initial rosy glow of marriage to last?
It got to the point this morning where I became fed up with the slanging. I placed a mirror on the table and told the couple concerned, “If you want to know the root cause of the problems you’re experiencing, look in the mirror. You can’t blame anyone but yourself.” When they objected that they both couldn’t be equally to blame, my response was, “Oh, yeah?”
I hope they listened.
*Sigh*
Peter
good luck with that one! … a friend told me about her recent marriage counselling session where the counsellor basically said "you make time everyone and everything else – except each other and that's the root of your problems" (which i think similar to your "heart & treasure" concept) … she reckons since they've actually started to "make time" for each things have rapidly improved.
So, they way i heard the story, it went something like this:
A man arrives for his first appointment with his counselor. After some initial pleasantries, the therapist asks: “So, what brings you here?”
“I don’t love my wife any longer,” the man replies, “and I want to. I’m not having an affair, I’m not in love with someone else, but I no longer love my wife. What can I do?”
“Well, for a start, you can love her,” replies the counselor.
“Like i said, I don’t love her anymore. What should I do?”
“Love her”, repeats the therapist.
“You’re not listening very well’, grinds out the man. “I said twice not that I don’t love her. What am I supposed to do?”
The therapist waited for a few minutes for the husband to calm down. “I said you should love her. Not, you should BE in love with her. If you do loving things, and act loving towards her, the love emotion will rise again. You, like most people, think that love is an emotion. It is, but that is the result of acting lovingly, and thinking lovingly. Love is a way of life.”
The first time I heard this it was soon enough to save my marriage.